A Local Herb Walk with Peggy Fogg
Sunday, May 18th, 2- 4 PM, beginner/intermediate level.
By Donation.
Get to know your local community: Your plant community that is!
Peggy Fogg, who works at the Two Rivers Clinic was the first person who taught me how to really look at, smell, taste, explore, and even listen to plants, and I am very excited that she has agreed to take us on a two-hour adventure. We will be walking in the Union Village Dam area behind the clinic, which has gorgeous trails and a wide variety of plants. During our walk, we will focus on learning to identify at least ten local wild plants used as traditional everyday food and medicine, (particularly those that would be beneficial for the people in the group) and we will speak of many more that we find along the way. Traditional ways of working with, and learning from, the plants will also be taught. All questions are welcome, as are cameras to help you remember. Peggy will bring some sample dishes and teas made of the plants we will learn. Bring a cup for tea tasting. Class size limited to 8 for best experience. To sign up contact Didi Pershouse at The Center for Sustainable Medicine or call 802-785-2503.
I have a colleague who works with me at my clinic. Her name is Phoebe. She’s pretty small, with soft blond hair and dark eyes. Only about 12 pounds. She is an M.D. –Medical Dog, that is. Sometimes I call her my blond receptionist, but that’s just a joke between us. She knows she’s the only one in the building who is really an M.D. The rest of us are just Licensed practitioners of things like Acupuncture, Naturopathic Medicine, and Psychology.
What makes her an M.D.? Well, the other day my disabled neighbor fell and knocked herself out cold. Phoebe, who was the only one there to help, licked her back to consciousness. Since then we’ve called her a medical dog. When Phoebe was only 9 months old, this same neighbor who is also profoundly deaf was getting out of the shower and didn’t hear that someone was knocking on the front door. Phoebe, who happened to be visiting, took a hold of her bathrobe and led her all the way through the house to the door.
She helps my patients every day. Recently a man sat down in front of me and said “If only everyone in the world was like that dog of yours, and just loved me for who I am.” At which point he burst into tears. Phoebe, M.D., leapt into his lap and started licking away his tears. Which of course made him cry even more, but also made him smile.
Another time a woman came in who had just suffered a profound loss. She burst into tears, and as I held her hand, Phoebe, M.D. climbed up behind her and put her two paws on her back, (doggie reiki) and licked her ear every time it filled up with tears.
Another practitioner who works in the building says Phoebe is a magical dog. She said that all Phoebe has to do is cross a room, or even just bark, and her clients open up.
I think Phoebe is magical. She is magical because she is a dog, choosing to live among humans, and study their ways. Just as amazing as those humans who occasionally choose to live among wolves. Having dogs at work, in clinics, sitting around in cafes, reminds us that it’s okay to cross the invisible boundaries. The boundaries that say we need to stay separate from nature. From wildness. From difference. Having a dog wandering around in a health care setting tells people who are feeling distant that it’s okay to reconnect with the world
Co-Counseling Class with Deborah Robinson and Jesse Tichenor starting in January 08. Hanover, NH. Sliding scale. For more information about the class, please contact Deborah Robinson at (603) 795-2825.
Deborah and Jesse were my teachers and I highly recommend them, and this class. Co-counseling has changed my life in a profound way, and helped me to understand and change some of my deepest patterns that years of therapy never touched. Deborah is a very skilled counselor with many years of experience. Jesse runs the Deep Community program at Dartmouth College.
Co-counseling–also called Re-evaluation Counseling–is a truly sustainable way to take care of your mental health, and create social change in the process. Instead of paying someone a lot of money to listen to you, co-counseling trains people to counsel each other, for free. Once you have taken the class, then you are part of this world-wide community of delightful intelligent people–and can go anywhere in the world and have a community of caring people willing to hold your hand, look deep into your eyes and really listen. Here’s how they explain it on their website: (www.rc.org)
“Re-evaluation Counseling is a process whereby people of all ages and of all backgrounds can learn how to exchange effective help with each other in order to free themselves from the effects of past distress experiences.
Re-evaluation Counseling theory provides a model of what a human being can be like in the area of his/her interaction with other human beings and his/her environment. The theory assumes that everyone is born with tremendous intellectual potential, natural zest, and lovingness, but that these qualities have become blocked and obscured in adults as the result of accumulated distress experiences (fear, hurt, loss, pain, anger, embarrassment, etc.) which begin early in our lives.
Any young person would recover from such distress spontaneously by use of the natural process of emotional discharge (crying, trembling, raging, laughing, etc.). However, this natural process is usually interfered with by well-meaning people (”Don’t cry,” “Be a big boy,” etc.) who erroneously equate the emotional discharge (the healing of the hurt) with the hurt itself.
When adequate emotional discharge can take place, the person is freed from the rigid pattern of behavior and feeling left by the hurt. The basic loving, cooperative, intelligent, and zestful nature is then free to operate. Such a person will tend to be more effective in looking out for his or her own interests and the interests of others, and will be more capable of acting successfully against injustice.
In recovering and using the natural discharge process, two people take turns counseling and being counseled. The one acting as the counselor listens, draws the other out and permits, encourages, and assists emotional discharge. The one acting as client talks and discharges and re-evaluates. With experience and increased confidence and trust in each other, the process works better and better.”
Copyright © 1995-2007 The International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities.
All rights reserved.
I will be giving a reading from my latest manuscript at the Chelsea Public Library on January 10th, at 7 PM. The upcoming book is about my work in homeopathy–which connects patients’ language and gestures with the medicines they need. It is also about my family’s history in radical medicine. My grandfather and great grandfather were both pioneers: one in radiation therapy (working with Marie Curie) and the other in Neurosurgery—discovering the seat of memory by removing part of an epileptic’s brain. I found myself inspired by and also reacting against this legacy—and thus became a pioneer in alternative medicine myself.
There will be plenty of time for discussion and questions.
Hope to see you there.
