Ode to a Sustainable Medicine

 

 

 

 

Strengthen, empower, enlighten,

Ever seeking to help Life flourish,

The wise healer seeks to help balance nature,

To uplift, educate and nourish.

 

We must first protect the seeds,

 Our present, past and hopes;

Cherish our children as the most sacred,

Not lust, ambition, nor dope.

 

Each seed must be planted,

With responsible intent;

Cared for, wanted, deeply loved,

Embraced by the bond of the parents.

 

For this is where health begins,

In a home where the sanctity of life is insisted.

This entices the soul to take strong grip,

And face the struggle of existence.

 

Like parents with their children,

A wise healer cares for others;

Nursing and doctoring or just lending a hand,

Like good fathers and good mothers.

 

Each being is unique,

A constitution unto itself;

This is where disease reaps havoc,

Or where the being finds health.

 

Though disease may be a pattern,

Of signs and certain symptoms;

It takes place in a person's life,

And uniquely affects him.

 

So the wise healer sees disease,

Like a storm upon a landscape;

And seeks to help us bear the storm,

taking shelter from the climate.

 

The healer points out that like the rains,

Illness can bear the fruit of healing;

A lesson that helps our species itself,

Because disease is revealing.

 

Revealing of the way of health,

Skies still have beauty with the clouds;

Disease inspires us to care with compassion,

Indeed, what true love is about.

 

Disease and illness are a fact;

The forces of life and death in play;

We can face these foes and often whip their butt,

And keep our landscape fit for the rain.

 

Hygiene and sanitation,

Keeps us ecologically sound;

Then we can till our fields,

Then is health allowed.

 

The wise healer feels our dirt,

Like a gardener with a green thumb;

"Too dry, too damp, not enough manure",

"Too much wind, or cold or sun."

 

The diagnosis should ring true,

Like a guidepost of the terrain.

Study, inquire, seek the truth,

So the treatment can be planned.

 

Then using resources close at hand,

Effective, natural, cheap.

The healer prescribes a remedy,

Matching needs with belief

 

Foods, herbs, touch and exercise,

Live good. Keep clean, be wise.

Keep tuned, with good genes,

be honest, inspire, empower, realize.

 

Sometimes when negotiations fail,

The heavy artillery is called to fight.

When the fire has set the fields ablaze.

We'd do anything to save a life.

 

Heavy medicine and surgery,

Are blessed sacred weapons;

To be used in times of battle,

When it seems that we might not win.

 

When life is at stake,

It's ok to use power.

To call Nature into harmony,

We may need to shout to her.

 

Even when aggressive,

The healer takes the most care;

To know what they are doing,

Using skill to repair.

 

A wise healer would do this,

Only if serious need be;

Not for some ego reason,

Like he is greedy.

 

Or like he seeks to express his craft,

Like a cobbler in search of a shoe;

If all one has is a hammer,

Then one sees a lot of nails that will do.

 

Back in days of old,

A patient would pay their doctors while healthy;

Then if they fell ill,

The doctor would make them more wealthy.

 

These doctors of old,

Would choose their patients wisely;

Together they would work at health,

To keep each other thriving.

 

A medicine is sustainable,

When it has proved itself through ages;

A Way is better than a pill or potion,

 For it prevents, cost less, and encourages.

 

It is encouraging,

When the community focuses its resources;

And the healers take lead,

To gather healing forces.

 

For it takes a community to grow great healers,

It takes generations to foster a healing way;

The healing way comes forth from fertile soil,

 Birthed from midwives of yesterday.

 

When tilling your soil, or helping another,

 Create a world where life is enabled to grow;

Plant the right seed in just the right soil,

And protect it from all foes.