Dekalb community members are outraged at the destruction of Mason Mill Park's natural and wild habitat for the introduction of a 10 foot wide paved path. 

http://www.3forksalliance.org/

"Dekalb County wants to spend your million dollars on this un-needed and destructive project while cutting the budgets of the police and fire departments.
Dekalb County is using their legal staff to fight our efforts to stop or delay this project.
Dekalb county is willing to disregard any of their own laws to defend this project.
Dekalb County ordered PATH to begin clearing trees for this project based on an illegal contract.
Dekalb County thinks that they can make this problem go away by outlasting and outspending the opposition."

Visit the website above or the yahoo group for more information:   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/friendsofmasonmill/

 

A 124 page report from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production:

"At the end of his second term, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the

nation about the dangers of the military-industrial complex—an unhealthy

alliance between the defense industry, the Pentagon, and their friends on

Capitol Hill. Now, the agro-industrial complex—an alliance of agriculture

commodity groups, scientists at academic institutions who are paid by the

industry, and their friends on Capitol Hill—is a concern in animal food

production in the 21st century."

http://www.ncifap.org/_images/PCIFAP%20FINAL%20REPORT.pdf

 

Good article on factory farming and its consequences from the NYTimes:

"A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=a9d80925d175d1b2&ex=1359090000&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

One of my visions for the world is that every home have a garden and people learn again how to grow their own food.  Michael Pollan, writing for the NY Times, provides a bunch of good reasons to do that: 

"Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs."  

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20wwln-lede-t.html?pagewanted=1&sq=the%20green%20issue%20michael%20pollan&st=nyt&scp=2

Just joined the Advocacy Campaign Team at farmsanctuary.org.  Here is just one of the issues they are about:

Sentient Beings

"Many people have experienced the love, companionship, and joy of sharing their home and lives with an animal such as a dog or cat. But what many people don't realize is that all animals, including those used for food production, are just as sensitive, loving, and capable of suffering pain as our beloved companion animals.

Turkeys, chickens, cows, pigs, and other farm animals are sentient beings, no different from a dog or cat in their needs for comfort, companionship, food, water, and shelter. Yet, in the U.S. farm animals are treated horribly. They are kept in tiny cages or crates their entire lives, unable to walk, stretch their limbs, or even turn around. They are denied wholesome food and natural interaction with other members of their species. In fact, agribusiness treats these animals merely as tools of production.

If dogs, cats, or parakeets were treated the same way as factory-farmed egg-laying hens, pigs, or veal calves, those responsible would face animal cruelty charges. However, most states' anti-cruelty laws specifically exclude animals used in agricultural production.

The pain a pig feels is no different from the pain a dog feels. All animals, even those raised for food, are sentient beings, and deserve to be protected from cruelty. As philosopher Jeremy Bentham said, "The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?" Please join the campaign to have farm animals recognized as sentient beings in the United States, as has been done in Europe, and visit www.sentientbeings.org for more information."

From Farm Sanctuary (http://www.farmsanctuary.org):
"Factory farming is an attitude that regards animals and the natural world merely as commodities to be exploited for profit. In animal agriculture, this attitude has led to institutionalized animal cruelty, massive environmental destruction and resource depletion, and animal and human health risks."

The Meatrix - a cartoon, which is easier to watch, but still informative:
http://www.themeatrix.com/inside/
 
For more information on what you can do, visit:
http://www.tribeofheart.org/index.htm

What can you do to help end factory farming forever?  Please do what you can.  Don't get hung up on what you can't do. 

Carl and I recently returned from the 2008 Georgia Organics conference:  Quantum Leap - Taking Food and Farms Back to the Future.  Here are some highlights and local resources from the conference:

- 675 people attended this years conference, 284 people attending for the first time.  A sure sign that Georgia is interested in the organic movement.

- The organic banquet was wonderful as usual, with George Siemon delivering the keynote address.  Siemon is an organic farmer and leads Organic Valley, a markeing stronghold that unites over 1,200 family farms into the largest organic cooperative in the country. 

- We attended the "Big Farm, Little Farm" tour to visit two CSA farms:  Riverview Farm, a 250-member CSA, and Etcetera Farms, a one-man market garden supplying a small CSA through the winter.  It's great to learn from successful farmers "in the field". 

- A notable session on Saturday was "Unleashing Your Self-Sustaining Landscape" with Lindsey Mann of Sustenance Design and Kyla Zaro-Moore of Oakhurst Community Gardening Project.  The session covered planning and design for an edible landscape, recommending The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creazy.  Some recommendations included hardy kiwi vine on trellises, upside down wine bottles to line beds and biodynamic flow forms for your garden.  Resources for edible plants and seeds:

Willis Orchards
Hidden Springs Nursery
Buck Jones Nursery, Grayson, GA
Turtle Tree Organic and Biodynamic Seeds
High Mowing Organic Seeds

- Here are a few more local resources from attendees and exhibitors at the conference:

-- Bioneers Southeast - A Gathering of Innovative Minds.  April 11-13, 2008.

-- The Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance - The Voice of Independent Agriculture. 

-- Low Mercury List - lists fish that are low in contaminants and are eco-friendly. 

-- Off the Vine - Home Produce Delivery in the Atlanta area. 

-- Sleepy Hollow Farm - Apothecary & Soap Shoppe (very nice quality medicinal herb products). 

"nothing supports the healing process like people being in joy and creativity, spending time with people they love, laughing, etc., and that nothing shuts it down like judgment, skepticism, and fear."

 

also:

 

"Everyone here is a master and we are all just fine."

 

The USDA is at it again.  And this time your ability to procure local fresh leafy greens is at stake.  According to the San Francisco Chronical's article, How Safe Is Your Salad? -

"New industry rules for leafy greens aim to protect consumers from E. coli.  Farmers and conservationists question the science behind the standards.

The consequences of the crisis fell heavily on California's Central Coast farmers, who are now being pressed by buyers to comply with a con{fllig}icting array of new food-safety measures, some of which, according to the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory agencies, are costly, scientifically unproven and environmentally harmful. Some violate state regulations, and may even be counterproductive to food safety. But the growers must follow these measures in order to market their crops to the larger contractors or handlers.

The new set of rules is jeopardizing the future of sustainable agriculture and of the habitat and clean water it supports, according to the Nature Conservancy's Monterey Project Director Chris Fischer: "Farmers and conservationists in California have been working together for more than 20 years to develop practices that help protect water quality and wildlife habitat, but since last fall, farmers have been under enormous pressure from their buyers to go the other direction. To stay in business, they are being forced to build miles of fences along streams, cut down trees and bulldoze ponds. Some actions, like creating bare-earth buffers along waterways, may actually increase the risk of contamination downstream." "

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/16/CMMQSSF81.DTL

 

see also:  http://www.caff.org/foodsafety/

"While all growers should use safe farming practices, the “one size fits all” approach of the rules does not work for family farms." 

Yesterday I signed up for classes at a Dahn Yoga Studio here in Atlanta, and wanted to share this great resource:

http://www.dahnyoga.com/

"Practitioners often begin a Yoga exercise class with a specific health goal in mind, such as increasing flexibility or reducing tension. However, it is not unusual for them to soon report additional benefits they had not anticipated such as improved sleep, reduction in food cravings, or an overall sense of well-being. In addition to the physical benefits of yoga, you may also experience enhancements to your mental and emotional well being."

One of the pleasures of living on the banks of the Chattahoochee river is the daily relationship you get to have with the wildlife that occupy the same territory.  This week, during an unseasonably warm summer's day in mid-winter, fishermen dot the river:  the human kind, with their innertube outfits and fly rods, and the winged variety. 

 

The blue herons have had a couple of good years lately, and the pair of birds that were seen flying together last summer had babies, which now are almost grown.  This week the five or six birds in this one heron family are cavorting over the river, playing chase, circling and wheeling low over the water in tandem.  It's an amazing sight.  While those herons play, their sibling stands quietly in the shallow rapidly flowing water near the bank, fishing for hours on end.  Nothing to do but wait for that shiny tasty fish.

 

It's a bird's life!

 

 

Could one conversation change your life?   more »

Eliot Coleman, a well-known advocate of organic farming today, suggests that

"The label "organic" has lost the fluidity it used to hold for the growers more concerned with quality than the bottom line, and consumers more concerned with nutrition than a static set of standards for labeling. "Authentic" is meant to be the flexible term "organic" once was. It identifies fresh foods produced by local growers who want to focus on what they are doing, instead of what they aren't doing...."

He talks about moving beyond the organic label which has been largely taken over by corporate interests. 

"'Authentic' growers are committed to supplying food that is fresh, ripe, clean, safe and nourishing. "Authentic" farms are genetically modified organism-free zones...With a definition that stresses local, seller-grown and fresh, there is little likelihood that large-scale marketers can steal this concept."

-Eliot Coleman

TMJ (tempora-mandibular-joint disorder) - here's  what works for me:

- night guard from dentist (plastic thingy that you wear at night in your mouth to prevent grinding your teeth)

- hot compresses over the painful area

- stop using cell phone - it seems to really aggravate symptoms,  creating earaches and TMJ.  I've used a headset succesfully too,  although an earbud probably just channels the radiation into the  ear (not good).

- passionflower tea for the pain.  you can buy  it in the health food store, and I'd use 2 teabags to make a strong  brew and drink 2 or 3 cups.  it's non-addictive, and considered  safe for long-term use as a sedative, painkiller, muscle relaxer...

"The decline of a true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in national culture as a whole.  When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they have lost their personality, and become the instruments of other people's wills."  - Robert Graves in an address at MIT, "On Human Culture" 1966

According to The Record, Mom did know what she was talking about:

"Eat your spinach."
How many times did you hear that while growing up. Or the vegetable may have been broccoli, green beans, squash or peas. In any event, mom was once again proven right, according to new research on vegetables and aging.
The study, conducted by the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, found that eating vegetables appears to help keep the brain young and may slow the mental decline sometimes associated with growing old.
Older people who ate more than two servings of vegetables daily appeared about five years younger at the end of the six-year study than those who ate few or no vegetables.

"Age is no bar to being a good mother and there is no reasonto prevent pensioners from becoming parents, researchers have found.

Women in their 50s and 60s who conceive after fertility treatment are just as capable of being good parents as women in their 30s and 40s, a study has shown.

The finding will bring hope to thousands of women who have delayed parenthood and seek help late in life to have a family." 

see The Independent for more

From: Alliance for Natural Healthhttp://www.alliance-natural-health.org/index.cfm?action=news&ID=234

New research carried out by researchers at the University of Michigan suggests that ginger could have an important role to play in treating ovarian cancer, reports the BBC.

The researchers used dissolved ginger powder, similar to that sold in shops, which they applied to ovarian cancer cells. In the study the ginger killed the cancer cells in each of the tests carried out.

Even more significantly, the ginger seemed to stop the cells from becoming resistant to treatment.

The US research demonstrated two types of cell death apoptosis, in essence cell suicide, and autophagy, a kind of self-digestion.

The reports author, Rebecca Lui, told the BBC: "Most ovarian cancer patients develop recurrent disease, that eventually becomes resistant to standard chemotherapy, which is associated with apoptosis."

"If ginger can cause autophagic cell death in addition to apoptosis, it may circumvent resistance to conventional chemotherapy."

But the researchers have warned that the results are "very preliminary" and that a lot more work needed to be done to establish if ginger, in either natural or drug form, can prevent or treat cancers in animals or people. The US team now plans to test to see if they can obtain similar results in animals.

In my work as an IT and business consultant, I can see the results of the hostile environment in which IT consultants and contractors often work.  Hostile to the body that is.  Ergonomically incorrect chairs, fast food, disdain for human needs, constant travel for some, all lead to burnout and predictable health problems.

So what's a person to do?  Here are a few tips for staying healthy on the high-pressure job:

- Take adequate breaks (especially from close work) - once every hour get up and walk around, go talk to someone, find reasons to move, take a walk, jump up and down a few times.  Any and all of these can increase circulation and breathing. 

- Learn exercises you can do at your desk (for example, Ten Ways to Exercise at Your Desk)

- Adopt a practice such as Qi Gong, Tai Chi or Yoga to keep your spine flexible - Qi Gong is my favorite exercise - low impact, fun to do, painless - flexibility helps your body absorb the impacts and stresses of daily life.

- Take a healthy lunch (or eat out healthy) - Thai food is often light, healthy and digestible.  For a new definition of healthy eating (taken from ancient wisdom - what's old is new again...) check out Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, "challenging the diet dictocrats" - backed up by solid research. 

- Drink soothing herbal teas to reduce stress and the possibility of inflammation (aching joints and back) - Passionflower vine is my first choice, although there are many herbal blends on the market that can help, and the fluids help you stay hydrated too.  See Traditional Medicinals for a good brand.

- Learn to meditate to help keep you calm, focused and centered - adopting a daily practice of meditation can lower blood pressure and improve many health markers.  It slows and deepens your breathing and pulse, while increasing available oxygen in your system.  And going deep into meditation can put you in touch with sources of inspiration and give you access to your own internal reserves. 

- Drink plenty of water and make sure you take in enough salt - dehydration contributes to problems from aching joints to high blood pressure.  most of us don't drink enough water to stay hydrated and with today's low-salt diets, we sometimes forget salt is absolutely needed by the body to function properly. 

- Slow down!  In Grayton Beach, Florida, a vacation spot, there's a sign at the end of the road that reads "Slow down - you've arrived!".  You've arrived - you got the job - sometimes the best way to keep it is to pace yourself - take time to think - pause - dare to be a heads-up consultant rather than a heads-down drone.  Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, kept a sign in his office displaying one word:  THINK!

 

Last weekend's CFSA Conference on Sustainable Agriculture heard a lot about this issue, as reported by the Organic Consumers Association:

"BOYCOTT THE SHAMELESS SEVEN--ORGANIC OUTLAWS LABELING FACTORY FARM MILK AS 'USDA ORGANIC'

While USDA bureaucrats drag their feet on closing key loopholes in national organic organic standards, retailers, wholesalers and major “organic” brands are continuing to sell milk and dairy products labeled as "USDA Organic, even though most or all of their milk is coming from factory farm feedlots where the animals have been brought in from conventional farms and are kept in intensive confinement, with little or no access to pasture.

The Organic Consumers Association is expanding its boycott of Horizon and Aurora organic dairy products to include five national "private label" organic milk brands supplied by Aurora, as well as two leading organic soy products, Silk and White Wave, owned by Horizon's parent company, Dean Foods. Its time to turn up the heat on the "Shameless Seven.

While thousands of organic consumers and a number of natural food stores and cooperatives have joined the boycott, major national large grocery retailers have ignored the boycott. "

Saw a story-teller at the CFSA sustainable agriculture conference this past weekend, name of Gaines Steer.  He did a delightful presentation on the elements of storytelling, acting them out and demonstrating as he went along.  Some of the elements:
- be demonstrative
- give things away
- involve the audience, honoring their wisdom
- evolve your own style, your own voice

A quote from his newspaper, The Pronoia Times:  "The universal conspiracy-of-goodness had its day in court and won a class action against the combined forces of evil, doom and gloom, badassness, and doodoo.  Without benefit of legal counsel, the paradigm shift pronoia, won a precendented battle to represent the proven possibility that the "universe is a benign conspiracy on our behalf". 

cheers.

USA Today brings us the arguments for and against putting unlabeled cloned animanls into our food supply.  What will they think of next? 

Patch Adams with his "love platform" has some interesting ideas for Iraq:

"As a doctor—and a clown—I’ve seen the tremendous healing power of love. The number one factor for surviving a heart attack is having a loving community. A study of 4,000 women with breast cancer found that with a little love—six hour-long support sessions—their survival rate increased five-fold. With the situation in Iraq imploding, tensions increasing with Iran and North Korea, and our government’s policies leading more and more people to hate Americans, it’s time to take the healing power of love to the global level. It’s time for a love platform.

What’s a love platform? It’s a set of policies that shows compassion for the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless, the poor. It’s a platform that treats the environment with the loving respect it deserves.

A love platform would call for kissing, not killing. You switch two little letters and you get a whole new outlook on life. Kissing, not killing.

A love platform would put women in charge—women with loving instincts who would treat the world the way my mother treated my friends when they came to my house. She fed them, she wiped their noses, she was nice. That’s it. We’d have a policy called “Be Nice.” If everyone treated people like my mother did, we’d put an end to violence."

"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

Mark Twain
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

This weekend Carl and I attended the first Georgia farm aid concert at Whippoorwill  Hollow Farm in Walnut Grove, 30 miles from downtown Atlanta. 

Some of Atlanta's top chefs turned up to perform cooking demonstrations:

Chef Anne Quatrano from Bacchanalia
Michael Tuohy from Woodfire Grill
Pithya Kongthavorn from L'Thai Restaurant
Chef Scott Peacock from Watershed
Chef Tamar Adler from Farm255

Anne Quantrano's shrimp pilau with south carolina yellow rice was outrageously good.  The others weren't bad either, and the bluegrass/southern rock music was great.

We walked around the farm, enjoying the chickens, turkeys, sheep, goats, horses and fields of green.  It was like a day in the country at a friend's farm.  Sitting around with a beer, listening to down-home music, and watching the horses kick up their heels with cool-weather spirits.

We saw a demonstration on how to ferment vegetables (good to know the little secret ins and outs of fermentation), and bought beautiful red pickled cherry bomb peppers, hot spicy pickled garlic and delicious mild pickled okra (from Full Moon Farms), along with fresh veggies from the farm table of Tucker and Celia's Woodland Gardens.  We had tasty samples of sweet potato chips from farm 255, "a restaurant that seeks to reconnect food to its roots & people to their food."

Other Georgia Organics events are found here.

 

 

At last year's Georgia Organics Conference, the keynote speaker was Janisse Ray.  Her book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, tells her story of growing up in a junkyard on Highway 1 in the heart of the rural South.  She reminds us of our Celtic origins and the forest of Longleaf Pine that once surrounded our ancestors. 

On the Longleaf Alliance site, Ray's testimonial begins:

"The landscape that owns my body is the longleaf pine. I was born to it, as my ancestors for seven generations were born to it, although as a child I did not know its name, or its habits, or the names of its inhabitants. All this I have come to know.

Maybe through my genes I inherited a vision of the original longleaf pine flatwoods, because I seem to remember their endlessness. I recollect when the coastal plains of the South were one daybreak-to-dark, rust-and-bronze longleaf forest. It is a monotony one learns to love, through days and seasons and years, for this is a landscape of loyalty, that you devote yourself to more with the passing years, like a beloved friend. The more you know of it, the more you love it. The more it gives you, the more you give in return. A longleaf pine forest never tells its secrets at first meeting, but reveals them slowly over time—and a longleaf forest is full of secrets.

In a longleaf forest, miles of trees forever fade into a brilliant salmon sunset and reappear the next dawn as a battalion marching out of fog. The tip of each needle carries a single drop of silver. The trees are so well spaced that their limbs seldom touch and sunlight streams between and within them. Below their flattened branches, grasses arch their tall, richly dun heads of seeds, and orchids and lilies paint the ground. Purple liatris gestures across the landscape. Our eyes seek the flowers like they seek the flashes of Bachman’s sparrows and ruby-crowned kinglets, and the careful crossings of fox squirrels and gopher tortoises."

Christian Northrup recently commented on the HPV scare tactics we've seen in recent TV ads:

"...the first Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has just been released along with a barrage of information from Merck and the FDA promoting the vaccination of young women ages 9–26. The recent media attention about the vaccine has raised concern in millions of women unnecessarily ...you’ll want to think long and hard about immunizing your daughter for HPV."

This looks like a case of "viral marketing".  Have you ever received an email warning of some dire situation (email tax, various supposed viruses and scams)?  Invariably, the email urgently instructs you to "forward this email to everyone in your address book"...   Same thing, only now they're applying it to TV!

Maybe we should "tell someone" to think twice about this vaccine. 

It's that time of year when the passionflower vine's green egg-shaped fruits are ripening. Yesterday I picked a handful for eating. Sweet and tropical, they're almost like eating a pomegranite;  the flavor is in a pulp sac enclosing small hard black seeds.  Another reason to buy a good juicer...

All summer I've been harvesting the vines, with their exotic purple flowers and fruit, to dry for passionflower tea.  (see earlier post: Recent Interview for a description of the tea)

In the garden, while I begin to clear the beds for fall planting, there are 3 humming birds visiting the abundant flowers on morning glory vines that have sprung up on all the fences.  The flowers bloom in two shades of red, white, blue, purple and pink.  The hummers love the reds and purples. 

In the far corner, where we composted the debris from clearing out the flower beds in the yard this summer, bits of rhizome took root, and now huge red and yellow canna lilies bloom there.

Most of the summers veggies have finished, though I'm still picking a tomato or two every weekend.  Yesterday I pulled up foot-long daikon radish and set them to pickle in a salt brine with ginger and red peppers.  In a day or two, they'll be slightly fermented and ready to go in the fridge.  Daikon is considered, in chinese medicine, to help the digestion.  I like its mild taste and tenacious growth habit. 

 

 

 

USA Today weighs in on THE RAW MILK DEBATE:

"Advocates of raw milk are behind legislative efforts in Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky and Nebraska to legalize selling raw milk. Moves to introduce legislation have begun in North Carolina and Maryland.

Raw milk appeals to consumers who seek natural and unprocessed foods, to those with health concerns who believe it has curative powers...  But this is a dangerous game, public health officials say."

sounds like unbiased and objective journalism, yes?  read on...

"For those who are convinced that pasteurized milk is unhealthy, there's little that health workers can do to change their minds, says Michael Lynch, a food-borne-illness expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"But we want to get the word out to people who may not understand," he says. "If you explained the dangers to them, they would probably not want to drink the raw milk. They're confusing it with organic, and organic has positive connotations.""

Take a look at the Weston A. Price Foundation's campaign for real milk and see for yourself if the proponents of real milk sound like they are "confused" and fail to "understand". 

 

In a recent interview for a forthcoming book on health and longevity, I was asked about my experiences with natural alternatives for health.  Here are some of the questions I recall, and my answers:

Q:  Do you take supplements regularly and feel that they improve your health?

A:  I've been taking nutritional supplements and other natural products for about 25 to 30 years.  I take vitamins, chinese herbs and I use aromatherapy treatments as well.  Over the years, I've used natural treatments for allergies, digestive problems and menopause, among other issues. 

Q:  What treatments did you use for allergies?

A:  Actually, hayfever and it's complications were what brought me to my first chiropractor/nutritionist/kinesiologist.  She helped me understand the connections between diet, treatment, lifestyle and health.  I learned that in the case of taking drugs for allergies, it's easy to set up a downward spiral where the more drugs you use, the more you need.  That's because the drugs are processed through the liver, which is also in charge of the histamine reaction involved in allergies.  So basically, you can end up putting more pressure on the liver in the attempt to mask the symptoms. 

Q:  What else have you treated?

A:  The best solution I've found for problems related to menopause is chinese medicine.  Chinese herbs are combined with accupressure massage and accupuncture.  The herbs counter the hot flashes and mood swings without unbalancing your system.  In fact, the whole approach of chinese medicine is to balance the system.  The herbs are nourishing to the body, rather than depleting it like some drugs would do.

Q:  So, if you had to go to a doctor for some reason, would you (chuckle) feel like a failure?

A;  No, not at all.  There are times that allopathic medicine is the treatment of choice, absolutely.  For example, emergency medicine.  When I had a retinal detachment in one eye, I went to the best surgeon I could find.  But I also followed up with herbs and supplements that specifically support the eyes (and liver). 

A friend asked me recently if I thought she should take the shot she'd heard about for low back pain.  I told her I don't disagree with it, but I would look into the impact of the treatment on her liver (where cortisones tend to land), and I would check on other side effects.  I don't rule out any treatment, but I always do my own research.

And I think that's part of what has worked well for me.  No matter who prescribes a treatment for me, I do my research independently - in order to be responsible for what I'm putting into my body - not to question or second guess the practitioner.  And I've rarely met a practitioner who would disagree with that philosophy.

I also seem to be helped by understanding the problem from several different angles, and creating a synergy of several different solutions.  For example, I might take herbs for a problem, and then add an aromatherapy treatment, a nutritional supplement and a massage or something.  I believe the synergy is stronger than any single approach.

Q:  So you use aromatherapy?  What is that?

A:  Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils taken from plants to effect healing.  It works on the chemical level, as well as through resonance.  Essential oils are a very concentrated extract of the plant.  They are much more complex in their makeup than the synthesized chemicals that are used in drugs.  And that seems to make them more balanced, with fewer side effects. 

A few years ago, pursuing an interest in AT, I took classes with a woman in Florida (Sylla Shepard-Hangar) and also traveled to the South of France for a class at Orto de Prouvenco, with Malte Hozzell (known for his line of essential oils, Oshadi).  I use treatments such as lavender oil in a bath, for calming, on a cut for disinfecting, eucalyptus oil to improve breathing by opening up the bronchial passages.  There are many applications of aromatherapy for everything from first-aid to treating cancer and emotional & psychological states.

Q:  What about other herbs and supplements?

A:  Lately, I've been using passionflower vine quite a bit.  It grows wild on our property in East Georgia and I harvest and dry it for my own use.  I grow a few other herbs in my organic garden, and make a tea from passionflower, lemon verbena, peppermint and stevia.  Passionflower is known for its sedative, anti-spasmodic and painkilling properties, and is considered safe for long-term use. 

Another nutritional supplement I take from time to time is called Purple Power.  It's made from the skins of muscadine grapes, and was developed by Paulk Vineyards with the help of a pharmacologist at the University of Georgia.  Purple Power is sort of like red wine on steriods...  it is a powerful anti-inflammatory, with applications for arthritis, heart disease and cancer. 

I learned about Purple Power at a workshop on growing medicinal herbs that was held at Sleepy Hollow Farm, where Randy Beavers champions the growing of goldenseal among other medicinal herbs. 

Q:  And you consider yourself generally healthy?

A:  I'd say so.  I rarely get sick and I haven't felt the need to go to a medical doctor in a few years, although I do see a chinese doctor regularly, mostly for preventive care.