A virus in the muscle

Oh my the pain...for the last 3 days or so I couldn't straighten my left forearm. The extensor ulnaris muscle (the outside of the forearm on the pinky finger side) was TOTALLY inflamed. Then my hand started to swell. So today, I can almost completely straighten it and notice the stress it put on the muscles of my left shoulder. Actually, it's times like this that I am so grateful I'm trained to be able to be rational about what happens in my body. It was very interesting to go through this little joy ride. The remedy: double doses of turmeric, regular dose of cayenne and ginger, water, multi-vits', B-complex, liniment on the area (Chinese and Castor Oil), hydrotherapy in Epsom Salt, rest, and alternate ice and warm. I knew it wasn't my heart because the pain and the symptoms were isolated. I had no chest pain and no shortness of breath. From middle age on, you should watch for chest pain, left arm/left elbow pain (dispersed) and shortness of breath. My left arm pain was specific. I came along with the onset of a mild sinus virus as well. These remedies work folks. And the virus's can settle in a specific muscle and incapacitate you for a short while. If you are concerned, as you should be, about heart health, Herb Pharm makes a fabulous heart tonic with Hawthorn. Being forewarned is forearmed.

Dreaming

It happened to me again; I had a very vivid dream. It was as though I was there. I wasn't just "viewing it" like a movie. The next day, the person I dreamt about came up in conversation; through my son. Similar connection happened through my son before as well with this same person. It was all fine and made sense given the history. I woke up the morning I had just dreamt it and said, "Wow, what was all of THAT activity?" It was all ordinary-but I felt like I had just been traveling, as though I'd been in a car, drove to Grand Haven (Lake Michigan), hung out with a large group of people and came back. It felt that real. My life has always been like this. There is really very little veil between this world and the next. I just live with it. No, it is not normal, but it is comforting for me. It works for me because I'm a musician as well as a healer. When I'm at the piano, or organ, or choir, I'm "in a prayerful place" or a healing place to channel peace and revelation through the music. I don't mean peace as in passive or zenlike, but peace that is transformative and always changing. Let the dreams roll!

The Cave

I'm sure that most of you saw the video footage of Jeanette being pulled from the cave of rubble in Haiti on the news yesterday. She was in there for 6 days....6 days. She came out fine. She said she prayed while she was in there. When asked whether she thought she would survive this she said, "Why not?". And apparently her husband who desperately wanted to find her was praying too. I was SO moved when I heard the first thing out of her mouth; SINGING in praise to God-"Don't ever be afraid of death...don't ever be afraid of death". The day before, I had posted on Facebook that I felt like I was in a cave, I had no idea why, and I just roll with it. I really felt connected to this women spiritually when they pulled her out. While it's true that to some extent we have to heal ourselves as we're able, it's important to receive the aid of friends. I am grateful for my friends right now. I have been so moved by the people of Haiti and how they've dealt with this crisis. They are such an example of how ultimately our fate rests with the natural forces of the Earth. And when the natural forces of the Earth move, to balance herself, all we have is each other, in the body. There is no technology that withstands for too long, the movements of the Earth. It's futile. Ultimately, all we have is our bodies/minds, each other, and time.

What is Manual Therapy? http://www.hhogr.com

A manual therapist is an expert in medical massage. I use my hands, on the body, to treat and assess pathology at the joint complex and move the blood. This is the primary focus of the training and the treatment; not entertainment. This is healthcare. Visual & tactile assessment are used to ascertain specific modalities of manual treatment to be used. MMT's look for the source of the patient's pain or, based on a physicians finding, treat the source of the pain, not the referred pain. Findings are taken and are recorded in detail with proper medical anatomical terms. Manual therapy is applied with techniques such as compression, traction, vibration, friction, effleurage, and many various types of petrissage. Treatment may also include passive ROM, accupressure, or trigger point therapy. Excercises and stretching may also be recommended to improve body symmetry and balance as well as increase range of motion.  Many of us are also trained in medical acupuncture as another modality.  Manual therapy is not chiropractic, touch therapy nor is it relaxation massage. Manual therapists, being true to the roots of medical tradition, use their hands, with various, fairly old techniques, to heal and treat deep-seated pain. At this point, most Manual Therapists are not doctors, but many are. If they are a doctor, they are called Naprapaths. Most manual therapists, at this point, are called "medical massage therapists" because manual therapy does "massage" the tissue somewhat and is relaxing, but not with oil or in the traditional, full body manner. Manual therapy treatments are 25 minutes long, or less. Come and see me and you will understand.

"Happy Old Year"-http://www.hhogr.com

I'm reading this great book about pyramids that was written in 1987. It states that the creator of the Great Pyramid was Hermes. The Egyptians call him Thoth. It speaks of "tachion" energy that has been understood by healers for thousands of years to heal. Tachion means light. The author says the knowledge has been forgotten (or repressed or kept hidden). He rightly says that institutional medical doctors believe that all disease is related only to a chemical imbalance in the body. There is also the electromagnetic and mechanical part of the body. The caduceus of Hermes (the snake around a pole), which is currently the symbol used by M.D.'s in their profession, is the measurement of light that was used by Hermes to diagnose illness. My god, so much of this thinking has been lost. It's not magic, it's not miracles, and it's not witchcraft. It's nature and music. It's all around us and in us. What bothers me is that religions have sort of taken over the teaching on these subjects when it was never meant to be that way. This is all about the natural world, the natural evolution of things which is based on universal law. There need not be a human intercessor between the soul and it's source. Do we not have the wind and the trees, the mountains and the great oceans to speak to us of our parentage? We could observe nature on our own if the fear riddled dogma weren't so distracting. Scientists observe nature and then creates theories. Most of what we put forth as scientific evidence is theory, not fact. How many of you know that when you change your mind, your physical life changes. That's proof! As Wayne Dyer says, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change". And that is also in line with the new findings of quantum physics. This stuff is not new. It's very old and is just now being remembered. So, maybe I'll say, "Happy Old Year". May you continue to remember how old your soul really is and bring all the knowledge you possess to the surface to share with humanity in the year 2010 AD.

The Well Tempered Human

I was listening to a piano lesson today and heard the teacher refer to Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier", a famous compendium of pieces for the new pre-cursor to the piano; the clavier. It struck me, while I was working on a patient on how incredibly synchronous balancing the body is to tuning the piano. When tuning a piano, you have to "temper" the tuning of the pins so that the piano, when played, is in tune in all the keys, as opposed to just a few. That is what makes it well tempered. I seek to teach my patients and work on my patients to become well-tempered HUMANS. How many of us know "ill-tempered" humans, especially at the holi"daze"; the grinches. When the body is out of tune, the pain bell starts to ring, like a key struck on a piano that is painful to the ear. They are a pain to be around because they are in pain and need to get "in tune". The body must function well in many "keys", environments, or dimensions to make a beautiful sound. The point of healthcare is to encourage and create beautiful, well-tempered, lovely humans that can walk on Earth, creating a life that uplifts, enlightens, challenges, and just sounds good. May your Solstice/Christmas be filled with the lovely melodies of health and healing!!!! Lisa T.

The Beautiful Darkness of Winter

I love winter. Being in tune with the change of seasons and flowing with it is very healing. The reason is that we are children of the Earth. It benefits us to be in tune with flow and to receive her good graces. It sure seems appropriate living in Michigan since it seems much of our year is taken up with this weather. The weather affects our health very much; mostly our resistance to it, or our negative attitude towards it. It dawned on me today, after picking my sweet little boy up from school, that I can now FEEL that Winter is feminine. As we move down to Winter Solstice, December 21st, it gets darker and darker. The solstice is the darkest day of the year-I think only 8 hours of light and 16 hours of dark. That darkness is the sacred dark of the female womb, where all life is seeded, where we have all come from and where we all return to. The womb is our source, as humans. The sun is the source of our planet. The Earth was born out of the Sun. But the Earth's children are born out of the Darkness, the womb. The darkness, the Great Mother is our source as well. And when she was married to the great light, the Sun, the child was born. That child was born of the sacred dark and fed the snow that is mother's milk. The hard snow coming down reminds me of the flow of mother's milk. I don't know, I guess this is Earth Wisdom 101 for those that have studied it. But I haven't studied it. I'm just observing it and internalizing it, as seems natural to me. May we all honor the sacred descent into darkness as return from whence we came.