What you'll learn here - and what you won't (plus bonus rant)

I dunno if it's there's something up with the planets these days but I'm feeling particularly unencumbered by the need to treat anyone's feelings delicately right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still plenty smiley.

I'm just not in the mood to put up with falsehoods, excuses, wilful blindness or learned helplessness. In other words, the norms of society.

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?

Tea, tincture, infusion, decoction

(Originally posted here )

Oh what an education I've been getting as people share with me their adventures with mainstream, commercial herbal medicines. I lead a sheltered life in the garden and forest and meadows, and hadn't been keeping up on the latest chicanery developments. The interweb seem to have sped up the process of decay in what was once an art and is now, alas, an industry.