"Health Come First" and How it Doesn't

My Mother used to bring a bowl of chicken broth to me when I was sick and gently chide me to put away my book, drink my soup and sleep. "Health comes first." she would say...homework, reading, etc...would have to wait. Now, when she hears the rush in my voice and weariness creeping in, she reminds me, from 3000 miles away, to take care of my health and I do. Most of the time.

For Halloween, I was sewing large round polka dots onto a white sweat suit to be the zebra-turned-circus-horse Character Chris Rock played in Madagascar 3 "Afro Circus, Polka Dot Circus, polka dot, polka dot, polka dot, Afro Circus!!!" and I could barely thread the needle. My eyesight is going. I am almost forty, I thought, and my body is going through those changes, that's just the way it is.

Realizing I have also been unusually tired and because health comes first, I went to my Iridologist, who looks into your eyes, take a photo which is analyzed by a very high tech computer system and she points out all the mineral deletions, physical symptoms and causes for pain, sickness or issues in your body.

She could see that I had muscular pain on my scapula ( amazing! It had been hurting for months and I didn't tell her!) which was causing pain up my neck and muscles tightening across my face and restricting the blood flow to my eye. My right pupil was significantly smaller than my left pupil and could be the source of my eyesight blurriness. Completely correctable and not a function of just getting old.
This is preventing me from just accepting deteriorating eyesight, getting glasses and living with the blood flow being restricted to my eye and brain. Who knows what problems that could cause over time? Blindness? Brain deterioration? I went to a holistic doctor who focuses on cranial work, who said that the pain stemmed from my liver, which was over taxed from filtering toxins. She did some kind of massage to my head and liver and I left feeling completely better. I will also go to an eye doctor and maybe get glasses, but I will not ignore the cause and continue to monitor my neck pain as more than just bad posture, but as the a sign my brain is not being fed the blood it needs.

She saw that my stomach was acidic, causing a likely hood of more allergies, adrenals were overworked which causes very low energy levels, fatigue and irritability...and that really effects my parenting and confidence.

She then saw that white foggy lines around my pupil showed deep concern for osteoporosis, a serious lack of calcium and weakening of the bones. It's the reason why my grandmother hunched over constantly. But she was in her nineties...why was I getting this in my thirties? I eat very healthy food, lots of greens which supply more calcium than milk! I was shocked but so grateful to be able to know this and take a high quality calcium supplement for the next six months (which she does not sell or make money from) and then I will go in for a bone scan. This is preventing me from permanent spinal curvature, lifelong pain and being aware to not get wonky and do risky things that cold have me easily break a fragile hip. Hip surgery is tens of thousands of dollars and months in recuperation.
An injury like that would greatly impact the function of my family.
And a western medical doctor would never see these things in a regular checkup.

Why do I share all this? Because none of this is paid for by our Healthcare system, and that's just ludicris. I also believe that many of our health issues, including mine are related to GMOs in our food. According to "Genetic Roulette" movie,GMOs are sprayed with and injected with glyphosate, which is chelator, meaning it hugs the nutrients in the plant and strips them away to kill the weed. 70-85% of the food I was eating up until a few months ago, had this chelating chemical in it. I believe that a huge number of people who are mineral depleted now are experiencing this because of the glyphosate in our food which is hugging onto and depleting our bodies of the important nutrients we need. We then get sicker and experience liver overload, muscle aches, pains, fatigue, rashes, inflammation which can result in weight gain, auto immune diseases and more.

Alternative health care, and paying more for organic food is preventative and saves me and the insurance companies and the government tens of thousands of dollars in the future. It allows me to function as a responsible member of society and contribute, rather than site on the couch and take in disability. Alternative healthcare has us truly put health first, and out future first. And eliminating GMO's sustains our health.

WHY then, isn't the government promoting preventative healthcare and organic food?
Because it doesn't occur to them that health really does come first. Money does. Their jobs do. They have it all mixed up. They should listen to their Mommas.

Zen Honeycutt

Risky Geniuses

My father, boys and I enter the dark hut of a Pilmouth Plantation home and a scene of 17th century domestic life emerges. Draped in heavy woolen clothes, the woman of the house moves back and forth from the glowing hearth to the thick wooden table, making a bread pancake of sorts. The man of the house sits like a king, receiving his court, legs spread, elbow on the arm of a roughly carved oak chair. He is balding and bearded and looks only mildly tolerant of the guests in his home. He does greet us cordially and we begin asking questions they have probably answered a million times.

“What are you cooking?” My seven year old asks hungrily.
“Clotted cream cakes with corn.” The woman of the house answers. He wrinkles his nose indiscreetly.
“What kind of herbs are those?” I ask to distract from his manners.
“Feverfew” she answers.
“You do not have herbs where ye hail from?” the man wonders.
“No, I do… I just don’t know that one.”
“Ahhh, you have a servant then who does.” He muses.
“No…”
“Then how do you care for ye family?”
I thought I was the one that was supposed to be asking the questions.
“A doctor…sometimes. We don’t get sick much.” I find I am defending myself.
He makes some sort of flappy, throaty noise with his mouth.
“Physics! Bah! Charlatans and Hooligans that bunch they are. A bunch of money grubbers. You know what I mean?” ( or something like that, many of the words he said were no longer in my repertoire of English vocabulary)
“Er, no I don’t really.” I admitted.
“Well physics, we have no use for them, they are charlatans who take your money for a potion you can make yourself. It better to have the knowledge yourself, you see?”
“Oh yes I see, so you all grow all your own herbs and take care of yourselves.”
“Aye, much better that way.” Click. Something in my brain opened up an new pathways for learning and being empowered as a family turned on. Inspiration. I began to wonder.

Another Swedish looking man who entered in during the conversation asked if they had surgeons and the man of the house replied they did, the son of a butcher, and they used herbs to put them selves to sleep before hand. He made my mind’s gears turn, the resolute he had, even so just an actor, that it was much better to know the herbs ourselves. He reminded me of an earthy woman down the road where I grew up in Connecticut that was at my brother’s party. She looked down and announced that the rounded plant growing in clusters all over my childhood Connecticut home property, that I had always thought just a nuisance weed, was a plant called “Greater Plantain”. She bent down and picked this unimportant looking leaf.

“It’s an anti microbial, anti bacterial and anti viral all in one. It’s one of the greatest unknown herbs. Back in the civil war days, the woman would just find this plant, chew it up like this” and she popped the plant in her mouth and chewed it. “This releases the oils.” She explained and then spit it out into her hand. “And then put it right on the wounds. “It would keep them from getting infected and save limbs.”
“Wow” I said appreciatively. “I would love to just pick your brain for an hour an learn about herbs.”
Someone interrupted us at that point, but I was inspired to look up this little plant and found a host of other uses, taken internally it’s also good for diarreaha, irritable bowel syndrome, food poisoning, and it helps balance blood sugar. It even gives the user a natural aversion to tobacco. This came in handy when my girlfriend came to visit and complained of her husband’s dipping habit. She is now armed with the knowledge to give him a tea that will curb that habit!
Later when my son got a stomach bug or food poisoning, and my stomach was churning as well, I made us tea from the Greater Plaintain and within minutes our stomachs were settled and fine.

I am inspired to learn about the plants around me and to be able to care for mild ailments my family has myself...and to pass on this knowledge. We are here today, our European ancestors survived the frigid winters of the east coast as pilgrims because of these plants. Our Asian ancestors before survived for thousands of years because of Chinese herbs and roots. Our ancestors risked their lives to try the herbs and roots and were geniuses to record and pass down the information. Our ancestors were risky geniuses.
The convenience of doctors does not have to dumb down Americans.
The knowledge is there to be had by all and empower us.
Perhaps the way to continue our heritage isn’t in buying knick knacks to hang around the house and pass them down, but to teach our children about the plants that heal us, that were here millions of years before us and will be here millions of years after.

Zen Honeycutt