The process of healing from last year’s lymphoma, chemotherapy, and other challenges, continues. This past weekend was another milestone in this journey, in learning and reflection. On one level, it’s learning more about certain nutrients and plants and how they interact with body chemistry. On another level, it’s about being with loving, caring, supportive community of women who seek healthy lives through plants and herbal medicines and creative arts. And yet another level, it’s reflection on how to spend the precious time and energy one has left on this planet, how to optimize the use of my t alents for the best for all.
The venue for all this learning and healing and thinking, was the “Sixth Annual Gaia Gathering for Women” weekend in Charlottesville, at a 4-H camp. It was organized by Sacred Plant Traditions, a Center for Herbal studies, and their partners. Kathleen Maier is the leader of this group and activity (incidentally, she was my first Tai Chi instructor some twenty or more years ago).
Numerous parallel workshops were offered, with titles such as “wild edible and medicinal plants: identifying, harvesting, and preparing;” “create your own botanical sanctuary;” ”let them eat berries: a panacea for community health;” ”sacred drumming;” “sacred communion and direct sensory perception of plants.” Cynthia and I participated, among other things, in the berry workshop and in one on gluten-free diet.
For the past several months I have been eating berries, especially blueberries, almost every day. I have been aware that berries are the most beneficial fruit for the diet, and rich in anti-oxidants. This workshop took me to a new level of understanding of the importance of both berries and of antioxidants. I am now moving to an experiment in practice in which I will triple or quadruple my intake of berries and berry juice and other foods high in antioxidants (of course seeking organics whenever possible, and raising my own on our property as feasible.) The dots I am connecting in this increasingly complex cognitive web I am building about nutrition and health, have to do with the importance of antioxidants in fighting cancer as well as moderating the effects of aging more generally. One thing that was said in a workshop was that aging and death are really about oxidation and free radicals. That’s what messes up the DNA to cause cancer.
I am not satisfied to keep learning just for my own benefit or just the benefit of my own close family. I need to know that my learning also benefits others — hence the blogging and other teaching activities in everyday life, in conversations with friends, in facebook postings, in sharing books, etc.
At the Gaia weekend there were, i guess, about 150 women in age from babes in arms to 75. at one point the leaders had us line up in a circle in sequence by age. The biggest group were in their 30’s. There were maybe 20 girls from maybe 6 to late teens. I was standing next to the oldest person there. The significance of this, is that the decisions about what to spend one’s time and brainpower learning become more high-stakes as one sees more sharply the diminishing time on the planet to benefit from the learnings and help others benefit. Since the topics of plants and health are so fundamental even to survival, it seems to make sense that these subjects are high-payoff ones. The trick is to find the ways to help important Others, such as grandchildren, assimilate (literally) these learnings at a much younger age than I am doing! Of course, working with parents is leverage but not the only path.
THe workshop about gluten-free diet was similarly enlightening and led me to new insights that are a bit complicated for this already-too-long blog. The insights relate to the damage chemotherapy does to the digestive system, and how that relates to the type of damage involved with gluten sensitivity and celiac disease and even onto “chemo fog brain” phenomena. I plan to share some of this type of connecting-dots with friends who are now in chemotherapy.
To learn more about Gaia and about Sacred Plant Traditions, you can go to http://www.sacredplanttraditions.com
Again I am grateful for these beautiful opportunities and people and love.
