Dreams of the Future

Today marks the one month survival point.
            It hardly seems like we've been there for a month, but I imagine the year will get longer as we push towards finals. Already, midterms and papers are starting to swarm like crows over a battlefield, and the once unilateral happiness and excitement is beginning to fade into exhaustion and the occasional breakdown. Overall, we're still happy- but we've become aware, once again, that this is a hard path.

             I've learned enough body work to assist with dozens of general and myofascial release points, and on occasion, I've really been able to help someone feel better. I can find bony landmarks in the upper quadrants on live people, and I've memorized all the names of all the bones and the brachial plexus. I've presented a small lecture on the difference between spinal nerves and peripheral nerves to my classmates, and have been introduced to the biochemistry of bulimia, thrombosis, and hepatitis, with mixed success. I've read as history burned my forebears at the stake for healing people, and read about the  legal persecution of the fathers of hydrotherapy as well as the licensing battles of today. I learned about a nun who learned to use herbs in a vision from God, who healed one pope and was excommunicated for doing so by another, and of a monk whose commitment to transforming the lives of his parishioners led to church reprimands and the founding of one of the original spa towns.

            We will continue onwards, through pathology and pharmacology and radio imaging, taking our hard science lumps with the sweet refreshment of herbology, hydrotherapy, philosophy, and somatic reeducation. The progression will be fulfilling and exciting. The very air around us is charged with change, as ND's have obtained full primary care physician-ship in Oregon with DEA numbers and full prescriptive powers. We have a dream- a dream that one day, everyone will have access to holistic medicine. A dream of health and of happiness, of building and of educating, of healing, and of being healed.


             The next four years are going to be AWESOME.