Working Class Acupuncture in Portland

Working Class Acupuncture's mission is to use acupuncture to create social change in health care. We provide, and advocate for others to provide, accessible acupuncture and wellness resources for working class patients; we support acupuncturists in being social entrepreneurs; and we share our business model for natural health care that empowers patients, builds community and breaks down class divisions. Acupuncture is one of the oldest, most commonly used systems of healing in the world. Acupuncture is simple, safe, and sustainable healthcare. As acupuncture has moved more toward the mainstream in America, it has become prohibitively expensive for most people, but this trend does not have to continue. Acupuncture does not need to be expensive to be effective. Acupuncture can be part of the solution to the soaring cost of healthcare – if it is affordable and accessible to everybody. Working Class Acupuncture makes this possible. We are located at 3526 NE 57th Ave in sunny Portland, Oregon. We are open for appointments 9am-7pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 8am-8pm Wednesday; and on Saturday 9am-12noon and again from 2pm-6:30pm. Our phone number is (503)335-9440. Call us and make an appointment today! (Sorry, we are usually unable to take walk-ins!)
http://www.myspace.com/working_class_acupuncture

Ithaca Free Clinic

Our mission is to provide access to healthcare based on need, not on ability to pay, where the talent and generosity of our healthcare community come together to provide mainstream medical services, Complementary Alternative Medicine and Social Advocacy to establish healthcare as a human right and not a privilege
The Ithaca Free Clinic, which opened its doors to the public on January 23, 2006, offers totally free integrative health & wellness services, combining complementary / alternative and mainstream medicine. IFC is located at 225 South Fulton Street, Suite B in Ithaca, NY.
The clinic is a whole health center offering:
walk-in clinic hours:Mondays 2-6pmThursdays 4-8pmfor preventative and immediate primary care
professional services provided by our volunteer staff of doctors, herbalists, acupuncturists, massage therapists and others
the Ithaca Health Alliance health resource library is available for you to browse and borrow books right from our waiting room
nutrition and educational programs
facilitated enrollment into state programs
lifestyle education (body mechanics, movement therapy, organic food choices)
subleases for healthcare providers who wish to use IFC facilities for private clientele
CONTACT:Free Clinic Coordinator, clinic@ithacahealth.org, or call 607-330-1254 Ithaca Free Clinic P.O. Box 362 Ithaca, NY 14851
http://www.ithacahealth.org/clinic.htm

Common Ground Health Clinic

The Common Ground Health Clinic is a free, integrative health clinic established after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our mission is to provide quality, client centered primary healthcare to uninsured, underinsured and in need folks in the New Orleans Community while developing a model of a community controlled healthcare organization. We are currently in our second year of existence and have seen over 15,000 patients. Our services include primary care, medication refills, lab work, bi-lingual services, a Latino Health Outreach Project, acupuncture, herbalism and health education. We have built a basic network of donors, funders, volunteers and supporters, and established relationships with numerous other public health, medical, and grassroots organizations. Currently we are focused on fortifying these local and national networks in order to guarantee the long-term sustainability of the clinic and to make Common Ground Health Clinic an organization that is truly anti-racist and community driven.

http://www.commongroundrelief.org/

Herbalists Without Borders

Herbalists Without Borders is an international network of herbalists and members of the herbal products business community, traditional healers, students, farmers and farming organizations, consultants, health care workers, and others interested in the role of plants in primary health care, trade, and ecological restoration. Recognizing that a majority of people in the world today live in poverty and do not have access to conventional medical care, we are particularly interested in how information and access to plant medicines can be made more broadly available. Our organization operates through local chapters in both developed and developing nations, whereby the sharing of resources and cross-cultural exchange of information, volunteer service, new ideas, and opportunities for development and support of fair trade in botanical materials and herbal products may be facilitated in new and dynamic ways. We believe in the protection of traditional healers' intellectual property rights, in the preservation of traditional knowledge, and in the fundamental human right to be healed by natural means and by common sense. We invite you to join us as we come together to seek common ground and to bring healing to those who are in need.

To help humanity find healing in herbal medicine, for people and for the planet.
To promote ethical and compassionate intercultural exchange of ideas, resources, and volunteer services.
To develop and promote equitable and sustainable trade relationships that are ecologically sound, economically viable, and that support healthy communities.
To enhance and engage human understanding and creativity regarding the many and diverse roles of plants in ecological restoration and cultural survival

http://www.herbalistswithoutborders.org/

When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
- Audre Lorde

Eros from an Athenian vase 490 BC

As women, we need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different. I am speaking here for the necessity of reassessing the quality of all the aspects of our lives and of our work, and of how we move toward and through them.
The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros – the personification of love in all its aspects – born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.

~ Audre Lourde from Uses of the Erotic as Power

Song for You

There is a very pretty Emmylou Harris song in my head that keeps going round and round. So I'll sing it for you here:

If I had a bird, a little bird

I would teach that bird to sing your name

Prettiest song that you have ever heard

Your indifferent heart I will claim

So be off my little bird

Fly away, fly away

And when my love you see

Only then, my little bird

Cry away, cry away and bring that heart to me

If I had a moon in the sky

I would light the world and pull the tide

And when the moon is full, like my heart

It will surely pull you to my side

But in the darkest night I pine away, pine away

Until your face I see

So throw your light my lovely moon

Shine away, shine away and pull his heart to me

If l had a wagon made of gold

Pretty painted horses numbered four

With a silver harness I would hitch them up

And drive that wagon to your door

And if my hand you choose to hold

Ride away, ride away with the pretty horses four

But darlin' if you heart is cold

Hide away, hide away I’ll trouble you no more

Trouble you no more

Emmylou Harris/Kate McGarrigle/Anna McGarrigle

Historic Art Moment

Ive always loved this vintage piece honoring the famous crafty and soulful magician who outsmarted even the meanest.

Thanksgiving

Gratitude is a holy thing to celebrate, as are true cross-cultural peaceful relations. The sincere offering of Thanks for the blessings that abound in our lives is fundamental to many of us in our spiritual and personal ways, and may be a universally vital part of being fully human. We can embrace the opportunity for this holiday and make it meaningful for us, but lets be real about the roots of this particular tradition, and teach the children the truth.


Deconstructing the Myths of “The First Thanksgiving”

by Judy Dow (Abenaki) and Beverly Slapin

What is it about the story of “The First Thanksgiving” that makes it essential to be taught in virtually every grade from preschool through high school? What is it about the story that is so seductive? Why has it become an annual elementary school tradition to hold Thanksgiving pageants, with young children dressing up in paper-bag costumes and feather-duster headdresses and marching around the schoolyard? Why is it seen as necessary for fake “pilgrims” and fake “Indians” (portrayed by real children, many of whom are Indian) to sit down every year to a fake feast, acting out fake scenarios and reciting fake dialogue about friendship? And why do teachers all over the country continue (for the most part, unknowingly) to perpetuate this myth year after year after year?
Is it because as Americans we have a deep need to believe that the soil we live on and the country on which it is based was founded on integrity and cooperation? This belief would help contradict any feelings of guilt that could haunt us when we look at our role in more recent history in dealing with other indigenous peoples in other countries. If we dare to give up the “myth” we may have to take responsibility for our actions both concerning indigenous peoples of this land as well as those brought to this land in violation of everything that makes us human. The realization of these truths untold might crumble the foundation of what many believe is a true democracy. As good people, can we be strong enough to learn the truths of our collective past? Can we learn from our mistakes? This would be our hope.

Myth: “The First Thanksgiving” occurred in 1621.
Fact: No one knows when the “first” thanksgiving occurred. People have been giving thanks for as long as people have existed. Indigenous nations all over the world have celebrations of the harvest that come from very old traditions; for Native peoples, thanksgiving comes not once a year, but every day, for all the gifts of life. To refer to the harvest feast of 1621 as “The First Thanksgiving” disappears Indian peoples in the eyes of non-Native children.

Myth: The Pilgrims found corn.
Fact: Just a few days after landing, a party of about 16 settlers led by Captain Myles Standish followed a Nauset trail and came upon an iron kettle and a cache of Indian corn buried in the sand. They made off with the corn and returned a few days later with reinforcements. This larger group “found” a larger store of corn, about ten bushels, and took it. They also “found” several graves, and, according to Mourt’s Relation, “brought sundry of the prettiest things away” from a child’s grave and then covered up the corpse. They also “found” two Indian dwellings and “some of the best things we took away with us.” (5) There is no record that restitution was ever made for the stolen corn, and the Wampanoag did not soon forget the colonists’ ransacking of Indian graves

Myth: Samoset appeared out of nowhere, and along with Squanto became friends with the Pilgrims. Squanto helped the Pilgrims survive and joined them at “The First Thanksgiving.”
Fact: Samoset, an eastern Abenaki chief, was the first to contact the Plimoth colonists. He was investigating the settlement to gather information and report to Massasoit, the head sachem in the Wampanoag territory. In his hand, Samoset carried two arrows: one blunt and one pointed. The question to the settlers was: are you friend or foe? Samoset brought Tisquantum (Squanto), one of the few survivors of the original Wampanoag village of Pawtuxet, to meet the English and keep an eye on them. Tisquantum had been taken captive by English captains several years earlier, and both he and Samoset spoke English. Tisquantum agreed to live among the colonists and serve as a translator. Massasoit also sent Hobbamock and his family to live near the colony to keep an eye on the settlement and also to watch Tisquantum, whom Massasoit did not trust. The Wampanoag oral tradition says that Massasoit ordered Tisquantum killed after he tried to stir up the English against the Wampanoag. Massasoit himself lost face after his years of dealing with the English only led to warfare and land grabs. Tisquantum is viewed by Wampanoag people as a traitor, for his scheming against other Native people for his own gain. Massasoit is viewed as a wise and generous leader whose affection for the English may have led him to be too tolerant of their ways

Myth: The Pilgrims and Indians became great friends.
Fact: A mere generation later, the balance of power had shifted so enormously and the theft of land by the European settlers had become so egregious that the Wampanoag were forced into battle. In 1637, English soldiers massacred some 700 Pequot men, women and children at Mystic Fort, burning many of them alive in their homes and shooting those who fled. The colony of Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay Colony observed a day of thanksgiving commemorating the massacre. By 1675, there were some 50,000 colonists in the place they had named “New England.” That year, Metacom, a son of Massasoit, one of the first whose generosity had saved the lives of the starving settlers, led a rebellion against them. By the end of the conflict known as “King Philip’s War,” most of the Indian peoples of the Northeast region had been either completely wiped out, sold into slavery, or had fled for safety into Canada. Shortly after Metacom’s death, Plimoth Colony declared a day of thanksgiving for the English victory over the Indians

Myth: Thanksgiving is a happy time.
Fact: For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.

This article can be found in its entirety at:
http://www.oyate.org/resources/longthanks.html
The Plimoth Plantation of Plymouth Ma. has recently dedicated a new Exhibit, "Irreconcible Differences", that provides an insight into the relationship of the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims in the years following 1620.
More about the Wampanoag:
http://www.wampanoagtribe.net/Pages/index
http://www.pilgrims.net/native_americans/
Article by a Sioux woman on the Selling of Native Spiritual Traditions: http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/News2000/0800/WC000801Commentary.htm

Wha' Happen?

Who are these lovely lassies, circa 1986?

And perhaps more importantly, where are they now?

Thlolego EcoVillage in South Africa,

Findhorn in Scotland,

And the Permaculture Institute in Northern California

EcoVillage Mania

Today I got to see some old friends on national news - right here in the Sunday Washington Post. I am amused and excited! It is a pretty positive article. It is true that they are pretty much a bunch of white middle class hippies living out in the woods, and that while far from modeling utopia, the fact that the mainstream media is finally aware of ecovillages as a modern phenomena is a window of hope for me. I cannot emphasize enough the rugged dedication, physical labor and personal processes that go into such a lifestyle. Anyone who has grown up on a farm or who has homesteaded or ever been through a consensus meeting can imagine that this might be so. Like many others, I have spent several years of my life visiting and living in such places, geared towards living sustainably, and meeting people from all around the world who share this practice. When it becomes most engaging to me is when it involves people in the non-industrialized world, the working poor, urban projects, and indigenous people determined to preserve and adapt their own traditional lifestyles and values. These grassroots inspired human settlement projects are happening throughout North and Latin America, India, Australia, Africa, and elsewhere. Most people seem to have no idea that this is even happening, or have any context for imagining it. I am here to tell you, it is happening! In different ways - all over the world. Not nearly enough, however. It may not be what single handedly "saves the world", and yet it is joyous and inspiring to witness such human wisdom responding resourcefully to our modern challenges. As I see it, ecovillages do not provide "the" answer, but are part of a tide of creative solutions to our current global path of destruction, part of what may help turn the collective scale towards a saner, more sensible, more human and humane way of being in the world. Human beings are stewards, not masters of the Earth - and we will have to come to terms with this eventually. Imagine what Heaven on Earth might look like, and feel like to be a part of. At least imagine what it might mean simply to survive as a species. Imagine actually acknowledging collectively the finite nature of the resources we depend on, and learning to rebalcance our lives in rhythm. We have an incredible capacity to envision and create when we decide to. We are inextricably connected to all of life on the planet - all around and inside us. We are not only dependant on the Earth, we are Earth. Many other ways of living are indeed possible, and necessary.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111400979.html?nav=hcmodule

We need a new kind of feminism, one that stresses personal responsibility and is open to art and sex in all their dark, unconsoling mysteries. The feminist of the fin de siecle will be bawdy, streetwise, and on-the-spot confrontational, in the prankish Sixties way - Camille Paglia

I would also assert that we need to revision feminism in a way that expands to make enough room for a huge diversity of womens voices throughout the world, including specific views, needs, and interests that may be quite different from our own. We need a vision that is essentially Life-affirming and connects us all ecologically, rooted in a deep respect and conscious re-valuing for what has been traditional womens work - in particular child rearing and homemaking. Although these roles may not interest us personally, they are the sacred foundations of human culture and deserve our support as a society.

From the beginning, humanity's survival has depended upon women's sexuality. Every tribe's survival has depended upon women's capacity to give birth, to bear healthy children into the next generation.
Our ancestors understood women's birth-giving power as kin to the Power of Being that creates, sustains, and transforms the world. Their images and icons of the Sacred Feminine celebrate women's awesome ability to regenerate life. In woman's body, the Great Goddess becomes manifest.
Our sexuality is not only our capacity to bear children. It is, as well, our power to promote creation in any dimension we choose. In these times, humanity's survival depends less upon the capacity to bear children and more upon the conditions into which our children are born. Survival depends upon women birthing new ways of being and doing that promote peace, justice, and sustainable economies on our planet.


With movement and breath, we cultivate the pro-creative power seeded in our Energy Garden - our body's center.

We know ourselves as sacred beings and respect our sexuality as a sacred force of nature.

We realize that we're sexy—at our juiciest—as we express the truth of who we are.

And, we direct our pro-creative power not only for sacred pleasure but also for personal and planetary healing.

by Lisa Sarasohn Author of The Woman's Belly Book

World Dancer

Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.

- Maya Angelou

Nightime Dance

Life is a dance and I am remembering how to be a World Dancer. I may have sat out the last few songs but I was tired and needed to rest and just watch, perhaps snooze for a bit and be a hermit for awhile. And yet now I am up again and dancing - moving through all of the myriad emotions, experiences, blessings, challenges, and devotions. It has everything to do with rhythm and letting go into the music of Life. One essential thing I am grateful for, it is music. It is that my life is a great dance and that my soul has inherent rhythm.

Traditional Story of First Man and First Woman

Selu the Corn Mother and Kanati the Hunter Father

A shortened version of a Cherokee tale with many woven spins

Selu lived with her husband, Kanati, and two grandsons. Everyday, she would go away from the house and return with a basket full of corn. The boys wondered where the corn came from, so they followed her one day. They saw her go into a storehouse, and they got where they could peek in and watch her.
There they saw her place her basket and shake herself. The corn started falling from her body into the basket. They saw that the grain was coming from her body. In this the boys lost their appetite and their gratitude for this life sustaining grain.
Selu could read the boys' thoughts. She told them that she must now die, and that after her death, they would need to follow her instructions so that they would continue to have corn for nourishment.
"After I am dead, you must clear some ground in front of our house. Then drag my body in a circle seven times. Then, you must stay up all night and watch."
The boys did this, but they got the instructions backwards. They cleared seven areas of ground, and drug her body twice in a circle. Where her blood dropped, corn began to grow.
Because the boys were careless in listening to the instructions, corn must now be planted and taken care of in order for it to grow. And to this day, it only grows in certain spots and not the entire earth.

Reflections on Selu

Mostly from the book Selu,
by Appalachian Cherokee storyteller Marilou Awiakta:

In all versions of the compass story respect between genders is an implicit wisdom. Humanity has two genders. To preserve the balance, the genders must cooperate and get along, for themselves, the sake of the community and the environment. Selu and Kanati model this harmony between genders. This wisdom begins in the tangible world with Mother Earth and the Corn Mother, she who sustains life for the people. Selu’s husband, Kanati the hunter, is the mythic father of humankind and the bringer of the equally essential hunting and woodlore to the people.

Strength and tenderness
Tenderness and strength
Balance
In the human dimension

…for the individual, regardless of gender. And for the community in all levels of society, from family ceremonies to government. Woman and man represent cardinal balances in nature.
Regardless of the era in which the ancient story of Selu is told, one of the unchanging elements is that a basic imbalance, a lack of respect, between genders disturbs the balance in the environment, just as such an imbalance in an individual invades the web of his or her life and affects all relationships.
In the spirit of survival, what is needed is a reweaving in consciousness

This is quite similar to some of the last written recent words of herbalist and midwife Jeannine Parvati Baker, a precious teacher now in the world beyond -

New body parables that express the creative power, the wilderness of woman's soul and the holy nature of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and child-rearing are sorely needed. Pleasure and pain must be revisioned through a metaethics of partnership, in light of the new gender complementariness rather than dominion and separation. Our fear of pain, the other gender and a punishing God are related- and traditionally the opiates of childbirth anesthesia, avoidance of conscious heterosexuality and religious dogma have been the strategies employed to distract us from realizing that, from the soul’s perspective, sexuality is spiritually.

A spirituality which recognizes that matter is holy, sexuality is life-force, and the genders are partners can bring ecstasy back to birth, not as hyperbolic possibility but actuality. Living ecstatically in the present moment can bring a greater ability to respond to what presents itself for healing. This is where spirituality, sexuality and ecology all converge.

And again, Awiakta -

Somewhere in the world
Selu is always singing


To my grandchildren Ill say “You aren’t supposed to spy on Selu or her daughters when they’re doing they’re doing their first private work – not even with your ears.” And Ill tell then the story of Little Deer, too, how he is connected to Kanati, the Lucky Hunter.

Without being mean spirited about it – even when the transgressors are bent on murdering her – the Corn mother calmly draws a line in her hearts sweet meal, reminding her sons that to cross it is to separate themselves from their sustainer. The line is the law. To break it will set inevitable consequences in motion. The sons remember the goodness of their own hearts. In a ceremony of sevens, they carry out the Corn mother’s injunctions and faithfully keep the watch. Only then does she return to bless them. Ginitsi Selu endures all things. But she does not put up with all things. If we are reverent toward her and take only what we need, she will sustain us. If we are irreverent and take too much, we separate ourselves from her power and we will die. Ignorance of this natural law is no excuse, because through Mother Earth the Creator reveals them continuously.

As I think of my grandchildren and their future I think of Selu story and that she knew she had sprung from the corn and that she needed to take something of her heritage with her.

These grandchildren have Celtic heritage also, through their fathers who are mountain men, and through part of my family. From what I see of this teetering world these children will need every root of their heritages to survive. Most of this knowledge will be passed through family.
From first contact centuries ago the Celt and the Cherokee got on well together because of what shared: devotion to family; love of the land; reverence for the Creator and natural law; the egalitarian relationship between men and woman; the sense of fierce independence and outrage at foreign invasions which both sexes would battle to repel; the love of ceremony and symbol. All of these combine in a quality of soul that relies on the inner life of the spirit to survive.

As American society searches for new life patterns for the future, it is sensible to study also those patterns that are indigenous to our country and that have proved reliable for the survival of the people. In this study we will undoubtedly find agreeable harmonies – perhaps moving in counterpoint, but harmonies nonetheless. If we listen to each other, many concepts which appear controversial may be rendered less divisive than we thought. When we look at the increasing role of women in the government of America today and the increasing participation of men in family life, we see it not so much as a new phenomenon, but as a resurgence of the indigenous roots of democracy.
When we turn to the Cherokee, who in the historical record appear to be separated from the Iroquoian people by thousands of years, we see links appearing in similarities of language constructs and customs but science and history can only go so far in establishing links

Song of the Grandmothers

I am Cherokee.
My people believe in the spirit that unites all things
I am woman. I am life-force. My word has great value. A man reveres me as he reveres Mother Earth and his own spirit.

The Beloved Woman is one of our principal chiefs. Through her the Spirit often speaks to the people. In the Great Council at the capital, she is a powerful voice. Concerning the fate of hostages, her word is absolute.

Women share in all life. We lead sacred dances. In the council we debate freely with men until an agreement is reached. When the nation considers war, we have a say, for we bear the warriors.
Sometimes I go into battle. I also plant and harvest.

I carry my own name and the name of my clan. If I accept a mate, he and our children take the name of my clan. If there is a deep trouble between us, I am free to tell him to go as he is to leave. Our children and our dwelling stay with me.
As long as I am treated with dignity, I am steadfast.
I love and work and sing.
I listen to the Spirit.
In all things I speak my mind. I walk without fear.
I am Cherokee

The reader will not be a little surprised to find the story of the Amazons not so great a fable as we imagined, many of the Cherokee women being as famous in war, as powerful in the council. – Henry Timberlake, Memoirs, 1765

Early Romans exposed to Celtic tribes were aghast to observe that these “barbarians” as a practice will consult their women in their decisions – even of government and military matters (!). Along with healers, witches, queens, and peasants were women as fierce warriors. According to Diodorus of Sicily, “Among the Gauls the women are nearly as tall as the men, whom they rival in courage.” Ammiamus Marcellinus observed that “the mood of the Gauls is quarrelsome and arrogant in the extreme. In a fight any one of them can resist several strangers at a time, with no other help than his wife’s, who is even more formidable.” From Women of the Celts.