Allopathy, medicine as practiced by doctors and nurses and taught in medical schools, is a blessing. We can diagnose nearly anything and tailor the treatment to the patient with remarkable safety and efficacy. If available to everyone, allopathic medicine could make epidemics a thing of the past and dramatically reduce the effects of natural disasters. Unfortunately, as fewer and fewer people are able to afford the services of allopathic practitioners, contagion runs rampant, dangerous injuries go untreated, and snake-oil peddling quacks prey on the uneducated. Since the defeat of the Clinton national health care plan (despite her husband's best efforts to implement it!) the ranks of the uninsured are swelling at an unprecedented rate, and in the world of profit-oriented medicine, uninsured means untreated. You're on your own. Once again, the working people have to rediscover and revive the tradition of self-care.
Our spiritual ancestors, the village herbalists and wise women, never hoarded their knowledge until persecution forced them to deny it completely. Treatment for, say, insufficient milk flow included not only a warm compress and the right herb tea; the mother was taught how to make the compress and the tea and how to identify and/or cultivate the ingredients. The wise woman, in turn, received perhaps some eggs, a shawl, or necessary repairs to her roof; maybe even a coin if the mother had one. The wise woman was not tempted by this compensation to deceive the mother, and tell her that she had to go to the wise woman every time her milk was slow. It was fair pay for useful knowledge, and the wise woman knew that she'd be trusted to teach the proper responses to the baby's coughs and bee stings as she grew older.
Nowadays, our motivation for reviving the tradition of self-care is much greater than the prospect of compensation. Our people, the Americans, are being denied the basic right of health care; abandoned to plague, congenital disease, and accident by an industry too devoid of any ethical sense to bother with anyone who can't afford insurance (or whose employer refuses to provide it). As Witches, we have an ever-more-apparent opportunity to restore people's confidence in their ability to maintain their own health, and to throw off the blind doctor-worship that's made it possible for medbiz to charge whatever it pleases.
But where to start? Self-care is an enormous subject, and no one wise woman could possibly know all that can be known. So, specialize. Study one area that's of particular interest to you: for example, the cultivation and preparation of medicinal herbs; massage; the management of respiratory complaints; pregnancy and infant health. With the tools currently available - libraries, the computer network, and the exchange of ideas within our covens and communities - it's quite possible to develop a comprehensive body of knowledge within a specific field. Staying in touch with your fellow wise women (and men) can make it possible for you to refer a neighbor in need whose problem falls outside of your realm of knowledge.
Above all, play it safe! Be sure not to break laws. Practicing medicine without a license is very much illegal, and with reason: it brings no profit to pharmaceutical companies, insurers, malpractice lawyers, or any of the many arms of the medical business. So if someone comes to you with an injury, illness, or symptom, the first thing you should tell them is "See a doctor!" If they explain that they have no insurance, tell them to apply for Medicare/Medicaid. This is known as "exhausting your remedies," doing everything that can be done within the framework of the law. Also, accept no compensation that can be traced as direct payment for health-related services or information. Accept loans, help with a project, birthday presents - but do not accept payment for health-related assistance or advice. A wise woman in prison is of very little help!
When enough of us attain positions of political power, allopathic medicine with all of its attendant benefits will be available to everyone. But until then, the need to recover and test and refine the lost knowledge of self-care is more urgent than ever before. We're our own guinea pigs, our own professors, and our own village herbalists - we're the wise women of today.
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