Seven Kinds of Medicine

The principles informing Herbal Intersection shy away from purist approaches to any sense of health, dismantling orthodox practices and perceived panaceas. Rather, health should be about individualized wellness plans. Ideally one that can be formulated on your own - remaining receptive to the guidance of experts. Wellness strategies should be enacted on your own accord, and will only be effective when they resonate with your intuitive sense of optimal health.

.

Susun Weed - herbalist, author, and all-around health expert badass (seriously, she'll shut you down and give firm reminders that you and you alone are responsible for your well-being) - in Volume 5 Number 1 edition of Weed Wanderings eZine, wrote on the topic of The Seven Medicines. The first four build health. The last three are life-saving, life-course-altering, and if used in isolation of other modalities, will cultivate dependency and undermine wellness.

‪.

‪(1) Serenity Medicine, is quieting the self, re-atuning the senses, and becoming irrevocably present with personal dis-ease. It's like sitting with ailments, listening, and actually learning from them.

‪.

‪(2) Then there is Story Medicine. It's seeking diagnosis and often prognosis. It provides an outline, gives us a spectrum of experience to which we can relate. Susun Weed sorts stories into three categories: something is broken and needs fixing, something is toxic and needs cleansing, and something simply lacks nourishment and seeks to be whole. Story Medicine is powerful because we internalize the perspectives into our personal narratives.

‪.

‪(3) Next is Energy Medicine. This is a very broad modality of healing, as it's only limitation is our imagination - the power of the mind. Everything from laying on of hands, to visualizations and prayer, to placebos fall into this category. It is the rituals and reminders that train the mind. Scientifically immeasurable, and psychologically profound.

‪.

‪(4) Lifestyle Medicine is about toning all the systems in the body. It's about activity and nourishment. The same way you might use reps to tone muscles, is the same way we must practice repeatedly eating whole foods that truly nourish and tone the body. Likewise, hygiene, sleep habits, and the ways we interact with others falls into this category. So, what is nourishing you and what might be eroding you?

‪.

‪(5) Then there is Herbal Medicine, and the beginning of the next level of interventions. While these are whole (and holistic) remedies, they inherently make reactions in the body happen: stimulating or sedating various systems.

.

(6) Next is Pharmaceutical Medicine. These remedies are decidedly not peoples’ medicine because of the intensive equipment and processing needed to extract the specific compounds. Highly effective, foundationally heroic, and expensive, medicines in this category inhibit the health of multiple body systems because of a foundational faux pas in which the human body is treated in a reductionist manner.

.

(7) Lastly, ought to be lastly relied upon, is Hi-tech Medicine. “So useful. So enticing. So Dangerous,” as Susun Weed states. Profound and powerful, Hi-tech Medicine employs invasive strategies to bypass and override human anatomy. And indeed, in a dire situation requiring life-saving emergency strategies, this modality has proven its worth time and again. It is a system that uses trauma-inducing methods as a primary mode of intervention (surgeons cut open bodies, oncologists use targeted radiation, nephrologists prescribe dialysis, etc.). Life-saving: perpetually life-altering.

.