A unique offering of healing
gifts and fine art pieces.
the
column vine
Seven
Medicines
by Susun S. Weed © 2004
~ Herbal Medicine and Spirit Healing the Wise Woman Way
~
"I
love to separate this from that, as Vasalisa did during
her stay with Baba Yaga in the chicken-footed house. Separating
this from that -- making piles of similar things -- helps me make sense of the complicated world I inhabit.
Separating
this from that especially helps me make sense of medicine.
What to do with all the modalities, methods, and manners
of healing? I sort them into seven medicines, based on
their safety. This helps me maintain and regain health
simply and safely.
The first four
medicines -- serenity medicine, story medicine, energy
medicine, and lifestyle medicine -- build health.
The more we actively engage in them throughout our lives,
the healthier we will be. The last three medicines --
herbal medicine, pharmaceutical medicine, and hi-tech
medicine -- are life-saving in emergencies, but undermine
overall health."
Serenity Medicine
The safest way to heal is to let Nature
do the work. This requires nothing from us. And the more
nothing we can provide, the more effective serenity medicine
is. Unplug the phone, leave the computer turned off, enter
the silence, cultivate acceptance, abandon the mind's ceaseless
control, and be here now.
Story Medicine
The stories we tell ourselves, according
to my mentor Jean Houston, create our lives and thus our
health. What are the stories you tell yourself about your
life and your health? This is 
story
medicine.
When we seek diagnosis we are looking for
story medicine. Different healers offer very different kinds
of story medicine. Receiving information from people telling
different stories can be very confusing, until we see the
sameness in their stories.
I sort story medicine into Scientific,
Heroic, and Wise Woman types:
Something is broken and needs to be fixed (Scientific).
Something is toxic and needs to be cleansed (Heroic). Something
lacks nourishment and wants to be whole (Wise Woman).
Story medicine is information medicine. Information
alone may be heartless, however. So we open ourselves to
wisdom and intuition, to our unreasonable fears and longings,
even as we search the internet and seek second opinions
in story medicine.
Hands-off diagnosis is much less likely harm
the questioner than -- and in skilled hands as good as --
x-rays, CAT scans, radioactive tracers, and exploratory
surgery.
Energy Medicine
Chi,
ki, veriditas, kundalini, life force, orgone, wankan tanka
. . . even if we can't measure it or see it, we know there
is an energy that animates and heals. Ways to use this energy
are as myriad as our ability to imagine.
Hands-off healing, laying on of hands, Reiki,
Muriel, comfort touch . . . we sense this energy in our
hands and in the hands of healers. We know we can use the
power of our intention to help direct this energy.
Homeopathy, flower essences, gem stone elixirs,
mojo bags, rituals and ceremonies . . . energy medicine
gives us physical things to focus our intention on, to help
us envision our health, our healing, our reality.
Sound healing, color healing, art therapy,
drumming . . . energy is vibration and vibration can heal.
Resonance gathers our wholeness. Prayer, chanting, kirtan,
focused meditation, visualizations . . . energy medicine
attunes us to health.
Chakras, and auras, shamanic journeys, trances
and hypnosis . . . energy medicine gives detail to our story
and helps us change from the inside out.
Did someone say placebo? I'm fine with that.
Instead of energy medicine I could call it placebo medicine.
It still works, as science as shown us. And since placebo
medicine does so little harm, I'm all for it.
Lifestyle Medicine
Nourishment and activity are the
core physical components of health.
We nourish ourselves with all our senses.
Nourishment occurs in single instances. The specifics of
nourishment have been argued by Americans for hundreds of
years, with no particular winners. My simple rules for superb
nourishment: Eat foods without ingredients. Eat locally.
Eat widely. Avoid high-fructose corn syrup, enriched flour,
all soy foods except miso and tamari, and all oils pressed
from seeds.
Tonification builds functioning, unlike stimulus,
which erodes it. Tonification is rhythmic and, for best
results, occurs regularly and repeatedly. Daily is usually
too much for most people. Muscles are strengthened by being
torn; they need several days rest to recover and gain tone.
Herbalists are especially likely to confuse
stimulation and tonification.
Herbal Medicine
Herbal medicine does not stand alone here, nor
is all of herbal medicine encompassed in this section. Nourishing
herbal infusions and most herbal vinegars, for instance,
are part of lifestyle medicine.
The medicines here stimulate and sedate. They
include hydrotherapy, many massage therapies, and acupuncture,
as well as herbal medicine.
I break this section into ten smaller sections
so my sorting can give me more information on safety and
make my choices easier. (1) Motherwort tincture sedates
and tones, (2) skullcap tincture sedates and nourishes,
(3) chamomile tea mildly sedates, (4) catnip tea sedates,
(5) passion flower tincture can sedate strongly, (6) hops
tea very strongly sedates and may be mildly addictive, (7)
valerian root tincture sedates strongly and can be very
addictive, (8) poppy head tea is a strong, addictive sedative,
but it is not a narcotic, neither is the potent sedative
(9) wild lettuce sap, but (10) poppy sap/opium is a narcotic.
Pharmaceutical Medicine
Morphine
and heroin are drugs made from poppies; they are part of
pharmaceutical medicine. I define a drug as something that
does not grow out of the ground (thus opium is not a drug)
and cannot be made in your kitchen. I include vitamin and
mineral supplements and essential oils in pharmaceutical
medicine.
Hi-Tech Medicine
So useful. So enticing. So dangerous.
Here we break boundaries: We stick our finger
down our throats, we break our child's will, we run fluids
up into our intestines (enemas and colonics), we control
our feelings with psychoactive drugs, we open our bodies
with surgery, injections pierce our skin.
So useful. So enticing. So dangerous.
Set a Time Limit
I have arranged the medicines according to the harms they
are likely to cause, how likely those harms is, and how
severe those harms may be. But all bets are off unless you
set a time limit for working with each medicine. Neither
rushing into hi-tech medicine, nor procrastinating about
acting, will support optimum health.
For best results, when I have a problem, I
start with serenity medicine. If I am not "well"
in the appointed time, I go on to story medicine and again
set a time limit. Without time limits it is easy to get
pulled into frustrating repetitions of non-diagnosis and
clashing opinions. Become your own expert; write your own
story. And use the tools of energy medicine to make it real,
within your time limit, of course. Change your diet if you
need do; exercise more. But don't be afraid to use herbal
medicine when your time limit there is through. And do go
on to drugs if herbs don't do what you need in the time
you set.
Sometimes surgery and hi-tech saves the day,
but set a time limit on this, for sure.
In emergencies, I use all the medicines at once. Sorting
them this way helps me cover all my bases instead of say,
doing ten different energy medicines. All the medicines
at once is integrative medicine, and it can work wonders
in my experience. Just remember to set a time limit for
leaving daily use of herbal, pharmaceutical, and hi-tech
medicines behind and relying on health building with serenity,
story, energy, and lifestyle medicines.
Study
with Susun Weed in the convenience of your home! Choose
from four Correspondence Courses: Green Allies, Spirit &
Practice of the Wise Woman Tradition, Green Witch, and ABC
of Herbalism - includes audio/video tapes, books, assignments,
special mailings, plus personal time.
Learn more at www.susunweed.com
or write to:
Susun Weed
PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498
Fax: 1-845-246-8081
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at: www.susunweed.com and www.ash-tree-publishing.com. Vibrant,
passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international
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medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic
knowledge of herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her
animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging and often
profoundly provocative. Susun
is one of America's best-known authorities on herbal medicine
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books are recommended by expert herbalists and well-known
physicians and are used and cherished by millions of women
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