Blog #14--Jessica Moore--Medicine

Through some outside reading, I have discovered how different medicine is in different parts of the world and in different cultures. In certain cultures around the world, a medicine woman can be found doing most of the healing. She gathers healing plants, animal bones, seed pods, glittering stones, and strips of bark. She treats the land if it were her own body and believes that she is an extension of the land and the land is an extension of her. It is her calling to heal what can be healed, resist what must be resisted, and learn the lessons from her mistakes. The medicine woman not only acts as healer but as counselor, comforter, and enlightener. This is different from that of our medical doctors. Doctors of our culture are very formal and to the point. Very few can afford to sit in the room with you for hours and hours and talk to you and comfort you, like the medicine woman. While our medicine is probably more advanced and effective, doctors from our culture could definitely learn from the medicine women ways of counselor and comfortor.