Be Your Own Herbal
Expert - Part 7
Healing
Traditions
By Susun
Weed, the
Wise Woman Way.
Ancient memories
arise in you when you begin to use herbal medicine. These
lessons are designed to nourish and activate those
memories and your inner herbalist so you can be your own
herbal expert.
In our first session, we
learned how to "listen" to the messages of plant's tastes. In
lesson two, about simples and water-based herbal remedies. In
the third, I distinguished safe (nourishing and tonifying)
herbs from more dangerous (stimulating and sedating) herbs. Our
fourth lesson focused on poisons; we made tinctures and an
Herbal Medicine Chest. Our fifth dealt with herbal vinegars,
and the sixth with herbal oils.
In this, our seventh
session, we will think about how we think about
healing.
THE THREE TRADITIONS
OF HEALING
There are many ways to use
herbs to improve and maintain health. Modern medicine uses
highly refined herbal products known as drugs. Many alternative
or holistic practitioners recommend herbs, usually in
less-refined (and less dangerous) forms such as tinctures or
homeopathic remedies. And then there are the yarb women, the
wise women, such as myself, who integrate herbs into their
daily diet and claim far-reaching results for simple
remedies.
I call these three
different approaches the Scientific, Heroic, and Wise Woman
traditions.
These three traditions are
ways of thinking, not ways of acting. And they are not limited
to herbs. Any technique, any substance can be used by a healer
in the Scientific, Heroic, and Wise Woman traditions. There
are, for instance, naturopaths, midwives, and MDs in each
tradition, as well as herbalists, educators, therapists, even
politicians.
Each of these traditions lives
within you, too.
As I define the
characteristics of each tradition, identify the part of
yourself that thinks that way.
SCIENTIFIC
TRADITION
Modern, western medicine is an
excellent example of the Scientific tradition, where healing is
fixing. The line is its symbol: linear thought, linear time.
Truth is fixed and measurable. Truth is that which repeats.
Good and bad, health and sickness are put at opposite ends of
the line, where they do battle with each other. Food and
medicine are quite different.
Newton's universal laws and
the mechanization of nature are the foundation of the
Scientific tradition. Bodies are understood to be like
machines. When machines run well (stay healthy) they don't
deviate. Anything that deviates from normal needs to be fixed
or repaired. The Scientific tradition is excellent for fixing
broken things. Measurements must be taken to determine
deviation and insure normalcy. Regular diagnostic tests are
critical to maintaining proper functioning and ensuring utmost
longevity in the body/machine.
In the Scientific tradition,
plants are valued as repositories of poisons/alkaloids. They
are seen as potential drugs, and capable of killing you in
their unpredictable crude states. They are helpful and safe
only when refined into drugs and used by highly-trained
experts.
In the Scientific tradition
the whole is the same as its most active part, and machines are
more trustworthy than people.
HEROIC
TRADITION
There is not one unified
Heroic tradition, but many similar traditions collectively
called the Heroic tradition. Alternative health care
practitioners generally represent the Heroic thought pattern,
symbolized by a circle.
This circle defines the rules,
which, we are told, must be followed in order to save ourselves
from disease and death. Healing in the Heroic tradition focuses
on cleansing. According to this tradition, disease arises when
toxins (dirt, filth, anger, negativity) accumulate. When we are
bad, when we eat the wrong food, think the wrong thought,
commit a sin, we sicken and the healer is the savior, offering
purification, punishment, and redemption.
In the Heroic traditions, the
whole is the sum of its parts. We are body, mind, and spirit.
The spirit is high and worthy; the body is low and gross; the
mind is in between. In the Heroic traditions, we are personally
responsible for everything that happens to us.
Religious beliefs frequently
accompany herb use in the Heroic tradition. The Heroic healer
uses rare substances, exotic herbs, and complicated formulae.
Drug-like herbs in capsules are the favored in this tradition.
Most books on herbal medicine are written by men whose thought
patterns are those of the Heroic tradition.
WISE WOMAN
TRADITION
The Wise Woman tradition is
the world's oldest healing tradition. It envisions good health
as openness to change, flexibility, availability to
transformation, and groundedness. Its symbol is the spiral. In
the Wise Woman tradition we do not seek to cure, but focus
instead on integrating and nourishing the unique individual's
wholeness/holiness. The Wise Woman tradition relies on
compassion, simple ritual, and common dooryard herbs and garden
weeds as primary nourishers, but appreciates (and uses) any
treatment appropriate to the specific self-healing in
process.
The Wise Woman tradition sees
each life as a spiraling, ever-changing completeness. Disease
and injury are seen as doorways of transformation, and each
person is recognized as a self-healer, earth healer: inherently
whole, resonant to the whole, and vital to the whole.
Substance, thought, feeling, and spirit are inseparable in the
Wise Woman tradition. The whole is more than the sum of its
parts.
Spiralic and amazing, the Wise
Woman tradition offers self-healing options as diverse as the
human imagination and as complex as the human psyche. The Wise
Woman tradition has no rules, no texts, no rites; it is
constantly changing, constantly being re-invented. It is mostly
invisible, hard to see, but easier and easier to find. It is a
give-away dance of nourishment, change, and self-love. An
invitation to honor yourself and the earth. An admonishment to
trust yourself.
COMING
UP
In our next sessions we will
learn how to make herbal honeys and syrups, and how to take
charge of our own health care with the six steps of
healing.
I also invite you to study
with me in the convenience of your home via correspondence
course! Choose from one of my four courses: Green Allies,
Spirit & Practice of the Wise Woman Tradition, Green Witch,
and ABC of Herbalism with Susun Weed. Learn more at The Wise
Woman Center or write to me at susunweed@herbshealing.com
EXPERIMENT NUMBER
ONE
The next time you start to
feel unwell, ask yourself what each one of the three traditions
would advise you to do - e.g. You feel a headache coming on.
The Scientific tradition says take a pain killer. The Heroic
tradition says give yourself an enema. The Wise Woman tradition
says take a nap. (For more information on the three traditions,
see the chart in my book Healing Wise.)
EXPERIMENT NUMBER
TWO
Instead of doing what you
usually do for some problem (e.g. headache), do something
different. Choose something from the same tradition you usually
use, or from a different tradition.
EXPERIMENT NUMBER
THREE
Become more aware of the
"nourishment of your senses" as Gurdieff put it. What do you
look at? Listen to? Smell? Touch with your skin?
Taste?
EXPERIMENT NUMBER
FOUR
Nourish yourself in a new or
different way. You might: eat something - or eat somewhere -
that you've wanted to try but never dared. Go to a museum, or
the opera, or the ballet, or a Broadway show. Visit with a
cherished friend. Listen to music that touches your soul. Sit
in meditation and burn subtle incense.
EXPERIMENT NUMBER
FIVE
Make a list of ten things that
nourish you that are now in your life.
Make a list of ten things that
could nourish you if they were in your life.
FURTHER
STUDY
1. Become more
familiar with the Scientific tradition: Read one or more issues
of Scientific American and/or Science News.
2. Become more
familiar with the Heroic tradition: Skim through Back to Eden
or any current book on detoxification.
3. Become more
familiar with the Wise Woman tradition. Read:
Healing Wise, the Wise Woman Herbal. Susun Weed. 1987, Ash Tree
Publishing.
Herbal Rituals. Judith Berger. 1998, St. Martin's
Press.
Healing Magic, A Green Witch Guidebook. Robin Rose Bennett.
2004, Sterling.
The Secret Teachings of Plants. Stephen Buhner. 2004, Inner
Traditions.
The Village Herbalist, Sharing Plant Medicines with Family and
Community. Nancy and Michael Phillips. 2001, Chelsea Green
Publishing.
ADVANCED
WORK
* The three
traditions of healing are not restricted to healing of course.
You might have recognized these three attitudes in your
profession. Wonderful articles have been written on the "Three
Traditions of Teaching" (the Scientific relies on tests, the
Heroic on punishment and reward, the Wise Woman on freedom to
experience and express) and the "Three Traditions of Therapy"
(the Scientific refers to manuals and prescribes drugs, the
Heroic blames the unconscious, the Wise Woman nourishes the
spirit and builds wholeness) and even the "Three Traditions of
Cooking" (the Scientific uses a thermometer and a recipe, the
Heroic blackens and heavily spices everything, and the Wise
Woman uses what is in season where she lives).
* Apply the
three traditions to your profession.
* Read
about the history of herbal medicine. Suggested
books:
Green Pharmacy, the History and Evolution of Western Herbal
Medicine. Barbara Griggs. 1997, Healing Arts.
The Magical Staff, the Vitalist Tradition in Western Medicine.
Matthew Wood. 1992, North Atlantic Books.
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, A History of Women Healers.
Barbara Ehrenrich and Deirdre English. 1973, Feminist
Press.
I see the wise
woman. She
carries a blanket of compassion. She wears robes of wisdom.
Around her throat flutters a veil of shifting shapes. From her
shoulders, a mantle of power flows. A story band encircles her
forehead. She stitches a quilt; she spins fibers into yarn; she
knits; she sews; she weaves. She ties the threads of our lives
together. She forms a web of spiraling threads: our lives
invented and shared.
I see the wise woman at her
loom: a loom warped with days of light and nights of dark.
White threads, black threads receive the flying shuttle. A
shuttle filled with threads of many colors. Threads the colors
of the earth, the common ground; threads the colors of the
people of the earth. Some threads are short; some threads are
long; each thread is different, each perfect and splendid. The
threads are alive with sound and color. The threads are
mutable; they change at a touch. The threads are crystal
antennae; they respond at a thought.
And intertwined with each
thread, a thread blood red, a thread of such sensitivity, it
seems invisible, a thread of such vitality, it can never be
hidden. As our blood flows over and under the days and nights
of our lives and binds each moment to the whole, so the red
thread of the wise woman binds us in the tapestried, cosmic
web, holds us in our variety, spirals lovingly around us,
claims us again at death.
I see the wise woman. And she
sees me.
(Excerpt from Healing Wise,
c.1987 Susun S Weed. Available thru AshTreePublishing.com
)
Legal Disclaimer: This content is
not intended to replace conventional medical treatment. Any
suggestions made and all herbs listed are not intended to
diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, condition or
symptom. Personal directions and use should be provided by a
clinical herbalist or other qualified healthcare practitioner
with a specific formula for you. All material contained herein
is provided for general information purposes only and should
not be considered medical advice or consultation. Contact a
reputable healthcare practitioner if you are in need of medical
care. Exercise self-empowerment by seeking a second
opinion.
Susun Weed
PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498
Fax: 1-845-246-8081
Visit Susun Weed at The Wise
Woman Center and Ash Tree Publishing ashtreepublishing.com
Vibrant, passionate, and
involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation
for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on
health and nutrition. She challenges conventional 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 and natural
approaches to women's health. Her four best-selling books are
recommended by expert herbalists and well-known physicians and
are used and cherished by millions of women around the
world.
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