Animal Totems Part 3: The Medicine in Practice

Practicing the Medicine

Eliot Cowan gives practical examples of animal totem medicine and how it works to bridge the effective healing practices of indigenous traditions with the modern world and its concerns.

Animal Totems Part 2: Forming Practical Relationships

Forming Practical Relationships with Totem Animals

In this second of a 3 part series, shaman Eliot Cowan begins to delineate between simply having a "pet" and having an animal totem you can call on for help. He expounds on the benefits of having these totems for guidance and assistance in one's life.

Sacred Partnership With the World: Living With Totem

Totem Animals - with Eliot Cowan

What are Totem Animals?

Eliot Cowan shares his knowledge about animal helpers as totem animals that have shared their healing with humans all through history.

Information about Homeopathy

In this society where more is better, homeopathy is hard for some people to grasp. Just think, more is not better. We are talking about healing at an energy level. It works even better (or maybe I should say easier or faster) with animals than humans
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Homeopathy Explained

At some point in your life, you have probably walked down the aisle of a health food store and seen rows of small, stacked blue bottles with exotic names and the word homeopathy on their labels.

Seeing them in a health food store leads some to think homeopathic remedies are just another form of herbal medicine. Actually – they bear no relation to herbal medicine and instead are used in a unique and very popular system of medicine called homeopathy.

So what is homeopathy exactly? Well, we are now learning that homeopathy is a form of nanomedicine. The word Homeopathy is derived from the Greek words homeo, meaning “similar,” and pathos, meaning “suffering” (such as the pathology of a disease). Homeopathy operates on a law of nature - “like cures like”, and has been used clinically for more than 200 years.

So what does “like cures like” mean?

Hippocrates talked about it. It means that a patient suffering from symptoms can be treated and cured by doses of a substance (mineral, animal or plant) capable of producing similar symptoms in a healthy person.

Five hundred million people use homeopathy around the world – which according to the World Health Organization makes it the 2nd most commonly used form of alternative medicine.

The clinical results achieved by homeopaths are truly astounding with cures confirmed of patients with deadly acute diseases as well as chronic disease often believed to be incurable .

In fact, because of its clinical results, homeopathy experienced a period of very rapid growth during the deadly epidemics of the 19th century – a period that saw untreated and conventionally treated patients die at alarming rates.

So why, you ask, is homeopathy not the primary form of medicine practiced around the world?

Homeopaths use medicines made from extremely small quantities of nanoparticles created when the medicines are made. In fact, these ultra-molecular preparations (UMPs) from which the remedies are made are so dilute that some scientists have expressed skepticism about whether homeopathic remedies are anything more than plain water. This skepticism has been the primary obstacle to homeopathy’s acceptance in conventional medical and scientific circles.

If this is the major obstacle, what does current research show?

For more than sixty years, scientists, using ever more refined spectroscopic equipment, have discovered unexpected properties of the remedies used by homeopaths. They have also been able to detect in these remedies the original medicinal substances in the form of nanoparticles, despite the preparations having been so diluted.

Scientists are now able to differentiate one remedy from another as well as one potency from another of the same remedy, illustrating that it is not “plain water”.

Not only that, but scientists are now able to measure physiological changes in a great number of experimental cell, plant, animal and human studies.
 
One might ask – could that be just a placebo effect of some kind?
 
Actually – no. The placebo response can’t explain objectively measurable changes such as infertility reversal, stillbirth prevention, or worm eradication observed in randomized placebo controlled trials in farm animals. Similarly, the innumerable cures reported in infants and unconscious people also cannot be explained by the placebo response.

So what’s the big deal about nanoparticles and how could such a small amount of anything affect health?
 
Science now knows that nanoparticles have properties quite unique from ordinary bulk materials (like OTC and prescription drugs), including greater bioavailabilty with improved rates of absorption and enhanced catalytic ability for chemical and biochemical reactions .

What that means is that less of something is actually more in many ways!

Homeopathic nanoparticles can initiate a process in nature called hormesis. Hormesis is a term from pharmacology, toxicology and physiology that refers to the way the body adapts over time to low levels of stressors or toxins. The effects of hormesis have been demonstrated in over 8,000 scientific studies .

Disease, though, can be the result of this is adaptive capacity of the body. When faced with an infectious agent or cumulative stress, the body can change from a healthy state to an unhealthy one. The symptoms we express when we are ill are a result of that adaptive state.

Homeopathic remedies seem to work by hormetically signaling your body to reverse the many adaptations it has made to combat infection or chronic stressors. In short – the remedies trigger your body’s innate ability to heal.

For more about homeopathy, visit www.homeopathic.org. Learn what the research shows and how you can use homeopathy to treat yourself and those you love.

National Center for Homeopathy

 

Shamanism is ...

"Shamanism is a path of knowledge, not of faith, and that knowledge cannot come from me or anyone else in this reality. To acquire that knowledge, including the knowledge of the reality of the spirits, it is necessary to step through the shaman's doorway and acquire empirical evidence." 
  — Michael Harner

MICHAEL HARNER

"What Yogananda did for Hinduism and D.T. Suzuki did for Zen, Michael Harner has done for shamanism, namely bring the tradition and its richness to Western awareness," say Roger Walsh and Charles S. Grob, in their recent book, Higher Wisdom.

Michael Harner, Ph.D., founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, pioneered the return of shamanism, the shamanic journey, and shamanic healing to contemporary life. He has done fieldwork in the upper Amazon, western North America, Samiland (Lapland), and the Canadian Arctic. His books include The Way of the Shaman, Hallucinogens and Shamanism and The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls.

Plant Spirit Medicine

We all yearn to be connected to our spirit, a community, and the natural world, yet how often do we give ourselves the time to nurture that pure, heartfelt desire? Our modern lives have become so busy and stressful. We know the pace takes a painful toll, which we try to remedy with healthy food, therapy, a yoga class here and there, or morning meditation. All of these approaches help, yet we still wonder, is there more?

Sometimes an illness, a bad break-up, or the death of a loved one will activate our core of inner wisdom, shaking us up enough to open our hearts and commit to deeper healing.

Could the potency and mystery of ancient-wisdom traditions provide a medicine for the spectrum of illnesses and the alienation of modern culture?

Communities once worked and played together around the fire. People felt connected to each other and to the natural world around them. Healers helped with individual maladies and also maintained the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of the entire village. The medicine of the old cultures was deep and effective. It was more holistic than anything we dream of today. Despite all that modernity has undone, the Huichol people of central Mexico have kept alive their humor, their communities, and their profound medicine.

Eliot Cowan is the author of Plant Spirit Medicine, and a fully initiated Tsaurirrikame (shaman) in the Huichol Indian tradition. He began the study and practice of herbalism in the 1960’s and completed a Master of Acupuncture degree with J.R. Worsley in England in the 1970’s. Eliot subsequently apprenticed with Don Guadalupe Gonzalez Rios, an eminent Huichol Indian Shaman. On the occasion of Don Guadalupe’s retirement in 2000, he ritually recognized Eliot as a guide to shamanic apprentices in the Huichol tradition.

Eliot has shared his gift with many all over the world. In 1989, Eliot was my teacher. My year long apprenticeship program was based at Dry Creek Herb Farm north of Auburn CA. It was a wondrous year, opening me up to many life changing opportunities. The journey has continued to amaze and confirm my belief in this profound medicine.

It is only with the heart that you can see, what is essential is invisible to the eye. ~ Unknown

Eliot Cowan speaks about "Blessings"

We all yearn to be connected to our spirit, a community, and the natural world, yet how often do we give ourselves the time to nurture that pure, heartfelt desire? Our modern lives have become so busy and stressful. We know the pace takes a painful toll, which we try to remedy with healthy food, therapy, a yoga class here and there, or morning meditation. All of these approaches help, yet we still wonder, is there more?

Sometimes an illness, a bad break-up, or the death of a loved one will activate our core of inner wisdom, shaking us up enough to open our hearts and commit to deeper healing.

Could the potency and mystery of ancient-wisdom traditions provide a medicine for the spectrum of illnesses and the alienation of modern culture?

Elder shaman in the Huichol tradition (Eliot Cowan) discusses his knowledge of Blessings. What are they? Are they always good? How does one ask for a blessing?

Eliot Cowan is the author of Plant Spirit Medicine, and a fully initiated Tsaurirrikame (shaman) in the Huichol Indian tradition. He began the study and practice of herbalism in the 1960’s and completed a Master of Acupuncture degree with J.R. Worsley in England in the 1970’s. Eliot subsequently apprenticed with Don Guadalupe Gonzalez Rios, an eminent Huichol Indian Shaman. On the occasion of Don Guadalupe’s retirement in 2000, he ritually recognized Eliot as a guide to shamanic apprentices in the Huichol tradition.

--------------------------------
I have a blessing story to tell.

I had been training (on weekends) as an herbalist for several years. When I asked to have Eliot Cowan teach Plant Spirit Medicine in No. CA and when he agreed we found out it was for 3 day weekends for the apprenticeship year.

I was very disappointed, as I knew I couldn't take the training. As a specialist teacher, my students weren't serviced when I wasn't there so I couldn't take off Fridays. Then at this same time my favorite assignments were cut/dropped due to tightening of the budget and I was devastated at the loss of what I loved doing.

I ended up moving to a more traditional assignment where I taught on a regularly/daily scheduled classroom basis which required a substitute when I wasn't there. I soon loved this assignment too and of course I trained with Eliot Cowan and have been a practicing Plant Spirit Medicine Practitioner for 13 years.

Yes, blessings come in many packages.

Interview with Eliot Cowan

Eliot Cowan, Tsaurirrikame, Senior shaman in the Huichol tradition of Mexico and Elder of the Sacred Fire Community speaks in an interview held at the 2009 Interspiritual Conference sponsored by the Sacred Fire Community. For more information, visit www.interspiritualconference.com

The Blue Deer Center

A short video interview with Eliot Cowan, my teacher. He shares a few thoughts about the Blue Deer Center in New York.
The rest, Eliot will share:

What is Plant Spirit Medicine

If you are not ready to alter your way of life, you cannot be healed. Hippocrates


Plant Spirit Medicine combines the ancient wisdom of the Chinese Five Element system with the potency of native plants to bring us to the healthy balance of energy that is our birthright. When we are in attunement with the most heartfelt part of ourselves then we can heal on very deep levels and real change can take place in our lives. This ancient practice of Plant Spirit Medicine, long forgotten in the West, has now been remembered, revitalized and reintroduced by American Healer and my teacher Eliot Cowan, author of Plant Spirit Medicine.

Plant Spirit Healing

The Power of Plant Spirit Medicine derives from harmonizing and working with the Laws of Nature. Every person has a unique purpose of their soul to manifest in this lifetime and we all encounter obstacles to fulfilling this purpose. These obstacles may be in the form of physical illness, emotional addictions, financial stress, or lack of support from family and friends. Plant Spirits are attuned to their vision of perfection and purpose and can therefore help us to heal and support us in manifesting our soul's vision.

It is only with the heart that you can see, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Unknown