Lectures from the Blue Heron Academy

ABOUT THIS BOOK The following material is taken from a selected series of lectures provided by Dr. Gregory T. Lawton at the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences from 1980 to 2018.

LECTURES FROM THE ACADEMY Dr. Gregory T. Lawton

Lectures from the Academy

A Collection of Lectures from the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences by Dr. Gregory T. Lawton First Edition, September 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from Gregory T. Lawton. Copyright 2018.

Dr. Gregory T. Lawton 2040 Raybrook Street SE Suite 104 Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 2|Page

About the author Dr. Gregory T. Lawton is a licensed chiropractor in Michigan, a licensed naprapath in Illinois, and holds a license as a registered acupuncturist in Idaho.

Dr. Lawton is a health science writer and the author of over two hundred books, manuals and educational products ranging from massage therapy and martial arts, to health promotion, and from alternative medicine to conventional medicine. He is an award-winning artist and photographer.

Dr. Gregory T. Lawton began his martial art training as a child. He has trained in western boxing, wrestling, and Asian martial arts such as Aikido, Jujitsu, Kenpo, and Tai Chi Chuan.

Dr. Lawton’s main and most noted Tai Chi Chuan instructor was Professor Chi-Kwang Huo. Professor Huo, the renowned Chinese scholar, artist and calligrapher who served as Taiwan's ambassador to France and who was a friend of Pablo Picasso, was a master martial artist and was a student of Yang Shao Hou of the Yang Family.

Dr. Lawton has been a member of the Baha’i Faith since 1970 and follows the Faith’s principles related to the promotion of world peace and unity.

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Dedication I have often stated that I have learned more from my patients than I ever learned in school and so I dedicate this small collection of stories to my patients, and especially to the patients whose stories that I share in this book.

While I am not using real names, and I have changed certain identifying details, it is my hope that the poignant essence of my patients’ stories remains.

In addition, I am dedicating this book to my teachers and mentors. I am blessed to have had several remarkable people in my life who selfishly shared their abilities and wisdom with me. These teachers include Professor Chi-Kwang Huo, Dr. James Schleichert, Joan Laird, and Mr. Zikru’llah Khadem.

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SIMPLY A TEACHER I am simply a teacher, only moments ahead of you on this journey, and yet I lead.

I cannot change you. I cannot give you what you will not accept.

I cannot teach you what I do not know.

I cannot pass to you a gift I do not possess.

If you will not accept what I can give, what purpose is there to this?

I cannot give you all the love you long for, the love for which you so desperately search. I can only point you in the direction of true love and hope you will take that path. I cannot be all the people in your life you hoped would love you.

I am a teacher. I am not God. I am here to encourage you, to assist you, to simply point the way for you.

My responsibility is to simply lift you up, not carry you along.

Therefore, lift up your burden, arise and struggle.

Take the steps along the path of your life, your special life.

Find your truth, your goodness, your gifts and use them no matter what the cost, no matter what the sacrifice.

The truth is this - life lived without knowing yourself and acting on that knowledge is a sad, faded dream of what your life might have been.

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Lectures from the Academy

A Collection of Lectures from the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences

Table of Contents BEER AND SAUSAGE, Page 7 THE REACHABLE, TEACHABLE MOMENT, Page 10 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, Page 13 I DON’T THINK I WILL BE HERE, Page 16 THE USE OF MULLEIN LEAF (AND FLOWER), Page 19 SWEET BASIL TO THE RESCUE, Page 20 MID LIFE AND THE LIONESS, Page 22 VITEX, CHASTETREE BERRY, Page 26 HAVE ANOTHER CUP OF PAIN, Page 28 HEADACHES, Page 31 MAKING LIFESTYLE CHANGES, Page 33 AGING IS NOT A DISEASE, Page 34 TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP, THAT IS THE QUESTION, Page 36 SAGE, SKULLCAP, AND CASTOR OIL, Page 38 UNIVERSITY 4-6163, Page 40 THE HEALING INTIMACY OF TOUCH, Page 44 HIGH ANXIETY AND INTUITION, Page 48 I HAVE JUST GONE ALL TO HELL, Page 52 TEACH ME HOW TO KILL, Page 55 THE ASSAULT ON WOMEN, Page 57 HEALING IN THE SHADOWS, Page 61 WHENEVER THERE IS A FALL, Page 64 THE GUY WITH THE MUSCLE KNOT, Page 65 MISDIAGNOSIS, NEEDLESS SURGERY AND NO SECOND OPINION, Page 69 WHAT MAKES YOU THINK…., Page 71 CREATING A HEALING COMMUNITY, Page 73 NO CHARGE, Page 76 SAVING FACE, Page 80

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BEER AND SAUSAGE She was in her mid-fifties, of strong German descent, and a cosmetologist. She presented at my office with a complaint of severe pain in her right thumb joint (saddle joint). She had seen a rheumatologist and the diagnosis was osteoarthritis, throughout her body, but it was her thumb that was giving her fits.

I examined her and determined that she had advanced arthritis in her knees, hips, spine, and in both hands and wrists. She discounted the disease in these other joints as, “simply getting older� because that is what her rheumatologist had told her. The pain in her left hand and thumb joint was due to the additional wear and tear resulting from her work with scissors as a hair stylist. She explained to me that she preferred to work with scissors and razors rather than electric clippers, and that lately she had had to resort to using the clippers more because of pain, weakness, and limited range of motion in her right thumb and hand. Her fear was that she would have to take an early retirement and neither she nor her husband were financially prepared for that.

During the first two decades or so of my career medical physicians were telling their patients that there was no known cause for arthritis other than getting older. I was trained differently, and I was taught to look at diet and lifestyle factors as the cause.

I began treating her twice a week with manual therapy and therapeutic modalities for the pain and inflammation in her hands (both hands were arthritic). After each manual treatment I would apply red oil and massage it into her hands, wrists and forearms.

Red oil is an oil-based infusion of safflower oil and powdered cayenne pepper than is mixed together and allowed to sit in a cool dark place for a week and then strained through cheese cloth and used as a medicated oil. Red oil, used topically, increases local blood circulation and relieves pain. The old doctors that I trained with in Chicago taught me this and years later you could buy cayenne pepper products in pharmacies. I still prefer to make my own.

I would mention that in my herbal and manual therapy training I was taught to use medicated (herbal) topical preparations and to rub them into affected areas, such as arthritic joints. This was at a time when the medical profession was 7|Page

“debunking” this practice and these products as a health fraud because as they stated, “The skin is a barrier and these products cannot get through it.” Jump ahead a few decades and you have medical physicians using hormone and other drug patches….

I continued to treat her with limited success. Each treatment gave her a few days of relief, but we were not getting to the cause which I had identified as inflammation resulting from her diet (and worsened by her occupation). She had shared with me that she was a wonderful German cook and the meals that she prepared of roasts and rumps, and potatoes and noodles, were also heavily combined with sauces and gravies.

That diet alone, loaded with meat, fat, and sugar would have been enough to fuel inflammation, but then she told that every evening after dinner she and her husband would retire to their family room to watch television and to eat sausage and to drink a few beers. This had been their practice throughout 30 years of marriage.

I have never been one of those doctors that loads patients up with supplements and a long list of changes that must be made immediately. I believe that it is the slow and gradual changes that will stick. I suggested to her that she and her husband consider making some healthy vegetable substitutions to their evening meal and late-night snack. Here is her exact response to me, “Life would not be worth living without beer and sausage.” I have never forgotten her words.

This maybe where I first realized that food is an addiction like any other addiction and that to be effective in treating diet related diseases I needed to understand addiction and to use addiction treatment strategies with patients, no different than treating alcohol or drug addiction.

Two weeks after our “sausage and beer” conversation she arrived for her appointment at my office. She was not herself and she was obviously very depressed and sad. I asked her what was wrong, and she shared with me that her husband had suddenly died from a heart attack.

He had gone to his cardiologist for a heart checkup and stress test. He was told after the exam that his heart was healthy and that there were no concerns. On

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his way home, he lived two blocks from the hospital and had walked, he fell dead in the hospital parking lot. A sudden death from cardiac arrest.

For those of you that have followed these lectures, and who think that my statements on diet and alcohol, especially alcohol, may be “extreme�, I assure that from my perspective in treating thousands of patients over several decades, in pain and suffering from bad diets and alcohol, I am not extreme.

What is extreme is the processed food, alcohol and tobacco industries that hide the facts from people in order to profit from the sale of their products which contribute to pain, disease and death.

Live is indeed worth living without beer and sausage.

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THE REACHABLE, TEACHABLE MOMENT In the last story, Beer and Sausages, I described a sad case where I was not able to convince my patient of the need to make certain dietary changes to the family diet plan and soon after my conversation with her, her husband died of a sudden heart attack. By no means would this be the last time that I would fail in my efforts to convince a patient to make critical lifestyle changes.

This is a problem in all of health care, patients who will not accept the truth and who are unwilling to make needed changes, even for their own benefit and the benefit of those that they love. In defense of my brothers and sisters in the medical profession the system is flooded with patients who will not change their dietary habits. Often spouses, or significant others, in the patient’s life will not help the patient, even to safe their life. So, the question is, “How can we assist people in understanding the relation of diet and lifestyle to disease? Let’s discuss the reachable, teachable moment.

Early in my health care education and training I was blessed by the convergence of several critical factors comprised of knowledge and values that are rarely seen in doctors and medicine today. The first of these factors was my early awareness of the inherent spiritual nature of people and the importance of spirituality in health and healing. This truth is at the root of holistic health care which is based upon treating the entire person, mind, body, and spirit.

The second factor was that I was blessed early in my career with being able to train under highly competent and selfless natural physicians, a few of whom as I have mentioned, either went to school or practiced in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

The next factor in my development was a meeting with Baha’i Hand of the Cause of God, Zikrullah Khadem. I met with Mr. Khadem at a time when I was questioning the path that I had chosen, and I was considering dropping out of my doctoral program. Mr. Khadem not only set me straight, he set me on a path I have never deviated from.

The final factor was the appearance, one after the other, of a series of mentors, each a master of their own disciplines, each with a profound knowledge to share with me.

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I am blessed because I have met few other people who have been gifted with so many remarkable men and women in their lives. I will share the wisdom of one of these women with you.

Several years ago, I was traveling to a meeting at a hospital with Joan Laird. Joan was a physical education instructor at a community college and one of the foremost yoga instructors in Michigan. On the way to my presentation before the hospital board of directors and head of the cardiology department I expressed to Joan a sense of inadequacy and doubt regarding my ability to speak before this group. These are the words that Joan said to me, “Greg, you teach what you are.

You cannot give a gift that you do not possess.”

I would say that from that evening on I began to teach and practice from what I knew from my life and my heart to be true. Joan’s words changed how I taught classes to my students and the deeply personal, often painful, conversations that I had with my patients about their health, losses, dying, and death.

Most of us have learned that you cannot change people’s opinions, especially strongly held opinions on topics like religion and politics. But, if you listen to people, you may be able to gently change how they look at things. All great teachers have taught this way, not through argument but through examples, symbols and metaphors.

I have learned through conversations with patients, many of them in crisis, that facts and statistics don’t change people, heartfelt conversations at the reachable, teachable moment changes people.

When I am with a patient I am hoping that the reachable, teachable moment will appear. I attempt to guide the conversation in that direction by talking with my patients like I would have a conversation with a close friend. Often this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes the conversation is about the changes that a patient needs to make to regain their health, and sometimes it is about accepting losses, or preparing to say goodbye to those they love.

Along this healing path, I have learned that once somethings are broken, they cannot be fixed. Once we have harmed or hurt ourselves through certain lifestyle behaviors recovery is not a right or a guarantee. That is why when I am working 11 | P a g e

with a patient I hope that I have reached them in time and that they are receptive to the teachable moment.

I am reminded of a conversation with a young mother who had recently lost her infant daughter. She came to see me for a minor issue but during our conversation she began to talk about her grief at having lost her child. During our conversation, and beyond the pain of this loss. it became evident that her true pain was her anger with God and her loss of faith. After listening to her grief and anger to the point of tears and silence, I said to her, “Your daughter is still with you, and she is watching you and learning from you. What is it that you want to teach her about life and love?�

This was the reachable, teachable moment.

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TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES Thirteen years ago, my mother died at age seventy-six from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to her passing I drove down to Palm Bay, Florida to visit with her. I knew that this visit would likely be the last time that I would see her.

It was a pleasant and poignant visit and during one conversation with her as I got up to leave the room I heard her ask my father, “Who was that nice young man?”

I have talked with many patients and their families about this terrible disease and some of them have shared similar stories with me of becoming children forgotten by their parents. For those who come from “difficult” family circumstances and abuse, Alzheimer’s is a cruel ending to a sad story.

I will never forget, decades ago, my first Alzheimer’s patient who with abject fear in his eyes dug his fingers into my arm and begged me to help him. I was not able to offer him much help and his condition very quickly deteriorated followed by his death. Since I entered practice it has been my policy not to charge patients with very serious or terminal illnesses. If I cannot help them why would I charge them and if I can help ease their fear and pain the human thing to do is to help them without expectation of reward.

I left my parents’ house on Christmas day and drove west. I drove thirty-two hours straight through to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. When I checked into my motel room I was almost hallucinogenic from a lack of sleep and I slept well into the afternoon of the next day.

Truth or Consequences seemed like an appropriate place to stop considering my mental and emotional state. TC is known for its revitalizing hot springs which litter the town. Dig a hole anywhere in TC and you will probably hit hot water. I soaked in the springs and followed the soak with a massage. I was feeling alive again.

The massage therapist that treated me told me about a New Year’s Eve party that was being held at the Black Range Lodge and vaguely gave me directions to it.

“Turn at so and so road and drive to the end, she said. She had indicated that the party would start early afternoon on New Year’s Day. She told me to this party would come musicians and artists from all over the southwest. Apparently, the party was an annual event.

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If anything, I am punctual, so at 2PM on New Year’s Day I pulled into the parking lot of the Black Range Lodge. I walked through the door and several musicians were setting up their equipment in the main room. I was asked if I was a musician and I indicated that I was not, so they directed me towards the kitchen. It soon became evident that they assumed that I was a volunteer come to help set up the party which would not begin until later that evening.

Upon entering the kitchen, I was placed at a table, handed a large bowl of Kiwi’s and a knife and instructed to peel them. I dutifully began my task. Sometime later a woman burst into the kitchen with a load of groceries and all hands went to help her unload her car. I continued the to peel Kiwi’s.

After the groceries were put away, and things settled down, the woman, the owner of the lodge, noticed me sitting quietly peeling Kiwi’s and came over to talk with me. Who are you, she asked? I introduced myself as doctor Lawton from Michigan and inquired as to whether there were any rooms available for the night. Ignoring my question, she asked, “Why are you peeling Kiwi’s? I explained that I had arrived a while ago to check on a room for the night and was told to peel Kiwi’s.

A look of amusement crossed her face and she explained that there were no rooms available, that they had in fact been booked up since the previous year because of the annual New Year’s Eve party. Then she said, “Did you say that you are a doctor?” I explained what kinds of “doctoring” I did which is always an interesting conversation and she informed me that half of her guests were in bed with a bad strain of the flu or some such malady. She asked if I could help them. I said that I could if she had certain herbs and spices.

She walked me into her pantry and yes, she had most everything that I needed.

Using the ingredients available I proceeded to cook up a large pot of an herbal decoction based upon a 2000-year-old Chinese formula. I was however, missing one key and critical ingredient.

Now my story goes back a day in time to a hike that I took through the desert.

While on my hike I spied a plant that I recognized as Mormon Tea (Ephedra nevadensis), and I picked it not quite knowing why (this act was also illegal). Now this plant while a relative of the Chinese ephedra is not the same, but it was as 14 | P a g e

close as I could get in New Mexico. I just added some green tea with it to get the stimulant properties that I was looking for and competed my decoction.

After the herbal decoction was cooked and strained I began administering it to my house full of sick patients. I can report to you that after several hours of tea infusion every one of my patients was feeling improved and attended the party.

As car loads of partiers arrived one group came in who had been in a bad car accident on the way to the party. There were five of them and I evaluated and treated each of them. That evening there was a drug overdose and a threat of suicide.

I could hear the party below me as I treated and counseled patients on the second floor of the building. The music sounded good. It rich tones filtering through the floor boards. I worked all through the night and at dawn I was finally finished treating patients and there wasn’t anything to do but to quietly leave.

As I was leaving a young woman who had been in the car accident approached me and said, “I saw what you did last night.” “I want to give you this”, and she handed me a small metal sculpture that she fashioned from recycled car parts.

Her gift sits on a shelf in my office as a reminder that wherever you go as your true self everything will be in balance. A doctor will find patients, a teacher will find students. If you can heal or teach, open your heart to the people around you and you will have nothing to fear.

These are the consequences of truth.

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I DON’T THINK I WILL BE HERE As I wrote in a previous a story the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences began as a free school for women who were victims of domestic abuse, rape and incest. In the story to follow I am going to describe a conversation with a female patient, who despite physical and emotional abuse, as well as, infidelity in her relationship, chose to stay in the relationship. Whenever I tell this story it is always with the advice that if you are in a relationship of abuse of any kind leave and find a place where you, and your children if you have any, are safe.

I do not believe I have used any patient names in any of my previous stories but in this story, I am going to make up fictitious names. These patients are no longer alive, but I am going to mention their children and they are alive and were my patients as well. The entire family were my patients.

Maryanne (not her actual name) came to see me because she had broken her hip falling off a massage table during a reiki energy treatment with a therapeutic massage therapist (I swear it is true). She came to see me because after hospitalization, physical therapy, pain and anti-inflammatory medication she still had high levels of pain and limited mobility.

Medical manual therapy is a unique form of deep tissue treatment which while being relatively painless also addresses soft tissue pathology at its deepest levels at the joint and joint capsule (the soft tissue tendon and ligamentous covering of a joint). In this case of Maryanne’s chronic pain related to a hip fracture it was ideal for her and she received a great deal of benefit from it. In addition to medical manual therapy Maryanne was treated with castor oil packs.

Castor oil packs are effective in treating joint injuries and fractures once the bone or joint is stable and inflammation has subsided. It only took a few weeks of this combined treatment for Maryanne to show significant improvement. After two months of treatment, first twice per week and then once per week, her pain was almost gone, and she had normal range of motion and mobility in her hip.

It was during one of her treatment sessions, and upon the eve of her 50th wedding anniversary, I was moved to ask Maryanne how she had survived 50 years with her husband a mean drunk, womanizer, and abuser.

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Allow me to inject, her husband, let’s call him Carl, was also my patient and I liked him. For me to say this is saying something because I strongly dislike men who abuse women and children and that is an understatement. He had been a monster but now decades older and dying from a terminal illness he was a different man. I knew the family history because the entire family were my patients and each of them had shared with me their stories of “life with Carl”.

Maryanne thoughtfully considered my question regarding how she had managed to remain with Carl and to reach their 50th wedding anniversary and then she said, “Because quitting was never an option.” She then went on to explain that for her marriage was forever.

While we may disagree with her choice, and her four sons might hold a different opinion. Maryanne came from another time and age. She married Carl at the beginning of World War II. This was a different time for women, especially women who were pregnant with their first child.

I have often thought about Maryanne’s response, “Because quitting was not an option”, and I carry her words with me and I share them when the time seems right with young students who are willing to quit anything too easily.

When I met her husband Carl I expected to dislike him but that did not happen.

Carl had changed a great deal over the course of his life and he was now ten years sober. He had terminal emphysema and he was dying by breaths, one labored breath after another. Carl had been a pack a day man, Camel’s unfiltered, for most of his life. He loved the taste of the cigarette and the burn of the bourbon.

I came to care deeply for Carl and I did everything in my power to help him cope with his terminal emphysema. Mostly, I was just making him comfortable. I was using a special thoracic rib cage technique on Carl that I had learned in the late 1970’s from a naprapath in Chicago who was in his 90’s. He had stated that he had learned the technique from an old osteopath who practiced in the 1800’s. It is a rare technique, I have never seen it in a textbook or met anyone else that knew the technique. I teach it to my advanced students at the Academy. We often combine this “rib” technique with castor oil packs which are known to help soften scar tissue.

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The medications he was taking had destroyed his kidney’s and he had bladder disease and prostate cancer. The prostate cancer was not going to kill him, he was going to be dead from the emphysema long before that would happen.

The last time I saw Carl he was hospitalized for his bladder problem. I went to the hospital to visit him and found he had been neglected in bed, his bladder was the size of a basketball and he had not had a bowel movement in a week. He was in great pain and distress.

I went to the nurse’s station and like Christ with the moneylenders I threw a fit and demanded Carl be helped. This was not the first time I pulled such a stunt, at least this time they did not call security to have me removed from the hospital.

I stayed by his side until I knew he was comfortable and cared for. Then I told him I would see him in two days (I was heading out of town). Carl calmly said, “Greg, I do not think I will be here then.” I assured Carl, as I had many times before, that he would be alright, and I would see him again. I was certain I would.

This was not the first time I was wrong about that. So many patients have told me when they are going to die you would think by now I would be smarter about it. Maybe, I don’t want to know. I don’t want that conversation to be the last one.

I believe I have learned more from my patients than I have ever taught them.

You may wonder how over fifty years of health care practice I remember so many details about my patients. It is because my teachers taught me to memorize these details because if we (in our profession) wrote anything down or kept medical records, those records and what we recorded could be used against us in a court of law since we were persecuted and prosecuted for helping to alleviate human pain and suffering.

The weight of these stories has been heavy in my heart for many years. Perhaps now through the writing of this, finally putting it to paper, I can let it go. We do not measure time by minutes, hours, or days, we measure it by memories of love and pain and moments of joy and sorrow.

I hold the stories of my patients in my heart and sometimes I remember, and I pray for them.

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THE USE OF MULLEIN LEAF (AND FLOWER) Ever since I was a child, and especially when living on a farm, I can remember seeing the stalks of Mullein along the roadside and in fields. I have always admired Mulleins long stalks dotted with yellow flowers.

Since the early 1970’s Mullein has always been one of my favorite herbal medicines.

I recommend it frequently to my patients for two conditions; generalized pain and soreness, and bronchial and lung congestion. Its anti-inflammatory properties reduce inflammation and its anodyne properties relieves pain.

Mullein makes a pleasant tasting tea (honey or raw sugar may be added). When used for pain, soreness, inflammation, or a dry cough I suggest 3 cups of Mullein tea per day and spread out during the day.

When I am teaching herbal medicine at the Academy a question that I ask my students is, “Why would you think or believe that the herbal medicines that are provided by God and through nature would be less effective than the manmade synthetic drugs manufactured by drug companies?� It is foolish to think so.

Medicinal Properties and Uses: Mullein's properties include mucilage, gum, a trace of volatile oil, resin, saponins, the flavonoids hesperidin and verbascoside, bitter glycosides, and tannins. Mullein is a valuable remedy for most conditions affecting the respiratory system. As Mullein has a tonic effect on the lungs, Mullein tea relieves lung congestion and a raspy, hacking cough and swollen glands. It calms and relaxes the mucous membranes, making it an excellent remedy for dry, chronic coughs such as bronchitis, and asthma.

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SWEET BASIL TO THE RESCUE “Why would you think or believe that the herbal medicines that are provided by God and through nature would be less effective than the manmade synthetic drugs manufactured by drug companies?�

Following up on my comments yesterday regarding the use of mullein tea as a valuable pain relieving and anti-inflammatory herbal medicine I want to mention sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum).

Several years ago, as I was getting ready to go to my office there was a knock on my apartment door. When I opened the door, I found one of my patients bent over with severe abdominal pain and bloating. I invited her in and questioned her about her painful situation. It turned out that the cause of her pain was a serious bout of flatulence (gas).

As I talked with her I put on a glass pot of water and heated it up just below boiling. To the water I added some sweet basil leaves. I allowed the mixture to simmer and then turned it down to allow the leaves to steep. After the infusion sat for a few minutes I added a small amount of honey and gave it to my unexpected patient. Within 20 minutes she was pain free (and free of gas and bloating).

That is one of the amazing benefits of sweet basil leaf tea. Sweet basil will work in most any form for stomach irritation and flatulence. In some cultures, the raw leaves are eaten with a meal. I have had patients who I have educated on its use rush into a grocery store and buy the dried leaf and chew it in their mouth and swallow the juice. It worked as well as an infusion of the tea. You can also take basil in capsules.

Sweet basil has many other qualities and benefits. It has been used as a medicine by numerous cultures for thousands of years (there are records going back for 5000 years). Basil is a good source of vitamin K, beta carotene, and iron, the plant is known to possess anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties. Many of the benefits of basil can be attributed to its volatile oils and flavonoids, as well as, powerful, antioxidants that reduce inflammation, are antiaging, and promote a healthy cardiovascular system.

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The essential oils in sweet basil have been found in research studies to have potent antibacterial qualities. These chemical constituents of sweet basil have been shown in studies to be effective in restricting the growth of Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli, and several other pathogenic bacteria. A study published in a 2004 issue of Food Microbiology demonstrated that basil oils can even stop the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

What is sweet basil good for?

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Stomach irritation and gastritis Gastro-intestinal infections Inflammation leading to plaque formation in arteries As an anti-inflammatory Increases immune function Reduces the oxidation of cholesterol In the treatment of anemia and clotting disorders Helps to regulate blood sugar levels in pre-diabetes and diabetes type II

Sweet basil is a pleasant tasting tea that can be consumed throughout the day or you can add the fresh herb to your meals and salads.

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MID LIFE AND THE LIONESS When women are approaching, going through, or passing out of menopause (peri menopause, menopause and post menopause) and they share with me their stories of hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, mood swings, insomnia, tachycardia, fluctuations in blood pressure and all of the other tales of woe related to changing female hormones and feminine biochemistry, there is one herb that comes to my mind and that stands above many possible choices and that herb is Leonorus cardiaca or Motherwort. Leonorus cardiaca means lion hearted and this herb is a member of the mint family.

Motherwort is a highly prized herbal heart medicine especially for tachycardia but is also quite useful for all heart conditions associated with anxiety and tension, including helping to lower high blood pressure.

Motherwort has been safely and effectively used by women and herbalists for centuries and is known to have been used by Greek and Roman physicians.

Motherwort has also been used for similar purposes and disorders by the Chinese.

Here are a few studies on the benefits of Motherwort: • In the German Commission E monographs Motherwort is recommended to treat nervous cardiac disorders and as an adjuvant therapy for thyroid disorders (Blumenthal M et al, eds: German Commission E monographs therapeutic guide to herbal medicine, Austin, 1998) • Motherwort has been used in Chinese medicine to treat coronary heart disease in people with favorable results and laboratory studies in China have shown it has an anti-spasmodic action on heart muscle cells (Kuang PG et al: J Tradit Chin Med 8(1):37-40, 1988) • In laboratory experiments Motherwort extracts have been shown to reduce high blood pressure and to exert a mild sedative and antispasmodic effect (Arustamova FA: Izv Akad Nauk Arm SSR Biol Nauki 1963,16(7):47-52) Motherwort can be taken in several forms, the most common being an alcohol tincture (extract), an aqueous (water) infusion (tea), or in a powder form in capsules. For convenience I usually recommend the alcohol tincture. In some patients, and in some circumstances, Motherwort may increase menstrual 22 | P a g e

bleeding. It does not always do this. I have found that the alcohol tincture is more likely to cause increased bleeding than in the tea form.

Motherwort alcohol tincture is readily available from almost any health food store. Please keep in mind that medical grade herbal medicines are commonly available throughout the European Union in pharmacies. This is not true in the United States.

The herb Motherwort can also be ordered in various forms online including the dried herb which is composed of the above ground parts, leaves and flowers of the plant. These parts of the herb may be ordered from Mountain Rose Herbs: https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/search?page=1&q=motherwort&utf8=%E2 %9C%93 In terms of dosage, and I am talking about adults, if the alcohol tincture is being used then 10 to 20 drops per dose with 1 dose for mild cases or an hour before bed for insomnia or night sweats, 2 doses per day for more serious symptoms, and 3 doses per day for more difficult and persistent symptoms. Motherwort is safe and nontoxic, so additional doses can be recommended as needed. Based on my experience of over 50 years Motherwort is one of those herbs where lower doses spread out over time are more effective than larger doses.

If Motherwort is being consumed as a tea I would suggest 2 cups per day separated by several hours. The choice of what form of Motherwort you chose to take, and how much will be largely based upon how you respond physically and mentally to this herbal medicine. Eventually, you will become the best judge of how and when to take it. Remember, for certain symptoms it can be consumed – as needed.

Motherwort is commonly used for the following conditions: • • • • • • •

All heart related anxiety disorders Heart palpitations Tachycardia related to menopause Migraine related to menopause Menstrual cramps Pelvic inflammation (PID) PMS 23 | P a g e

• Insomnia In the US medical literature there is concern regarding Motherwort and pregnancy, but historically Motherwort was commonly used for complaints during pregnancy and with Red Raspberry Leaf prior to delivery. The German Commission E indicates that Motherwort is safe to use during pregnancy.

However, I never recommend it or any herb that may increase uterine contractions during pregnancy until late in the final trimester of the pregnancy, especially in first time moms where the risk factors are unknown.

Please note that the standard American diet, high in meat, animal fat, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine will greatly worsen and intensify your symptoms related to the stages of menopause.

“So why can a French woman in Paris walk into a pharmacy and buy a Motherwort tincture, but an American woman cannot walk into a pharmacy in any US city and buy it?”

For my Baha’i readers, please note that the guidance in the Baha’i writings indicates that disease should be treated first by diet and herbs, and if that fails, to resort to prescription medication, but if that medication proves to be worse than the disease, to stop using it.

The caution to follow is not because Motherwort is not safe to use (it is a very safe herb), but rather because it may not be safe to use with prescription drugs used to treat high blood pressure or heart disease.

In my previous two lectures on the use of mullein and sweet basil the use of these two very safe and effective herbs for minor pain, inflammation, respiratory issues, and gastric upset, was very simple and straightforward. The brief recommendations to follow on Motherwort (Leonorus cardiaca) are a different situation because of the cardiac symptoms that it may be used to treat. If you are being treated for menopausal related cardiac issues, please read the next paragraph.

If you are currently on heart or blood pressure medication talk with your cardiologist before using Motherwort. I treat patients with herbal medicine and I recommend that patients only use synthetic medicines when diet and herbal 24 | P a g e

medicine is not effective (I have never treated a menopausal issue where it was not). I do not interfere between a patient and their allopathic or osteopathic physician and I do not remove patients from their prescription drugs.

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VITEX, CHASTETREE BERRY In my practice I have recommended Vitex to women in perimenopause, menopause, and post menopause, as well as, for PMS, PID, Endometriosis, Ovarian Cysts, Fibrocystic Breast Disorder, and various forms of menstrual irregularity more than any other herbal remedy.

In the interest of being brief I will not recount the centuries of safe use of Chasteberry. Many European physicians prescribe plants and herbs such as chasteberry as a treatment of choice over synthetic pharmaceuticals or hormone analogs. Chasteberry has been used for “luteal phase disorders” which typically results from low progesterone levels. Chasteberry or Vitex (you can use either name) is a good answer to the xenoestrogen onslaught that women and men undergo. Xenoestrogens result from drugs, chemicals, and plastics in our food, beverage, and water supply. Xenoestrogen along with clinical obesity are a cause of hormonal imbalance.

Chasteberry contains naturally occurring progestins which explains its efficacy and ability to offset the work of the antagonistic estrogen and xenoestrogens.

There is a complicated interplay among the various hormones that regulate hormonal activities in the female body. The allopathic or osteopathic physician approaches hormonal imbalances and the symptoms and disorders of hormonal imbalance by prescribing synthetic or “bioidentical” hormones.

Often these medical hormones cause further imbalances and increase the risk of reproductive system cancers, vascular and heart disease, blood clots and strokes.

Why take the risk? Additionally, these doctors will also prescribe dangerous and harmful medications for insomnia (hypnotics and sedatives) and very concerning psychotropic and anti-depressant medications. Many of these drugs have severe side effects, aren’t all that effective to begin with, and can lead to increased depression, addiction, or suicide.

If it wasn’t for the power and money of pharmaceutic companies, and if female health, wellbeing, and safety was the goal, I do not believe that these drugs would be allowed to be prescribed. Why not use safe and effective natural alternatives?

So how do you choose between Motherwort and Vitex? It is your symptoms that indicate which of the two herbs to use. If your symptoms focus heavily around 26 | P a g e

emotional mood swings, depression, anxiety and heart problems then Motherwort is the herb of choice. If your symptoms center around hot flashes, sweats, anxiety, and insomnia then Vitex may be the correct choice.

You can choose one or the other, or you can use both (depending upon your symptoms) and simply alternate the dose of each throughout the day.

I normally recommend Vitex as an alcohol tincture (extract) at a dosage level of 20 drops (I rarely go over 30) in a small amount of warm or hot water. (The hot water helps to evaporate some of the alcohol out of the liquid.) Vitex is commonly taken in 2 or 3 doses per day, and this is based upon the frequency and severity of your symptoms. Vitex can also be taken as needed to treat a flare up of acute symptoms.

I have some new friends following these lectures, so I will add this information. I began my studies of herbal medicine in 1970, I taught my first college classes (Lake Michigan Community College) in 1969 on drug addiction. I am licensed to practice Chiropractic, Naprapathy, and Acupuncture in 3 states; Michigan, Illinois, and Idaho. I founded the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences in 1980. I am a Baha'i and I follow the Baha'i guidance on health and healing which includes recommendations for diet, herbal, and homeopathic medicine.

If you are moved to try any of the herbs that I am discussing I suggest that you seek out and consult with a qualified herbalist or naturopath in your area. If you are on various allopathic or osteopathic drugs you will need to consult with them about possible drug/herb interactions and perhaps how to get off their medications. Never stop taking a drug on your own. Synthetic pharmaceuticals are highly toxic, often addictive, and can cause serious side effects when stopped abruptly.

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HAVE ANOTHER CUP OF PAIN At the beginning of this conversation we reviewed the use of Mullein leaf and flower as a general pain reliever. Why should care about using an herbal pain reliever as opposed to Aleve, Advil, or Nuprin? The over the counter drugs are cheap, effective, and more convenient than a cup of herbal tea. Complications from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAID, have been linked to 103,000 hospitalizations and more than 16,000 deaths per year in the US, according to a study published in the American Journal of Therapeutics.

The FDA, normally the main cheerlead for pharmaceutical companies as stated, “FDA is strengthening an existing warning in prescription drug labels and overthe-counter (OTC) Drug Facts labels to indicate that nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can increase the chance of a heart attack or stroke, either of which can lead to death.” https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm453610.htm In this conversation I would like to take a deeper look at pain as it relates to our daily diet and beverage choices and ask the question, “A you, and your dietary choices the primary cause of your pain?” The answer is probably yes.

Diet, Caffeine and Pain (or have another cup of pain) Are You in Pain? People who are in pain are usually taking pain medication, from over the counter medications to opioid drugs. The list of pharmaceutical drugs designed to relieve pain is extensive. If you combine the numbers from the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, and the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies there are 170 million American’s in pain. This means that over half of the US population is on pain medication. This makes sense since we know from the Journal of the American Medical Association that 60 percent of the US population is taking a prescription drug. Add to this number the number of people taking recreational drugs and drinking alcohol, and well – we are the most drugged nation on earth.

I routinely treat patients with two main health complaints. One, they cannot move, walk, lift, sit or engage in physical activities because of a loss of function in their limbs or back. Two, they are in pain. Most of these patients are on prescription medications, many of them are on two to six medications at once.

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Since the 1970’s I have been attempting to educate my patients regarding pain and diet. Allow me to express my frustration for a moment… What sense does it make to take a pain medication, perhaps one or more drugs with serious side effects and/or that is addictive, and to consume foods and beverages which increase pain?

Take for example coffee and caffeinated beverages. 83 percent of the US population drinks coffee and when you add in energy drinks and products like Coke and Mountain Dew, well, that is just about everyone. The popularity of caffeinated beverages is based upon caffeine’s effects on the central nervous and endocrine systems of the body. Caffeine is a stimulant that increases brain and nerve impulses and responses. Unfortunately, it also increases pain.

This fact seems to surprise people, that a chemical which increases nerve activity would increase your pain experience. There is conflicting information in books and on the internet, but it is well established that caffeine, in any form, makes pain worse. Washing down Motrin, Nuprin, or Advil with a swallow of coffee makes no sense at all. The more caffeine you consume the more pain you have and the more pain medication you need. It is a vicious cycle.

The next question is how much sugar do you put in each cup of coffee that you drink, or how much sugar is in a bottle of Mountain Dew? The average person consumes 3 to 4 cups of coffee per day and some consume 8 or more cups per day. The average coffee drinker adds 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar to each cup of coffee. All sugar, but especially processed sugar, increases overall body inflammation and inflammation equals pain and degeneration of joints. For more on this topic go to my page at issuu.com/muyblue and download my free booklet on aging, disease, and inflammation. By the way, there are 62 grams of sugar in one 16-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew and this is equal to over 12 teaspoons of sugar. When would you ever sit down and just eat 12 teaspoons of sugar one after the other?

If you are in pain to the point that you need pain and/or anti-inflammatory medication, then you need to understand that the processed sugary foods that you eat and the caffeinate beverages that you drink reduce the effects of your medication and increase your pain. Pain and caffeine do not go well together.

Here is the dietary equation to remember: 29 | P a g e

Sugar and alcohol fuels inflammation and inflammation causes pain.

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HEADACHES Let’s turn our attention to a common ailment for which many people reach for an NSAID, or perhaps a stronger prescription medication. (please refer to my previous lecture on the dangers of NSAID’s.)

Let’s talk about headaches, how to avoid them, and how to treat them without harmful or addictive drugs.

Common classifications of primary headaches include migraine, cluster, and tension. However, you should know that while the triggers of these three primary types of headaches differ, the physiological (neurological and vascular) mechanisms that results in the pain that you experience are the same. So, no matter what the cause (trigger) is for your headache the body’s pain response in the brain, is the same.

Triggers of Headaches: There are many known triggers for the primary kinds of headaches and some people have triggers unique to them. These triggers include: (abbreviated list) o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Hormonal changes Fluctuations in estrogen Menstruation Pregnancy Hormonal medications Oral contraceptives Hormone replacement therapy Foods high in tannic acid Alcohol, especially red wine Caffeinated beverages Salt Aged cheeses Salty foods Processed foods Food additives Aspartame Monosodium glutamate

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‌.and this is the short list. Add to this list weather changes and certain vapors, fumes, and smells. But the list goes on!

Identify your triggers: The first step in headache management and reduction is to identify your personal triggers. I have two tools that help with that. One, I have a headache checklist.

Two, I have a format for a headache journal. If you want copies of either of these tools, message me on Facebook.

After, and through the process of journaling, you have identified your headache triggers the next step is to eliminate or reduce the foods, beverages, and other factors that are within your control. If changes in weather, such as rainy and humid days, are a trigger you cannot control the weather. But if florescent lights are a trigger you can change your light bulbs. If stress and eye strain from a computer screen or your tablet are a trigger you can dim your screen, change the screen setting from blue to a warmer yellow, and/or reduce your screen time.

I have found, after treating hundreds of patients for headache complaints, that simply identifying your triggers, and eliminating them, can reduce chronic headaches by 75 percent. Add, to this regular exercise to improve blood flow, tone the sympathetic nervous system, increase tissue oxygenation, and break your cycle of stress, and you can become almost headache free.

Treating your headaches – Herbal medicine: There are many herbs recommended in popular books or online for the treatment and/or prevention of headaches. Some I have found to be useless (Feverfew), and others such as Tang Kuei (Dong Quai), also known as Angelica Sinensis, to be highly effective and invaluable. To the women reading this, Dong Quai is probably an herb that you have heard of. It has been used for centuries by women for menopausal disorders. Tang Kuei is the Chinese name and I specifically use it in an herbal combination called Tang Kuei Four which is readily available from several sources online, my preference being a form that is manufactured by a company called Sun Ten.

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MAKING LIFESTYLE CHANGES Think that it is difficult to make positive changes and to follow a healthy lifestyle?

Try living with a debilitating disease or chronic pain. For many people serious illness or pain creates a teachable moment where they realize that they are responsible for their health (not a doctor). Some people come to this realization in time to make changes and to live a healthy life, and others do not. In my classes at the Academy I teach, "Once somethings are broken, they cannot be fixed." Not every disease or disorder can be cured, degenerative diseases, especially of the joints can create lasting disabling damage and an artificial joint is a poor substitute for your natural joint.

In 1976 I was riding a bus to school in Chicago. I was sitting on the back of the bus, studying for an exam and eating a multi-grain, peanut butter and honey sandwich. The bus stopped to pick up a passenger and it seemed to take a very long time for the person to get up the steps of the bus. I looked up from my physiology textbook and watched as a woman in her late 50’s or early 60’s was struggling in great pain to get onto the bus. She had to come up the steps backwards because her knees and hips were so diseased that they would not flex normally. Her back was bent into a large hump (kyphotic) mostly the result of osteoporosis and arthritis.

The moment that I looked at this woman this thought came to my mind, “The “inconvenience” of living a healthy lifestyle is nothing compared to years of pain and suffering due to disease.”

American’s are experiencing serious degenerative diseases earlier and earlier in life because of systemic inflammation, obesity and diabetes. A person acquiring these diseases in their 40’s may have another four or five decades of life ahead of them. That could be years of pain, medication, surgery, and a disease that limits your ability to do the things in life that you love with the people that you love.

Think that it is difficult to make positive lifestyle changes? Think again….

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AGING IS NOT A DISEASE I began teaching classes on addiction, including alcohol addiction, in 1969 as an assistant instructor at Lake Michigan Community College. I also worked for the Berrien County Drug Rehabilitation Center during the same time period and my role was to travel throughout West Michigan and provide presentations on drug and alcohol abuse and addiction. I have worked in and around drug and alcohol addiction for almost 50 years. I am the author of an anti-drug coloring book for children and I practice alternative and holistic medicine because of my opposition to medical drug therapy.

In the conversation to follow I briefly review how aging is not a disease, does not have to lead to disease, and what the real causes of disease are.

Aging is not a Disease Aging is not a disease, sickness is a disease. Infection is a disease. Aging does not cause most diseases; it is your lifestyle that can cause disease and accelerate your aging. Most people would be capable of living into their 70’s, 80’s or possibly even their 90’s without serious degenerative disease if they simply changed their lifestyle behavior. For many years of my practice of health care I taught this fundamental truth, aging is not a disease.

While it is true that eventually, if you live well into your advanced years some joints will show wear and some organs will begin to fail, it is possible to live most of your life without degenerative diseases and the limiting pain and disability that often comes with these disorders.

Your familial genetics and your lifestyle are the determining factors in terms of how your body ages and of these two factors by far, your lifestyle choices related to diet, nutrition, drugs and alcohol are the most important determinant.

If you are suffering from pain related to degenerative joint disease the primary causes are diet, alcohol/drugs, obesity and chronic systemic inflammation.

Systemic inflammation is the root cause of many diseases including most joint disease, heart disease, and many cancers. I cover the topic of chronic systemic inflammation in my booklet, “The Role of Inflammation in Aging and Disease.”

You may download this booklet free from my page at https://issuu.com/muyblue 34 | P a g e

By their 5th decade of life alcohol drinkers will begin to show obvious signs of rapid aging, by their 6th decade of life the average drinker will show significant aging of their skin, hair, nails and joints and may present with a biological age 10 to 15 years beyond their chronological age. It they are 55 years old, by physical appearance, they may look 65. Alcohol causes cellular stress and that is the biological definition of aging.

The so-called health benefits of alcohol are attributed to the same nutrients found in grape juice and other fruits and vegetables, without the alcohol. The alcoholic content in a glass of wine is not the chemical constituent of wine that is beneficial. It is phytochemicals found in grapes such as its antioxidants and polyphenols, including resveratrol and various flavonoids, that provide health benefits.

Keep in mind that drinking any type or amount of alcohol can cause damage to the heart, brain, nerves, liver and other organs, and it can cause high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides and increase your risk of developing certain cancers. Any amount of alcohol increases the risk of gastrointestinal cancer, including colon cancer. Alcohol is absolutely contraindicated for any one with esophagitis, gastric reflux, gastritis, stomach ulcers, pancreatitis, Crohn’s disease, IBS, and diverticulosis/diverticulitis.

Recent studies will no doubt result in a significant backlash and push back from “moderate” drinkers, as well as, the beer, wine, and liquor industry. You will probably begin to see the media carrying more stories regarding the “amazing health benefits” of alcohol. Don’t believe it. Their intention is to sell more alcohol and to confuse the issue to the point where no one is certain of the truth.

Alcohol has been and remains the number one drug problem in the United States and worldwide.

As stated previously, alcohol is only one factor in the degenerative disease process, the standard American diet (SAD) is the cornerstone upon which most degenerative diseases are established in the human body. If you want to stay healthy, if you want to live long and enjoy life, follow a diet and lifestyle plan based upon plant nutrients, vegetables, fruits, and large amounts of whole grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes (complex carbohydrates). Food is not only your medicine, it is your life!

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TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP, THAT IS THE QUESTION This morning I want to continue our conversation on herbal medicine by discussing one of my favorite nervine herbs, Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata).

Despite its name, Passionflower, has been shown to be an effective sedative and hypnotic. As a sedative it helps with anxiety and as a hypnotic it helps you to sleep.

We will talk about American’s prescription drug addiction (60 percent of Americans are taking a prescription drug) in a future lecture. In 2013, 16.7 percent of 242 million U.S. adults reported filling one or more prescriptions for psychiatric drugs, (As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Internal Medicine.)

Insomnia and sleep disorders are normally short-term experiences and selflimiting for most people. Some people with chronic anxiety and insomnia feel that they need medical assistance and will generally walk away from a medical appointment with a prescription for a hypnotic drug such as Ambien, Sonata, or Lunesta. If you watch television, you are probably well educated regarding these drugs from the ubiquitous drug commercials advertising them.

If your insomnia or sleep disorder is chronic this is often an indication of problems with your lifestyle involving poor sleeping habits, the overuse of media devices, late night gaming or internet surfing, too much caffeine, a poor diet, alcohol consumption, late night eating, and many other factors. Sometimes insomnia is the result of respiratory or breathing difficulties (sleep apnea) and then the problem should be medically diagnosed and treated.

To effectively treat insomnia, you need to identify the behaviors and your personal “triggers” that are causing your lack of sleep or your anxiety. Once you identify the behaviors and triggers they need to be eliminated or managed appropriately. This action is the foundation of your personal plan to manage your anxiety or sleeping disorder. What is not effective and is in fact very dangerous, is to continue negative behaviors and to attempt to “medicate” the problem away with powerful and dangerous hypnotic and anti-depressant prescription drugs.

Many people who are on anti-depressants and hypnotic drugs, and despite the warnings, also self-medicate with alcohol and other recreational drugs. This 36 | P a g e

behavior can lead to depression, suicidal thoughts or actions, paranoia, and/or acrophobia.

There are about 100,000 prescription drugs deaths per year in the United States so getting off of the drugs that cause these deaths is a good idea.

Passionflower flowers, leaves and roots have a long history of use among Native Americans in North America and Passionflower was adopted by the European colonists early in American history. The German Commission E monograph recommends doses of up to six grams of the herb a day in an infusion, although I have primarily recommended it in an alcohol extract from 30 to 60 drops per day.

Always consult with your herbalist or naturopath before using Passionflower. If you are pregnant, or could be pregnant, don’t use any herbal medicine without expert input.

Passionflower was shown to be as effective as several pharmaceutic sedatives in the benzodiazepine (valium) family, the aerial parts of this herb are great for nervous tension and anxiety. In recent research, passion flower extract at 45 drops daily (tincture) was shown to be as effective as oxazepam (like valium). This nervine herb is also “antispasmodic” which makes it mildly effective for people with nervous twitching or spasticity.

Caution: Do not use Passionflower if you are currently on an anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, or sleep medication. If you want to try Passionflower first talk to your doctor about getting off your prescription medication and then try it. In some individuals Passionflower is so effective that it can cause drowsiness. Be careful when using Passionflower and driving or working with mechanical tools or equipment.

If you want or need more information on Passionflower please message me and I will attempt to answer your questions.

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SAGE, SKULLCAP, AND CASTOR OIL In this conversation on herbal medicine I want to briefly cover my use of three herbs, Sage, Skullcap, and Castor Oil. I have used these herbs in combination in the treatment of diabetic neuropathy, and in the example of the case history to follow, to save a limb scheduled for amputation.

Several years ago, an elderly man came to see me professionally. He had been a carpenter all his life and now 83 years old he was building homes through Habitat for Humanity. Specifically, he was working to rebuild homes destroyed by hurricane Katrina.

He came to see me on the recommendation of another patient and because he was scheduled to have his right leg amputated. The amputation was deemed medically necessary because of damage to a major artery in his leg as the result of a previous vascular surgery. He and his doctors were concerned that he would not survive the surgery, but his main concern was that he would no longer be able to serve people through his Christian mission of rebuilding their damaged homes.

His surgery was scheduled in six weeks (he was delaying it as long as possible) and his request of me was to save his leg.

His leg was a mess. From just above the knee to his toes his leg was a tobacco brown color (he was white). In addition to the extreme discoloration his skin was hardened like plastic. The tissue in the leg appeared to be dead, it had no softness to it. He was also diabetic.

Sage leaves (Salvia officinalis) have shown efficacy in the treatment of diabetes, the regulation of blood sugar and in the control of nerve damage such as that seen in diabetic or alcoholic neuropathy. Sage also appears to have the ability to generate new blood vessel growth in tissue were that is needed and to starve off blood vessel formation in cancer tumors. It is a strange herb.

Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) extract is formulated from the above ground parts of the skullcap plant. Historically and for medical purposes, the plant has been used as a nervine, sedative, anti-spasmodic, and as a therapy for anxiety disorders. Research suggests that Skullcap promotes blood flow to the brain and has a tonifying effect on the sympathetic nervous system. I recommend the use of Skullcap for many nerve pathologies and in conjunction with Sage for diabetic 38 | P a g e

and alcoholic conditions, as well as, for fibromyalgia. These two herbs work well in combination with each other.

I recommended to my patient that he use these two herbs. The Sage as an herbal tea two or three times per day and the Skullcap in capsules at four grams per day with water. I also recommended the daily application of a castor oil pack directly on the affected leg. I trained my patient in how to apply the castor oil pack to himself at home. I saw the patient once a week for manual therapy on his leg and to monitor his progress.

Measurable changes in the color of his leg and its patency began to be evident after three weeks of this treatment plan and at five weeks he cancelled his surgery and kept his leg. Improvement in the color of his skin, the normalization of his skin and underlying connective tissue, as well as, blood circulation in the leg continued for several months.

Castor oil in the form of castor oil packs has long been a favorite topical treatment of mine with heat applications. Castor oil is also known as Palma Christi (Hand of Christ) and has been valued for its healing properties through centuries of use.

Castor oil can be used in small amounts orally and is used this way for a number of conditions including Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease. In large amounts it can be a nasty purgative (a powerful laxative). Some medical doctors not knowing much about effective herbal medicine would prescribe Castor oil to induce labor Castor oil causes extreme intestinal cramping and can be very painful, adding to the pain of delivering a child. There are far better herbs for this purpose such as Red Raspberry leaf tea.

I have been very blessed in my training and practice over the last 50 years. I had the good fortune to meet and train with practitioners of natural and herbal medicine who either went to school or practiced in the late 1800’s. But it has really been the health and healing guidance from the Baha’i writings that has given me direction and purpose.

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UNIVERSITY 4-6163 The following story deviates a bit from the focus of the previous stories but provides background information on the historic persecution of practitioners of natural medicine in the United States. It explains why natural medicine is not more mainstream and accepted. We don’t have a good medicine in the US, we have drug medicine.

I am able to offer a firsthand account, and to share the oral histories told to me from others, of the injustices and persecution directed against practitioners of natural medicine UNIVERSITY 4-6163 Some of you, if you are sufficiently “seasoned” (older) will recognize the title of this story as a phone number. It is the former phone number of a remarkable man and highly gifted doctor of naprapathy. His name was Dr. James Schleichert.

University 4-6163 was how he answered his telephone, I will tell you why later in this story.

I met Dr. Schleichert in the summer of 1975 at his office on Davis Street in Evanston, Illinois. The meeting was “accidental”. I was accompanying an acquaintance to her appointment at a personnel agency and while in the building I stumbled across a sign on a door that said, NAPRAPATH. I thought that perhaps a naprapath practiced some form of health care that I had not heard of.

Since 1970 I had been studying and practicing herbal medicine, so I was curious as to what a naprapath was. There was a door bell by the sign, so I rang it. After few moments the door opened and before me stood a tall imposing looking middle aged man with a handle bar mustache, his hair was flattened down and parted in the middle. I felt like I had just stepped back 100 years into the past. Of course, this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black since at that time I was sporting a ZZ Top beard and long hair.

“What is a naprapath”, I asked. He politely explained what naprapathy was.

When he finished his explanation, I asked to make an appointment. That began my relationship with the remarkable Dr. Schleichert who was to become my mentor, teacher, and partner for several years in practice.

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Dr. Schleichert was the sole remnant of what had once been a thriving group practice. His former partners practiced naprapathy until they died, which naprapaths are wont to do. He was the inheritor of a 60-year-old naprapathic practice.

Some of you may be aware that alternative, natural, or holistic medicine (whatever you want to call it) has suffered terrible persecution at the hands and through the actions of the medical profession. Dr. Harvey Hoffmeister, the original founder of this practice, was arrested in the 1950’s for practicing medicine without a license when he prescribed the use of distilled water as part of a treatment for kidney stones. The problem was his “patient” was an undercover investigator for the State of Illinois.

Dr. Hoffmeister was arrested in his office and hauled off to jail in a paddy wagon where he was fingerprinted, photographed, given new clothes, and jailed. This persecution, especially bad during the 1950’s through the 1970’s, was the result of legislative lobbying by the American Medical Association and pharmaceutical company’s in every state in the United States.

The AMA, their lobbyists, and their friends in state legislatures were successful in shutting down most of the colleges and universities for herbal and natural medicine and outlawing the practice of natural medicine in every state. They then waged a highly success campaign to characterize anyone who was not a medical physician but who practiced a different form of health care, as a fraud, quack, and charlatan. This campaign included inserting into the health sections of high school textbooks anti natural medicine propaganda demonizing natural medicine and its practitioners. The AMA went to the extreme action of forbidding their members to socialize with chiropractors, naturopaths, or naprapaths.

The answer to why Dr. Schleichert answered his telephone with his phone number University 4-6163 is because he could not answer it “Dr. Schleichert” without risking attracting undue attention from state investigators, and perhaps being arrested.

If you wonder, why there aren’t more competent doctors or practitioners of natural medicine in the United States, this is why.

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What happened to poor Dr. Hoffmeister? He was defended by the great attorney Clarence Darrow (the Scopes Monkey Trial) and found not guilty.

At the time that I met Dr. Schleichert I was planning to enter the physical therapy program at Northwestern University in Evanston. Once I learned about and experienced the effects of naprapathy I changed my direction and entered the four-year doctoral program at the Chicago National College of Naprapathy in the fall of 1976. I could mention that had I gone to Northwestern, due to my prior military service, my veterans’ benefits would have paid for most of my education.

My veterans’ benefits did not pay for my naprapathic education. As part of the campaign to eradicate natural health care in the United States the US government and Department of Education would not grant accreditation or student loans to schools that taught natural medicine.

I joined Dr. Schleichert in his practice while an intern at the naprapathic college and then remained with him after I graduated. He taught me many things about the true and humane practice of health care that I do not believe that I would have learned anywhere else. The first lesson he taught me was morality and virtue. He explained to me that certain immoral opportunities and choices would be presented to me and the importance of making the correct choice.

He was right, only a month into my practice and I was propositioned by an older female patient, the mother of another patient. I had to learn how take the difficult action of terminating a patient from my practice. His influence on my development through my observing him with his patients, his instruction, and the stories that he shared about the history of naprapathy and the men and women who heroically stood up to persecution and injustice molded and shaped my practice and character.

Here are some of the things that I learned: 1.

2.

3.

4.

To treat people fairly and as you would like to be treated.

Every patient is important and has an equal voice, listen to them.

Treat patients whether they can pay or not.

You are a doctor, not a salesperson, don’t confuse the two.

Eventually, I left Dr. Schleichert and Evanston and moved to a rural area in Michigan with my family. During my practice my compassion for people in pain 42 | P a g e

and suffering moved me to develop other values including; don’t charge for everything that you do, always give something away, to never charge for serious life threatening or terminal illness, and to treat children free (under the age of 15).

There are few voices left from this age to speak of the courage and sacrifice of these early practitioners of natural medicine in America. It was my great privilege to know and to study with these men and women who either practiced or went to school in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. As unlikely as it seems I am a bridge between two centuries.

I can tell you that these doctors practiced in quiet dignity, they did not achieve wealth, they did not drive expensive cars or live in big houses in the better part of town. They faithfully served the public good and ministered to their patients through world wars and the Great Depression. They practiced through their own illness, infirmity, and until they died unrecognized and mostly forgotten.

I look forward to the day when injustice and discrimination against my brothers and sisters in health care ceases, when they achieve the recognition that they deserve, when students feel that this is a worthwhile profession and future career and can get student loans to attend alternative medicine schools, and when our colleges and universities can get money for growth, development, and research.

There are already glimmers of this on the horizon, but so much more needs to be done.

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THE HEALING INTIMACY OF TOUCH This story about scleroderma should be read by anyone with an autoimmune disorder from MS, RA, to whatever. The average medical visit lasts 13 minutes, not nearly enough time to address complex issues.

Treating this patient, and particularly during the treatment I describe in this story, is one of the more poignant memories I have of helping a patient who is in great pain.

THE HEALING INTIMACY OF TOUCH Scleroderma is, I believe, one of the crueler disorders I have treated. In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster who was generally described as a winged human female, her hair an undulating mass of living venomous snakes. Those who looked upon her face would turn to stone. This could be the fate of individuals afflicted with scleroderma. Their bodies literally harden into stone.

Scleroderma is one of the officially listed autoimmune disorders and as such it has no known medical cure. Please note I said medical. Scleroderma literally means hardened skin and it is a connective tissue disorder that turns skin into scar and calcified tissue. It does not, however, only effect the skin. In some patients it effects the vital organs attacking and hardening the GI tract, lung’s, kidney’s and the heart. If not, effectively treated scleroderma can lead to organ failure and develop into a terminal illness.

When I first met Eve, it was difficult for me to determine which was worse her physical symptoms and scarred appearance or her emotional symptoms of fear, anger, resentment, and bitterness. Eve’s heart had been hardened by the actions of those she loved and by her disease.

Prior to scleroderma, Eve described her life as idyllic. She had a fairytale wedding which was followed by a happy life living on an upper-class street in East Grand Rapids, Michigan in what many would have classified as a mansion.

Eve had been a physically beautiful woman but scarring and tightening of her skin was slowly turning her face into a mask. Eve was no longer married. Her husband had admitted to her he found her repulsive and unattractive. He left her quickly after her initial diagnosis, seeking and winning custody of their daughter 44 | P a g e

largely because Eve, due to the severity, progressive and perhaps terminal nature of her illness, was unable to support herself and care for her daughter.

There is no single pill, capsule, or treatment program for scleroderma or for that matter the over 80 known autoimmune disorders. For many of them, and because the medical profession recognizes there is an inflammatory component to conditions as varied as Addison’s disease, Crohn’s disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, vitiligo, steroid or a non-steroidal antiinflammatory and/or immune suppressant medications are prescribed, along with potent pain relievers. This is a potential toxic cocktail that does not address the root causes of these diseases. This is not the practice of safe or effective medicine. All three types of medication have their nasty side effects, but large doses of steroids were causing Eve to experience terrible side effects including increased pain.

It is a fundamental scientific truth that anti-inflammatory medications increase inflammation and pain medications increase pain. This is due to the Newton’s 3rd law which states, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” and it explains why the medical establishment has had to develop stronger and stronger pain and anti-inflammatory medications. A pain medication will cause more pain resulting in the need for a stronger medication and an anti-inflammatory drug will cause more inflammation leading to the need for a stronger anti-inflammatory medication, and so on and so. It is only herbal medicine, based upon natural concepts of low bio-identical doses that avoids this action/reaction effect.

Therefore, the chronic use of drugs will never be effective in the treatment of chronic progressive disorders.

When I began treating Eve she was experiencing extreme pain, mainly in her skin but generally all over her body, from inside to out. Her pain was unrelenting, and I came to describe it as exquisite, but not in a good way. The combination of drugs her doctor had her on along with her level of pain, which was not affected by her narcotic pain medication, shifted her mind to hallucinogenic levels.

I clearly remember one very hot July afternoon when Eve came to my office for her manual therapy appointment. By appearance she was on fire, by affect she was literally flying and barely aware of her surroundings. This day the description of exquisite pain was an apt one.

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While I was positioning Eve on the treatment table and positioning the surgical draping for her treatment it became apparent she could barely tolerate the weight of the draping on her skin. She certainly could not endue the pressure of manual therapy. What was I to do?

I felt deep empathy for her and an acute awareness of the totality of her tragic circumstances. Please do not think scleroderma is strictly a physical disorder. I think of it rather as an emotional condition with physical manifestations. Eve’s emotional pain was as great or greater than her physical pain and both aspects of this affliction needed to be addressed.

Perhaps it was both my sense of empathy for Eve and my sense of inadequacy in being able to treat her that day that led me to a solution.

In a flash I had an idea. Excusing myself from Eve, I went into the small kitchen that was part of my clinical suite and opened the refrigerator and took out a glass bottle of aloe vera gel. In the cabinets above the small refrigerator was a bottle of witch hazel and another bottle of alcohol. I mixed these three liquids together in equal amounts to form a “medical liniment�. I had never thought of using this combination before.

If you remember, this was a very hot day in July and Eve was suffering from terrible inflammatory symptoms. When I said she arrived at my office looking like she was on fire, she did, she was highly flushed, and her skin was intensely hot to the touch.

Alcohol was used in the past, can be used, to remove heat from the body surface.

Nurses used to perform alcohol rubs on patients to evaporate caloric heat from the skin and to reduce their fever. This was one of the qualities I was looking for.

The bark and leaves of witch Hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, were used by Native American herbalists, and later my Puritan ancestors who came here on the Mayflower voyages and learned its use from them. Witch hazel is a cooling agent, astringent, vaso-constrictive, and anti-inflammatory. These are also qualities I needed.

The next ingredient in my formula was aloe vera gel, Aloe barbadensis. Aloe has long been valued for its soothing effect on the skin, as well as, its ability to 46 | P a g e

remove the sting of a sunburn or other burns on the skin. Many people have an aloe plant in their kitchen ready for use in case of a burned finger.

I then gathered the softest cloths I had in the office and returned to the treatment room. The treatment consisted of me very carefully, beginning at Eve’s feet, applying the liniment in gentle strokes. As the treatment progressed I was able to apply the liniment to most of Eve’s body and as that was accomplished her pain, redness, and distress steadily decreased.

While I was administering the topical liniment and her pain began to subside Eve slowly began to talk about her relationship with her ex-husband and her disappointment in, and anger at him, her pain over her inability to have custody of and care for her daughter, and all the emotions she felt. This office visit led to the most intimate and honest conversation she and I had had regarding the injustice of what happened to her and her fear of a future alone and sick.

The healing intimacy of touch is a humbling process to behold. I teach my students it is alright to love your patients if you do not cross boundaries and LOVE your patients. On this day, in the midst of crisis, Eve touched upon true depth of her pain and suffering, the sting of its flames were quenched, and her hardened heart – softened.

This day, this treatment, for the first time, Eve left my office with no pain. Now the true healing could begin.

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HIGH ANXIETY AND INTUITION If you have been following this series of stories centered around my professional practice of holistic health care you probably have realized some of these stories and the patients whose pain and suffering they chronicle are closer to me than others. The story to follow is one of those events in my career that weighs heavily upon me.

I was treating a retired school teacher for general pain and mobility issues related to osteoarthritis when she asked me if I would consider treating her daughter Brenda. Brenda was also a school teacher, but she was now an at home mom raising 11 and 8-year-old daughters and a 16-month-old son.

After giving birth to three children Brenda was now experiencing low back pain.

Many of you who are mothers can probably relate. She had developed low back pain immediately after the birth of her son Jason. Her obstetrician had been treating her with pain medication and muscle relaxants for one year and the pain was getting worse.

Her mother made the initial appointment for her daughter Brenda for Tuesday of the following week. When Brenda arrived for her appointment I began the appointment with a general intake and health history. During the health and medical history, I noticed she was obviously in a great deal of physical discomfort while sitting in the chair and answering my questions. Brenda had described her back pain as chronic and unrelenting. I suggested we get her on the treatment table and I would continue my questions while I examined and treated her.

I had observed that Brenda appeared to have a very high degree of anxiety regarding her pain. I found this unusual. I expect men to have a low tolerance for pain, but not mothers who have given birth to three babies. I made a mental note of this observation.

I began the treatment for her low back pain and as I worked on Brenda her pain greatly subsided, as is normal and expected. By the end of the treatment she indicated she felt much better. While Brenda appeared visibly relieved, I was however, still bothered by her level of anxiety regarding her low back pain. I told her I would treat her again on Thursday and then again, the following Monday

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and if she was not showing progressive improvement I would order imaging of her low back and refer her for a medical evaluation.

When Brenda came into the office for her treatment on Thursday I inquired as to how the last treatment, and her pain levels, had been. Brenda reported her pain had returned to the usual level within hours of Tuesday’s treatment. This was an unusual response and further served to concern me. I told her I did not think it was appropriate to wait until Monday to do the imaging study or to make the referral. Excusing myself from the treatment room I went out to order the imaging study and to make the medical referral. Once these tasks were completed I returned and treated her. Once again, Brenda felt better after the treatment.

I received the results of the imaging study from the radiologist within 24 hours and the results indicated Brenda had bone cancer. Within 72 hours of her visit with me the medical physician I routinely referred patients to confirmed the bone cancer diagnosis and Brenda was scheduled for further tests and imaging.

Her official diagnosis was Stage IV melanoma with metastasis to the spine, liver, lungs and brain. She was considered terminal. Brenda would not live another 90 days.

When it appears on the skin, Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer. It accounts for almost eighty percent of the deaths related to skin cancer.

The primary cause of melanoma is exposure to UV radiation, or damage to the skin from excessive exposure to sunlight. Avoiding or reducing direct sunlight on the skin, a strong immune system, and having moles and other skin anomalies examined are the best defenses against this disease. A good manual therapist is always on the watch for this and will make an appropriate medical referral for cancer screening.

What triggered my concern for Brenda was partly experience and partly intuition.

Intuition is an often-overlooked tool in a doctor’s medical bag. The, at times, overwhelming responsibility for a patient’s wellbeing has caused me to lose sleep at night. What if I miss some critical detail that causes harm to a patient, or worse results in a loss of life? I have great respect for medical physicians, surgeons and emergency room doctors, who in moments must make life and death decisions.

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I have had to make my share of these decisions, like with Brenda. I am grateful not every patient I see is in dire circumstances or is a life of death decision. I have always worked closely with the medical profession and I use them for diagnosis, running tests, and to double check my findings. There have however, been many times where I catch their mistakes. Brenda’s case was sadly one of those times.

Brenda and her family went to the University of Michigan to investigate experimental treatment for her cancer. She was not deemed a candidate for this therapy. Brenda was told if she had gotten to them sooner she may have been.

That 16 months her obstetrician treated her for low pain with pain medication and muscle relaxants had delayed proper diagnosis and treatment.

It wasn’t until after her cancer diagnosis, and during my last conversation with Brenda, that I found out she had omitted telling me, and writing down on her intake form, she had had skin cancer (melanoma) a little over five years before she saw me for her low back pain. When I asked Brenda why she hadn’t told me she stated, “My oncologist told me after five years without a reoccurrence I was cured.” Sadly, and belatedly, I told her the five-year benchmark is just an estimate.

Had I known on the first day I saw her she had a history of melanoma and was showing symptoms of low back pain I would not have treated her but would have immediately referred her to an oncologist to be evaluated for cancer. As it was, the three days it took me to figure out what might be going on did not matter.

You see, I only order spinal images for two reasons, either I suspect a bone fracture or cancer. When I told Brenda during her first appointment if she did not show a normal response to her manual therapy treatment I would refer her for imaging and medical evaluation, it was because my intuition was telling me something was seriously wrong.

Three months after I first met Brenda I attended her funeral. Her three beautiful children were there. Her daughters, Amy and Sara, looked sad and confused. Her husband Ron was standing solemnly and holding the baby. I found myself wondering how he was going support and raise three children on his own.

Brenda was gone too quickly, her family had a short time to prepare and to move through the stages of shock, hope, hopelessness, sorrow, loss, and grief. How did Brenda say goodbye?

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Ron’s eulogy for Brenda began, “How can I say goodbye when I cannot believe you are gone? How do I say goodbye to a part of my soul?”.

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I HAVE JUST GONE ALL TO HELL After I left my practice in Evanston, Illinois I opened my second practice in Ludington, Michigan. I put my practice in a medical art building across the hall from a pharmacy and next door to a medical clinic. The first naprapath to establish a practice in Michigan was given a choice by the state attorney general, stop practicing or be arrested and put on trial, possibly to be convicted and imprisoned. He chose to become a hearing aid salesman. If I was going to be arrested I wanted to make it easy for the authorities to find me.

My appearance in Ludington and setting up shop there served as a local scandal.

At the time I was not yet a chiropractor and as a naprapath no one quite knew what I was or what I did. The local chiropractors considered me a threat to their practices and income and filed complaints against me with the state of Michigan hoping to have me arrested and shutdown. One chiropractor was waging a war against the medical profession and had polarized the medical and chiropractic professions against each other. This was the small-town environment that I had determined to build my families future in.

I had arrived in Ludington with an unemployed wife, one year old and two-yearold daughters, a 16-year-old rust bucket car, and almost no money. To set up my office I bought used furniture from a JC Penney’s store that was going out of business and I built my own treatment table. Once I opened my office I sat in it daily for almost two weeks before the phone even rang. It was a wrong number.

The second phone call I received was an invitation to speak at an Elk’s Club luncheon. I accepted the invitation to a wonderful lunch of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, with green beans and apple pie for desert (I was a vegetarian). I left that meeting with two new patients.

After treating my two new patients their wives scheduled appointments with me, followed by their bridge club, and then soon followed by most of the church they belonged to. I had succeeded in establishing my practice in Ludington in less than 90 days. From these humble beginnings word spread about my practice and it was not long before patients were driving from as far away as Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Traverse City to consult with me.

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I was in my office treating a patient when I heard someone come into my waiting room. This was unusual because I was not expecting another patient until later in the afternoon. Excusing myself I stepped out of the treatment room to see who had come into my office.

It was an older man who was standing rather unsteadily leaning heavily on a walker. I greeted him and asked him how I might be of assistance. He said, “Well, I have just gone all to hell.”, “I can’t even get around without this damn thing.”

That was my introduction to Walt.

When I was attending classes at the naprapathic college in Chicago one of my instructors taught that if you listen to a patient carefully they will tell you what is wrong with them. I listened to Walt as he explained that he had been being treated for well over a year for back pain and weakness in his lower extremities by a local chiropractor. It was the same chiropractor that was causing the animosity between the local chiropractors and medical doctors.

Standing in my waiting room talking with Walt I asked him about what was going on with him and he explained that within the last two weeks his legs and arms had gotten much weaker and that he went out and bought a walker, so he could get around.

I now knew several important things about Walt’s condition. It was chronic, he had been receiving chiropractic adjustments for over a year and getting progressively worse, he had not seen a medical doctor because his chiropractor advised against it, it involved both his upper and lower extremities, and within the last two weeks his condition had gotten significantly worse.

My next and immediate act was to take Walt from my waiting room into the waiting room of the medical doctor who practiced next to me. As soon as the doctor’s receptionist saw me enter their office she rushed to confront me, and she yelled out, “How dare you come into this office!” This behavior was entertaining for all the doctor’s patients and no doubt within minutes everyone in town was talking about what happened.

After I was able to calm her down, I politely explained that poor Walt had come into the wrong office and he had intended to come into their office because his situation was a medical emergency.

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Walt was seen that day by my neighbor the medical doctor and was immediately hospitalized. I heard that he was at the University of Michigan within the week, but sadly he died within 30 days.

Walt was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most common and lethal form of brain cancer.

My relationship with the chiropractors never did improve, but from that day on the local medical doctors and I worked together for the benefit of our mutual patients.

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TEACH ME HOW TO KILL As some of my friends know I started the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences as a free school for women who were victims of rape, incest, and domestic abuse. Women in transition leaving a cycle of abuse and embarking on a future of hope. My mission to help victims of domestic abuse was (is) motivated by my own family history.

I have always used my knowledge of the martial arts to teach those who truly need to learn these skills and to gain a personal sense of empowerment.

Although the Academy began as a martial arts school it transformed into a school of holistic health education and center for healing.

The first student of the Blue Heron Academy was a woman who was raped in her home at knife point by two men in front of her husband and young daughter. Life doesn’t get much worse than that does it? I met this woman because of a referral from one of my psychologist co-workers in a West Michigan psychology practice where I served as the practices vice president.

At the time, Ginny and I were establishing out-patient programs in hospitals across the country and at first, I was reluctant to meet with this patient and her husband simply because I was so busy. After much pleading by my co-worker I was convinced to see his patient.

At the first appointment I had not been told in advance what her history was or why I was meeting with her, however a few minutes into the appointment and she told me her story. I had expected that this would be a normal appointment to discuss some health issue. It was not.

After I listened, and was moved by her and her family’s story, I asked her, “How can I help you?” and her response was, “I need you to teach me how to kill.” This may seem like an unfortunate departure from the stories and conversation I have been sharing, but I do not think it is.

I agreed to train her, not necessarily how to kill. I told her if I trained her correctly she would not want to kill. From that striking and emotional beginning my classes grew to welcome dozens of women and men from varying backgrounds and levels of abuse and post-traumatic stress.

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Through a natural and organic process, it became apparent to me my students needed more than martial art training, they needed a sense of purpose and the opportunity to serve others. There is no better way to change yourself, to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually than by serving the needs of others.

I began to teach classes in holistic health and healing, herbal medicine, acupressure and massage therapy. We established a free public health clinic and opened it to those who could not afford health care and to HIV/AIDS patients.

Now decades and thousands of students later the journey continues. That student who wanted to learn how to kill? She went on to establish her own school and teach her own students and classes. This is how she was healed, through selfless service to others.

Now, I am at a loss to define healing for you. Each person’s journey is unique to the needs of their soul.

Holistic health care and herbal medicine are not a “pill or a capsule”, a “list of things to do”, and they are not a “menu” or a “cookbook” of remedies. As human beings we are infinitely complex beings of immense power who are attempting to awaken to the nature of our true selves. Illness, sickness, and disease are gifts given to us, so we might discover our true reality.

At the end of this journey we lay our bodies down and say goodbye. Whatever that body was; male or female, beautiful or not so much, light or dark, thin or fat, tall or short, it was only a vehicle, a shell, that carried the pearl of life for a time and so it could fulfill its purpose here – to serve, to learn, and to grow.

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THE ASSAULT ON WOMEN Lawrence (Larry) Gerard Nassar is a convicted serial child molester who was the USA Gymnastics national team doctor. He worked at Michigan State University where he was an associate professor in the College of Osteopathic Medicine and an athletic trainer. Nassar's cumulative criminal acts of sexual assault involved the molestation of at least 332 girls and young women including several well-known Olympic gymnasts. He recorded some of these assaults on a Go Pro video camera.

What did Larry Nassar do? Larry Nasser was trained in osteopathic manipulative therapy, a form of manual therapy that predates chiropractic. Nasser performed unsupervised pelvic and breast exams on young girls and he used vaginal and anal penetration under the guise of osteopathic manual therapy. This osteopathic technique was developed in the mid to late 1800’s and it was used by some osteopaths and massage therapists. As the Larry Nassar case demonstrates it is a practice and a technique that is highly inappropriate and can be horribly misused.

How did Larry Nassar get away with abusing so many young girls, women, often performing this technique with parents in the room? He used his degree and medical license and the trust people have in those credentials and he relied upon people’s ignorance of the techniques he used. Prior to his exposure as a serial molester and rapist a complaint was filed against him. The police investigated the complaint, but Nasser showed them an osteopathic textbook with a procedure like what he was doing and several of his peers supported him. The police and prosecutor did not pursue a case against him.

Larry Nasser is a nightmare for every reputable and conscientious practitioner of manual medicine. He is a monster and justice has begun to be served against him. He got away with molesting and raping hundreds of young girls and women, not only because of a flawed system that failed in its duty to protect, but also because administrators, trainers, teachers, law enforcement, and parents did not understand the techniques he was using. Ignorance was his cloak against being exposed.

Sheila was a young mother of a healthy 2-year-old boy. She was in my office and telling me the story of a difficult pregnancy as a first-time mother and about her 57 | P a g e

chronic low back and coccyx pain since her son was born. I generally see coccydynia in women related to 4 possible causes: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Post pregnancy Chronic pelvic conditions A fall and or facture of the coccyx Benign or malignant tumors

In Sheila’s case, and in the absence of any evidence of a chronic pelvic condition or infection, the cause was thought to be related to her pregnancy and the birth of her son.

Sheila had come to see me in the hope I would be able to help her with her pain.

She was not able to sit for a period of time, including driving, without significant pain. She informed me she was currently seeing a chiropractor in Detroit (she lived in Grand Haven and the round trip was 360 miles) and he was performing a technique on her which involved anal penetration, so he could massage the coccyx internally. In other words, the same technique used by Larry Nasser.

This is where I admit to you that my teachers in Chicago taught me the same techniques, but I refused to use them. I could give you many reasons not to, but the news today has already proved my argument. By now even Larry Nasser may have come to the same conclusion. I did however, know how to effectively treat coccydynia without using those techniques and had helped many women who presented with one or more of the causes I listed above.

Please keep in mind Sheila was driving over 6 hours round trip for her “treatments” and by the time she got home she was in as much or more pain than when she left home. It was her hope I would be able to help her, and she could stop driving to Detroit.

I have over the course of my career treated many women, from young to old, for coccydynia. Medical treatment for this condition routinely involves pain and antiinflammatory medications. Steroidal and non-steroidal medications take a terrible toll on a woman’s endocrine system, as well as, her musculoskeletal system. The “side effects” (they are simply the effects of a group of very powerful drugs) comprise a list as long as your leg, and include stomach and intestinal bleeding, edema, bone loss, skeletal deformity, high blood pressure, glaucoma, an 58 | P a g e

enlarged heart, blood clots, hyperthyroidism, and many other diseases and disorders. The reason Sheila was driving to Detroit was because she was a welleducated woman and patient and she did not want to take medication.

Holistic treatments for coccydynia vary depending upon the cause but may include manual therapy to the coccyx and the muscles and ligaments attached to it along with yoga-like pelvic floor exercises. When a chronic pelvic disorder is a cause of coccydynia we often use herbal medicine and diet. There are several pelvic organ disorders that may contribute to coccydynia including chronic infections like PID, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids and myoma, as well as, endometriosis. These conditions may all be treated safely and effectively with herbal medicine.

I have been training advanced medical manual therapists in how to treat these conditions and how to use abdominal and pelvic manual therapy techniques along with exercise and breathing techniques for about four decades. I am of the professional opinion that for these specific disorders, and those related to the breasts such as fibrocystic breast disorder, women should treat women. In most cases this would prevent some of the sexual abuse problems which occur all too frequently. Professionally, and due to the current social and political climate, I will not touch a woman without a female therapist or doctor in the room.

I do not believe Sheila ever perceived or held the opinion she had been abused by the doctor that treated her. In my experience that has not always been the case.

Too many times in my career I have been approached by women who are contacting me regarding sexual abuse related to massage or manual therapy.

There was the case of a young woman with a history of incest and rape who received a nude breast massage from a local massage therapist. He was convicted of sexual assault and spent some time in jail.

Another case was of an eighteen-year-old woman who went to an osteopath for foot pain from running. She ended up with a pelvic examination (internal) and received the same osteopathic techniques Larry Nasser used on the young gymnasts. I convinced her to report him and she did, but he was never prosecuted.

In every case that was ever brought to my attention the women involved all asked the same initial question, “Was what he did a normal procedure?� Even in the 59 | P a g e

most egregious examples of sexual assault the women, in a state of shock and partial denial, all asked that same question.

If any good can come out of the evil perpetuated by Larry Nassar it is to bring attention to the abusive and fraudulent techniques and methods used by sexual predators working as medical doctors, osteopaths, chiropractors, naturopaths, naprapaths, physical therapists, and massage therapists who abuse their positions of trust. The sooner these predators are identified, the sooner they can be stopped. I would imagine that there are some other male doctors and therapists, who having used the “Nasser� coccyx and pelvic massage technique are shaking in their boots for fear of exposure.

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HEALING IN THE SHADOWS The story of my patient Ellis has been one of the most difficult for me to speak about. Perhaps because Ellis was the first patient I lost because of a medical “error” (not my error) and because I was young, “idealistic”, and new to the practice of health care. Regardless, of the reasons, Ellis’s death deeply affected me and still does. Today, if I talk about Ellis to one of my classes I struggle to tell his story.

As a young practitioner I had been exposed to the stories of injustice, professional prejudice, and discrimination by the medical profession against my chosen profession and the entire “alternative” and holistic health care community in the US. As a young practitioner attempting to build a practice I had to endure direct attacks on my character, intelligence, education, and profession. As a young practitioner attempting to support my family I practiced under the threat of legal charges, criminal trial, and imprisonment. This was the reality (still is in some US states) of practicing “non-medical” health care in Michigan. The practice of my profession in Michigan was a felony.

The bias, prejudice, discrimination, and threats only made me more determined to succeed and to expose the injustices that my peers in health care had been subjected to for over 100 years. But I was also determined to fight the injustice committed against the American public who were being denied fair access to an effective form of “non-medical” and “non-drug” health care.

HEALING IN THE SHADOWS Ellis was a patient of mine and because of the relationship I developed with him during his manual therapy treatments he became a friend. Manual therapy is sensed deeply and responded to on many levels within the confines of the human being. It is an act and quality so rare in this world that bodies, minds and hearts react strongly to it.

Ellis lived in a retirement home far from his farming days. Short, bent, and weathered, he cast a comical image as he hobbled along on his daily walks. When I first saw Ellis from a distance and crossing Main street in Ludington, Michigan I was curious about his gait and it was only after he showed up in my waiting room that I learned Ellis had lost both large toes to diabetes.

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Ellis died on an operating table. His death was the result of an ill-advised decision to operate on his lung cancer on a holiday weekend. Ellis more than showed every day of his seventy-six years on earth. Ellis was in fragile health when his operation was performed. Prior to the phone call he received from the hospital a few days before they operated on him Ellis had been told that because of the size, location of the tumor, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and his age his cancer was inoperable, and an operation would most likely result in his death.

When I returned to my office after the Thanksgiving holiday Tom Lane, the pharmacist across the hall from my office, asked me if I had heard about Ellis and he told me he had died in the hospital as the result of an operation.

I was shocked. Ellis and I had talked about his lung cancer. Ellis had asked me if I thought he should pursue surgery. I asked Ellis, “How do you feel about dying?”

He answered that he had had a good life and everyone he loved was dead. He indicated he had accepted that he was going to die.

Upon hearing of Ellis’s passing I felt a sense of loss and I had serious questions regarding the wisdom and motivation behind his surgery. How long would Ellis have lived without the surgery? Why wasn’t he told about the need for surgery sooner, so he would have time to prepare? Why was the surgery scheduled with such short notice and on a holiday weekend? What was the purpose for performing such a high-risk operation on a man in his seventies who had no discomfort from the disease?

Ellis had been a simple man. Partly because of the era he came from and partly the result of his way of life working on a small dairy farm. He was not schooled in the complexities of medicine and medical ethics and he had a child-like awe of doctors. His view that doctors are all-knowing did not discriminate; M.D., D.O., D.C., D.N., and N.D., they were all the same to him. Doctors were to be obeyed in matters of health and trusted without question. Although I have many times witnessed this faith and understand both the respect and fear that motivates it, I am opposed to its perpetuation and rather support patient education, selfdetermination, and the turning of blind faith into conscious knowledge.

My role with Ellis was to provide relief to a battered body which had experienced seventy-six years of hard life, over sixty of those years in farm labor. The removal of the large toe on each foot produced physical stresses which along with 62 | P a g e

osteoarthritis added to his pain and suffering. Weekly manual therapy treatments provided a welcome degree of relief. They also provided an escape from the retirement home and solace to a lonely heart.

Since his death, I have often wondered if I should have taken another role, a primary role in discussing the tumor and his personal choices regarding it, his life, and death. During this early period of my practice I was careful not to interfere with the relationship between a medical physician and his or her patient. I defined my role as a provider of alternative health services, adjunctive to medical care, but not opposed. This perspective was, I believe, motivated by a sense of fairness in not interfering in a doctor-patient relationship.

My personal sense of justice, and a concern acquired by association with healthcare professionals of many disciplines, has caused me to recognize that professional ethics motivated by pure motive is a trait which must be promoted and preserved in health care. Occasionally, the principles are discarded. I have also recognized that practitioners of healthcare who do not embody spiritual verities, lack wisdom, and systems of healthcare which do not embrace a holistic perspective of man and his environment foolishly ignore the greatest healers, God and nature.

The materialistic beliefs and intellectual arrogance which fosters this colossal ignorance must be exposed as a false doctrine and healthcare restored its heart and soul. This is not just a virtue for some healers, but for all healers. It is only by uniting and working together that we can best serve the public health. As the errors and consequences of conventional medicine become better recognized and reported we can come to a clearer understanding of the need for changes in our health care system which embrace, accept, and respect the fundamental verities of holistic health care.

Ellis continues in my life as a teacher of these things.

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WHENEVER THERE IS A FALL I was finishing up work in my office on a Saturday morning when the phone rang.

It was young man named Ben calling from the beach in Grand Haven, Michigan.

Ben had been playing volleyball on the beach and during the game his low back went into spasm. Ben indicated that his regular chiropractor was on vacation. He had been systematically going through the phone book trying to find a chiropractor who was working on a Saturday morning. Ben reached me as I was about to head home.

I agreed to wait in my office until Ben could get there. When Ben arrived an hour later he gave me more details. He had a history of low back pain and muscle spasm for which he received regular chiropractic adjustments. That morning while playing volleyball he had jumped up to spike a ball over the net and he had fallen backwards on his buttocks in the sand. It was not a hard fall, but his low back had immediately gone into spasm. It was Ben’s hope that after a quick adjustment his weekend would not be one of sitting on a coach with ice packs.

I have a rule in my practice I have learned from experience. Whenever there is a fall there is an x-ray or other image. I will not treat a fall patient without an image.

I explained this to Ben and he was highly resistant to the idea and attempted to convince me to just adjust his back, but reluctantly he agreed. I gently treated the surrounding soft tissue and applied an ice pack. Feeling better he left my office and headed off to the imaging center for his x-ray. Frankly, I never thought that he would do it.

I have had many patients, usually because of the cost, object to or outright refuse to get an x-ray. The cost of x-ray’s is nothing compared to the consequences of a traumatic injury resulting from an unstable bone or joint.

The results came back by Monday and confirmed that Ben had compressions fractures to the lower three lumbar vertebrae. The fracture at L5 was the worst and if I, or another chiropractor, had adjusted him he could have been badly injured or paralyzed.

Whenever there is a fall, there should always be an x-ray or another form of imaging.

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THE GUY WITH THE MUSCLE KNOT The profession of health care is called a “practice”, and that is what it truly is. In a previous lecture I stated I had learned more from my patients than I ever taught them. Each patient brought to me a concept, a principle, or a lesson that was essential to understanding human pain and suffering. I observed as my abilities progressed, due to experience, the cases I was presented with got more and more complicated and advanced.

In choosing which stories from my past practice to write and lecture about I am picking cases where there is an important concept, principle, or a lesson I want to share with my students. I have already shared many of these stories with thousands of past students over the 38-year history of the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences. I do not how many years I have left to teach (I have no intention of “retiring”) but there could hundreds more students who will be exposed to these stories.

THE GUY WITH THE MUSCLE KNOT Bryan had recently moved back to the States from Egypt, where he had been attending a business college. He related that during the process of helping to unload a moving van and carrying boxes of books up to his 3rd floor apartment he had strained the muscles of his upper back and neck.

On the same day he had injured himself, Bryan called my office on Davis Street in Evanston, Illinois and scheduled an appointment for treatment of a “muscle knot” and pain. Bryan arrived for his appointment and we had a nice chat about his studies in Egypt. During his evaluation Bryan directed me to the large “muscle knot” sitting snuggly in the supraclavicular fossa. The supraclavicular fossa is the large depression behind the clavicle (collar bone) and in front of the trapezius muscle.

Bryan did not have a “muscle knot” he had an enlarged lymph node the size of a ping pong ball. Bryan had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Bryan had cancer.

Upon palpating the “muscle knot” I was immediately concerned but I did not share my exact concern (that he had cancer) with Bryan. Instead I made a medical referral to medical physician who was recommended to me by my practice partner. The doctor evaluated Bryan, ran some tests, and confirmed 65 | P a g e

Bryan had Classical Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Bryan’s father had died of Hodgkin’s disease at the age of sixty. Bryan was thirty-one.

Specifically, Bryan had Nodular Sclerosing Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Of the several kinds of Hodgkin’s lymphoma this is the most common type. It accounts for about 7 out of 10 cases of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It is most commonly seen in teens and young adults, but it can occur in people of any age. It tends to start in lymph nodes in the neck or chest.

Fortunately, the survival rates for Hodgkin’s have improved greatly over the years and where Bryan’s father may not have had much of a chance for survival, Bryan did well in treatment and in his recovery from this disease.

This was the first case I had referred to a medical physician and Bryan’s medical doctor called me to thank me and to let me know I had probably saved Bryan’s life with immediate detection and referral. I was thirty-one years old, the same age as Bryan.

This experience and what I had learned about the importance of working with the medical profession served to benefit my patients and my practice for many years.

After hundreds of medical referrals, over several decades of practice, I cannot say that the courtesy was ever reciprocated by a medical physician.

It has been my observation that most medical physicians have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with anti-alternative health care, chiropractic, naturopathic, or other forms of professional bias and prejudice, that it has firmly molded their opinions and results in various levels of discrimination from subtle to outright violation of civil rights or criminal behavior.

I remember the time that I attempted to lease a professional office suite in a building owned by a group of medical physicians. They were approached by my real estate agent and upon learning what my degrees were in they blatantly refused to allow us entry into the suite to even look at it. But perhaps most disappointing were the times when this discrimination took the form of undermining my relationship with a patient or even threatening or bullying a patient because they were being treated by me.

In one case, where the medical physician was attempting to undermine my relationship with a patient, the patient, let’s call her Sheila, had come to see me 66 | P a g e

because her primary care physician had diagnosed her with classic iron deficiency anemia. He had placed her on iron sulphate (ferrous sulfate) a form of iron that is associated with constipation, gas, bloating, cramping, abdominal pain, and black tarry stools. Sheila had all these symptoms. The black tarry stools were an indication the iron supplement was causing irritation to the wall of the bowel and blood loss. The iron her medical physician had prescribed was the same form medical physicians routinely prescribed for pregnant women often with the same nasty side effects Sheila experienced.

Iron deficiency anemia is easy to treat, and any competent doctor should be capable of treating it with the correct form of iron, which her doctor did not know how to do. As a side note, this doctor worked for the very first Health Maintenance Organization (HBO) formed in the United States and his office was across the street from my office in Evanston, Illinois.

I could have chosen several different forms of non-constipating “heme’ iron for Sheila, but Sheila’s anemia had been caused by dysmenorrhea and excessive bleeding. I chose instead to put her on an herbal formula which had “organic” iron containing herbs and herbs which would address her dysmenorrhea and blood loss issues. These herbs included; Dandelion root, Oregon grape root, and Black Cohosh.

After four weeks on the herbal formula Sheila visited her medical doctor and had a blood test, her blood test was normal. No more anemia. Sheila disclosed to her doctor she had stopped taking the iron supplement he had prescribed, and why she had, and that she had consulted with me and gone on an herbal formula.

The medical doctor’s response was to chastise her for seeing me and following my recommendations and to threaten to terminate her as his patient if she was not going to follow his orders. He then told her the supplement he had provided had been effective in curing her anemia during the week she had taken it and that the herbs were ineffective and dangerous for her to use.

At her next visit with me, and over the next months I continued to treat her, she reported that her menstrual cycle was normal, and her previous symptoms were gone.

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Women have safely used herbs for treating menstrual disorders since the beginning of recorded history. The first known herbal formula was found in Iraq and carbon dated at 12,000 years old.

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MISDIAGNOSIS, NEEDLESS SURGERY AND NO SECOND OPINION Christie worked on a factory line. Her job was to pack boxes with products to be shipped out to customers. Christie had been an employee of this company for 17 years.

The movements involved in her job were very repetitive so hour after hour, day after day Christie stood on the line and packed boxes. Somewhere along the way among those thousands of boxes Christie developed pain in her wrist.

Her company had a company doctor, so Christie was sent to see him. The doctor was a locally prominent and highly regarded orthopedic surgeon. Due to the repetitive nature of many of this company’s factory jobs the company had several Worker’s Compensation claims due to on the job injuries.

The company doctor diagnosed Christie with carpal tunnel in her right wrist and she was scheduled for carpal tunnel release surgery.

Neurological symptoms result when inflammation with swelling (edema) occurs around the median nerve in an anatomical location called the carpal tunnel. Since the condition is caused by repetitive movement the simple fix is to rest the affected extremity and to reduce the inflammation. “Tincture of time”, an antiinflammatory diet, and herbs will heal this condition, in most cases without the need for surgery.

Why do many workers end up with carpal tunnel surgery? Well, surgery is how surgeons make their living, they don't make money by not doing surgery. Surgery is also performed so that the worker can return to the job and activity that caused the condition.

If they end up with prolonged disability, and after a time on worker’s compensation, their employment will be terminated. What the worker does after that is their problem.

Christie’s carpal tunnel surgery was deemed to have gone well and after healing up and completing a short course of physical therapy Christie was released back to her job on the line.

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Very quickly her old symptoms of pain and weakness in her hand returned.

Christie complained of this pain and weakness, but her complaints fell on deaf ears so after several months of no further help from her employer Christie sought out help on her own.

That is what brought her to my office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I examined Christie from her neck to her fingertips and I found issues in her lower cervical vertebrae, stiffness in the lower neck muscles, and what I suspected was entrapment of the brachial plexus nerves. Christie inquired as to whether my treatment would include chiropractic cervical adjustment and I told her that I preferred mild mobilization techniques, but I felt that we should get an x-ray first.

I send all my patients that need imaging to a medical imaging center, so Christie was sent to the closest imaging center with a prescription for a cervical x-ray series. The x-rays were taken and read by a medical radiologist. Christie had a broken neck. In fact, she had two unhealed fractured lower cervical vertebrae.

Christie had no memory of a neck injury, fall, or any accident that might have caused these two fractures. Having no memory of a traumatic injury is not all that unusual. If there was an injury with a concussion then memory loss is common, or if there was the use or drugs or alcohol, even certain prescribed medications, a blackout and fall are possible. How the fractures occurred remained a mystery.

Had I "adjusted" Christie I might have severely injured or paralyzed her. My suspicion was that Christie never had carpal tunnel median nerve entrapment, that was Christie’s suspicion as well.

After her diagnosis of fractured cervical vertebrae Christie returned to her employer and complained about her carpal tunnel surgery and treatment. After seventeen years of loyal employment their response was to fire her.

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WHAT MAKES YOU THINK….

In a previous story I wrote about the reachable, teachable moment and the importance of touching the hearts of patients whose behavior and daily habits are putting their health, even their lives at risk. This story is about a reachable, teachable moment that occurred during a conversation with a young woman who was raped while working alone at night in a business located along 28th Street in Kentwood, Michigan.

Breana was in my office because of upper back and neck pain, and headaches related to long hours working on a computer. There was nothing unusual about her visit, it is the kind of complaint I have treated thousands of times.

My wife Ginny is a licensed professional counselor with a master’s degree in counseling and she often told me I somehow get people to disclose problems to me quickly and share deep traumatic events faster than she sometimes can in counseling. I do not know if that is true or not, but during manual therapy treatment sessions it is not unusual for people to begin talking about traumatic events in their lives. Breana was such a patient.

Breana is a rape victim and survivor. In the US every 98 seconds someone, male or female, is sexually assaulted. On average, there are 321,500 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States. Each year! 1 out of every 6 women is the survivor of either an attempted rape or a rape.

Breana’s rapist had been released from Jackson prison where he had spent eight years for a rape and assault conviction. His first act upon being released from Jackson prison was to drive to Grand Rapids and rape Breana.

Breana blamed herself. She blamed herself because in her words she should not have been working alone at night and certainly not with the front door to the building unlocked. She blamed herself because as a child of alcoholic parents she was a workaholic out of her need to please and to take care of others. These are not my conclusions, this is what Breana, through her tears, shared with me.

Breana was also angry with God and since the rape she had not stepped foot into her church and no longer attended weekly choir practice or performed with the church choir on Sunday. “If there was a just and loving God how could He or She allow such things to happen?”

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I listened to Breana until she had nothing more to say. While her tears were still falling on the treatment table, I broke the silence of the moment and said, “What makes you think God’s justice is limited to this life?”

Breana and I talked more about what happened to her and God’s justice, but the words in that reachable, teachable moment touched her heart and opened a door to forgiveness.

When I made the decision to enter the healing profession I did so with the conscious mission to help people who were in pain and suffering. In holistic health care we recognize the relationship of mind, body, and spirit. It never occurred to me to define pain and suffering as a strictly physical phenomenon.

That perspective opened the door to conversations about the relationship of the emotional and spiritual aspects of our lives to our physical suffering. As a Baha’i who believes in and accepts the divine reality of all religions I was able to have spiritual conversations comfortably with members of all faiths and beliefs.

It was a daily event for a conversation with a patient(s), through no effort on my part, to turn to spirituality. Some of the most meaningful and powerful interactions with my patients resulted because of a mutual openness to listen to and talk about the spiritual beliefs of the patient. Personally, I believe that having some form of spiritual belief and daily practice is essential to physical and mental health, and well-being. It is as vital to life as breathing, eating, and drinking is to the physical body.

A caution. A good doctor/therapist never imposes their opinions or beliefs on a patient. A good doctor/therapist listens, listens profoundly, and allows the patient to share their story and if they wish their pain. Patients honor you with their trust, and it is important not to betray that trust.

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CREATING A HEALING COMMUNITY Holistic health care is a unique form of healing from several perspectives. Holistic health care focuses on the whole person, mind body and spirit. Holistic health care emphasizes prevention first and treatment of disease secondarily. Holistic health care teaches self-responsibility for the personal maintenance of health and in the healing process. Holistic health care relies on an equal relationship and partnership between the doctor/therapist and the patient. Holistic health care embraces the use of methods of healing which are nurturing to the normal physiological processes of the body and help to establish homeostasis (balance and harmony). Holistic health care employs modalities of care which engage and connect with the human being’s mind, body and spiritual nature. Holistic health care defines healing as more than the sum of its individual parts, it is not just an energy, it is a power.

Holistic health care is fundamentally different from the materialistic allopathic (medical/osteopathic) approach to patient care which bases the validity, effectiveness, and worth of medicine solely on statistical outcome data. There are many ways to measure “validity”, “effectiveness” and “worth” that have nothing to do with statistical outcomes but rather have everything to do with human values such as spirituality, self-awareness, belief, happiness, and growth.

Which is “real’ medicine? A system that suppresses symptoms though the use of synthetic medication or a system which nurtures a profound understanding of oneself and purpose in life during the time one has in this life?

Due to the unique and transformative aspects of holistic health care, its nurturing characteristics, it combines well with concepts of community building. I recognized this aspect of holistic health care several decades ago and because of this realization I created a healing community around my practice. I knew as a single individual I was limited by my personal and professional abilities, as well as, by time and energy as to how I could engage with and serve my patients. A healing community combines the resources, talents, abilities and energy of many individuals.

What is a healing community? It is any group of individuals who unite around a common purpose and measurable goals and objectives. A healing community can 73 | P a g e

take many forms and be centered upon different concepts or missions. It may be a service group, a support group, or a school.

When a healing community leads to the establishment of a school that school may have resulted from an initial service project which organically transformed to serve a more global purpose such as when a realization is achieved regarding certain critical needs within the original special needs population.

My first attempts to build a healing community centered around the development of the Blue Heron Academy martial art program for women who were victims of rape, incest, and domestic abuse and later led to the establishment of the Academy’s career programs in the healing arts and sciences. The martial arts program transformed into a vocational education program because of my realization that women in transition needed vocational training and jobs so they are able to support themselves and their families. Our first healing community was built around the combined energies and talents of two dozen individuals and led to the development of a community clinic that treated individuals from the mission district of Grand Rapids, Michigan and HIV/AIDS patients.

A primary characteristic of a healing community is to guide people along the path of personal transformation. It is the inherent nature of a healthy community to nurture growth within the individual members of the group and for the group to celebrate this growth when it is achieved.

The healing community must transform itself from within. If the community remains centered on a single personality or if the healing community fails to transform from within it will perish. Healing communities often begin around the personality of a strong and talented individual but if that individual does not willingly share power and authority and nurture others in their growth, the community will fail.

A healing community brings people together to love and to support each other along the journey of healing. An individual health care practitioner is limited by many personal factors in assisting individuals who due to illness or injury are thrust into the midst of a healing crisis. Our health care system is failing at the most profound and fundamental levels because it does not recognize or accept medicine beyond a pill. Drugs are not healing. There is nothing in a drug that is essential for the maintenance of a human cell. Drugs do not nurture life. Food, 74 | P a g e

nutrition, pure water, spirituality, love, understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance lead to true healing.

A Chinese definition of a leader is a “forerunner� or some on who is walking on a path slightly ahead of those who are following. But only a few short steps ahead.

At any time, the leader stumbles or falls those on the path immediately behind him or her can step forward and lead. I have taken this journey and led a healing community for many years. I invite others to consider doing the same, perhaps you already are.

For those of you that will, I have one more thing to share with you and it is a warning. For every light there is a shadow. The brighter the light the darker the shadow. You will be challenged and there are those around you and within your community who will arise to destroy the good you are doing. Do not let them do that.

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NO CHARGE The stories to follow are about my treatment of patients where I felt that the patient had been subjected to enough pain and suffering and/or had already paid too much money for medical care. They needed help, not another bill.

During my practice of holistic health care, I defined several core principles. One principle was not to charge for care of children. But Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come to me….” The next principle was to treat everyone regardless of whether they could pay or not, “The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.”

(Bahá’u’lláh), and finally, not to charge those with a very serious debilitating and disabling disease or a terminal condition, “Be the source of consolation to every sad one, assist every weak one, be helpful to every indigent one, care for every sick one, be the cause of glorification to every lowly one, and shelter those who are overshadowed by fear.” (Abdu'l-Baha) When I was at school I was trained to load patients up with long lists of supplements and nutraceuticals but when I entered private practice I quickly learned this was a financial burden for many patients and families. I then taught myself how to help patients with simple foods and herbs that cost very little. This was the guidance given and set by the central figures of the Baha’i Faith. I am grateful to have this guidance.

STICK OUT YOUR TONGUE One day I received a phone call from an emergency room nurse who worked at a local hospital. I was establishing my practice in Ludington, Michigan and because of the state’s history of threatening holistic practitioners with legal action and imprisonment I was suspicious of her phone call. Why was she calling me when she had an entire hospital of medical doctors available to her?

She told me that she was having some issues with her tongue and she would like to come in and show it to me. Now I am even more suspicious.

She showed up for her appointment and after we chatted about the weather and trivial small-town news I asked her what was going on with her tongue. She shared with me that her tongue condition had stumped all the doctors at 76 | P a g e

Ludington Memorial Hospital. She showed her tongue to very doctor she saw.

None of them could give her an answer as to what was going on.

I asked her what was wrong with her tongue and she promptly stuck it out at me.

There it was then‌. She had a geographic tongue, her tongue looked like a map of Africa.

In general, a geographic tongue can be caused by several different conditions, but a classical geographic tongue can be a vitamin B 2 deficiency (riboflavin). A deficiency of other vitamins such as B 12, biotin, or folic acid can also produce a geographic appearance on the tongue.

I asked her to put her tongue away and we talked briefly about her medical history (she had been on several courses of antibiotics for recurrent bladder infections), her diet (she was on the Standard American Diet, SAD), and she loved vodka martinis (perhaps too much). These are all behaviors that can contribute to a deficiency of B vitamins.

I pulled out my clinical nutrition textbook and I showed her a picture of a tongue just like hers, a geographic tongue from a riboflavin deficiency. I wrote out a recommendation for a liquid B-complex vitamin formula that I liked, and she headed off to the local health food store to buy it.

Within the month she reported that the map of Africa was no longer on her tongue.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU EAT FATTY FOODS? I met my next patient at a party. Ed was in his fifties and he worked as a tow truck driver. We struck up a casual conversation and once Ed found out what I did for a living he asked me if I would be willing to help him with a problem. I said yes, if I could, and Ed began to explain to me a lifetime problem with dry skin and very cracked, bleeding, and painful hands.

Ed suffered terribly from this condition during the winter when his hands were worse, and the cold air made his condition even more painful. Ed shared with me that at night he spread Vaseline over his hands and put on rubber gloves. This procedure did not seem to make any difference, but he did not know what else to do.

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Ed had been seeing doctors for his condition since he was a teenager and currently was under the care of a dermatologist who was recommending standard anti-inflammatory medications and topical ointments and lotions. This doctor was one of dozens that Ed had consulted with over thirty years. Ed stated that he had spent a fortune on doctor’s bills but none of them had helped him.

I figured that Ed had spent enough money on doctors and it was time that someone told him what was wrong and how to fix it. So, I did.

I asked Ed, “When you eat fatty foods what happens?” Ed’s, immediate response was, I must run straight to the bathroom and I have bad diarrhea. Ed’s answer confirmed the diagnosis. Ed had a condition called steatorrhea, an intolerance to fats in food resulting in a malabsorption of fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin A. Vitamin A is critical for proper skin growth and repair.

I recommended a form of “dry” vitamin A that is readily absorbable and easily assimilated into the body. I also recommended vegetables high in beta-carotene and zinc. Over a period of a few weeks Ed’s hands healed and his dry skin was almost gone. Ed was very happy, but I imagine the doctors that he was supporting were not.

THE EARS HAVE IT A young mother and father asked to consult with me about their son who was experiencing recurrent inner ear infections. The mother related to me that during the last winter they had spent over $2000 on ENT office visits and medication and now the doctor was recommending ear tubes.

They did not have medical insurance, so all the office visits and medications were out of pocket. The mom was at home caring for her children (all three of them) and dad was the sole financial support for the family. Their family budget was tight.

One of the main causes of recurrent inner ear infections in children, and primarily during the winter months, is a lack of humidity in the home. During the winter the average American household humidity is less that 12 percent (drier than Death Valley). Because of this very dry air the mucous membranes of the mouth, pharynx, and sinuses become dried out, inflamed, and “ripe” for infection. Add to 78 | P a g e

this situation a merry-go-round of antibiotics and you have chronic recurrent ear infections.

I asked the couple what kind of heat they used in the home and the answer was “a wood stove”. I asked them what they did to humidify the air and the answer was “a pot of water on the wood stove”.

I wrote out a recommendation for a home humidifier and a smaller humidifier in their son’s room. They used the money that they saved on ENT visits to buy the humidifiers. Their son’s ear infections stopped.

Every year when the weather turns cold and the furnaces kick on adults and children immediately begin to experience upper respiratory infections. This is largely due to a lack of humidity in the home. Those add-on humidifiers for furnaces? They don’t work. By the time that the air gets through the heating ducts it is dried out.

Your body has a built in “monitor” to measure humidity. It is called a nose. If the inside of your nose is dried out, sore, and/or bleeding your surrounding environment needs moisture. Another sure sign of a lack of humidity that can cause upper respiratory infections in the fall and winter, is dry skin. When your skin is flaking off, your home needs moisture.

Normalize your homes humidity levels and cut down on your illness, doctors’ visits, and medications.

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SAVING FACE Why is it that doctors are paid so much, and teachers are paid so little? Are they not both equally important? But consider this, without teachers there would be no doctors. Teachers are more important.

Ella was a speech teacher at a local school and had health insurance through an HMO. When Ella was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma she was grateful she had a good insurance plan, or so she thought.

An acoustic neuroma is a benign tumor that grows on the eighth cranial nerve, also known as the vestibulocochlear nerve. One part of this nerve transmits sound and the other helps send balance information from the inner ear to the brain. As you can see it is an important nerve.

When Ella was diagnosed with her tumor there were only a handful of doctors who were competent in the needed surgery, and none of them belonged to her HMO. There was a great acoustic neuroma surgeon in Chicago, heck he pioneered the most advanced surgery for the condition. Ella’s HMO refused to allow her to be treated by him. Ella did not have the money to pay him privately.

She did not have a choice, she would have to trust the HMO surgeon.

He botched the surgery and damaged the facial nerve on the right side of Ella’s face. The nerve damage caused permanent numbness and complete paralysis on the right side of her face. In addition, part of her tongue was paralyzed, and this speech teacher had to learn how to talk again.

Ella, a beautiful woman, now looked like she had had a stroke.

This is where Ella’s story gets worse. Her husband announced he was leaving her and their young special needs daughter and was filing for divorce. In his mind Ella was no longer the woman he had married.

When I met Ella, she was a single mom who had just completed months of speech therapy and had returned to her teaching position. She was visiting with me to see if there was anything I could do to help her with the muscles on the right side of her face.

This is where I admit to you that one minute before she came to talk with me I had no clue what to do, but moments after talking with her I had an “idea” and I 80 | P a g e

knew exactly what to do. My education and training never prepared me for half of what walked into my office, but somehow, I managed to come up with some way to help people. This was the case with Ella.

I had a small electro-therapy device in my office with small probes that were ideal for delivering small amounts of current into the facial muscles. I began to treat Ella with facial massage and electro-therapy to contract, exercise, and tighten the facial muscles on the affected side of her face. After every treatment session Ella and I stood in front of a mirror to measure our progress. Now these devices are common, and you see them routinely in infomercials but in the 1980’s when I treated Ella, they were not.

It was remarkable, and while it delighted Ella to see the transformation it greatly surprised me. Apparently, and this is according to the doctor that pioneered the original acoustic neuroma surgery (Ella finally got to meet him), no one had thought to do this before for patients who experienced a failed surgery. Ella was invited to speak at an Acoustic Neuroma Association conference and she told her story. My technique became a conversation at an ACA conference. I of course, not being an MD or considered a part of the medical profession, was not invited.

After several weeks of electro-therapy, and while looking in the mirror together, we realized that the injured and paralyzed side of Ella’s face now looked more youthful than the “normal” side. At this point in Ella’s treatment I suggested we get her insurance company to buy her an electro-therapy machine, so she could treat herself at home. To our mutual surprise the insurance company agreed.

Ella was now empowered to care for and to treat herself. The word cure (cura) in Latin means to take care, to maintain an existing condition. It does not mean “miracle” it denotes work and effort on one’s own part. When I can reach a point with a patient where I have guided them toward self-empowerment and self-care, I consider the patient “cured”.

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LECTURES FROM THE ACADEMY A Collection of Lectures from the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences by Dr. Gregory T. Lawton, First Edition, September 2018 The following material is taken from a selected series of lectures provided by Dr. Gregory T. Lawton at the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences from 1980 to 2018.

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from Gregory T. Lawton. Copyright 2018.

Dr. Gregory T. Lawton 2040 Raybrook Street SE Suite 104 Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 82 | P a g e