Legacy by Suzanne Methot

Author:Suzanne Methot
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2019-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

When it is functioning well and in balance, the human body works the same way everything else in the universe works: moving through cycles and engaging in constant transformation. When the human body is not functioning well and is in a state of imbalance — or dis-ease — it is stuck in time, stuck in a response, stuck in an old story that prevents transformation and change.

The movement required to achieve transformation is not accomplished in isolation. It is a product of our connections and relationships. Human health cannot be understood unless it is seen as part of a framework that includes the spirit world, the family unit, the community, and the land that supports us.

Umeek Richard Atleo, a hereditary chief of the Ahousaht First Nation in British Columbia, has written extensively on the Nuu-chah-nulth concept of tsawalk. Tsawalk means “one,” and it refers to the Nuu-chah-nulth worldview, which sees the nature of all existence as an integrated and orderly whole that is defined by — and maintained through — relationship. In the Nuu-chah-nulth language, the phrase hishuk ish tsawalk means “everything is connected, everything is one.” This same knowledge is demonstrated in the cultural frameworks of Indigenous nations across the continent, from the medicine wheel of the Plains Nations to the wheel-like petroglyphs drawn by Mi’kmaq people in Kejimkujik National Park in today’s Nova Scotia. The requirement for balance, however, demands that we understand the wholeness of the universe, that it consists of a system of complementary opposites including but not limited to negative and positive, day and night, active and receptive, and warm and cold. The complementary opposites within the wholeness of the universe are illustrated by Carl Ray as the divided circle that connects the transformational figures in the shaking tent.

Holistic medicine, whatever its originating culture, understands that dis-ease is the manifestation of imbalance within the whole. As a result, holistic practitioners understand that the symptoms themselves are not always the actual problem. More often than not, the symptoms point to a problem with the whole: the disconnections and distorted relationships that underlie the symptoms. That story is not seen through the lens of a microscope or in the images of an x-ray or scan that isolates parts from the whole. That story is the sum total of everything that the person has seen, experienced, heard, and understood across time.

Medical doctor and addictions expert Gabor Maté illustrates this in the approach he takes with people who have addictions: “If your addiction gives you a sense of control or power, why do you lack control, agency, and power in your life? If it’s because you lack a meaningful sense of self, well, how did that happen? What happened to you?”

Part of the goal when holistic medicine tackles trauma is to bring the individual to a place where they understand the source of their dis-ease, where they can engage (or re-engage) with the world as a whole being, outside of the encoded memory of, and disconnection created by, the traumatic incident.

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