Inspired

Fecundity

a. the intellectual productivity of a creative imagination
b. fertility: the state of being fertile; capable of producing offspring
c. fruitfulness: the quality of something that causes or assists healthy growth

Homeopathy explained

History
Homeopathy was developed by a German MD by the name of Samuel Hahnemann. Dr. Hahnemann's work was mainly as a medical translator and chemist. Inspired by the idea "like cures like," he began experimentation with toxic substances to see how he could make medicine out of them without killing people. In Hahnemann's day it was popular to treat syphilis, for example, with mercury. What he discovered is that by diluting and shaking repeatedly (potentizing) various substances (some toxic), healing was possible with previously unseen results of his time.

Safety
Currently about 120,000 people die every year from physician error or negligence, including misuse or incorrect pharmaceutical prescriptions. In the last 200+ years since homeopathy was developed, there have been zero deaths as a result of having taken a homeopathic medicine. In fact, circa the 1918 Influenza pandemic (symptoms were similar to Ebola) approximately 80% of people treated with conventional medicine died, while > 60% of people treated with homeopathy survived. Probably not placebo affect.

Worldwide Practice Today
Today, more than 250,000 physicians are practicing homeopathy in India alone, and 10 million people there are being treated with it. Millions in South American and Italy, Spain, England, and Germany also regularly use homeopathy. In fact, in the U.S., one out of 6 physicians (MDs) at the turn of the century practiced homeopathy. Infants and animals, along with skeptical adults, have been successfully treated for everything from boo-boos to flus to endocrine disorders to autoimmune disease. Even cancer, though it wouldn't be legal in the western world. Again, doubtful that 10 million people alone in India are getting well on placebo alone. Unless Indian people have some kind of special susceptibility to placebo. In the U.S. both MDs and alternative healthcare providers such as NDs as well as Psychotherapists practice Homeopathy.

How It Works
That is the $ 60k question that nobody can answer to this day. It is theorized that in the making of homeopathic medicines, or "remedies," the energy or wavelength of that substance is imprinted upon the water used in making the medicine. Sounds rather bizarre and far-fetched, except that research has shown that water contains memory. The bottom line is that we don't know how it works. Then again, neither do we know how antidepressants work. Don't believe me? Check out this link to Wellbutrin. When a homeopathic medicine is incorrect, nothing happens because it isn't "resonating" with what needs to be cured in you. That's when the homeopath needs to give a different medicine that more closely resonates with your dis-ease.

What Homeopathy Treats
Homeopathy can treat things like bruising, allergies, asthma, acne, hormonal imbalances such as those in menopause or menarche, PMS, uterine fibroids, cysts, hemorrhoids, sexual dysfunction, neurological diseases, assist healing from surgery, and depression and anxiety. But what's different about homeopathy is that it isn't just stopping the symptoms of your illness. It takes into consideration everything that makes you tick: your past history, upbringing, emotional patterns, and your beliefs. The prescription encompasses how your life experiences and your genetics have shaped you up to this point in time. And it actually does, and has, cured illnesses, both simple and complex.

The Job of a Homeopath
What a homeopath needs to do is understand YOU, as a person, and to differentiate your ILLNESS from WHAT'S WELL WITH YOU. A homeopath's job is to perceive how the totality of your symptoms, some of which may be emotional, i.e. mood swings, or mental, i.e. nightmares, fit with everything else that is causing pain in your body. The homeopath needs to recognize patterns or themes; to see, in techie terms, the core of your operating system. That requires a lengthy consultation with you that can last up to 2 hours, and then researching to find the exact medicine that addresses the core of who your are. Then you follow up to report changes over a period of months and years, with less frequency as your issues resolve.

What Treatment is Like
It's not that subtle. When clients get the right remedy, they know it. Their PMS, headaches, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, depression, (fill in the blank) starts to resolve. After receiving the right remedy, every month the symptoms lessen. The catch is that it's not an instantaneous fix. What's happening is that your body's own vital force, called chi, prana, Life Force, or energy, depending on what culture you identify with, is reorganizing itself. Your vital force goes to whatever is the most important system, such as your brain, lungs, heart, or liver, and starts to support that system's functioning at a higher level. What that looks like to you is less headache, less intense herpes outbreaks, less depression, more happiness, less painful joints, better digestion, higher energy, deeper sleep, etc. Symptoms that are less life-threatening, such as skin eruptions or dandruff, take longer to resolve.

The Potential of Homeopathy
Treatment can resolve many different types of physical, mental, and emotional problems. However, it does require some committment from the patient/ client as well as the prescriber. The skill and experience of the prescriber is important, though the relationship of trust that is established as with any practitioner is probably moreso. I have seen clients resolve not just physical illnesses, but also be able to reduce or eliminate medications, make huge strides in psychotherapy, improve relationships with family and partners, let go of past traumas, increase freedom of movement and vitality, further their personal expression, even clarify their life's purpose. Homeopathy is not psychotherapy nor reiki; it is not acupuncture, herbal medicine, or psychic healing, and it is not placebo. It is the medicine of the future, and it is here to stay.

Click here for a wonderful FAQ about homeopathy from Hahnemann Labs.

Proven Drugless Solution to Infertility!

Ah, another new study and a brave doctor who bucks the IVF route. Here's why most women will never need drugs to get pregnant.

Quan Yin: art and healing

This gorgeous carving of Quan Yin from the Portland Art Museum has every element of beauty and healing I strive for in my work, from medicine to art.

~proportion & balance~

+ pure presence +

>^ compassion ^<

*elegance*

)sensuality(

/ calm /

! JOY !

7 is an auspicious number in all spiritual practices, including yogic and martial arts. Did you know 7 is the number of stages of healing as well?

1. acknowledging the need for healing
2. finding a practioner as guide
3. making a committment to the process; establishing personal healing goals
4. following the prescribed protocols and practices
5. periodic self-reflection and re-committment to self-trust
6. opening emotionally, psychically, and physically to being well
7. peeling away layers of illness towards transformation

Finding an image that represents your ultimate wellness, whatever form that takes for you, and gazing upon it while reflecting on it's power to transform you, is a wonderful jumpstart to being on your path.

(Just don't get caught with your camera out in the museum.)

Nurtured Children=>Fertile Women

New research from the U.K. links fertility to childhood environment. An interesting look at how stress delegates how the body will use energy: nature AND nurture predict how fertile a woman will be later in life.

Chemicals Reduce our Fertility and Steal our Future

So the evidence is mounting, no pun intended, that fertility technology is another example of humans trying to play God. Here we are creating a larger risk for health problems in offspring, including men having 50% lower sperm count born to mothers who used fertility drugs. And if you think you're free from the effects of DDT because you don't live in Africa- where they use it to decrease malaria rates-guess again. It's in almost all of our fat tissue and has been since the 80's. Babies get it in breast milk and it started showing up in umbilical cord blood over the last several years.

Surely there must be a safer way to slow down population growth?

Bleeding is a good thing!

Thinking of getting rid of your period? Well why not? Think of the hours you could save washing out your underwear. Dollars you wouldn't have to spend on "sanitary" products. You wouldn't have to see your own blood or, for that matter, feel anything related to the source of your own creative essence.

Body burden is a new term used in research that reveals links between environmental toxicity and reproductive cancers.

If you're considering suppressing your body down to 4 bleeds a year, think about this: how would you feel if you went to the bathroom once a month? Read the above links to find out how chemicals in our food, air, and water supply get taken up by the estrogen-sensitive tissues affecting our reproductive health. If you're not bleeding, you're not releasing.

Intuitive Body Expression: Art AS Medicine

How does art become medicine?

Intuitive Body Expression is a methodology I developed out of my own healing from breast cancer. During the time of my illness, I had the realization that if I didn't find some way to express the transformative process I was engaged in, that my suffering would increase and life would be cut short. I recognized the same energy that brings life into the world is the energy that keeps us healthy and happy--and I needed to show others how to use that creative force for their own healing. In essence, you could say I had entered the shaman's journey.

A shaman's medicine is her vision; her visions are expressed as art, music, dance, and storytelling. By various ritual processes, a shaman heals herself and those around her using these methods. Shamanism is merely about recognizing earth and life as sacred and opening your eyes to see and express yourself from this place. You develop the ability to "see" from the deep sea depths as well as an eagle's cloud-high view.

During an Intuitive Body Expression session, we enter a place of “flow” where time and space disappear. Archetypal images and symbols present themselves to us as if from a dream, arising from our authentic (non-intellectual) selves. The symbols released from bodily symptoms offer insight into what is blocking us from happiness & health. By inviting creative energy to help reveal our limiting beliefs, we open to new levels of intuitive knowledge and awareness.

Nuts and bolts: A session involves the client
1. receiving hands-on Craniosacral and energetic treatment
2. engaging in creative visualization in which I am the guide
3. performs the making of a drawing or painting
4. participates in a brief writing exercise to conclude the process

Sessions are 1 hour or 1 1/2 hours.

When we release old limitations, energy is freed up to improve health via a balanced nervous system, enhanced immunity, and quickened response for healing on mental, emotional, and physical levels. You are already your own shaman; your personal transformation comes from opening your eyes in a new way and expressing from where you are right now, in the moment.

For more information on Intuitive Body Expression, check back for future posts, or call me at 206-650-9197.

Return to Venus

3 days at Breitenbush Hot Springs: spirit renewed. body rested. soul peaceful. clarity of mind. creativity inspired. just look:

Old Wives' Tales Get You Outta Hot Water

Sorry guys; if you want to procreate you'd better get out of the tub. The Journal of Brazilian Urology published studies early this year, if you haven't already heard, showing dramatically improved sperm production with cessation of wet heat exposure.

I guess you'll have to find other ways of letting down your hair that won't interfere with the twinkle in your eyes.....the author recommends at the conclusion of the article to "treat yourself like a temple." I couldn't agree more.