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| appropriate remedy rather than to treat specific symptoms or organic disturbances. When blocks and imbalances in the life force are eliminated, the traditional healer believes that the renewed life force itself will restore the body to health and resolve any symptoms of illness. The traditional healer also recognizes that any impairment in the life force affects not only the body, but the mind, emotions, and spirit as well, so it is essential when determining how to treat a client to get to know that person as an individual. This approach also contrasts with modern medicine, which generally has a "one-size-fits-all" treatment for a specific illness regardless of the individual being treated. |
| Like the traditional healers of old, I see my clients as unique individuals, each possessing a vital life force, a soul, that yearns to be directed, guided, and enhanced. My approach to each is to offer herbs, nutritional supplements, lifestyle guidelines, prayer, and love specifically for that individual. |
| The Role of Herbs |
| I believe that herbal medicine, which has its roots in the ancient healing traditions, including TCM and Ayurveda, has much more to offer the sick than the trendy new medical techniques and practices being heralded in the media today. As an art and a science, it has remained a reliable healing modality for thousands of years because it supports the life force in a unique manner that is still, in some ways, a mystery. Herbs are effective because plants, like all living organisms, are imbued with the same vital, intelligent life force that animates the human body. When the right herb is selected as a remedy by an experienced practitioner, its vital life force works synergistically with that of the patient, thus bringing about deep healing at all levels. Technology allows us to research plant life in ways never before imagined. Nevertheless, we may never fully understand in a fully scientific way how it is that herbs heal any more than we understand exactly how the human body "knows" how to carry out its autonomic functions. |
| The spirit of herbalism is the foundation of my wore The mystery of the plant world has revealed a face of God that will forever touch me. As each day passes, I am drawn deeper into the world of aromatic oils, roots, leaves, barks, and flowers that so humbly exists for our food and medicine. |
| Two American systems of herbal medicine that evolved during the latter half of the nineteenth century have influenced me greatly. They are Eclecticism |
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