If we are to truly practice Wild Medicine, I think it is necessary that we really take a deep look at what we mean by medicine and look at other ways of conceiving of it. For many of us, especially if we have been raised in modern culture without exposure to other ways of thinking, medicine is mainly associated with doctors, hospitals, and pills. However, the term medicine has a lot of other connotations and definitions.
Take for instance the idea of the "medicine man or woman". This concept is mostly used in the context of Native North and South America and is often equated with a holy man or woman (though sometimes African spiritual practitioners are also thought of as medicine men or women). However, in these cultures the giving and receiving of plant medicines, often within a ceremonial context, is inextricably linked with the sacred power that holy men and women possessed. This sacred power was cultivated through time alone in nature, guidance under a mentor, dreams and visions, and some form of self-sacrifice in the form of fasting or intentional hardship. In this sense, medicine means healing and also sacred or holy.
There is a specific teaching handed down around this concept and it's application to using plants for healing. Gilbert Walking Bull, a Lakota holy man who has now passed on to the spirit world, taught that in his traditional culture holy men and woman used different herbs and roots to heal people. However, they would put a certain power or "electricity" into the plant to make it work. Often they had been taught how to do this by the plant itself in the form of a dream or vision. If someone else tried to use the same plant in the same way, it would probably not work or even worse make the patient sicker or even die! These healers would only use the plants that they had this relationship with, and they might use less than ten plants to treat all of their patients. This concept of medicine is a far cry from our modern use of both hundreds of pharmaceuticals and also from the immense number of dried, powdered herbs available in every natural foods store around.
This idea of medicine extends beyond the plant realm as well. In this sense, medicine can become equated with the power or sacred ability of virtually all things. Animals each have a medicine. Objects have medicine. Natural phenomenon have medicine. Thus, we start to talk about Deer Medicine or Bear Medicine, Thunder Medicine and Water Medicine, Stone Medicine and Sun Medicine. This points to the idea that for something to be healing and holy and useful for treating illness (spiritual or otherwise) it does not necessarily have to be ingested into the body.
How would our practice of medicine in our current culture differ if we truly valued the sacred medicine or holy power of the practitioners who were dispensing medicines?
What if it was considered normal for healthcare practitioners to cultivate their own sacred powers and gifts in order to be more effective healers?
What if we were to support them in this practice rather than demand that they work endless work weeks crammed full of seeing as many people per day as possible and buried under insurance paperwork, phone calls, and practicing under sterile hospital conditions? (What kind of medicine does someone possess who is forced to practice under these conditions?)
What kind of medicine do we want for the future?
What is the medicine you carry? (It's a good time of year to think about this...)
More ways of thinking and looking at medicine to come...
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