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Herbs & Healing
THREE TRADITIONS OF HEALING
By Susun Weed
There is more than choice between modern Western medicine and alternatives. There are three
traditions of
healing.
The Wise Woman tradition, focusing on
integration and nourishment, and insisting on attention to uniqueness and holographic
interconnectedness, is another choice: a new way that is also the most ancient
healing
way known. A way that follows a spiral path, a give-away dance of nourishment, change and
self-love. "Trust yourself."
Alternative health care practitioners usually think in the
Heroic tradition: the way of the savior, a circular path of
rules, punishment, and purification. "Trust me."
AMA-approved, legal, covered-by-insurance health care practitioners are trained to think in the
Scientific tradition: walking the knife edge of keen intellect, the
straight line of analytical thought, measuring and repeating. Excellent for fixing broken
things. "Trust my machine."
The Scientific, Heroic, and Wise Woman traditions are ways of thinking, not ways of acting.
Any practice, any technique, any substance can be used by a practitioner/helper in any of the
three traditions. There are, for instance, herbalists, and midwives, and MDs in each tradition.
The practitioner and the practice are different. The same techniques, the same herbs are seen
and used differently by a person thinking in Scientific, Heroic, or Wise Woman ways.
|
| THREE TRADITIONS OF HEALING |
|
| SCIENTIFIC
TRADITION | HEROIC
TRADITION | WISE WOMAN
TRADITION |
|
Symbol | line/monolith | circle | spiral |
|
Time span |
1500 AD to now |
1000 BC to now |
50,000 BC to now |
|
Overall vision |
homeostatic |
dualistic |
holographic |
|
Disease/death |
the enemy |
result of toxins |
natural allies for transformation |
|
Cure |
fix/fight |
clean/punish |
nourish |
|
Body view |
machine |
(dirty) temple of the spirit |
perfect manifestation of complete being |
|
Healer as |
mechanic |
savior/ruler |
compassionate, self-loving one |
|
Troubled one says |
"It’s beyond me. I want the expert to do it." |
"I’ve been bad and need someone to punish me." |
"I seek support so I can let go to my depths." |
|
Healer says |
"Trust the test results." |
"I’ll save you." |
"I’ll play with you in the sacred garden." |
|
Preferred treatments |
drugs, surgery |
stimulants, purges, enemas |
unconditional love and nourishment |
|
Health/life |
young, fully-functioning white male |
fully-functioning white people |
unimagined transformations |
|
Health care |
elite |
popular |
common |
|
Characteristic |
visible |
alternative |
invisible |
|
Assumes |
measurable repetition |
endless cycles |
unique variations |
|
World view |
atomic |
good/bad |
interconnected web |
|
Lineage |
Newton, Descartes |
St. Paul, Hippocrates, Galen |
crone, midwife |
|
Overview |
The whole is the same as its parts |
The whole is the sum of its parts |
The whole is more than the sum of its parts |
|
Place of power |
machine/tests/drugs |
healer |
self |
V
I
S
I
O
N
S
O
F
|
Women/womb |
unstable |
unclean |
central |
| Snakes |
caduceus |
Ouroboros |
snake and egg (void) |
| Moon/blood |
inconsequential |
dangerous |
fertile |
| The void |
avoid it |
will get you |
source of all being |
| Birth |
impossible |
trauma |
empowerment |
|
H
E
R
B
A
L
M
E
D
I
C
I
N
E |
Favorite plants |
tobacco, coffee, drugs |
lobelia, cayenne, goldenseal |
common local weeds |
| Sought-after plant parts |
alkaloids, active ingredients |
medicinal ones, strong ones |
vitamins, minerals, chlorophyll |
| Ideal remedy |
precise, odourless, tasteless |
complex, difficult, scarce |
familiar, simple, messy, fun |
|
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Thinking these ways does lead to a preference for certain cures. The Wise Woman helper
frequently nourishes with herbs and words. The Heroic savior lays down the law to clean
up your act fast. The Scientific technician is most at ease with laboratory tests and
repeatable, predictable, reliable drugs. But still, the practices do not conclusively
identify the practitioner as being in a particular tradition.
The intent, the thought behind the technique points to the tradition: scientific fixing,
heroic elimination, or wise womanly digestion and integration.
You contain some aspects of each tradition. And the three traditions are not limited to
the realm of healing. The Scientific, Heroic, and Wise Woman ways of thinking are found
in politics, legal systems, religions, psychologies, teaching styles, economics. As the
Wise Woman way becomes more clearly identified, it opens the way to an integrated, whole
sacred, peaceful global village, interactive with Gaia, mother, earth. As each discipline
spins anew its wise woman thread, we reweave the web of interconnectedness with all beings.
Copyright © 2003 Susun Weed. All
rights reserved. For permission to reprint this article, contact:
.
About the Author
Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for
her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges
conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of
herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging
and often profoundly provocative.
Susun is one of America's best-known authorities on herbal medicine and natural approaches to
women's health. Her four best-selling books are recommended by expert herbalists and well-known
physicians and are used and cherished by millions of women around the world. Learn more at
www.susunweed.com.
Susun Weed's books include:
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