Everything is sacred.
The plants and trees, sky and moon, sun and rain, animals and birds, turbulence and stillness, peace and chaos, birth and death, you and me.
To me, nothing could be more powerful. It imbues the world with magic and, in these times, it offers a model of hope and possibility. In these times… when the Western, scientific paradigm has colonized the world – many of us, dare I say most of us, are living under the illusion that we are separate from the earth, each other and all things, “living” and “nonliving.”
We are being called to heal this; to remake this worldview and transform this illusion of separation. Herbal medicine, healing, cooking, and self-care rituals of all kinds have been a way for me to connect with my body, my spirituality, the earthly, the celestial, the inherent magic of the sacred, and the interconnection of all things.
Reconnection to the sacred is our path back to ourselves, to our own healing, to each other, to ecological sustainability, and to social justice and liberation.
Join me. It’s time to reconnect.
I often notice that people take interest in their health out of fear. Time and time again I see people who are suddenly (or not so suddenly) overcome by the need to “take care of themselves”– perhaps because they don’t have health insurance, or find themselves with high blood pressure or high cholesterol; perhaps because they wish to strike preemptively against the heart disease or breast cancer that runs in their family. Many of these people would in fact do well to take care of themselves, and their health may very well depend on it. However, these individuals will heal not only because of specific diet changes, or the addition of healthful herbs, but because of new relationships to their own self-care and an embraced sense of empowerment. One of the first steps toward this type of change is to embody a life-giving, positive, nurturing attitude toward ourselves and the world. No amount of vitamins, minerals or green leafy vegetables can nourish or heal the person who lives in a state of negativity, fear, frustration, or anger. When we move away from fear-based ideas about our health — ideas of “right” and “wrong,” “should” and “shouldn’t” — we can see that health is not black and white. We can see that, actually, health is quite complex, part of a vast web of relationships to self, lifestyle, family, community, and the patterns of the earth. These processes of healing and transformation are complex and nuanced, they can be challenging, so amidst the challenges, it is important to hold compassion for ourselves and for our processes of change and self-growth.
Health, and what makes us healthy, is as diverse as our preferences in art, film or music. It sometimes feels easy to forget that being healthy is just that: a state of being, a subjective and personal state for each of us. With this recognition comes the awareness that what is healthy for us must be healthy and healing for us in every aspect of our lives, and that those same acts of nourishment will build not only our own health, but the health of our communities and the health of the earth. Health is an embedded process, and to be healthy requires a connection — for many a re-connection — with our own bodies’ processes, and with natural processes outside of us. I believe that we all possess the inherent wisdom to heal ourselves by getting to know our own rhythms, embedded as they are in the larger picture of our lives and the patterns of the earth.
People are taught to disconnect from their bodies in our culture, and to latch onto the prescribed wisdom of people they think know better than them — authority figures of all kinds. As an herbalist and healer I see myself empowering rather than directing the people I work with, because I want to help people cultivate their own skills and connect with their own intuitive wisdom. This view of health operates outside the paradigm of right answers and of “cures.” Trusting this process requires a shift away from a scientific and objective idea of health, and toward viewing health as a subjective process. Working together, we recognize that health can look many different ways; that a person’s healing path is unique, and their desire to heal, be well and live in balance with their body is their most powerful, important medicine.
My philosophy on health and nutrition is strongly influenced by the holistic lifestyle approaches of Western Herbalism, Ayurvedic and Chinese healing traditions and the nutritional philosophies of Dr. Weston A. Price. Lifestyle, nutrition and ecological sustainability all play integral roles in my vision for health, vitality and peace.
- To revitalize rituals around homemade food and medicine, including cooking and eating together.
- To cultivate and nourish herbal medicine as an empowering, intrinsic component of home healthcare.
- To make cooking and eating nutritionally dense foods a daily practice and a way of life.
- To slow down and enjoy the process of growing, preparing and eating, and to embrace food as our sustenance.
- To realize that, as individuals, we are the stewards of our own health, and must learn the patterns and nature of our own body to heal.
- Attention to our food, medicine, health, and lifestyle choices is not just for our own wellbeing, but one of many steps toward a larger commitment to peace, justice, and equity.
- To acknowledge varying levels of access to food, medicine, water, land, education, and other resources and to do the work to support social, economic, and environmental justice.
To support and foster a diet rich in:
- Sprouted and fermented whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and dairy products.
- Fresh, local vegetables and fruits.
- Medicinal herbs and spices.
- Natural plant and animal fats.
- Bone marrow and mineral-dense broths, stocks, and stews.
- Free-range and grass-fed/pastured meats.
- Natural, raw, unprocessed sweeteners.
- To avoid (as much as possible and within reason): processed and refined foods, pesticides, food additives, pasteurized dairy products, genetically-modified and industrial food crops, and commercially/confinement farmed animal and animal bi-products.
- To remain connected to the process of food production and support smaller scale and ecologically sustainable food production as much as possible. This may include but is not limited to; buying local and direct from farms and growers, visiting local farms, and planting your own garden.
- To respect and live in harmony with the natural growing patterns and cycles of nature in both the garden and the wild.
- To commit to conscious consumption of sustainably produced or wild-crafted herbs, free-range meat, and dairy, sustainably-harvested wild seafood and local, organic, GMO-free produce.
- To reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost whenever possible.
- To see all living and non-living beings as sacred and of inherent, intrinsic value regardless of human use or acknowledgment.
- To stretch beyond capitalist, Western, and scientific ways of knowing in the assessment of natural resources and human impacts on the environment.
