I have spent the past three months studying this tree. It has totally captivated me, there were two specimens documented in this area in the 1940's and reported again in 1973. There are no trees at all at the GPS coordinates for the original specimens given to me by the Arizona State University herbarium. I kept looking, and, to date, I have found 22 different Bursera microphylla specimens. Here are some pictures of this amazing tree. Cut?




A particularly twisted specimen of Bursera



The smell of these trees is absolutely heavenly


The Seri believe that this tree was the very first thing created when this world came into existence


This is the oldest and gnarliest grandmother--also the most northern outlier of Her kind


Petrolglyphs behind the first of the trees that I found--next to a now dry waterfall and series of pools.

Realizing that the inherent susceptibility of an individual towards one disease process or another is often a much more powerful and proactive tool for helping people to become healthy again.

In the United States, Naturopathic medicine dates back more than 100 years. Its roots include traditions of healing that have been used with success around the world for centuries, the emphasis resting on the use of therapies that are natural and non-toxic. Naturopathic medicine enjoyed a hey-day in the early 1900’s when it was a dominant form of medicine practiced in North America. It became almost extinct from the 1940’s through the 1970’s; and since the early 1980’s, Naturopathic medicine has experienced renewed interest and popularity. Today, Naturopathic physicians are licensed in 16 states, all of the US territories, and 5 Canadian provinces where they function as primary healthcare providers.

Although Naturopathic medicine has been practiced for more than a century, it has only been in the past 20 years that naturopathic medical colleges have been accredited by an agency recognized by the US Dept. of Education, that is, the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME )(www.cnme.org). During this same time period, a national professional association of physicians from accredited schools has formed, (AANP) (www.naturopathic.org), national board licensing examinations, NPLEX, have been administered, and a national board of naturopathic examiners, NABNE (www.nabne.org), has been formed. We have seen a more recent professional leap forward with the formation of the Council of Naturopathic Licensing Exam Chairs, a consortium of leaders from the Naturopathic licensing examination whose intent it is to establish firmer and more stringent standards for the licensure of candidates in Naturopathic medicine.

Cancer is considered the scourge of the modern age. There seem to be as many different manifestations of cancerous processes as there are people who are afflicted with them. There is no absolute cure for this family of diseases, but, there are incredible individuals who are able to resolve them.

The approaches that I have seen effective for patients who are afflicted with cancerous conditions are many and varied, customized to the patient's current needs with some strategic overview guiding the process. The initial stages of the process for me are to try and determine, as well as possible, what might have started this crazy process in somebody, and exactly where is it, how bad is it and what are the adjacent structures that might be affected as the conditions progresses. Some patients come to see me because they are undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy and they would like to mitigate some of the side effects common to those approaches. Other patients would like to try to avoid surgery, chemotherapy or radiation altogether in their search for a cure. In both cases, we have to be bluntly honest and straightforward with what we are doing. As a health-care practitioner, I am ethically obligated to inform patients not only about what I might have to offer them but, also, what standards of care dictate should be done for them for the particular diagnosis that they present with. This means that sometimes I have to have that very difficult conversation with people that takes into account the statistics of treatment for their condition and what might be the most practical route for them to pursue. It may be that the size of the tumor is such that destruction of the cancerous cells is going to cause a flood of necrotic material through their system, resulting in a life threatening septicemia, and we might have to engage in a some kind of debulking process, which might involve surgery or radiation, before we engage in a specifically cytotoxic approach. In some cases, it may be that it is exactly that necrotic overload that provides the basis for a renewed immunological onslaught towards the cancer.

Herbs speak to us in a very primal manner; they connect us with Mother Earth in a very basic and universal way because they are so freshly removed from her bosom and still retain the undiluted effect of her close presence. Inasmuch as herbs and the many possible ways that they enhance and affect our lives are an extension of Mother Earth, they are also a way of connecting with that archetypal presence that so enchants us, that draws us in with the promise of solace, comfort, and wholeness, even, of belonging, and the possibility of union with the Divine. It is an innate understanding within each of us that true healing lies in the reconciliation of our ego, the layers of self that separate us from one another, with the ground substance of being personified by Mother Earth.

It may be that Nature is such an effective mirror of our souls because our souls are elements of the earth’s soul. Archetypal forms and patterns exist not only in the human psyche but also in the outer world of Nature. We experience these earth archetypes as emotionally captivating, even enchanting; and every individual’s soul resonates with certain archetypes more than others. Our particular enchantment with any facet of Nature is our identification with that certain archetype. As we open ourselves to that element of wildness, we are allowed to discover a quality of our own souls that longs to be embodied in this world. As we allow that aspect to become embodied along with the rest of our selves, we become more whole, out of our wholeness comes healing.

The whole field of mind-body medicine in the western world has exploded over the last thirty years and may represent encounters with the Divine as well as a way for the modern mind to reconcile mystical experience with everyday life. Along with our increased understanding of the mechanics of thought, brain function, and consciousness has evolved an empowerment that these are things that may be manipulable. Although we have not reached the level of sophistication in our understanding that would be necessary to create an absolute map of human consciousness, we do have enough information to be able to create reasonable and reliable intervention strategies for healing. The story of the western world’s attempt to reconnect with the Divine through the mind-body continuum begins with a man cured by a train wreck on the way to see his physician:

We have created the science of psychoneuroimmunology in an attempt to better understand the seemingly nebulous connection between the mind/spirit and the body. Ironically, the more sophisticated our understanding becomes, the more we come to realize that the modern day keepers of this particular Truth may well be the people of the world’s “wild areas”; the deserts, tundras and jungles that the early Europeans deemed too wild to be of any real value. Here the knowledge of our ancestors and our true relationships with the Earth are still held sacred. Here they still understand the value of plants in recreating one’s connection with the earth and wholeness. They have not yet lost their understanding of the mind-body connection.

In 1967, the noted psychologist, Alan Silverman wrote an article entitled, “Schizophrenia and Shamanism”, what he described was the study of Shamanic mythology as an imagery derived from the psychological experiences of the shamans who create it. A seemingly straightforward approach to the subject given that we all tend to create meaning in our lives by interpreting our experiences within the context of our greater cultural perspective.

According to Silverman, the shamanic psychological crisis becomes the source of their imagery. The shaman is a person who, early in their life, experiences the call to become something more, a healer within their community, much like each any one of us who finds ourselves practicing the healing arts in our culture. This understanding precipitates a sort of “cracking off” from the normal modes of perceiving the world, a sort of psychosis ensues. In traditional societies, a mature shaman is sent to help the young shaman through this process. By interpreting the signs and symptoms of the young psychotic, the older shaman helps to bring him/her out of it, and an apprenticeship may well begin.

At the turn of the century there was a Danish explorer, Rasmussen, who traveled throughout the wilderness of North America. He wrote fairly extensively about his conversations with the Native People that he encountered. He reported the story of one particular individual from northern Canada who, when the initial shaking and retreat from the world came on, his parents sent for the village healer. The older man took him on a sled out into the wilderness and left him in an igloo for thirty days, bringing him some tiny bit of food and water every ten days or so. He admitted that this was a horrendous time in his life; even so, he was able to come to realizations that only come in solitude and silence. These are the experiences that are only available when crossing a certain threshold of consciousness and one becomes aware of their world in a wholly new and different way. He reported that the reintegration is tricky, only those who have been successful in the process themselves are able to truly help those in the same predicament. This is an application of a form of personal authenticity.

An Inuit healer in Alaska told him of a similar adventure into the silence. At the time of their conversation, this particular fellow was in trouble with his community. These are the spiritual leaders of the community, so they often bear the brunt of the tribe’s dissatisfaction, suspicion and jealousy. This particular fellow had developed a number of sleight of hand, trick devices and mythological scare tactics to keep the people at bay and in awe. Rasmussen saw through this fakery and asked him, “Is there nothing that you truly believe in, anything that is honest and sincere in your life or is it all about this hocus pocus?’ The fellow replies “ I have to protect myself with this hocus pocus, but, I will tell you what is True. I have heard the voice of the Universe, it is gentle, it is kind, it is like a mother speaking, like the fall of the snow, like children laughing and playing. What it says is, ‘Do not be afraid of the Universe’”.

The practice of medicine is an extension of the sociocultural worldview from which it springs.
The many different sociocultural worldviews that our ancestors perceived their world through, as well as the various such worldviews that we still perceive our modern world through, provide us with an incredible level of beautiful diversity.

Each culture has forged their very own path to Truth; few of us ever have or ever will make it all the way to a universal Truth.
Our forging ahead, standing on the shoulders of our ancestors, is what brings us closer to that universal truth than has ever been possible before. I believe that it is our penchant for short-sightedness that keeps us from realizing that Truth and seeing it for what it is.

For example, we have a greater understanding in this modern age of the human body and its relationship to its environment than ever before, yet, we pollute that environment to a greater degree than ever before. With all of our great advances in understanding, we have allowed lack of wisdom and denial to rob us of a more complete manifestation of a better quality of life.

The point being that modern humankind is the product of human evolution through the ancient cultures that we so admire; we are what is left of them. To single out any certain tradition carries with it the implication that that tradition is better or worse, more complete or less complete than any other tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact, the popularity of traditions such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine may well be because they are traditions that are still alive. These systems of medicine are not the same as they were a hundred years ago, much less a thousand years ago. The essential philosophy may remain intact but the application of that philosophy is always altered as it is practiced through a specific sociocultural construct. To that end, modern Ayurveda is not going to be practiced in the same way in Tibet, India and the United States. To attempt to create a standardized practice that would transcend those sociocultural constraints would be absurd, even if the physician could grasp the concepts, the patient would be at a major disadvantage; they would require a certain level of cultural training that would, likely, be quite foreign for them.

As it is, a practitioner does their best work when they are able to establish rapport with the patient and engage that person in the process of healing. A greater sense of value is perceived by creating an atmosphere and circumstances that allow the possibility for a person to encounter the Divine through this process and to establish a deeper sense of meaning and import for their own lives. It is also what often makes the difference between a curable and an incurable condition.

Consider stepping backwards through time to approximately 5000 BC when portions of the largely hunter-gatherer populations of the earth began dwelling together. These original locations were those that were particularly favored by nature to have abundant resources that could support larger populations of all sorts of creatures. Incredibly important locations for the formation of human communities were Mesopotamia, nurtured and fed by the rich Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, Egypt, likewise nourished by the Nile river valley, the Sarasvati and Indus river valleys in India, the Danube in Europe, and the Mississippi river valley of North America, the Amazon in South America. As people came together in unprecedented numbers, information was able to be shared regarding the use of certain modalities for the treatment of certain disease states. The proximity of so many people with differing skills allowed for a certain specialization to develop within society. Those members of society who were particularly adept at growing food, could do so and barter for other amenities necessary for their quality of life. Likewise, those people who were adept at hunting could do so; in fact, the specialties of herding, sewing, building, food preparation, healing and teaching all were able to progress at unprecedented speeds because people and resources were suddenly available for that to happen. The field of medicine fell into the domain of the doctor/priest specialty. These members of society became repositories for the collected understandings and anecdotal evidence of what plant or substance would be most appropriate for certain disorders. Humans are inherently curious creatures with a yearning for union with something greater than themselves. This yearning comes with a desire for some sense of meaning in our lives, the numerous Gods and Goddesses that inhabited the natural world were given the credit and blame for certain fortunes and misfortunes that would befall people. Imagine the great enlightenment that would have occurred when these priest/doctors began to realize that the stars in the heavens moved at a predictable rate, and that certain phenomenon might be related to the stars being in certain positions. Suddenly humans could anticipate when the rivers would flood; they could begin to piece together generations of chronological information regarding the migration of food animals and the harvesting of food crops. Naturally, this would have been seen as a great manifestation of the divine in this world; it was a predictable manifestation of the divine that allowed lowly humans to be able to look into the mind of the creative force of the universe. The systems of medicine that evolved during this time had to be empirical at first, then, as a greater understanding of the surrounding world unfolded, certain predictions could be made. For example, bubonic plague breaks out; it might be perceived as a plague placed on the region by the Egyptian Goddess Bastet, a Goddess associated with cats. Treatment might consist of the consumption of plants blessed by Bastet, as well as an appropriate sacrifice to the local members of the cat family, or it may be bringing one of these animals into your home and taking care of it. By so appeasing Bastet, she relieves your residence of the plague. A treatment that works once tends to be repeated. Over thousands of years certain treatments, modified slightly over time, become the mainstay of medical practice. Nevermind that the cat was eating the rats which carried a flea that, in turn, carried a microscopic creature that may have caused the disease.

The relatively more stable civilizations were able to create very elaborate and amazingly complete systems of medicine still in use today. Those areas that were less stable, more prone to conquest and revolution, created like systems of medicine that were abandoned or aggressively modified as these regions experienced upheavals. The development of medical practice progressed hand in hand with the development of spiritual practice and an ever more sophisticated worldview. As differently as our modern eyes might see the traditional medical systems of China, India and North America, I would contend that there are similarities that transcend the respective ethnic differences of these cultures. It goes beyond the scope of this discussion to go into great detail comparing and contrasting the world’s ancient medical traditions, but I do think that we can glean some essential and universal truths from our ancestors with a cursory overview. Our quest in this overview is a radically timeless Truth, a fundamental understanding of the world around us as well as our relationship to it. Such a Truth could never be adequately captured in any single set of doctrines or ideas, but rather, by stepping outside of that paradigm we gain a different insight into that Truth. Our modern medical paradigm is not immune to this necessity. Our current understandings are a result of certain cultural evolutions that have their roots in these ancient traditions. Within the field of herbal medicine there is a tendency to glorify yesterday; to see a greater wisdom available in the past than in the present; to eulogize ancient Egypt, China, and India. Our obligation as herbalists, with the daunting task of preserving what is construed in many medical circles as an outdated and archaic practice of medicine, is to ensure that the botanical medicine that we practice in this modern age continues the evolution in understanding that began over 5000 years ago. What we are striving for is a radical and timeless Truth, an understanding that transcends place and time. When we find it, it will be True whenever and wherever it may be employed.

This is my very first Livejournal post. It is with a certain degree of reluctance that I begin this process...it seems so...not private.

My decision to begin posting in this kind of forum is largely the result of a suggestion from a friend and because I began feeling that it was time that I participate in some of the forums within which, I have previously been lurking (some of them for, literally, years).

Since the beginnings of human history, people all over our planet have found insight about themselves and their place in the world by means of spiritual quests. Illness and the accompanying desperate search for meaning within that illness quite often provide the impetus for such journeys of self-discovery. One criterion for a successful journey is to discover the psyche’s mysterious images as they lie in the underworld of the soul and to reconcile these revelations to the life that one is leading. All too often in our modern world, it is a discrepancy between what we know is right and true and how we might be living our life that results in dis-ease. Those of us who practice nature-based medicine and spirituality may have an obligation to hold ourselves to a certain higher standard in this realm, largely because we have the opportunity to be the standard bearers for a legitimate path back to authenticity, back to a reconciliation between what we are sure is right and how to live healthily in this world. The context of healthy living is established by the culture that we participate in; the possibility of finding an authentic spiritual path is not necessarily as dependent on that cultural context. Within any sociocultural atmosphere there can be a distinct difference between what marks a legitimate spiritual path and what marks an authentic spiritual path. Legitimacy is largely determined by what is considered right and acceptable by the majority of the individuals within that socio-cultural structure. Authenticity in a spiritual path is largely determined by the transformational potential that is inherent in that spiritual walk. It may be a legitimate spiritual path to go to church three times a week, if that activity does not produce lasting change inside of one’s self, it may not be an authentic spiritual walk. On the other hand, an individual who is engaged in a solitary spiritual practice that allows them to continually evolve and create lasting positive change within their own lives and the lives of those around them may be following an authentic but not socio-culturally legitimate path.

This distinction between legitimacy and authenticity is well established in the sociology of religion and spirituality, see Huston Smith’s classic “World Religions”. An interesting aside, many of the legitimate religious paths in the modern world were started as non-legitimate but authentic spiritual paths—consider Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha, and Mohammed. Mysticism began these great movements, dogmatism has largely been responsible for keeping them going. They possess a continued appeal because they provide a framework of understanding the intangible elements of life that we all feel exist but in the absence of consistent, concrete forms we tend to forget. The mystical experience is that reminder of the intangible spirit realm that is ever present but often forgotten. In many cases it is an event, or series of events, in a person’s life that is so affirming of the presence of spirit that it has the ability to alter the entire course of one’s life path. In general, the mystical experience implies a union with something greater than one’s self, out of this union comes the realization that all separation is an illusion. Ken Wilber, in his latest book, “Integral Spirituality”, describes four distinct types of mystical experience. Nature mysticism is the experience of one-ness with the natural world, Deity mysticism is the experience of one-ness with a deity, formless mysticism is that experience of one-ness with the causal, un-manifested state, and non-dual mysticism is the state of one-ness with all phenomena as it arises. When we discuss the possibility of “Encountering the Divine” we are, I believe, discussing this spectrum of mystical experience.

In much the same way that we talk about the legitimacy vs. authenticity of a spiritual process, there is an appropriateness to discussing different modes of healing within the same perspectives. The dominant medical paradigm represents a legitimized view of how healing can happen. It is only an authentic approach when it actually helps one achieve healing. Just because a disease can be “cured” doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual has experienced “healing”. Curing a disease state means that an objective measure of the process shows that it is gone, that is, the blood test is normal, the MRI or X-ray is normal, and the person is not going to die from that affliction. Healing implies that the person has engaged the process of recovery in such a way that they are made better for it, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. What difference does it make? Within the clinical setting the job is to get the individual from point A to point B—the diagnosis is strep throat, two weeks of penicillin, the strep throat is gone. The clinical approach is cut and dried and based on a double blind placebo controlled study. Should a health care practitioner even waste the time and money of the patient to discuss something as seemingly trivial as their emotional orientation to their condition? Is it relevant that Mrs. Jones feels emotionally that she doesn’t have a voice in her relationship, that she feels that she isn’t being heard and that she has had a diagnosed strep throat on her husband's birthday for the past 5 years? Not only does it matter, but what is the appropriate ethical position for a healthcare practitioner to take? A ten dollar penicillin prescription once a year may seem a small price to pay to maintain harmony in the family and keep the status quo. Perhaps the real price is what we might call a Domestic Martyrdom.