Growing up in the 1960’s, one generation removed, World War II deeply informed my sense of both past and present. My father and almost all the men of his generation had signed up or were drafted. It was just the thing to do, whether it was to go and fight Nazis or because they realized the neighborhood corner was empty so they might as well go off to where their buddies were. They were spread out from England to France to Burma to New Guinea. Some guarded prisoners, some worked on intelligence, some were on aircraft carriers, and some stormed the beaches of northern France on D-Day.Read the rest of this entry »
The world has gone mad. The cloud of nuclear Armageddon hangs over us all as war rages on in Ukraine; systemic oppression, locally and globally, can no longer be hidden or denied. Hate, fear and anger have metastasized through our social and political bodies.
It is ego run amok, as politicians the world over vie for power; egos doing anything they can to insure their own survival, operating under the illusion of solidity and permanence, careening toward destruction, willing to take the rest of us along for their deadly ride.
The world cries out for healing; for medicines that can help to lift the veil that has clouded our vision, to reveal our true natures, our energetic connection with all beings, with the cosmos itself; to remind us that what happens anywhere effects what happens everywhere.Read the rest of this entry »
We all sense the “feeling” of a space when we enter it. We might feel comforted, or irritated, sedated or energized. Whether it’s a friends living room, a doctor’s office, or a mountain landscape, every space generates a different reaction.
Solidity and emptiness: a paradox
Although the world appears to be solid, modern physics has revealed that it is essentially, and mostly, in fact, empty space. At the subatomic level, the atoms that comprise matter, are both particle and wave, solid as well as vibrational.
As human beings, moving through space and time, we are also both material and energetic. We perceive the material world with our senses: touch, smell, sight, sound, and taste. Our perception of the energetic realm is more subtle and mysterious, often unconscious, but just as real as the material realm.Read the rest of this entry »
Witches, Nurses, Midwives (WNM) is one of the seminal works of second-wave feminism. It was written in 1973 by two professors at State University of New York at Westbury, a new public college. At SUNY Westbury the curriculum included alternative subjects, such as Women’s Studies, and served a student body of older, ethnically diverse and working class students. Professor Barbara Ehrenreich went on to become one of our most important cultural critics; Professor Deirdre English, a prominent journalist, author, and an editor for Mother Jones.
This book was originally published as a pamphlet. Passed from person to person, it became an underground classic, addressing power, misogyny, and class struggle in the evolution of American medicine and health care.Read the rest of this entry »
I first heard about Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery from a patient of mine who was about to undergo his second spinal surgery.
“Wow, she really trashes chiropractic big time,” he let me know. “And I think the book is getting a lot of notice.”
So first, a disclaimer: I am a chiropractor.
But I am not one to shy away from criticism, so I immediately bought the book and started reading. Granted, it was hard for me to take in the venomous barrage aimed at my profession. But I plowed forward.Read the rest of this entry »
“Digital natives” are those young women and men who have been raised from childhood on computers. We see them everywhere: Toddlers in strollers playing with iPhones, pre-teens on iPads in restaurants, strategically distracted to allow their parents to eat in peace; Junior High and High School kids doing schoolwork on laptops in the classroom or at home, sitting or lying in bed.
For the digital native, the computer is an extension of his or her body. By the time they enter pre-school, many can navigate apps. Ten-year olds can program software. Adolescents live their social lives on tiny screens. Most of the digital native’s life runs through this digital medium.
The recent announcement that Aetna would be pulling out of a large number of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) exchanges, affirms a fundamental truth about health care and insurance in our country. Business and health care do not mix.
The ultimate goal of health care is to heal patients. The goal of private industry, based upon shareholder mandate, is to generate profits.Read the rest of this entry »
