Original Medicine

Monday 11/21/22

Good morning Beloved Reader,

Indigenous cultures teach that we are all born with an “original medicine” and if we do not offer it in the world, it will be lost and gone forever. I’ve come to understand that part of my “original medicine” is the way I make connections.

For example, in the vein of Sacred Partnerships, I’ve been reading two books (one female and one male author) that speak to the changes we need to make—internally and externally, individually and as a whole culture—if we are to survive as a human species. On the Divine Feminine side is, If Women Rose Rooted: A Life-Changing Journey to Authenticity and Belonging (September Publishing, UK, 2019) by Sharon Blackie, PhD, which became a bestseller by word of mouth. And on the Sacred Masculine side is The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Dr. Gabor Maté (Avery, September, 2022) which is presently on the New York Times bestseller list and has been for the past 6 weeks. I’m speculating it will continue on bestseller lists for at least a year, hopefully longer—I agree with one reviewer who wrote, “It merits becoming this generation’s The Road Less Traveled.” Dr. Gabor Maté eloquently describes how the dominant patriarchal paradigm in our medical system is failing us, and how we can heal it, which will, in turn, help our own healing. 

From the Introduction: Why Normal Is a Myth (And Why That Matters): (bolding is mine)

The current medical paradigm, owing to an ostensibly scientific bent that in some ways bears more resemblance to an ideology than to empirical knowledge, commits a double fault. It reduces complex events to their biology, and it separates mind from body, concerning itself almost exclusively with one or the other without appreciating their essential unity. This shortcoming does not invalidate medicine’s indisputably miraculous achievements, nor sully the good intentions of so many people practicing it, but it does severely constrain the good that medical science could be doing.

One of the most persistent and calamitous failures handicapping our health systems is an ignorance—in the sense either of not knowing or of actual, active ignoring—of what science has already established. Case in point: the ample and growing evidence that living people cannot be dissected into separate organs and systems, not even into “minds” and “bodies.” Overall, the medical world has been unwilling or unable to metabolize this evidence and to adjust its ways accordingly. The new science—much of which isn’t all that conceptually new—has yet to have significant impact on medical school training, leaving well-meaning health providers to toil in the dark. Many end up having to connect the dots for themselves.

For me, the process of putting the pieces together began several decades ago when, on a hunch, I went beyond the standard repertoire repertoire of dry doctorly questions about symptom presentation and medical history to ask my patients about the larger context for their illnesses: their lives. I am grateful for what these men and women taught me through how they lived and died, suffered and recovered, and through the stories they shared with me. The core of it, which accords entirely with what the science shows, is this: health and illness are not random states in a particular body or body part. They are, in fact, an expression of an entire life lived, one that cannot, in turn, be understood in isolation: it is influenced by—or better yet, it arises from—a web of circumstances, relationships, events, and experiences.

Perhaps it takes a male doctor to elucidate how the patriarchal paradigm in our medical system is failing us. Perhaps we are so identified with our own Inner Patriarchs—within women and men—that we can only hear this critical review from a male voice. Nevertheless, at this point in our his-and-her-story 😉 female writers are also championing how we need to move forward. Sharon Blackie writes about the Eco-Heroine’s Journey in contrast to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey: 

The Eco-Heroine’s Journey which we’ve followed in this book is a path to understanding how deeply enmeshed we are in the web of life on this planet. In many ways, it is an antidote to the swashbuckling action-adventure that is the Hero’s Journey: it is a woman’s journey, based on a woman’s way of being in the world.

This path forces us first to examine ourselves and the world we live in, to face up to all that is broken and dysfunctional in it and in our own lives. Then it calls us to change – first ourselves, and then the world around us. It leads us back to our own sense of grounded belonging to this Earth, and asks us what we have to offer to the places and communities in which we live. Finally, it requires us to step into our own power and take back our ancient, native role as its guardians and protectors. To rise up rooted, like trees.

The kinds of changes that are required to create a more balanced society that is no longer dominated by the patriarchal paradigm, will take time. The metaphor comes to mind of the incremental steps needed to turn an extremely large ship. And perhaps the most effective way to make these kinds of changes is on a grass roots level. And that begins with me, and with you, my dear reader.

I’m wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving, which I am aware is a controversial holiday for some, nevertheless, May you all enjoy a holiday in the spirit of Gratitude.