Headline News In This Issue:

DIY Heal Yourself Toolbox by digger For most of human history, what we call health care was has handled at the village or community level: Shamans, healers and the like would use locally gathered medicinal plants and use long-standing, traditional practices. Nowadays, insurance companies, huge hospital conglomerates, pharmaceutical corporations and “professional” organizations such as the American Medical Association dominate the world’s health care systems. [view full text]

One Punk's Journey: Grit, Gratitude, Grace by Parys-Flytrap Sitting alone in my apartment with a loaded shotgun, I was scared to die but felt trapped in this four-year, abusive relationship. I remember that night drinking a lot of whiskey and using drugs. I pointed the end of the barrel to my head and shut my eyes then pulled back on the trigger. The shot rang out past my head into the wall behind me as I fell back on the bed. Too drunk or too scared, I missed. I should have asked for help at this time, but I wasn’t willing to give up drugs. [view full text]

Nurturing the Self Through Yoga by Justicia We are so busy in our modern world. Whether our schedules fill with meetings and protests, classes and lectures, or the day-to-day responsibilities of our families, many of us pour so much energy out that at one time or another we experience serious burnout. [view full text]

The Raw Food Diet for Health and Liberation by Mark Berry Confluence interviewed Casey Connor and Andrew Connor, two brothers who collectively have been eating only raw food for over 14 years. Says Connor: "The best most indulgent, wonderful, tasty food is raw food. And there is a letting go of perceived needs and wants and that is liberating." [view full text]

Nevertidy’s Mirror-See-Free Journey: Or, How I learned I can’t love my enemy til I love me by Nevertidy Sometimes it takes a slap in the face to wake up to how light & dark like to get down. I want to tell the story of how I learned to translate grace. One night over two years ago, a stranger climbed into my second-story southside apartment and tried violently to rape me. It changed the way I see. [view full text]

Compassionate Communication: Killing the Cop in our Heads by Konstantin Compassionate communication or Nonviolent Communication (NVC for short) is a method of communicating that gets at the heart of what is alive in us when we communicate with one another. It is an attempt to deconstruct the domination/submission structure in language and instead create connections of compassion, cooperation, understanding, and respect. It aims to cultivate a connection to ourselves and increase the ability to meet our needs. NVC emphasizes compassion as the motivation in others to comply with our requests, rather than fear, guilt, obligation, or desire for gain. For me it has been a useful tool in addressing issues in politics and my everyday interactions. Also it has been a method to liberate myself from cultural learning that is in conflict with how I want to live my life. This article will explain some of the fundamental ideas behind Nonviolent communication and give you some tools in your tool box for using it. [view full text]

What is the Proper Response to Illness and Disease? by Willie Zep, MD The “proper response” is a reflection of if n The “proper response” is a reflection of if not dependent upon culture, so there are as many responses in this world as there are cultures. In current US culture some people respond to illness and even death as an embarrassing bit of misfortune that is expected to be taken care of quickly with enough money and technology. Currently much western culture supports the idea that illness is an attack by outside forces such as germs or cancer which leads to a desire to enlist the help of an elite SWAT medical team to fend off the attack. Throughout the world there is an increasing view of human bodies as machines and that the only medical truth is one that is proven on the material level with a kind of science that is based on the “scientific method”. But this cultural style has not always been the dominant cultural viewpoint and there remains today other cultural viewpoints that glorify the energy in human bodies and diagnose and treat human illness based on empirical science. Energetic level medicine as designed a few thousand years ago and practiced today is a cultural example that could contribute additional methods of healing in the west if it could be understood again in the western culture. In this essay I am desiring to stimulate a vision for health care that can integrate the two kinds of healing work described here with a view toward sustainable, cost appropriate, geographically and politically sensitive healing systems and techniques. [view full text]