" HEALING WISE".
From Eden...the following writings relate to my healing journey, one that brought me from my limited and limiting belief of being
" fractured, 20th century individual woman" to "whole being" in constant evolution.
The treasure received from that "journey of Journeys" is the tap root of the healing tree known as the "Garden of Eden".
The store/ Apothecary came into being to support my community's healing journey through wise plant use .
The tree grew and evolved much during its first twelve years, a full Jupiter cycle; the Plant Wisdom guided me closer and closer to the Essential Light of Creator. Thus I went on to study Spiritual and Medical Healing. This healing way is now integrated within the Apothecary's offerings. See"OUR SERVICES"
The experiences referred to here were mine and are the rock-solid foundation of my present life. It is my sincere wish that they may support you where you might need such support in coming to trust your own inner voice , especially the "wisdom-voice "of your own, holy woman's body. The same wish applies to all men, my brothers in the healing way.
The Healing Journey continues and will do so for the rest of my days on Earth, clearly. Here are a few strands of gleaned wisdom I live by; may these benefit you as much as they do me.
- Value and care for our Earth and "earth-body" as One
- Get to know your self, deeper and deeper, without judging what comes up... SUFI WISDOM sees it as "IT IS WHAT IT IS"
- "Cleaning" up old pains, greed, jealousy, envy, dishonesty etc...is an ongoing process and everyone's task.
- Stay with it, through difficulty and ease...
- Keep clearing so the "pure water of healing" can flow through,
- With respect and assurance, question all human authority, including our own; run insights by "wiser-than-I/thou" friends and teachers; surround yourself with sincere individuals and friends who are also on the Healing Path.
- Healing-Wholing is ultimately evolving community
- Remembering...we all are created by Pure Love, cherished and guided every moment...Every human being is uniquely gifted and needed participant in the holy tapestry of Creation...We are all gifted in all the necessary ways to manifest Peace and Abundance for everyone...We're all shedding our old ways and bringing forth a new creation, aligned with our true and holy purpose...We're here to transform our common experience into a joyous and meaningful one, caring for our Earth home , our body and one another...We all inspire and support one another, getting deeper and deeper and changing the face of Humanity and its experience on Earth...the Healing /Wholing Journey is a community-of the-heart task...
- Be sure to spend time daily, checking -in and giving to body, emotions, mind , heart and Soul/Creator. Give yourself the "time of day" even if it feels at first like carving that precious time "out of granite". Our healing/being whole is worth it!
- Our lives are a work of art...the palette is Divinely gifted!
- A rich tapestry of Energetic Healing strands linking Earth and Sky are available to us such as Meditation, Yoga, Journal writing, Art, Dance, Botanicals, Bodywork, "Women's" and "Men's groups", ad infinitum. Interweave!
- Reconnect and stay connected with your Greater self, on the inner and the outer. Use regular essential practices from among the above and others, choosing judisciouly so as to not overwhelm and immobilize our progress.
- Of great importance in any society and especially one such as ours that is yet without a holistic, caring medicine system, is the finding of a trustworthy and complete Physician with whom you can address important issues such as health. Sharpen the chisel!! Share with close friends, community whilst seeking. Check our VALUABLE LINKS.
- Do not let my experiences and my choices be yours, without deep contemplation. What was appropriate and healing for me may not be so for you. Honor your individual gifts and needs. Continue seeking and asking the Universe for HELP!
- Keep investigating all experiences/circumstances and take naught for granted .
- EXPRESS LOVE & GRATITUDE... LOVE& GRATITUDE ...
LOVE & GRATITUDE AD INFINITUM!
There, in the depths of my psyche and unconscious, unsuspected emotional devastation and desolation lay in the rubble of my early years. The entryway to that mysterious place was my listening to and paying close attention to the throbbing wisdom-voice of my body calling out with deep knowing. And listening I was...
Shortly before this opening , I had given birth to my 3rd and last child, my beloved son , in the most natural of ways, at home with just his father and sisters attending.
I had trained for the occasion with my two daughters and partner : we had taken part with Jeanine Parvati Baker and her family, at a Family Vision Quest, in the Utah wilderness. During one of the many womens's circles she presided over, Jeanine, a midwife, both spiritually and physically, had pronounced me to be my own midwife. My own sense of empowerment prior to that pronouncement set the stage for my receiving Jeanine's gift deeply, and I walked away carrying the knowing that I would midwife the birth.
In fact, I didn't; the Divine Midwifed and I gave birth, very fast, with ease, pain free, the same way my precious daughters had made their entrance into this world.
To my beloved children and family, who walked right alongside me in those difficult Truth finding years , to all the members of my womens' and healing circles , to our loving neighbours who sustained us with physical and moral food, I offer this prayer, in deep thankfulness and Gratitude:
May you all come to know the utter joy of living with the awareness of the Presence of the Divine in every heartbeat, thus knowing true Peace, Security and Love. May this become your overwhelming daily reality!
"Thank you" then to all concentric circles of Light and Love who contained, supported and joined me and "mine" through this passage, and to the world of plants themselves, especially my very dear friend, Stinging Nettles: she, through the two years of the intense and single-pointed relationship I cultivated with her, ushered me into the Presence of Creator Creatrix, manifested as the Living Spirit of Gaia. She, as the Divine Feminine , the Great Goddess, filled my broken heart with immense Love and Guidance and totally transformed my relationship with the Divine in Her Feminine Essence and Reality. For the first time in my life , possibly first in many generations in my family lineage , Trust in myself /woman, became established : trust which built upon the wisdom and guidance which had given me the courage to birth my last and third child at home, safely and sanely, with Spirit as midwife.
In the early 1990s I became aware of a PRECANCEROUS CONDITION in my CERVIX. The "news" were dropped- very matter-of-factedly - by a woman physician who didn't even look at me as she spoke the words...
I felt as if an A- bomb had just landed in my lap. I was devastated: I had speifically chosen that Women's Clinic in San Francisco for the exam . My world as I had known it an hour earlier no longer existed and I felt as in "mid-air", with no grounding cord.
Attending the physician was a young woman, apprentice to AMANDA MC QUADE CRAWFORD, MEDICAL HERBALIST .
She addressed me with deep politeness and gentleness which was of great support in my emotionally distraught state and went on to request my permission to look at my cervix, which I granted.
Her apprenticeship included regular visits to the Women's Clinic where she studied and learned to recognize various "female" conditions, such as mine.
Grateful for the opportunity offered her, she told me more about Amanda , gave me her phone number and invited me to call her. She felt the two of us would be a "good match" for each other.
I left the clinic with my feet "on the ground", enormously grateful to Providence for sending me a "sister" in my time of great need.
The SF clinician had prescribed a series of procedures which I was to receive, across the GGBridge, closer to home. A sense of urgency surrounded the whole affair . Pre-cancerous "anything" shakes one up to the core . I agreed to follow through.
I made and kept a few appointments . Overall, the sense of compassion and connection which was primordial to my feeling at ease with the situation was entirely lacking and my able and well-intentioned clinicians were in great fear of my condition. I felt like "a piece of meat" on a conveyor belt, in the company of many other women; the clinic was a busy one and most women would come in and walk out looking rather downtrodden , as if absent.
Out of my 4 visits, I never once encountered anyone who treated me as a "whole woman", one who needed to be brought into the circle of decision-making when it came to treatment options. Instead, it was all to be done for or to me, without any consultation; I was merely the object who received this or that treatment. It was recommended after the results of the biopsy were known that I receive CRIO SURGERY, a procedure that would freeze the tip of the cervix , hoping that the pre-cancerous cells present would thus die: next step , should the crio surgery not give the desired results, was the "clonification" of the tip of the cervix . "Clonification" is the actual surgical cutting off of the tip of the cervix.
I was not thrilled at the possibility.
I felt deeply uncomfortable and "out-of-place" in the cold clinic, litterally frozen by the prevailing fear in the medical enclave layered atop my own!. Not the climate for healing! I decided to explore the only other option I had. Turned out to have been exactly what I truly and deeply needed.
AMANDA MCQUADE CRAWFORD is a renowned CLINICAL HERBALIST and EDUCATOR, very bright, clear and deeply supportive . I felt totally uplifted in her presence and relief flooded over my heart.
Ms. Crawford is a graduate of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists from Great Britain, a school that has produced many fine Herbalists and educators . Many of its graduates go on to teach and practice medical aka. therapeutic herbalism in many countries. We, in the US, are blessed with a dozen or so of these teachers and practitioners of high caliber: one can encounter and study with them at the many herbal conferences that take place yearly around the country. For more info on the subject, click here. Through my work with Amanda I received my initiation into
Medical Herbalism : this turned out to be a potent portal into the healing realms which have since become my daily grounds and reality.
I am forever grateful for Amanda's excellent midwifering me through the death and rebirth I went through. She was the 1st practitioner I met who looked at her clients's lives holistically: not only was she interested and confident in helping me resolve the cervical condition, which she insisted would only occur with my full cooperation , but she was clearly concerned about my distraught emotional state and addressed that as matter of course. I felt and was held, seen and cared for.
She recommended a variety of attractive botanicals for me to take home and heal with. Some were to address the problem via the bloodstream, such as herbal infusions etc, whilst others would approach the cervix directly with their botanical influence.
Once home, I busied myself preparing and drinking tasty, mysteriously formulated blends of plant infusions, ingested tinctures and flower essences daily and applied herbal packs near the cervix to "inform" the near-cancerous cells and "redirect" them. At the time, the process of the herbal packs was lengthy and somewhat complicated. Today, a decade later, suppositories are available that serve the same purpose and are easy to apply.
Within three months of being faithful to the recommended protocol, I was well on the road to recovery, cervically intact.
ESSENTIAL LOVE
