Wise Woman Health
Background
My background includes extensive study of a number of subjects over decades, all which infuse my holistic homeopathic practice. My formal studies include a background in Classical Music and also Ethnomusicology (studying the role music plays within cultures), and interest and experience in many musics.
Fascinated by ancient Chinese and Japanese medicines, I studied with DoAnn Kaneko sensei at the Tao Healing Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. In the mid-'80's, I received certification for First Level Shiatsu training along with the ancient Japanese preparatory Anma massage.
That launched me into deep understanding of energetic healing practices. Kaneko-san broadened and helped refine my understanding of the newer forms of what's called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) which has a more mechanistic side than what had been practiced for thousands of years previously, wherein one's ancestral history was acknowledged to have an effect on our lives, and could be accessed to help others. In Japan, their 1400 years of Acupunture did not experience the interruption in learning which those in China did when Mao instituted the 'cultural revolution', where thousands of years of practice were wiped out to reduce Acupuncture teaching to be about Acute First Aid. Signs of spirituality were forbidden and as the old masters died, with them went a lot of history.
Kaneko-san also provided a model for my life as a healer in showing respect for many modalities of healthcare, including lectures and demonstrations by practitioners from those modalities as a central part of our training, reminding us that each person has unique needs and that, there are many paths to wellness.
My goal is to help you and sometimes that means that I will refer you to other healthcare practitioners either for concurrent help, or alternate help.
My other formal studies include a B.A. (studies for it included 3 years at UCLA, 1 year at CSUN, 1 year at New College of CA); study in the CalARTS World Music Program; one year Nutrition course at Santa Rosa J.C.; Certification as a Health Coach through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition; my formal homeopathic studies began with a yearlong Anatomy and Physiology course and lab studies with Dr. Nancy Rauch, PhD, within Merritt College's pre-Nursing program, and later a yearlong course by Will Taylor, Homeopath and M.D., combining Anatomy and Physiology with Pathology; 3-year Berkeley Institute of Homeopathy Classical Homeopathy training, including clinics with Iris Ratowsky and Jo Daly, and 5 years of Postgrad courses and clinics with Jo Daly; I worked with with four longtime Homeopaths doing case supervision; Case Management and several other courses with Will Taylor, Homeopath and M.D.; multiple courses with Homeopath Karen Allen, CCH; a Diabetes course with Indian Homeopath Farokh Master, Homeopath and M.D.; class in Lyme Disease by Dutch Homeopath Wiet van Helmond; and have been active attending and presenting with the Bay Area Homeopathy Association, recently presenting on the Homeopathic Teflon Prufung ("Proving", or experiment, study, and analysis) I oversaw, and presenting a national webinar for the North American Society of Homeopaths on that same Prufung, or Proving.
I completed a rotation with Kathleen Scheible, CCH who for many years has been running a free Seniors Homeopathy clinic at the Bernal Heights Senior Center, in San Francisco, and after half a year there began a rotation with the Homeopathy Institute of the Pacific's homeless and under-served people's free clinics in the Mission District, in San Francisco, and their low-cost Veteran's clinic Downtown, in San Francisco, and have contributed for a fifth year at Jo Daly's lower-cost clinic.
These clinics tell a lot about the story of who generally enters the field to become Professional Homeopaths; that is, a dedicated, compassionate group of people whose goal is to alleviate suffering and help bring people to true health in their lives, which looks different for every person. Many have run clinics around the world, and have helped in Haiti and in other countries after natural disasters.
Another very important influence in my life is as the daughter of parents who lived through WWll in Europe, one whom was hidden during the Holocaust, the other whom lived under Hitler's regime, surviving the bombings of Berlin by living in bomb shelters night after night. Most of the Jewish side of my family perished in the gas chambers and my great grandmother in Berlin, not Jewish, died of starvation after the bombings. My stepmother lived through war in England and through the early loss of her husband when her youngest was only three. My stepfather and his mother, a country Midwife in rural Colorado, suffered the early loss of his father when my stepfather was only a teen. Sadly, though they tried, his mother and he could not keep the farm going alone, and lost it somewhere around 1940.
Trauma comes down through the generations, badly affecting even those who did not directly experience war or tragic loss. It shows up in any variety of ways, and Homeopathy can be astoundingly useful in helping people who have these overlays in their lives.
Many survivors of war or violence experience guilt for surviving what so many have not. This is common, but not commonly discussed. These feelings exist beyond a rational level, and they can persist one's whole life. If you, like me, have experienced this, I would love to help you with Homeopathic support. It is possible to see this damaging guilt lift!
As a longtime environmental activist working to stop pesticide use, I've done decades of research and activist work to this end, and toward ending our nuclear and military economy to see it transformed into a life-giving one. I've been in jail multiple times as a result of taking nonviolent direct action and risking arrest when that has felt important to me, one time in jail for 6 weeks of a 2-month sentence for the International Shadow Painting
Project at Livermore Nuclear Weapons Labs during Hiroshima/Nagasaki week, in August of 1993. Susan Crane and I painted shadows reminiscent of humans whose shadows were left behind after their bodies had vaporized against the ground, or on steps of buildings, or against fences at the explosion of these bombs.
We were put into near-isolation during our time in, for refusing to identify ourselves as straight, gay, or bisexual, as we were taken in. We knew that inmates who are identified as what we now refer to as LGBTQIA often are harassed at Santa Rita... by the guards. We chose this action in solidarity with LGBTQIA sisters which resulted in our being put in what was called Administrative Segregation, in our cells with only 1 or 2 other people for 23-24 hours a day, what routinely is done to people who say they are LGBTQIA, or are believed to be LGBTQIA. Later I was transferred to complete isolation, kept shackled 24 hours a day, the mattress was removed so I had to sleep on a concrete slab, cold air was blown in on me day and night, and fluorescent lights were left on day and night. It was important in my understanding of the U.S. government for me to experience torturous actions which routinely are inflicted on prisoners all over the United States.
All of this is part of holism in my life, living my ethics to the best of my ability. I bring this into my homeopathic practice and in my promotion of Classical Homeopathy as a means to health for all of us, and for our very earth.
While in jail during that extended time, I witnessed methodical refusal of healthcare help for prostitutes and IV drug users who were asking for HIV testing while they were in jail, often for months on end. There was a common optimistic response many had to "getting clean" while they were out of their daily lives.
I worked while in jail, and after, exposing this injustice and advocating for inmates getting that testing and other healthcare they were being denied.
They wanted to know their HIV status and if they tested positive, start on medicines. But they were denied outright, repeatedly. Many of the women pooled their phone time (1 working phone for about 100 women) and gave it to me so that I could call media people, eventually setting up in-jail media interviews of some of these bold women, which resulted in important investigative coverage in the media of this injustice, and soon after that media journalists systematically were refused any entry at all to Santa Rita County Jail.
It was all about a sweetheart deal between the state of California and an out-of-state healthcare services contractor. They didn't want any HIV+ diagnoses on their watch because the tests cost money, and if people were found HIV+, the contractor would have to provide meds. It was an outrage, among so many others there, but I knew that if some of these women tested positive and got started on meds, they might have a chance of living through the virus which at that time was still like a death sentence to many. As problematic as some of the drug regimens were then, that was all that was likely to be a lifeline to these prisoners in that situation.
But when something is suppressed, it has to come up and out, and over the past few years we've had more information about how widely these kinds of abuses are occurring in jails and prisons across the country, and how frequently it is due to contracts and contractors who have priorities other than providing even basic healthcare. I am glad to have played a part in bringing out awareness of this methodical, widespread denial of medical help to people who are locked away, some of the people our society as a larger whole seems to want to throw away.
Why is my varied background relevant to recount here? Homeopathy is a powerful and elegant medical system. It requires the deepest look at the whole person and takes into account your full life experience. Your Homeopath can understand a great deal about you by learning about your responses to experiences in life, and such information helps me build a framework of understanding of your 'remedy state', as we call it.
My varied experiences in life allow me a broad ability to see and understand you. A remedy well-matched to what are the prominent aspects of your experience can affect you deeply and profoundly, helping you to heal the deepest imbalances in your life on every level. Changes can be obvious or problems subtly can slip away to the point that you have forgotten what had been overwhelming only weeks prior.
One of my specialties in work around pesticides has been to help people understand some of the pathology which can be caused by differing kinds of pesticides, and how they work on the organism.
Similarly, I enjoy working with patients to help them understand some of what Homeopathy is, as I do on my website.
I want to empower families and individuals to be able to do excellent quality self-help, and be available to you to support you in the oversight of more complicated, chronic help. Back in the '80's when I was studying Herbalism, learning a variety of methods of herbal preparation and studying basics of many modalities of holistic healthcare, people were doing a lot of self-help workshops, becoming empowered to oversee most of their family's daily wellness care. I want to see more of this once again. Big Pharma has done a good job undermining people's self-empowerment. I look forward to helping guide you toward more freedom to help your family over time.
I will consider our work together a great success if you feel over time that, you know when it makes sense to treat homeopathically on your own, or you feel confident that no treatment is needed, your realize an appt. with your Homeopath is important, and you develop a good sense of when you really should take you child (or yourself) to the ER.
More than anything, you always must trust your gut; if you feel something is terribly wrong feel free to call me, but never avoid the ER if your gut tells you there is acute danger! And if you are in the ER and they want to send you home with a very sick child, once again trust your gut! Do not leave if you feel there is something very wrong. It might be better to wait things out in, or near the ER if you do not feel safe heading home.
Even if you feel like you want to avoid pharmaceuticals or other invasive treatments, sometimes they can be life-saving, and if they cause other negative effects, we can work on unwinding those after the initial danger of the incident has passed.
Let the beauty we love, be what we do, there are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the ground ~Rumi