Herbs can heal, of that there is no doubt. Herbs have healed people for thousands of years and will continue to heal. But what is the purpose of our healing? What are we aiming for? An absence of symptoms? Is that all healing is?
Healing is much, much more than that. Healing is a journey, it is part of our life's journey. It's true goal is physical, spiritual and emotional well-being. I believe that herbs can help us on all these levels. But more than this, in order to heal we need to place well-being at the heart of our life. If you don't care about how you feel, or ignore what you feel you are really aiming your life at disorder and ill health. When we aim for well-being in our lives, when we place it at the heart of our relationship with ourselves, with others and with the earth, then we can truly be well.
I like to define well-being being in harmony and balance so that we can live our lives filled with love. Our heart is what balances us. In fact in in Thomas Cowan MD in the Fourfold Path to Healing talks about the what role the heart plays in the body, he says
“The heart does not pump-what is does is listen. This amazing organ senses what is in the blood and then calls forth the necessary hormones so that homeostasis is maintained and the cells can function optimally. The heart serves the cells not by pushing blood towards them but by balancing and integrating the bloods chemistry....the heart then is, is not a mechanical pump but actually a sensitive integrator or all our experience” (italics mine)
So our heart is one of our sense organs and we would do well to listen to our heart. It allows us the live in balance and harmony if we learn the languages of love.
The native American Navajo Indians have a term called hózhó: This is the Navaho purpose of life to achieve balance in a continual cycle of gaining and retaining harmony. It also means to strive for harmony and balance, beauty and order, and to preserve the balance between people and nature.
These concepts are not restricted just to Native American teaching, Traditional Chinese Medicine aims for balance between Ying and Yang and follows the forms of nature. Even Christianity crowns Jesus as the Prince of Peace. And for peace to occur their must be balance and harmony.
Balance and harmony are the heart of well-being. These are what we must place at the centre of our lives and our desires for being well. For the Navaho it is their whole life, and they see balance as something that is a constant activity in order to achieve harmony.
I see herbs as part of a way of supporting people so that their body, heart, mind and soul can aim for and maintain balance and harmony in their lives. The act of taking herbs is part of a constant practice of seeking balance, it brings us into relationship with ourselves.Herbs, being plants bring us into relationship with nature. Not just the herbs themselves but the relationship that we have with them aids our healing and well-being.
When we listen to our heart, we can walk the journey to our own healing . When we value well-being within ourselves as well as valuing well-being in our relationships with others and the earth we truly can create a world of love and peace.
Many Blessings
Lisa McAndrew
Good Heart Herbalist
(All text and photography copyright to Lisa McAndrew)
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