First steps to the IOM Integrative Medicine Summit

It's funny how life happens. Synchronicity is always a welcome surprise, often unplanned. Nevertheless, it appears, connects, reinforces and guides.

Thanks to a friend who offered support and encouragement, I discovered the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of Public nearly two months before it commenced. Midst the seemingly mounting challenges that healers, natural medicine and traditional medicine doctors and practitioners have faced within the United States, especially within the last few years, I was hesitant to attend. yet, something much larger, much more powerful than misgivings, fear and a sometimes disheartened heart, compelled me to push on. It is for the sake of people and healing that I rededicated my life (More here).

Upon reflection, the medical doctors, the healers and Chinese medicine doctors I have studied with propelled my steps. The memories of those lessons and of the stories shared still live within and continue to teach and to give! Yet, the patients, the numerous patients, their family members and people afflicted with illness throughout the world called to my heart, appealed to my mind. They could NOT be denied! The stories they have shared compelled me to journey on! After all, these stories were not just stories and/or memories. Rather, they were and are the lives, experiences, and moments in time shared for the benefit of others. Accordingly, attendance arose from communal knowledge, aggregate wisdom, and the incredible honour and courage of all the people who touched my life. Together, we would go if only in spirit to uplift healing for ALL.

As my Chinese teachers said， "我应该做的！“ In the context of our lessons, my internships and conversations, this implied so much more than mere duty or obligation. It contended that doing all that one could as a Chinese medicine doctor or healer was and is a sacred duty, a contract, an obligation before all others. Mere words cannot convey the meaning and weight of those words, but I hope you read them with your heart/mind and sense their gravity. I realize this sounds strange but I know no other way to explain this. This sacred contract, this reciprocity is embedded and encoded within my heart and mind--linked and locked eternally.

Thanks to dear friends who have listened, healers who simply heal in accordance with the laws of reciprocity and the goal of health restoration and/or better quality of life in mind, I decided to go--to give voice to the voiceless. Remembering the reasons for the path, for the journey became imminently clear.
For all those kindred souls and persons who were unable to attend, for those whose lives were cut short due to hegemonic institutions and/or bureaucracy and/or the lack of 'appropriate treatment' for what ailed them, and the family members and loved ones whose lives have been altered by someone's illness, I realized that these steps were necessary. They were not my own. They were the sum of all！

Suddenly, the yolk became easy.

Thanks to all who led me to the seemingly distant shore, who guided the steps midst the downpours of life and the mist of uncertainty. Together, we took these first steps toward change, toward shared vision and continued the global conversation. More importantly, we traveled much farther. Uplifting healing for all, spirits joined, we soared to the next level...... Namaste,湘君

Integrative& Aboriginal Healing--Light For the New Year!

Obviously, I thought this post would detail more about the World Summit, but life sometimes deals its own hand. I WILL write more about that here within the next few weeks. However, something more compelling prompted me to write, to share.
As many of you know, the last few years in the United States, particularly 2008, was punctuated with unprecedented actions, including the suppression of health information not only within its borders but also within various regions of the world. This has been confirmed by numerous physicians, healers and entrepreneurs worldwide. Yet, these actions have also included the introduction and implementation of some controversial laws in Ohio and New Jersey. These included the "gag order" on anything related to nutrition unless, of course, with the exception of nutritionists. Such actions/mandates call so many aspects of life and human rights into question, I hardly know where to begin. I welcome conversations and comments related to this! However, the most disconcerting aspect of such legislation has led me to question the value of cultural knowledge, cultural practices and, of course, how these acts greatly delimit our survival as humans or "Divine Primates," as my friend Earon Davis so accurately details.

While many problems and challenges do exist within the US healthcare system, its associative agencies, and, indeed, throughout the world, I want to focus on some little rays of sunshine, casting such brilliant light. After all, this is a NEW YEAR! This is a time for Healing, Expansion and creativity!

From the bottom of my heart and the depths of my being, I wish you, your loved ones and those whose lives you touch and those whose live touch yours a happy, loving, healing and fulfilling 2009!

*Among the few bright shining stars, I want to highlight the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District in Russia , now actively investigating, exploring and seeking ways to implement a truly innovative system within the region. Every time I think of it, it makes my heart smile. For those of you who are unaware of the minority region and its traditions, I'll briefly explain that many consider this region the birthplace of Shamanism. Other traditional medicine also exists within the region, as well. Yet, Russia has the foresight to engage people in collective knowledge and truly integrative healing for the sake of its community. By doing so, they have placed medicinal knowledge, both aboriginal and western on more equal footing.
More information here

I have often stated that looking at symptoms simply as they are and then drawing the connections and then alternately looking at them through the pre-defined International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is in fact looking at the condition through dissimilar yet intersecting lenses. While the ICD often provides a shared language or point of context, it does not detail conditions, causes and context as richly as traditional medicines, despite the seemingly simplistic classifications and/or translations. The convergence often times offers new insight.

More importantly, however, the population of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District in Russia is diverse and overwhelmingly aboriginal people. Due to the deficiencies of and/or conditions not well addressed by western medicine, highlighting the cultural and ethnic disparities, engaging and incorporating the knowledge, cultural practices and adapting the western medical system to partner, actively demonstrates a concomitant strategy to insure the greatest health/ quality of life for the aboriginal people and by extension peoples who live beyond the borders. After all, many conditions we are experiencing and currently naming and/or identifying through the ICD have existed through the ages.

For their efforts, I applaud Russia and the medical school within the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. Indeed, many others throughout the world have engaged such strategies, including but not limited to China with recognition of Chinese medicine, Zhuang Medicine, Mongolian and Western, Thailand, Mali, some Northern European countries and Indonesia, which perhaps embodies the most medical pluralities.

Yet, all of these traditions, these systems, healers of various traditions and practices and people who seek healing have co-authored these integrated systems.
To each of them, I am eternally grateful.

We all stand upon the shoulders of the ancients. We are all related. So, with this little bit of light, of hope, of hands reaching for and embracing collective knowledge, I leave you, all the while hoping it makes your heart smile at least one one-hundredth as much as it makes mine. Thanks so much for being you! Namaste,湘君

Pondering Directions and Ix Chel

Within the waves of global public discourse............
between and among healers,
healer to patient,
patient to patient, healer to scientist/researcher and/or M.D.,
so much chatter and musings fill the air.

In the midst of all this, I contemplate, reflect.
During a similar period of time this summer, a book sitting on my bookshelf called to me.
From within it, the light emanated. It revived my soul and spoke to me on so many levels.

After reading SASTUN by Dr. Rosita Arvigo, I had decided that she was and is one of the most amazing healers. It is not surprising that she and don Eligio Panti, the Mayan Healer who taught her entered my paper for presentation next weekend in Taiwan.

Read a bit of her interview from Whole Earth Review, Summer, 1992, by Nadine Epstein and see what enters your streams of consciousness.

FindArticles - Mayan medicine: lunch with Rosita Arvigo, shaman from Chicago - woman from Chicago, Illinois apprentices with Indian healer; includes information on ethnobotany and a list of useful herbs.

More about Rosita and Mayan Healing Quest for Ancient Home Remedies

Picture and further information from Student Rainforest Fund

Namaste, IX Chel (The Goddess of Medicine)