THE WAY OF BAREFOOT DOCTORING

The Way of Barefoot Doctoring is about the disciplines and principles of wisdom in matters of health and healing. Humanity has long sought to achieve this wisdom, frustrated by the seemingly eternal forces of nature, society, fear and ignorance. It takes a great deal of care—generations of effective nurturing and strengthening—to bring humanity towards a healthy way. It takes each person a great deal of care—years of effective nurturing and strengthening—to allow the person a good life. Barefoot doctoring is the way of caring that brings us towards the quality of life.

The first chapter introduces the “Art of Barefoot Doctoring”, what it is and is not. Barefoot doctoring is not a profession, degree, license or certification. It is the urge to care itself, to help life flourish in the personal, community and planetary dimensions. In our youth we are burdened with the inability to effectively care for ourselves. As life matures, the discipline of caring can become more skilled and effective. Eventually we have the ability to beyond our own skillful caring to caring for others. We care for our friends, family, children and our community. We move from the aspiration to care and live the good life through discipline into mastery. The “Art of Barefoot Doctoring” explores the aspiration, discipline and mastery of caring.

The second chapter, "Prehistoric Caring and the Early Evolution of Barefoot Doctoring", contemplates about how and why ancient healing and healthcare evolved. Archeological evidence supports that humanoids have long cared for themselves and others. Most animals have. Humans moved beyond the instinct to care with reliability and skill. They developed beliefs and techniques about how and why to care. Like a child unable to care effectively for himself, early humans were clumsy, superstitious and often ineffective in their skill. But humans have survived and therefore were caring enough to survive despite the destructive forces. The “Evolution of Caring” reviews how and why our ancient ones aspired to care.

At some point humans went beyond hit and miss, superstition and instinct. The “Further Evolution of Caring into the Age of Civilization” ponders on the major themes in the principles and disciplines of caring. As humanity became more skilled and insightful, caring became more complex. As we came into knew ways of knowing, we developed more ways of caring. People put names and words on these ways and developed schools of thought around healing. Barefoot doctoring began to be overshadowed by these schools of thought as ego, politics and economics got more involved. Barefoot doctoring remained alive in our mothers and fathers and elders of the community oppressed by more “modern medicine”.

The development of the reasonable in healing also lifted healing to a new standard of integrity in ways of healing. Now we have the opportunity to choose amongst the best of ways of healing we can envision, and define our path more clearly. The next few chapters offers views of the different schools of healing evolved based on prevailing worldviews. These worldviews each seem to exploit one aspect of human beingness as the essential way of healing. Some focused on biological and physiological aspects of health, some on emotional and mental aspects, some on sociological and ecological aspects, and some on spiritual aspects. This chapter integrates the various definitions of health into a pragmatic wholistic way of health called wellness. Wellness is “the dynamic state of the person, wherein there is harmonious functioning of enough aspects of that being, enabling that being to enliven the highest Quality feasibly capable.” It is this wellness of a person, our people, and the world that the barefoot doctor seeks mastery.

It seems natural in the course of ones life to begin to care for others. This aspiration to help can become blurred as our intentions get overwhelmed by propaganda, greed, and moral weakness. The next chapter focuses on the “Wise Qualities of a Healer”, on how and why to most effectively diagnose, treat and help. The barefoot doctor aspires and disciplines towards this wisdom. It takes generations and lots of serious person endeavor to achieve mastery in this way of healing.

With the way of health now properly defined, the next chapter seeks out “Principles of Excellent Health and Wise Healing”. If one was skilled and disciplined in matters of health and nature cooperated, what would health look like. This chapter explores the topology of the success of manifesting quality of life. The physical, emotion-mental, socio-ecological and spiritual terrain of health is presented as a map for a barefoot doctor to find and remain on the way of health. The fundamental causes of disease and healthy ways are reviewed to help as signposts for those who care.

A barefoot doctor can influence their own health and those that they touch. If they are truly wise, this touch is like a green thumb offering the way to thrive. As a barefoot doctor achieves mastery in this art, they care for humanity itself, offering a way for the species to enjoy a greater fulfillment. Yet even a master barefoot doctor is restricted by law and regulation. The highest and most sustainable way of healing utilizes integrity, not law to guide it. “Way of Freedom and Regulation of the Healing Arts” reviews how the inalienable right to help has been threatened by political foes through regulation and legislation. History shows that this is nothing new, but today this propaganda has such a grip on the public that they hold barefoot doctors with suspect. Economic and political pressures keep barefoot doctoring underground. A sustainable way of healing must include those who care with skill, respect and wisdom, not just those who went to school or have a license. This chapter concludes the book with a vision of a sustainable way for humanity to care.

The Art of Barefoot Doctoring

SUTRA: Barefoot Doctors

Barefoot Doctoring is the grassroots approach to the healing arts that people use to help heal themselves, friends, family, and community. It is a lay or professional person’s endeavor to be responsible for their own health and those in their sphere of influence. The phrase “Barefoot Doctor” was popularized in the mid-1900’s by the People’s Republic of China, who trained lay people in the healing arts where medical care was not available. The Chinese government supported local folk healers and customs, synthesizing it with modern scientific medical skills. Farmers and field workers were taught effective hygienic and sanitational practices, disease prevention strategies, and the basics of medical diagnostics and therapeutics. Exercise and nutrition were taught, as was first-aid, childbirthing, primary medical care, herbalism, and acupuncture. Today, Barefoot Doctoring is popular in countries the world over, and refers to the concept of people helping people to heal themselves.

Barefoot Doctoring has emerged from very ancient roots, for it has been around since the very first person attempted to help another. Indeed, any attempt to enhance the quality of our lives is a form of Barefoot Doctoring. No material license is needed for this, nor degree or certification; and no governmental intervention is necessary to regulate or register Barefoot Doctors, for it is a natural tendency to have compassion for those in despair, and a natural right to attempt to comfort them. Wisdom and skill are the necessary certificates, and consent the only license needed to engage in this sacred art. Barefoot Doctoring is a covenant between two individuals who endeavor on the path of healing, a path guided by respect, nourished by compassion, and protected by integrity. Most importantly, a Barefoot Doctor combines the intention of love with whatever skill and wisdom that they have. More than a degree, profession, or license, it is a common vow of honor in the healing arts, respecting the hopes, rights, and needs of those seeking a healing.

SUTRA: Healing

Most Barefoot Doctors tend to specialize according to their own personal interests and the needs of the community. Some become herbalists, others bodyworkers; some are midwives, others teach yoga; some are medical doctors or nurses, others are bush doctors or shamans. Many Barefoot Doctors take a more wholistic approach, combining many types of healing arts into their own unique blend and attempt to meet whatever needs that arise in their community. Some practitioners do Barefoot Doctoring professionally, and others as a hobby. Some have gone to years of schooling, some have done apprenticeships; others are self-taught. Some barefoot doctors are scientific, while others more intuitive; some are more conventional following protocol and modern standards of care, while others are more unconventional, doing “whatever it takes” to help another on their path. What defines a Barefoot Doctor is the intention to use knowledge appropriately, while attempting to “upright “ the life toward a higher quality of existence.

In the healing arts, like the martial arts, it is sometimes necessary to use aggressive means to save ones own life or that of another. Yet it is rare that life needs to get so violent. Most of us live day to day in a moderately comfortable existence without immediate threats, therefore we have the luxury of pursuing the peaceful way. Even in extreme times, negotiation is preferable over battle, and violence is a last resort. And so likewise, most medical events, though uncomfortable and scary, can be negotiated through relatively safe and comfortable means. Reflexively relying upon surgery or toxic substances for a cure, is like a policeman who pulls his gun on a jaywalker--quite an aggressive reaction when a kinder approach could have been pursued. Many police officers have still to learn the more peaceful ways of handling societal problems, and thus the peaceful approach does not seem an option. Likewise, doctors are trained in such aggressive methods that they have lost sight of safer methods. And just like it is up to the citizens of our country to ultimately keep the peace, and to remind and discipline our children, friends and loved ones of the peaceful way, it is also up to the citizens to help us keep our health, and teach us of the healthier way. It is these citizens who are the Barefoot Doctors.

The allopathic medical approach is greatly appreciated by those of us whose lives have been saved and suffering reduced. It, too, is a most sacred art (as is that of the police and military), that has grounded healing into a scientific basis, yet there are countless examples of over-reaction and extreme measures, when a safer, more comfortable means could have been pursued. A healer’s paranoia of the devastating force of nature to take down a life, needs to be balanced by the resolution to help as harmlessly as possible, caressing the regenerative forces of nature. Even when a Barefoot Doctor specializes in pharmaceutical medicine or surgery, they have a primary focus on how their techniques may balance, strengthen, and beautify the life in concern. Reflexively asking “How can this being come into a better quality of life?”, the Barefoot Doctor’s focus is toward how they can help life prosper and flourish, saving the more aggressive and toxic methods for the most extreme conditions. The conditions that plague humanity are the reasons why we need excellence in our diagnostic and therapeutics techniques.

Medical research has clearly shown that most health problems are preventable and often related to how we live our lives. Hygiene and sanitation measures, self-care and life-style adjustment, good food, exercise and attitude, healthy habits and demeanor can increase the quality and longevity of our lives. A Barefoot Doctor helps us to understand how our choices relate to our health. Like a skilled outdoorsman who uses a compass to help us find our way out of the woods, a Barefoot Doctor uses his/her wisdom to outline the healthy direction, and can map out the terrain that lies ahead depending on how we choose to travel. And though the methods may be similar to our healers/doctors using diagnostics, therapeutics and prognostics, the Barefoot Doctor usually only advises on a course of action, recommending a path that seems most suitable for the person. The responsibility of the Barefoot Doctor is to let people be responsible for themselves, to let people choose their own course of action. A Barefoot Doctor may review the options, help weigh the risks and benefits, and offer suggestions when asked for advice, but ultimately, like a good coach who stands on the sidelines and lets the players play their own game, they expect that the person must be responsible for their own path, hopefully a path conducive for healing. The covenant is to speak truthfully and act skillfully. and to vow not to mislead, manipulate, or hurt any person intentionally.

Chart: Responsibility of the Healers

Barefoot Doctoring techniques tend to include safe, readily available, and cost-effective tactics that rely on personal responsibility, rather than dependency. Exercise, foods and herbs, bodywork, home birth, hydro- and physical therapies, ecological harmonization, relationship enhancement and self improvement techniques are examples of direct means of healing that people can learn to utilize safely and comfortably. It is especially precious when Barefoot Doctors are familiar with the allopathic options, so that these may be employed if the severity of conditions and the will of the person so requests. Familiarity with the community resources, the forces of nature, and years of experience allow the Barefoot Doctor to guide the person to a more appropriate place if the need arises. Humbleness and recognition of one's own shortcomings are of tremendous value to the Barefoot Doctor, to maintain integrity and the vow of harmlessness.

Chinese medicine, wholistic healing, or alternative healthcare practices are different than Barefoot Doctoring, though they may be included if so desired--as may western allopathic medicine and all its specialties. A Barefoot Doctor need not be Chinese or alternative, but does need to love and care, for they tread their path with tender toes, careful to walk respectfully and gracefully, without stepping on the toes of another or tripping them up. Helping people to stand on their own two feet, Barefoot Doctors give comfort, support and healing to the ailing and healthy--helping community resources to come together to help people harmonize with the supportive way of nature.

"Aikido" is a Japanese word that means harmonizing (ai) with the upright forces (ki) of nature’s way (do). Though originally applied to a martial art that uses loving means instead of aggression to help upright negative forces, the word "aikido" can be applied to any endeavor that helps life come to harmony. Barefoot Doctors use aikido as the underlying strategy in relationships with others. Their underlying intention is “How can I help this person find that groove where their life-force flows stronger and more gracefully?”, that is, “How can this person find aikido?”, not “How much money can I make from these people?”, or “What protocol should I follow so that I will not be sued?” or “How can I heal this person and thus become respected or famous?”. Thus Barefoot Doctoring is not a particular technique or tactic (compare the Japanese word "jutsu"-technique-e.g. aikijutsu), but a pervasive strategy--a way or ‘do’, a path of honor that prescribes the path of intention to harmonize and inspire the quality of a life towards Beauty.

SUTRA: Aikido

There are aikido dojos around the world that teach about the martial implications of aikido. A Barefoot Doctors’ Academy is the healing equivalent of an aikido dojo, i.e. a way of loving healing, that provides a clinical, academic, and diplomatic resource for a community. The clinic might staff healers from all shades of the healing spectrum, who offer their skilled service with love and are dedicated to cooperate with other responsible healers--in their full spectrum of technical backgrounds. Classes might be taught on any of the infinite healing and self-care techniques, with special emphasis on how to utilize these responsibly. A Barefoot Doctors' Academy also acts a center of diplomatic activity where healers of all types openly communicate and cross-train, ending the war that has plagued our society for eons between the mechanists and the vitalists, amongst the allopaths, chiropractors, homeopaths, and naturopaths etc. A Barefoot Doctors' Academy calls for cooperation amongst the healers, demands that healers be humble, skilled and compassionate, and expects the people to freely participate in and choose the path of their own healing. Though a Barefoot Doctors' Academy may not be call such, it must meet these requirements to truly be one.

A person going through training at a Barefoot Doctors' Academy as a Barefoot Doctor, usually begins by aspiring to become a worthy healer. This phase of idealism is marked by studying the variety of approaches to healing. Some students lock onto a specific paradigm; others remain more wholistic, enjoying a multitude of approaches. Some seek to understand the ultimate “cause” of events, and if it’s ‘broken’, then try to ‘fix’ it; others seek ways to help people "feel better", helping people become healthier and happier. Most students of Barefoot Doctoring study both the art and science of healing, studying anatomy and physiology, pathology, diagnostics and therapeutics, along with counseling , nutrition, therapeutic exercise, constitutional healing, and spiritual endeavor. Many students appreciate the structure of formal schooling, while others may not have been in a classroom since high school. Wisdom and skill can be gained from many endeavors, and need not rely on formal education. And certainly, a formal education is no guarantee of wisdom and skill. The strongest path to wisdom seems through focused discipline and hard work in matters of importance.

EXCERPT: Excellent Qualities of a Medical Student According to Ayurveda

Upon gaining confidence and the necessary theoretical background, the student usually apprentices with a more mature healer(s) whom they respect as having manifested the wisdom in the healing art they aspire toward. This phase of practical endeavor usually takes many years to gain the confidence in the clinical skills that are necessary in private practice. Some prefer to train in universities, others seek a more private apprenticeship. Some stick with just one teacher, while others prefer to taste the wisdom of many. What is important is that they do gain the necessary clinical skills, and just as important, a style of applying the knowledge and skills that is effective, kind and reasonable.

During these years aspiring as a student and disciplining as an apprentice, a responsible barefoot doctor in training also endeavors on a path of self-healing and community service. A barefoot doctor should first recognize his/her own life as sacred, and seek to prove that true healing is possible in one's own being. One's own life force is the one most immediately available, and thus the most accessible to prove one's wisdom and skill. It is through this endeavor into self-healing that allows a radiance to occur from within the healer, a radiance of health and vitality, that immediately overflows into those seeking healing. Failure on this path of self-care due to slothfulness, ignorance, or neglect implies a hypocrisy which obscures the integrity of a healer to those seeking assistance. A Barefoot Doctor in training should also apply whatever knowledge and wisdom they do have into community service. This service, done from the love in ones heart, is for free, and sincerely shows that one’s intention is good. Those who never truly serve another are not Barefoot Doctors, but rather healing mercenaries with selfish motivation. No matter how good their skill, a worthy healer needs love overflowing from their hands to show that they are desiring to respect and honor those who seek help.

This initial stage of Aspiration, marked by an in depth study into the art and science of healing, the training in clinical skills, and a successful path of self-care and service, culminates when the teacher bestows their blessing onto the student who feels themselves ready to practice on their own. This recognition may come in the form of a degree or certification, or as a simple nod of the head and a smile. This christening signifies the initiation as a Barefoot Doctor. Reminiscent of a Black Belt in the martial art of aikido, this first major initiation marks the move from Aspiration to Discipleship--the blessing to now pass down one’s art of healing and take on students and clients of one's own.

As the barefoot doctor continues in this path of Discipleship, he/she matures into this next stage by successfully helping to heal people with her honor, skill and wisdom. She begins to teach students about her particular art of healing and eventually takes on apprentices to train intimately. Her self-care techniques are well established as a healthy lifestyle, and her service is shown to the community over and over. Once her students become Barefoot Doctors themselves, and they now begin to take on students, this marks a transition to a second initiation as a Barefoot Doctor--the equivalent of a second degree Black Belt.

SUTRA: Teaching

The transition from Discipleship to Master begins at this stage. A Master has taken his/her art to a new level- e.g. successfully started schools; developed and perfected healing techniques; inspired and helped many people on their path of healing or as a healer. This stage of Masterhood is the culmination of a Barefoot Doctor, proving that the fruits of her wisdom have flourished. These stages are not necessarily ambitions or achievements, but a reflection onto the profundity of love and wisdom that a person can give in a lifetime. They are not awards, certifications, or degrees, but a recognition of honor .

CHART: Degrees of Honor for a Barefoot Doctor

Thus we see that the art of barefoot doctoring can go as deep as a human is capable. It can be the very instinctual compassionate urge to help someone in pain, or it can be the art of a Master who has spent a lifetime helping our species to better it's quality of existence. Barefoot doctoring can be a lay person’s hobby, or a professional’s occupation. It can be a strategy for either a specific healing art or for the very art of healing. By its very nature it seeks to express knowledge and skill (wisdom) with a loving intention to help others heal themselves and become educated as healers. Barefoot Doctoring is the way of a graceful healing, the way of harmonizing with the forces of Nature---the kind, loving way of healing.

In much the same way a person gains skill in healing, humanity, ourselves, goes through stages of discipleship as we pursue our mastery as a species. The path of initiation into mastery as a person can be appreciated as:

Stages of Mastery into Barefoot Doctoring

Probationary Path

Minimal Interest and Skill in Personal or Group Care

Aspiration

Desire for Caring, Healthy Way

Discipleship

Desire and Skill in Caring for Self and Others

Mastery

Wisdom Manifested from Skillful Care:

vital health, wise healing and teaching

Humanity also goes through these stages of initiation as a species as we as individuals learn to cooperate enough to become skillful in that cooperation. Thus does our wisdom as a species arise. Skillful care on a personal level lefts us out of the quagmire of our instinctual drives into a graceful way of being. Skillful care on a collective level lifts us to unforeseen realms.

SUTRA: Skillful Method

The way of barefoot doctoring is dependent on the way of the person. A barefoot doctor seeks to help a person come into their excellence. Therefore to achieve mastery in this endeavor, a barefoot doctor must understand the topology of the terrain of personality, the paths that a person may take in the achievement of mastery of living. There are many pitfalls and dangers lurking on every human path, no one has it easy, like Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle, than it is for a person to get into the Kingdom of Heaven”. The “Kingdom of Heaven” is symbolic for the most excellent experience and expression of Quality if life. Yet each of us try to live a fulfilled, healthy life. This is a characteristic of most mammals—to actively pursue experiences that are enjoyable. Throughout our past, humans have sought to relieve our people’s suffering and to achieve a better life.

We do not have skill as a child to fulfill ourselves. We sure knew when we were discontented, by we did not have the intellectual and physical capacity yet to know and fulfill our ultimate hopes. We each had to come into knowing, into a worldview and way to even have a chance of fulfillment. Our personal way defines our health because it is the quality of a particular life that is fulfilled. Our own perspective determines the qualities and values we seek to fulfill. Quality is rooted in our consciousness’ appreciation of reality. No consciousness—no quality. No reality, no quality. Quality is sparked from the subjective meeting the objective. It is the fulfillment of experience itself.

We each choose and condition a way that wobbles in our skill to manifest our deepest intentions. Many aspects go into our fulfillment other than consciousness, especially the biophysiological, sociocultural and ecological aspects. These are the primary terrains of the person and therefore health.

SUTRA: Quality

Just as each of us can be on this path to gaining more skill in fulfillment, humans as a species, have been developing the skills of fulfillment. We are learning as a people to care for our people, as does each new mother and father. Gaining skill in healing as a species had many prerequisites before skill was possible. And as a species, we winged it as best we could. We experimented and used whatever cognition, resources and intuition we had. Humanity has been caught up in the very pitfalls we as humans have. The weaknesses and ignorances of our ancestors still live amongst us and our suffering is still upon us. Nonetheless we do not wallow in the quagmire completely. We are gaining skill in living, thanks to our ancestors. Their coming into understanding is reflective of our own personal understanding as we come into our personal skill in health and healing. And just as our children are greatest teachers, our ancestors too, have much to teach us about coming into mastery.

SUTRA: Remember This While Wallowing in the Quagmire

As there have been many writings on the history of healing, I will not merely rewrite the already known history of the persons who make up this history. Rather, I seek to suggest how and why healing evolved, qualitatively, as a product of the collective consciousness; in this is a reflection of the prevailing cosmologies and worldviews. The particular personalities, no matter how grandiose they seem from a historical reference, are but a precipitation of one’s predecessors and culture. The egos of the personalities and their biographical reference will be left to the history books, and the spirits of their ideologies will be examined for their impact, value and truth.

Like most of history, the themes that have arrived to us have been passed down by an intellectual academia and thus represent a filtration of ideas, rather than a clear representation of the times. And though we may discuss the writings of a particular personages like Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen and the like, we must recognize that these great figures are but a very small, yet influential group. Their medicine influenced future peoples and were a precipitation of the ancients. The medicine actually practiced by the people was far more diverse and unknowable, like most of history, but available reflected in the ways of people today.

We can only surmise the healing ways of the ancient ones. Written materials have tended to sway many to believe that which is written is “more true” than the unwritten. Some of the written materials have survived until today. But people have also survived, and we know from meeting people, that they have beliefs about their healing and that this goes way beyond the press. People choose the types of healing that they themselves believe. Ultimately to understand the types of people’s worldviews will also lead us to the understanding of how and why healing evolved. And as people’s worldview is swayed by the leaders of the culture, it is very worthy to study the prevailing ideologies of these great medical leaders as long as we recognize that these leaders were not how people actually cared for each other. Barefoot doctors, those who cared, were busy on the battlefield of life, dealing with most healings by the seat of their paints with the resources and wit at hand. No matter how great the skill, how worthy the technique, if nobody cares, then the healing is unlikely to happen. Care is the most precious ingredient to precipitate the healing way. Care has its seeds in our ancient ones, and evolved into us to deal with the wrath of nature and rude people.

SUTRA: Plea to Humanity.

Prehistoric Caring and the Early Evolution of Barefoot Doctoring

EXCERPT: On Ancient Medicine by Hippocrates

It is a special challenge to study the healing of prehistoric peoples, as little remains to tell us of their minds, hearts, and souls. But bodies, at least bones, do remain, as do modern diseases, and it is wise to examine these in light of our modern forensic understanding for evidence of disease processes. We must bear in mind that to date little organs or flesh from bodies have survived from much earlier than 4000 BC. Yet, as any forensic pathologist would tell you, there is a lot we can surmise from what remains we have.

Of the very ancients, that is, those greater than 15,000 years ago we know little about their culture; we do know that the Neanderthals did at least occasionally buried their dead and did so with some ritual or ceremony involved. Pollen grains and jewelries have been found with the corpse. We also know that the ancient ones must have cared, for we have found remains of people in their elderly years (probably in their forties) that seems to have been disabled from birth. The very fact of his survival for decades means that his people must have cared enough to protect them, feed them, and love them.

We also know from fossil history that parasites and bacteria were most certainly present, but we are unsure of their virulence and pathogenicity. Paleopathology, that is the study of disease processes as suggested from human remains, can help us to understand some things. Bones of the ancients, like the rest of humanity, shows clear cut abnormalities in their skeleton and teeth that suggests the presence of decalcification, bony overgrowth, thickening, wasting, and degeneration. Fossil teeth also show sign of infection through abscesses, erosion and caries. Clearly disease processes were present and this was no Garden of Eden.

Mummies of early ancient Egypt and China lead us some insight into diseases of the flesh mummies have been found with evidence of parasites, pneumonia, tuberculosis, arteriosclerosis, urinary tract infections, kidney and gall stones. Clearly disease was present and evidence leads us to believe that our modern curses have evolved directly from prehistoric times.

We can also look to the veterinarian arts to see that every species bears the burden of existence in their species specific kind of way. Each species lives in a delicate balance between their genes and gene expression, the environment and their will to survive. Nature has always and most certainly will continue to give opportunities and scourges to all its creatures. Some creatures seem to survive more driven by their biologic urge, while others have developed the need for maternal caring. Certainly all mammals fall in this category of needing care, and humans near the top of the list of newborns and children in need of altruism. It seems our very organ of intelligence itself, the brain needs maturation before we are physically able to sustain ourselves as a person on this planet. We need care to survive. We need good care to survive well.

Many people believe that the ancient people were physically and spiritually more healthy than moderns. Legends of bible figures living well into their hundreds is common. The yellow emperor, who wrote in 2600 BC: “I had heard that in ancient times people lived to be over one hundred years, and yet they remained active and not become decrepit in their activities”.

Unfortunately, we have little evidence that the ancients were more disease free than the moderns or that they lived longer. For the remains that we have, ancient humans clearly died younger and many had evidence of some underlying processes of malnutrition, degeneration, infection, trauma and tumor. Men seemed to have lived longer than women, probably because of the hazards and depletions of childbearing and also probably because they were big enough to demand to be cared for better. Because women were smaller creatures, and it was likely that many humans were very cruel, women and children probably bore the rudeness directly through enslavement, rape, and brutalizing.

Certainly not all humans were cruel. Respectful women and men kept the flame of caring alive. And those special, probably less than alpha people, learned that, to survive the harshness of the earth, cooperation fed more mouths. The group bonding was necessary and desired by most humans. Time again, history shows how tyrants come to power, try to squeeze the life out of people until a rebellion of freedom triumphs. This was no doubt true in the ancient groups were the rude and the kind fought out their battles. It also happens in our families, jobs, communities, and sport teams. So it probably happened to our ancient families as well.

In the study of disease from any culture, from anytime, it is important to understand the environmental and societal pressures within which they forged their existence. We know that the diseases of hunter-gatherer societies are different from agricultural, which is different from the urbanites. This is quite evident from modern humanity and from strong evidence from the more recent past. The transition of one type of society into another was never clear cut, but most certainly did occur and it occurred at different times in different parts of the world. The transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural seem to first happened in the Near East around 8000 to 5000 BC while Europe remained at a hunter-gatherer subsistence. Care would have taken on different forms and different ways, but one thing remains consistent: the intention to help life become better.

Though the medical fate of the ancients were vast enough to cover the death of all its people’s, probably trauma was amongst the most common; Again, our vision is limited to the examination of the bones which are most obviously show damages through trauma. And the bones of the ancients sure have a tale to tell. As would be expected both intention and unintentional trauma was present. Intentional trauma as exemplified by trephination, was perhaps one of the most sophisticated ancient surgeries and was present in the Paleolithic cultures and many Neolithic as well, and it is present in some stone age cultures alive today; and most every culture today did some form of putting holes in the skull.

Why they did that? We’re sure there are many reasons, and we do know that many survived. It is probable that they did it for a variety of reasons: for chronic headaches, for seizure disorder, for traumatic epidural hematomas, for mental illness and most likely to simply let the evil spirits out. It is unlikely that primitives knew the exact scientific indication. But they sure had their reasons. One does not dig a hole into another’s braincase unless one believes that it will help (or kill) them. Since living long after the procedure was common, we can assume that whoever did this procedure must have had some considerable skill. Ask the average modern person to perform such a feat and one will understand quickly that there must have been for surgical skill and post-operative care. The ancients had great skill chipping of flint and bone. This could be applied to trephination.

Probably trephination was as common as it was because blows to the head were probably common. We have no evidence that the ancients were morally or ethically more advanced. The contrary is more likely. This is supported by the evidence that shows that the most frequent fracture was a fracture of the forearm, this can occur when individuals attempt to protect their heads from a weapon and block or parry the weapon with their forearm. This so called “parry fracture” of the forearm is extremely frequently present as examined from ancient skeletal remains. In prehistoric Greece and Turkey the parry fracture is the most common fracture and pre-dynastic through Byzantine Nubian thirty-one percent of all fractures were the parry fracture. Skull injuries was also frequent. The fact that leg and foot trauma were relatively rare, leads us to believe that the parry fracture and head injury are probably related to evidence of a violent past. Yet for every violent act that mortally injures another, for the person to survive, there is usually a person or people caring enough to help. The very survival of our species is encouraging and evidence of love. The love we are capable of today has its seeds in ancient survival tactics.

We must use our imagination to envision how the ancient ones went about to do their healing. We must first imagine how they knew the world, how they understood things to be. Judging from their cranial size and involutions, of their brain impressions the skull casing, we can speculate that the basic raw neurological material was similar to ours. Their bones and anatomical remains suggest that their body was indistinguishable from the modern period, except more robust. We know that they seemed to have an extremely primitive technology by our present standards but technology nonetheless. And our modern view of physiology and pathology, which has required incredible patience to evolve, must most certainly have been absent. It has taken all these years to piece the puzzle together. What part of the puzzle might have these ancestors known?

They obviously knew how to sustain themselves. Most, if not all mammals, have a good sense of hygiene and will seek to meet the basic needs of survival and pass these skills on to the next generation. There skills in hygiene were probably far more acute than our own. Their knowledge of the roots and fruits and leaves and animal habits were at least survivingly strong. And it is possible that they were far more astute than us moderns in a most fundamental sense. Their basic ability to care for one another was also likely more profound, because it was absolutely essential for them to survive. Cooperation, kindness and love must have existed to battle the eternal foes of selfishness, hatred, famine, natural disaster and disease. These virtues live in much of the animal kingdom and since they evolved to be so important in us, we can assume that they were present at least in some seed if not fully actualized form in the ancients. As mean and nasty as humans are today, selfishness and terror was likely represented in out fore parents. These expressions of love and hate have battled eternally within our species from the most ancient of days.

SUTRA: Cooperation

Thus when it came to healing, we can assume that some of our ancestors cared enough about life to seek to gain wisdom at least wisdom in their own eyes as to dealing with the scourges of their humanity. They probably got sick a lot since they were exposed so intensely to the elements. They probably also had more hearty vehicles that adjusted to temperature and resisted disease remarkably. They probably were both fit and strong as well as decrepit and weak and all this is but speculation but that is grounded in reason and paleologic evidence.

All cultures have techniques that deal with the basic causes of disease. Though they might not know the truth about the so-called ultimate cause of disease, neither do we. Ask the average person alive today why they got sick and one will hear some very good reasons though the reasons may neither be valid or true. And the ancients, to be sure, had their reasons, reasons, perhaps less rational, but reasons nonetheless. And they must have known enough reasonable things to deal with the reality of survival.

They had wounds, because the flesh tears and decays and gets infested. All life with flesh must bear these facts. Other mammals tend to the wounds of their loved ones. And no matter how primitive the culture will help others to tend to their wounds.

Some creatures tend to wounds by cleansing, some by covering, some by surgery, some by compresses, some by licking. Even children have some sense on how to tend to wounds. The ancients had plenty of wounds and many survived, at least survived many wounds. Given their lower level of technology, they probably tended to their wounds very directly and diligently. That is what it takes to survive a blazing infection.

Today even good doctors have lost the art of tending to wounds directly because of the technology developed that allows nature to have a cleaner interplay. Doctors know that a wound kept clean is critical or else a foul, pussy condition is likely to develop. Packing, washing, and bandaging are important to help the healing. Today antibiotics are routinely used therapeutically as well as prophylactically. Surgical debridement, amputation, fixations and grafts are well known and used profoundly. As the ancients did not have this technology and many still survived; and also by studying indigenous and traditional medicine, we find out that many even primitive cultures have very wise and effective ways to deal directly with the care of wounds.

This is not to say all cultures of all people of all times were wise in healing. Indeed, sadly, far from it. Perhaps more so with the ancients, but still so common, many unwise healing techniques are used and abused. There was likely much more superstition in the ancient days because they did not know why- they could not have known- the evidence and technology to know was just not available. Facts remain obscured but they knew the effects. Untended wounds get pussy and can lead to violent fevers. delirium and death. Untended heavy bleeding can make someone feel dizzy, cold and faint and eventually come to their death. Prolonged fevers and rigors are a sign that sickness is present and death may soon be near. Lack of adequate food can be followed by wasting or even eventually death. Tending to our wounds and our families’ wounds help us to feel better and live longer.

These things especially they must have known and undoubtedly they knew more- a lot more. And even though they may have thought about “supernatural” causes, they also must of had profound abilities to nurse and directly care for each other.

Some groups with a stronger love would be bonded tighter and their ancestral knowledge would have been transmitted more fully. It takes generations to become wise. Human beings seem such that they prefer to seek the bond of love than to remain either isolated or in a selfish hateful group. Love is the very force of coherency itself, the glue that bonds humans into successful groups. Love is how we become wise.

SUTRA: Love is the Universal Language

There are many things that bond and separate humans well: needs and fears, ideas and values. These are strong forces and do not necessarily augment the passing of the sacred wisdom of the ancestors, for they tend toward isolationism and separatism even within the group itself. Some groups were nice to each other and mean to others. Many conceivable possibilities as to why groups remained together is likely to have occurred again and again, but of all their reasons to be bonded together, the reason of cooperation is amongst the most wise and sustainable because it lends so much beauty into our lives. Some lineages lived on, and others died off. Love has survived till today to deal with the destructive forces.

Though hatred, isolationism, and separatism are common today, these are often ways of a few. Most people prefer the path of peace and of friendship. Hatred is usually driven by a few very powerful ones who coerce people from harvesting the fruit of their own wisdom. Most people today and probably most ancestors of the past preferred and sought out sustained, peaceful relationships. Abuse, though common, was not preferred but tolerated, because of the more imposing and stronger needs of bonding necessary for survival. It is this basic spiritual instinct to cooperate to meet survival needs that led to development of the healing wisdom. It is the desire to care that has fruited the art of medicine. Once people care, no matter how “primitive” they are, they will seek out the ways to comfort and lend longevity. And they will seek to pass on the best of what they know to their children and their friends.

As to where the healing wisdom was especially strong, was probably in areas like protection against environmental invasion; food and herb gathering; wound healing; laying on of hands; image conjuring through role playing and ceremony, hallucinogens, languaging, and therapeutic movements. They may not have known why their techniques worked scientifically, then again even most modern healers have no clue about the ultimate effects of their medications. They probably acquired considerable skill in the most basic and most pragmatic ways of healing. The healing ways of the peoples today reflect their evolution.

We see these techniques in modern Neolithic cultures that have survived. Unfortunately, most eventually get influenced by the “modern miracles of medicine” so that the surviving primitive cultures rapidly loose their ancient wisdom. Most children of these cultures sought the city in search for a life of “modern convenience”. The elders have significant trouble finding worthy and respectful apprentices; the children do not listen to their parents. So few are seeking apprenticeship with the traditional ways, thus we are finding the extinction of the great and profound ways of direct healing that the ancients lived. Though much has survived into “modern medicine” so much has been and is being lost, as the direct healers of medicine are becoming cast aside. The arrogance of the youth to neglect the wisdom of the elders is sometimes how wisdom dies off or transforms. This process started long ago as we became more “civilized”.

Further Evolution of Caring into the Age of Civilization

Barefoot doctoring can be appreciated as the disciplined effort to care. Care seeks to improve the quality of life, to help life flourish and thrive. It is this flourishing and thriving that we mean by health. Every species of life seems to have its more natural way to thrive, based on its characteristics, resources and niche. Humans have many aspects of being seeking value experience and expression. The traditional definitions of health have tended to focus on a particular aspect of human beingness. The broad categories of aspects of “human beingness” can be understood as biophysiological, psychospiritual, and socioecological. A complete definition of health for humans synthesizes the diverse models because human beings are a synthesis. By its very nature, "health" is subject to a wide range of definitions. Often it is important to offer a definition that encompasses the others, bringing them together as a thread, to make them more understandable.

CHART: Definitions of Health

WHOLISTIC DEFINITION OF HEALTH:

The dynamic state of the person, wherein there is harmonious functioning of enough aspects of that being, enabling that being to enliven the highest Quality feasibly capable.

As a force, a life is a vector with a magnitude and direction. Since we are talking about a person's life and not the mere objects of physics, it might be more appropriate to describe the vector in terms of 'how', and 'why' rather than magnitude and direction . How implies the strength of a path chosen, quantity (e.g. vitality, motivations, drives), and why implies its destination or purpose, Quality (e.g. vitality, value experience and expression, Beauty, self‑actualization). The are many forces that influence the life of a person, both internally and eternally, hence we must consider these for as with all vectors, they add up to a resultant vector. If the life of an organism were compared to a compass we could put the purpose of life, the path of most righteous evolution and manifestation (let us call this peak of Quality in life) Dharma, on the north pole, and we could put its opposite ‑‑ Chaos into the south. Somewhere in between these two poles, we could locate the particular person's state of being. If it is in the "northerly" direction then we are healthy. If it is in the "southerly" direction, then we are ill or diseased. Obviously the value of such a compass is immense. It could aid us in reading this map of life with intelligence, and successfully enacting this knowledge with Wisdom. It is important to describe this compass in more detail as well as to describe some of the topology of life's healthy and diseased landscapes.

SUTRA: Karma

CHART: Dimensions of Karma

SUTRA : Dharma

CHART: Dharmic Compass

As we go into a description of the healthy terrain, it is necessary to discuss my perspective on 'perspective' before going into detail on various paradigms on health and healing. Even though I may be skeptical on the intellect's ability to idealize the Truth with out error, I am optimistic about its ability to reflect the visions of the light of Truth with a pragmatic degree of accuracy. New paradigms are developed to explain formerly unexplainable evidence, or to tie the already existing paradigms into a more unified whole. The usual example is that of physics: Newtonian physics replaced the old Aristotelian physics. Many an engineer utilized Aristotle's model, with workable results. Newton looked at the universe with a slightly different perspective, and developed a paradigm to explain his visions. Both paradigm's have their own logic, and are pragmatically workable work, but they are different because Aristotle and Newton had a different vision of the universe. Newton had the evidence of the heavenly bodies to help him explain the physical world. Likewise Einstein developed a paradigm that better explained his visions of a subatomic world unavailable to Newton.

A question that needs to be addressed is: "Isn't one of these paradigms truer than the others because it explains more things in the universe more accurately?" In a humble tone I can only respond "Perhaps' but that would depend on how you see things". All three paradigms can be different, and somewhat valid and one may work in some situations and the others in different ones. A wiser approach than accepting one paradigm as 'the holy dogma’, may be to understand the virtues of all three visions and hence utilize all three paradigms as needed. Engineers use Newtonian physics all the time because of its utility, and do not dilemma on its absolute truth. So likewise we can synthesize a paradigm of health where mechanism and vitalism are closely tied because physics and psyche are aspects of the person; though one may seemingly predominate the other both need to be kept in perspective. There are infinite perspectives on a single point in geometry. Is ideology so different?

SUTRA: Perspective

At least two fundamentally distinct approaches to the art and science of health have developed: one is reductionistic, mechanistic, analytic, and linear; while the other is teleologic, vitalistic, synthetic, and circular. Both approaches have contributed much to our understanding of health and disease, and perhaps a healthy attitude would be to examine these approaches, envision their visions, and synthesize their paradigms. The modern western "allopathic" approach exemplifies the reductionistic viewpoint, while traditional "Chinese medicine" uses more of the teleologic perspective. Neither is rigidly defined within these paradigms, but let us just say that they do show strong tendencies in these directions In his excellent book The Web That Has No Weaver, Ted Kaptchuk compares the two approaches:

Chinese medicine considers important certain aspects of the human body that are not significant to Western medicine. At the same time, Western medicine observes and can describe aspects of the human body that are insignificant or not perceptible to Chinese medicine....The actual logic structure underlying the methodology, the habitual mental operations that guide the physician's clinical insight and critical judgement, differs radically in the two traditions....The two different logical structures have pointed the two medicines in different directions. Western medicine is concerned mainly with isolable disease categories or agents of disease, which it zeroes in on, isolates, and tries to change, control, or destroy. The western physician starts with a symptom, then searches for the underlying mechanism‑‑a precise cause for a specific disease. The disease may affect various parts of the body' but it is a relatively well‑defined, self‑contained phenomenon. Precise diagnosis frames an exact quantifiable description of a narrow area. The physician's logic is analytic‑‑cutting through the accumulation of bodily phenomena like a surgeon's scalpel to isolate one single entity or cause.

The Chinese physician, in contrast directs his or her attention to the complete physiological and psychological individual. All relevant information, including the symptom as well as the patient's other general characteristics' is gathered and woven together until it forms what Chinese medicine calls a "pattern of disharmony". This pattern of disharmony describes a situation of "imbalance" in the patient's body. Oriental diagnostic technique does not turn up a specific disease entity or a precise cause! but renders an almost poetic , yet workable, description of a whole person. The question of cause and effect is always secondary to the overall pattern [like the Chinese landscape artists] the Chinese think of each person as a cosmos in miniature. Each person manifests the same patterns as does the painting or the universe... In each person , as in every Chinese] landscape, there are signs that, when balanced, define health or beauty. If the signs are out of balance, the person is ill or the landscape is ugly. So the Chinese physician loots at a patient the way a painter loots at a landscape‑‑as a particular arrangement of signs in which the essence of the whole can be seen. The body's signs' of course, are somewhat different from nature's signs‑‑including color of the face, expression of emotions, sensations of comfort or pain, quality of pulse‑‑but they express the essence of the bodily landscape. (Kaptchuk, 1983)

Much of Kaptchuk's remarks are in reference to diagnostics, rather than the pure descriptive science of health/disease. But inasmuch as the diagnostic approach reflects the vision of the physician's perspective on health/disease we can see how radically different these two medicines are. Modern western medicine has had a tendency to reduce health to quantifiable molecules "within normal limits"; the person is here more readily known by the individual parts. Traditional Chinese medicine has had the tendency to recognize the parts only in relation to the whole‑‑qualifiable themes in relation to the symphony. Both approaches seem so necessary, that one wonders how they can remain so exclusive. In today's day and age, the so‑called "east‑west" philosophical orientation, is not necessarily bound by physical territories. Ideologies are not culturally fixed, for we seem to be moving towards a world culture, as the races and nations of the world melt together.

Many models have been developed to describe the proper field of the doctor's endeavor. Broad categorizations of the approaches are shamanistic and naturalistic and they tend to narrow in on the biophysiological, socioecological, psychospiritual aspects of a person. They all agree that the goal of medicine is to help people become “healthy” but only a wholistic model comprehensively addresses the concept of the whole person, in its conception of health. Each model sufficiently describes its particular aspect of the person, but only the wholistic model tales into account the integration of the subsystems of the person. The person is a synthetic being, and an accurate model of the healthy person would need to include this concept in its definition. To focus in on the narrow confines of one or a few of the various subsystems of the whole being without addressing the integration of all the systems into a whole, lends to a distorted paradigm of human health. Life flourishes on many dimensions, and so does it wither. Each model presented represents a focused inquiry into a particular aspect of the person; their essential shortsightness is that they are too narrow to comprehensively describe the healthy person. This is due in part, to their narrow definitions of personhood.

The shamanistic and naturalististic approach evolved together with humanity as they do within each of us. These approaches are based on the very fabric of human neurology. Humans have two brains, a left and a right brain. They have different natures that represent the essential duality within the healing arts. The right brain, dominant in shamans, is qualitative, subjective, mythological and magical, full of symbol and meaning. The left brain is more quantitative, objective, logical, scientific, full of reason and explanation. Most humans tend to have a dominant brain and life for each of us deals with the two of each of us.

CHART: Left Brain versus Right Brain

Early in humans intelligent era humans tended to personify the images, voices and meanings of one brain by the other. Some people battle between the two, some take sides, some have a graceful integrity. Whichever brain is developed and identified with, determines the particular model of health and healing that is identified with.

EXCERPT: Consciousness and the Voices of the Mind by Julian Jaynes

Shaman’s tend to push people to deal with their subjective nature. They use words and images and trancelike techniques that induce right brain functioning. They use the magic of the right brain to bring people into health. Naturalists look to the objective to change the material of living through a particular cause and effect. This left brain dominant style uses reason and systems to logically conclude a way towards health and out of a predicament. Shamans tend to see the big picture and seek to help their patients gain a more wholistic perspective. Naturalists seek to alter a causal chain of events with a specific technique or potion.

SUTRA: Shaman's Drum

There have been many ways of explaining the world and experience throughout human existence. The details of these ways is vast and varied, intricate and well described. Some appeal to tradition, others to authorities, some to faith, others to deductive or inductive logic; some appeal to experience and others to a scientific or consistent method. Each of these ways of knowing have evolved slowly into our beliefs of today. Some take precedent in different cultures. Some of us appeal to a few different and even many ways of knowing. Some hold steadfast to one primary way. One thing seems for sure, humans need their beliefs and have at least one way of coming to know the world and make meaning from their experience.

Many cultures rely on tradition to pass on some vision or story. Tradition can bring the wisdom of the elders and their curses as well. The tradition can bring us specific knowledge and ways of knowing. This knowledge may be true or untrue, useful or superfluous. It may be consistent or not, fantastic or plain, but it does help us to understand and impacts or views of health and disease.

The same with knowledge based on