Posts filed under Healing Traditions

SARA EAGLEWOMAN: THE MEDICINE OF THE EAGLE

Who can practice the medicine of the Eagle?

Anyone who can be open-minded. Mostly it is about having an open heart. In order to be able to receive the medicine, it is about simply showing up, free from judgment and criticism, just allowing your soul to resonate with what is being taught. Eagle Medicine is a very powerful Shaman medicine to carry. All nationalities, all indigenous traditions recognize that if you carry Eagle medicine, it is of the highest order.Thus said, the Eagle medicine should be a revered practice and should be respected in high regard. It should not be taken lightly and not be given to somebody that took a weekend course and then calls him- or herself a Shaman or a healer. You really have to go through initiation. And it is just like in our tradition, to become an Eagle medicine woman or man you must go through vigorous training, you must go through cleansing, purification and you must go through initiations.

HEALING TRADITIONS/TIBET: TIBETAN MEDICINE

Tibetan Medicine defines health in holistic terms – it includes not only the body and biological systems, but it also includes ethical practices, nutrition, lifestyle practices, social relationships and it takes into account religious perspectives. Tibetan Medicine is heavily connected with Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, with which it shares its views of conception, birth, death and rebirth, karma and so forth. However, within the tradition’s teachings and clinical applications it also takes into account religious views or lack thereof and how these impact a person’s health. In the Western medical model we are starting to see greater awareness of the body-mind connections. Tibetan Medicine has a highly developed understanding of the body and mind’s interaction and their effect on health. Yet this is not just a matter of internal factors, it includes a person’s lifestyle, relationships and ethics as well. So for Tibetan Medicine, health is not just a physical experience – health is a mental, emotional, spiritual and social well-being.

Posted on February 3, 2015 and filed under Healing Traditions.

HEALING TRADITIONS/EUROPE: HOMEOPATHY AND THE SOUL

When I first travelled to Peru, the teacher I came to work with asked me about my work. In broken Spanish, I tried to speak about what I did and how I work with homeopathic remedies. He struggled while I tried to explain how these were energy medicines, made by a process of dilution and succussion, until finally he burst into a big grin of recognition. “You work with spirit medicine; you work with the spirits of the plants and animals!”, he said. “That’s what we do here in the jungle”.  And he was right, we do the same things.

 What the indigenous healers have (and what we have often forgotten) is a strong connection to the earth and all its web of life. For them everything is connected, all life is sacred. Illness is what happens when we forget our place in this hoop of life, lose contact with our true nature.

HEALING EDUCATION/AUSTRALIA: DAVID TOURNIER

We dont see the land as Earth, we see it as the mother. The land provides and we in turn nurture the mother. So we work hand in hand. The country is very important for healing because it is where you are and where you come from and there is a spiritual connection to the land. Land also plays an important part because it is where the medicine comes from. So if we nurture the land, she assists us by providing the medicines we need when required.

But today a lot of these ideas have gone missing because a lot of our people were forcefully removed from the land and became very sick. They were forced to live in missions and reserves. And a lot of the information in regard to healing has been lost because of rules and regulations. That meant that we were not allowed to discuss these topics. However, just because it wasn’t discussed doesn’t mean it wasn’t talked about. This might sound silly but there were times when people would talk and it became a new language. It became a whispering language. So that is how information was passed on. It was whispered.

HEALING TRADITIONS/INDIA: YOGA THERAPY

One reason why yoga therapy is so efficient is because it engages the patient in the healing process. When we take responsibility for our health we can take care of ourselves better, because we are actively involved in understanding the causes of our suffering and how to alleviate them. The second reason why yoga therapy is effective is because it takes a multidimensional approach. It views every individual as a collection of different layers and therefore has effective tools to address more layers than just one. The third reason why yoga therapy is effective is because it views every individual as unique and therefore does not prescribe one solution that works for all. It takes into consideration different unique parameters of the patient such as their age, their illness, their strength, their mental capacity, the amount of time they can afford, the other illnesses that accompany them, family circumstances, etc. And then yoga therapy prescribes a unique individual approach that is tailor made for every individual. Another reason why yoga therapy is very effective is also because when implemented in an appropriate way, yoga therapy does usually not create any bad side effects for the patient because the practice of yoga is a non-invasive process that utilizes the international resources of the body such as body, breath and mind. My grandfather T. Krishnamacharya used to refer to it as surgery without surgical instruments.

HEALING TRADITIONS/AUSTRALIA: KUNGGANDJI STORYTELLING

by Meme McDonald

‘Healing that comes from the land carries the power of that land. It is the land then that is the healer. Land not only provides medicine, it is the medicine. In our culture, unless you know the land you live in, the land you walk on each day, you can’t be strong in yourself. If you listen to the mountains, they talk to you and tell you how to survive in them. If you don’t listen to the desert, you will die in the desert. And so it is that you can understand why many Aboriginal people become sick when they no longer have a connection to their land. We don’t own that land, it owns us. Land is our mother. You become separated from the land and you become lost. If you become lost, then you become sick. The same with all of us and with our nation, Australia.’

         ‘In our way, medicine is most often given to us through story, song, dance, painting and so on, along with the medicine from the plants, from the earth, from the nature where we live.’

         Each person is given a totem through which to learn of themselves and their relationship to each other and the world around them. Totems can be plants or animals or natural phenomenon or elements. The story that goes with each totem is sung and painted and danced. It is often through the story of the totem that each person learns to face challenges, or gains powers of observation, or increases their spiritual understanding.

A MAORI HEALERS PERSPECTIVE: ATARANGI MURU/ NEW ZEALAND

One of the biggest issues I see with many is their lack of physical understanding about the body and when it starts to flare up (show indications of pain) and what is best to be done about this. Most people will see their doctor as their first line of healing.  Others will go to a chemist and get over the counter support.  Most of our Elders and my dad I include in this, would see their doctor and still use his Rongoa (Maori bush herbs and medicine) as part of his healing regime. My personal belief is that there are several things going on within the body / mind / soul that when something is out for an amount of time (we each specify this time frame individually) and it doesn't get resolved, then the body will start to look around within itself for healing.  When this doesn't occur it takes things into it's own hands, and does it's best to start healing - i.e.: a tumor, a headache, water on the lung, inflammation of parts of the body, etc. My Elders believe that first there is a spiritual disconnection within the person, so they have specific types of prayers on hand for clearance of that, then there is a type of Romiromi (deep tissue pressure bodywork), Mirimiri (spiritual connection with the body), Takutaku (chants), Karakia (prayer), Kaupare (cleansing of the physical body), Puure (spiritual cleanse done in the sea), Tohi (release of entities), Whakawaatea (cleansing of the land or home) and more.