Medicine and Nature

Didi Pershouse Reading in Chelsea, VT, January 10th

I will be giving a reading from my latest manuscript at the Chelsea Public Library this Thursday, January 10^th, at 7 PM.

The book is about my work in homeopathy which connects patients’ language and gestures with the medicines they need. It is also about my family’s history in radical medicine—my grandfather and great grandfather were both pioneers, one in radiation therapy (working with Marie Curie) and the other Neurosurgery—discovering the seat of memory by removing part of an epileptic’s brain. I found myself inspired by and also reacting against this legacy—and thus became a pioneer in alternative medicine myself.

There will be plenty of time for discussion and questions.

Hope to see you there.

Didi

Eric Frost's Funeral, Thetford Center, VT 12-22-07

I just came back from Eric Frost’s funeral. He was 24, killed in a hit-and-run accident in Oregon a few days ago. He was traveling north, on foot, with some possessions, twenty bucks, and a stray dog he had picked up along the way. The dog was thrown, but not killed, and sat guarding Eric’s body until somebody found them. The dog came East for the funeral, and the original owners saw the dog’s picture in the paper, and will be getting her back soon.

Eric’s dad lives near me, (in Thetford Center, Vermont) in a group of hogans (kind of like yurts, but made of wood) next to a beaver pond. Eric grew up there, where he and his sisters each tended their own fire in their own little house. Water is pumped with a hand pump, and the lights are mostly kerosene, solar added only recently. The fridge runs on propane.

We buried Eric after four hours of storytelling about his life and work during an interfaith service at the church on the hill. In a small town like ours you can have a service with 300 people there and know 90% of them. I like that. I also liked that hardly anyone was dressed up.

Erik was an Aquarius. An old soul, ahead of his time: not an easy combination. Donna Moody said this meant he was usually frustrated, and often angry, because what seemed obvious and simple to him was way out of everyone else’s reach. A deep reader and philosophical thinker, he dealt with his frustration by trying to do the right thing: delivering food to homeless people, helping out a disabled family, feeding a dog whose owner had been arrested, talking about the absurdity of young people killing other young people in wars. Elizabeth Upton ended the service by saying really slowly: “Eric, we love you. We got your message.” And she urged us to go home, and before we closed our eyes to go to sleep tonight, to think about a part of ourselves that we had left behind along the way, that needed to be brought back.  He also had a great sense of humor: when his Dad asked him how he had liked California, he said “I love it: The trees are bigger, the girls are prettier, and the toilet paper is softer.”

We buried Eric’s ashes in a deep hole dug into the frozen Vermont ground, on the darkest night of the year—the winter solstice. ( The last time I saw Eric was on the summer solstice, in this same spot.)  The sun had gone down, but one of Eric’s friends had gone ahead and made a fire next to the grave. Donna and John Moody kept it simple, and sacred. John smoked his tobacco pipe and Donna sprinkled sage, sweetgrass, cedar, and tobacco into the grave, speaking easily of the spirit, mother earth, and the four directions. Donna apologized to his mother as she deposited the first gift for Eric’s spirit to take along the way--an organic cigarette, the kind he smoked. Then John climbed into the hole and invited everyone to place whatever they had brought for him in the hole in the earth—a bearskin, a freshly tanned deer hide, chocolate, lucky coins, a heart shaped rock, a lock of his mother’s hair, a Bob Dylan recording, some favorite books, and many other items went into the earth to accompany him on his journey. John’s pipe fell in, but was retrieved, with a laugh. “Nice try,” said John shaking his finger. 

Then we filled the hole back up, with many people taking turns digging. “Wow, you people really know how to move dirt,” said John, “From now on I’m going to call you the Ompompanoosuc grave diggers society.”

Tomorrow at 1:00  is the give-away, friends will come and take what they want of Eric’s possessions.

To me, this whole event reminded me of how powerful ritual can be when it is kept down to earth and close to nature. There was nothing that happened in a ministerial “holier than thou tone” of voice, even the prayers were just people talking to each other. Everyone who led anything or did anything was a friend. It was just people helping other people. Neighborliness. The food was not catered; it was all brought by neighbors, including enough supper for everyone who stayed on into the night. Eric was buried at home, next to his childhood dog. No casket, no funeral home.

Connections like these are powerful medicine.

 

Healing Concerts with Amy Robbins-Wilson planned for Spring.

Amy Robbins-Wilson will be coming to perform a series of healing concerts in Vermont. We are scouting out several places where Amy can sing while healers work on groups of people. Amy has an incredible angelic voice, and two new CDs coming out in addition to her current one. I met Amy while she was singing to a patient of mine who had just given birth. Check out her website: www.amyrobbinswilson.com. For more information, contact Didi Pershouse at The Center for Sustainable Medicine or call (802) 785-2503.

Creating a Community of Deep Listeners.

Co-Counseling Class with Deborah Robinson and Jesse Tichenor starting in January 08.  Hanover, NH. Sliding scale.   For more information about the class, please contact Deborah Robinson at (603) 795-2825.

Deborah and Jesse were my teachers and I highly recommend them, and this class. Co-counseling has changed my life in a profound way, and helped me to understand and change some of my deepest patterns that years of therapy never touched.  Deborah is a very skilled counselor with many years of experience. Jesse runs the Deep Community program at Dartmouth College.

Co-counseling--also called Re-evaluation Counseling--is a truly sustainable way to take care of your mental health, and create social change in the process. Instead of paying someone a lot of money to listen to you, co-counseling trains people to counsel each other, for free. Once you have taken the class, then you are part of this world-wide community of delightful intelligent people--and can go anywhere in the world and have a community of caring people willing to hold your hand, look deep into your eyes and really listen. Here’s how they explain it on their website: (www.rc.org)

“Re-evaluation Counseling is a process whereby people of all ages and of all backgrounds can learn how to exchange effective help with each other in order to free themselves from the effects of past distress experiences.

Re-evaluation Counseling theory provides a model of what a human being can be like in the area of his/her interaction with other human beings and his/her environment. The theory assumes that everyone is born with tremendous intellectual potential, natural zest, and lovingness, but that these qualities have become blocked and obscured in adults as the result of accumulated distress experiences (fear, hurt, loss, pain, anger, embarrassment, etc.) which begin early in our lives.

Any young person would recover from such distress spontaneously by use of the natural process of emotional discharge (crying, trembling, raging, laughing, etc.). However, this natural process is usually interfered with by well-meaning people ("Don't cry," "Be a big boy," etc.) who erroneously equate the emotional discharge (the healing of the hurt) with the hurt itself.

When adequate emotional discharge can take place, the person is freed from the rigid pattern of behavior and feeling left by the hurt. The basic loving, cooperative, intelligent, and zestful nature is then free to operate. Such a person will tend to be more effective in looking out for his or her own interests and the interests of others, and will be more capable of acting successfully against injustice.

In recovering and using the natural discharge process, two people take turns counseling and being counseled. The one acting as the counselor listens, draws the other out and permits, encourages, and assists emotional discharge. The one acting as client talks and discharges and re-evaluates. With experience and increased confidence and trust in each other, the process works better and better.”

Copyright © 1995-2007 The International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities.
All rights reserved.

Your Backyard Food and Medicine

A Local Herb Walk with Peggy Fogg

Sunday, May 18^th, 2- 4 PM, beginner/intermediate level.

By Donation.

Get to know your local community: Your plant community that is!

Peggy Fogg, who works at the Two Rivers Clinic was the first person who taught me how to really look at, smell, taste, explore, and even listen to plants, and I am very excited that she has agreed to take us on a two-hour adventure.  We will be walking in the Union Village Dam area behind the clinic, which has gorgeous trails and a wide variety of plants.  During our walk, we will focus on learning to identify at least ten local wild plants used as traditional everyday food and medicine, (particularly those that would be beneficial for the people in the group) and we will speak of many more that we find along the way.  Traditional ways of working with, and learning from, the plants will also be taught. All questions are welcome, as are cameras to help you remember. Peggy will bring some sample dishes and teas made of the plants we will learn. Bring a cup for tea tasting. Class size limited to 8 for best experience.  To sign up contact Didi Pershouse at The Center for Sustainable Medicine or call 802-785-2503.

Sustainable Medicine Advice #1

Slow down and notice what is around you...

photo by Didi Pershouse 2007

Sustainable Medicine Manifesto

                                                                                                   

1. Sustainable Medicine recognizes that we are part of something larger than ourselves: a complex system, known to us as the universe, the ecosystem, the web of life, or Gaia. 

This system is perfectly balanced, interdependent, and constantly changing.

2. Sustainable Medicine sees the body as its own ecosystem, and recognizes that all parts of a system are linked and collaborative.

Our bodies are a micro-system, reflective of and included within the whole.

3. Sustainable Medicine teaches that the health of the environment is intricately linked to the health of our bodies.   

Therefore, to care for the environment is part of caring for ourselves and others.

4. From the perspective of Sustainable Medicine, connection with the ecosystem is essential to health. Disease is a manifestation of lack of connection.

Each disconnection that occurs leads to a loss of power, integrity, flexibility and energy—both for that part and for the whole system.

This lack of connection separates us from ourselves, each other, and the source of our life.

5. Therefore, to create health, one must restore connection.

Sustainable Medicine does this by: 

Acknowledging that networks, relationships and communities exist at every level.

Facilitating deep communication, understanding and cooperation within and between them.

Respecting the integrity and wisdom of community networks by using local medicines and knowledge whenever possible and appropriate.

Reconnecting people with the inherent wisdom and support of the social and natural communities that surround them.

6. Sustainable Medicine operates best in environments that are fertile, rather than sterile. 

It does this by encouraging honest, open-hearted, and evenly-balanced relationships between healers and the communities they serve.

And by recognizing that healthy communities are built through relationship, including cross-pollination of ideas, populations and coping mechanisms to create the diversity and flexibility that ensures survival in times of crisis.

7. Health depends also on our ability to honor wildness, which has its own wisdom and integrity.

Sustainable Medicine therefore seeks to restore the integrity, power and sanctity of wild places—from the internal flora and fauna of the body, to the microorganisms of the soils, to the vast tracts of wilderness that plants, animals and fungi depend on for survival, diversity and well-being.

8. Sustainable Medicine is pattern-based in its thought and action.

When disease occurs, Sustainable Medicine gathers information from the whole system, looking for patterns and cycles, not just individually occurring symptoms.

When looking at a single part, it looks deeply:  for within each part, the whole is reflected as well.

In its treatments, Sustainable Medicine works within the patterns and cycles of nature, recognizing that the system, when allowed to move freely and without obstruction, will naturally flow towards balance.

Sustainable Medicine also respects and accepts that cycles of growth, decline, transformation, and regeneration are natural and essential to the health and balance of the entire system.

10. Sustainable Medicine is inherently sustainable.

It does not deplete resources or excessively drain one part of the whole to benefit another.

It does not add to the toxic waste stream, creating further illness.

It is affordable to learn, to practice and to use.

Care is available to all parts of the system

11. Sustainable Medicine is “slow” medicine.

It begins with deep listening and understanding.

It allows time for deep and lasting cures.

                        --Didi Pershouse, 2007
                          The Center for Sustainable Medicine
                          Thetford Center, VT 05075
                          (802) 785-2503

                         www.sustainablemedicine.net