Feature: It's Time to Celebrate the Medicine

I have been honored in my short life to have made the acquaintance of a number of traditional elders carrying wise teachings and strong medicine. These people don't advertise the magic and mystery of their heritage, but instead they do their work with humility and let their lives speak softly for themselves. Therefore, it was with great gratitude that my husband and I recently drove into the ancient mountains of Yancey County, NC, to meet Grandmother Red Leaf, a Cherokee spiritual leader…

Feature: The Sweat Lodge: The House of the Stone People

The old Greeks wrote about the strange people to the north who would whip themselves with pine boughs and climb into little huts with hot stones to make their bodies perspire. A contributor for Smithsonian Magazine wrote years ago about the discovery in Siberia of structures made from the rib bones of mastodons with piles of stones in each center. In Finland it's called a sauna. Naturopathic physicians call it hydrotherapy.…

Feature: Medicine Wheels: The Cycles of Life

Dear reader, thank you for your attention. Please take a moment to look around you. Look in all eight directions. It's fine if you cannot immediately tell which are which. We will get to that. Just take a look about you. You may notice that no matter how you look around, whether you're right side up, lying on your side or standing on your head, what you see seems to be distributed around you in a sort of a circle, or a sphere if you're very active.…

Strong Roots: Embracing Our Ancestors' Wisdom

I left my home, an 18-acre family farm in Franklin, Mississippi, for Georgia in 1969, and I moved back in 2004. The land in Franklin, where I was raised, has been in our family for over 150 years. My grandparents inherited the land from their parents.

Since my husband Mark and I returned on faith and a prayer, my life has drastically changed. Everyone in my family left the land, and I am the first to come back. …

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