The wisdom of Native American Medicine

The mystique of the wise Indian Medicine Man fascinates many of us, especially in contrast to our materialist culture. From Hollywood movies to the "shamanistic" practices taught on the internet, we may be offered tantalizing glimpses into the spiritual basis of these practices but rarely are we given anything like a realistic portrayal of what real Native American Medicine might entail.

Today I happened to trip over this moving video on youtube (of all places!). In a mere 3 minutes or so, it reveals an aspect of Native medicine that I consider to be one of the most wise I've ever seen. If we adopted this into our own health care systems, be they standard medical practice or alternative healing, how much better off could we be?

Taking requests

Winter - for most of us - the time of year we read and plan and read some more and plan some more.

I know there are several of my readers who've already branched into growing/wildcrafting and making their own remedies, and others who are considering doing so.

Mad as a wet hen

Mass production of remedies is antithetical to natural medicine just like mass production of food is antithetical to, well, food.

Do I even have to write the rest of this post? Have I not made my point?

Is it not the height of irony - or perhaps the term is lipservice, or even hypocrisy - that those in the throes of all natural this or organic that or "Paleo" (hahaha) still take nutritional supplements in capsules? While I agree wholeheartedly that it is, in fact, difficult to attain all the nutrients one needs from today's depleted foodstuffs, it's not impossible. Maybe these people could just fucking try harder.

And what of their medicines?

A ranty piece on subtlety in herbal medicine

(Okay, it's not that ranty. But this is a passionately written piece about concepts I consider essential to the understanding of what's behind herbal medicine. Good herbal medicine.)

I call myself a slow learner. I'm not being derogatory, I choose to learn slowly.

I learn best intimately. I don't do well with facts & figures and nomenclatures, they just sit there on the surface of my brain. I need sensory experience of what I'm learning, that's what gets new ideas down into the interior regions where they can hook onto similars and stand facing opposites and sometimes sing harmony with whatever tune's been popular in the play list of my mind that day.

Mixing metaphors may be grammatically verboten, but, well, fuck the grammarians. If they can't follow a thought through all the twists and turns it might take that's their problem. Tidy, linear, quantitative thinking is well and good if you're looking to corral a concept, and tame it. So you can bob its tail and braid its mane and show it off. Me, I like my thoughts free to get into trouble, raid the neighbour's cornfield.

And I wonder, what are students of herbal medicine learning when they're taught along the lines of "berberine is the active ingredient in goldenseal"? Does molecular weight teach us anything we can use on the ground?

Really?