Healing through the Ages

 I hear more and more reports about the inadequacy of our health services, especially since covid. Doctors and nurses are too busy, and sometimes you have to wait many months for treatment of some conditions, or even evaluations. Now the government is threatening to eliminate tax-supported medical services to people who have been depending upon them for a long time. And who knows what will happen next. Eradication of Medicare? My own personal experiences with the health system are somewhat unique and frustrating, and I've heard this is a trend. Young male doctors have no time or patience for old women (!). Three times in the last year, this has happened to me, all with different young male doctors. "There is nothing wrong with you, Miss Fawcett! Go home and get used to it. This is just how you feel when you're old." That was said by a doc before they found that I had a bad UTI. Hmmm. 

Like all of us living in these increasingly chaotic times, I wonder what's coming next. Will there be a problem getting food or water? Power? Transportation? It is clear that the government we've known for many decades is collapsing, and it makes me think about how I can be more self-sufficient. I'm going to have solar panels put on my little apartment soon, which should help. We have a big community garden at Prairie Hill, so if food becomes scarce, we can up our production. And for me, the big medicinal herb garden I care for may become more important. It's so easy to see things around us with limited perspective. But I've started wondering how we could cope with a possible lack of availability of medical services in the future. And this has fired me up to learn more about the ancient foundations of human medicine.

I know that doctors these days are taught to tell their patients to stay away from herbs as medical helpers. They warn that herbs are dangerous, and it is much safer to take drugs that are prepared from chemicals in big factories. I've met this attitude from doctors more than once, and it really puzzles me. Research shows that manufactured drugs are hundreds of times more dangerous than medicinal herbs. In general, medicinal herbs are gentle and nourish specific areas of the body rather than having an immediate impact. And of course, our drugs these days were originally made by studying herbal medicine decades ago, and then making immitations of the medicinal herbs with chemicals.  

So after reading up on ancient medicine, here are some things I found out. For most of our history, women dominated the healing profession. They helped other women with pregnancies and deliveries, child care, and fertility, as well as treating a wide variety of health problems for all members of the community. Each indigenous culture had its own healers and healing procedures, but the one thing that seems to have been present in them all is a wider view of sickness than our western conventional view. These ancient healers treated the physical aspects of their clients as well as their emotional and spiritual selves. In some cultures, this included rituals, singing, drumming, smudging, and even connecting with the ancestors of the sick person. And almost always it included using healing plants for internal or external application. Going to a Medicine Woman was kind of like combining a visit to the doctor, with a visit to the therapist, with a visit to the church. These healers treated the whole person, not just the body. And this impacted the health and wellbeing of the whole community. Everything is connected.....

In Europe, at one point in history the church leaders (men) got upset about the power of the women healers related to fertility. The men felt that they should be the ones to control this, not the women, and they began to spread rumors of the "witches" who could not be trusted. They did their best to eliminate women healers from the picture (remember the witch trials, burning of witches, etc.). However, communities tended to trust the women who lived and worked with people in their own communities rather than a strange man who was supported by the church. So women kept healing, though sometimes they had to do it under cover.

Traditional healers, both women and men, tended to be pharmacists of natural medicines, counselors, midwives, nurses, and ritual leaders. Often they were considered of high status in their communities and were consulted about important matters. For some Native American healers, there were four "Sacred Medicines": tobacco, sage, cedar and sweet grass. All of them were used for smudging (burning for the curative smoke - which pleased the spirits) and also internally for different sicknesses. In Southern Appalachia, it used to be that the only healer in those far-away mountain valleys were old "Grannies". They had lived a long time and learned things that younger folks respected, and they were consulted not only about sickness, but about personal problems like who to marry. In Africa, some healers went into a trance to connect with the ancestors of the sick person, getting guidance from that contact. In Hawaii, most of the medicinal plants that healers used were plants that were foods that nurtured health. These Hawaiin healers would offer a prayer to the plant before harvesting, and ask permission to use it for their patient. In ancient Greece, many goddesses were focused on healing. 

And the list goes on. It's been fun to dig through all these stories about how our ancestors treated sickness. In contrast to how our medical system today is split up into many specialists, so the doctor you see may not know much about you at all, these ancient healers were from earlier times when society was not as complex. If there was anyone in the community who understood and supported the people around her, it was the healer. But because the healer worked within the holistic framework, including the spiritual, they didn't have a tendency to get a swelled head. They were just a part of an interconnected world including supernatural forces they couldn't see but just feel. They had a respect for the unseen forces in the universe.

Now I'm a pretty practical person. When I was in massage school, and it was my turn to be "innoculated" into Long Distance Reiki, my tendency was to think it was a bunch of baloney. In fact, if I'd been a little braver, I would have left the room before it was my turn to go up on stage and have my two teachers do the little ritual that allowed me to heal people at a distance. I was the last one to go up, and I probably rolled my eyes while my teachers said some words and drew a sign over my head. It was too woo-woo for me. I didn't believe all that supernatural stuff. But as I sat there under my teachers' hands, I felt a little lightning-like flash go through my body. OMG, I thought. There's something to this after all! And now I use Long Distance Reiki quite often with people who are distant and need some healing. 

It's good for me to remember this when I'm learning about the kinds of healing that has been done down through the centuries. In this scientific, mechanistic age, it's easy to think that we know it all. That we can see everything, and there are no mysteries. But I've found that isn't true. There is a LOT that is outside our senses, and it might be good to sit quietly sometimes and just tune into whatever is around. Communication can happen without talking or writing. Healing can happen without drugs. The plane of existence outside our senses is significant, even if we can't see it. The universe is still full of mystery...