Hello,

One of the many things I love about homeopathy is that it offers a worldview that reframes how we understand pain. What may have previously looked like an angry outburst by a friend could also be understood as an organism regaining vital balance through a venting release. A wave of bad feeling may be the sign of internal struggle to regain homeostasis.

Then there is day-to-day homeopathy that gets us through trials and tribulations of life. And I am more and more amazed at the outcomes when weaving it into my own life, and the lives of my clients. Homeopathy for chronic issues is like slowly solving an elegant and beautiful puzzle. As we go through our days, a lot of our ills sort of just happen, and need a quick fix.

I am thinking about this because I have seen several situations in the last months where homeopathic care quickly resolved intense, sudden problems. The first was for myself: I was cutting weeds out of the herb garden with a small machete, when absent-mindedly the very sharp Japanese blade bounced off a tough Mugwort trunk and slashed the top of my left hand, seemingly rather deeply. I took three doses of Arnica 200c, 10 minutes apart, and the bleeding quickly stopped. But more than that, I experienced a feeling that is hard to describe. Something in the way my body was responding was different: it felt like I was ushered through a process at supersonic speed, flying on a Concorde instead of driving a Toyota. Today, there’s barely a scar, only a slight ache. This is not the worst outcome when viewed alongside my accumulated collection of scars and jars from decades of cuts, scrapes, and tumbles in which I responded with conventional treatment.

A client had recently been complaining of headaches and feeling concerned that they were taking too many over-the-counter drugs to counter them. I asked a few questions about the specifics of the headache, and recommended a remedy at regular intervals: they haven’t needed a Tylenol since. Another client was complaining of sudden, unexpected panic attacks. Same story, I asked questions to get a sense of the particularities of the feelings, recommended a remedy at regular intervals, and now they subside immediately when they occur, which is far less often.

We put a lot of energy, in homeopathy, to understand the totality, the big picture, so that we can pinpoint the remedy that is going to get as close to the full set of symptoms as possible. And that is what I love about this elegant system: viewing health as an interrelated whole that encompasses mind and body, amidst an ineffable life force. But homeopathy also provides an extraordinary toolset for the daily bumps, cuts, and pains that don’t require a full analysis in the moment. And that is just as remarkable and valuable. A “pill for an ill” is sometimes helpful, particularly in these chaotic days.

Until next time,

Roddy