Dear Subscribers,

It's Sunday and the rain has finally let the sun through, hopefully for long enough to give the earth time to absorb all the precipitation! I hate it when the weather is so volatile at this time of year because the buds are fragile and our crop productivity becomes uncertain in direct proportion to the early spring hazards. Mr. Sea Buckthorn seems however determined to show his prowess so I am crossing my fingers.

Dr. Indunil and I had a long discussion about health and this came on top of a deluge of emails during these last few weeks, some of which I have not yet found time to read. This post is entitled "What or Why?" because modern medicine is obsessed with "what" since the treatment stems from the diagnosis, not the variables that differentiate one case from another. This preoccupation with "what" probably has close ties to the germ theory of disease and the simplicity and profitability of having specific protocols for specific diseases. This might sound so logical to some people that they wonder why I bother to waste a few hundred words on something for which there is probably considerable consensus.

The reason is that "why" is a very important question. We can, for instance, ask "why" some people who are exposed to the same pathogens do not come down with an illness. We can also ask "why" some people respond so much better to a specific protocol than others. We can also ask "why" each alter of a person with multiple personality disorder has different health complaints. This is the really big "Why?" and when we understand that each alter is a result of a specific response to a particular trauma, we will be closer to understanding why "Why?" is more important than "what".

Let's keep this a tiny bit simple. Imagine a sensitive child at the dinner table. For argument's sake, let's say the child has a Libra Moon. I chose this for reasons that I hope will become obvious. The parents get into a huge fight and one of them threatens to leave the relationship. The other reacts with a barrage of accusations about infidelity, lack of commitment, criticisms, and so on and so forth, perhaps not quite Virginia Woolf but probably not too far-fetched in today's world. The child has insights into both parents and wants them to get along with each other.

Let's pause a second. Every child probably has slightly different reasons for wanting the parents to get along. For the Libra Moon child, the main reason is that relationship is very important so crises between the parents make it harder for the child to believe that he or she will grow up and find happiness and fulfillment in partnership. If the arguments between the parents deepen, and one parent seems to hold more trump cards, the concept of equality is undermined. This is also very important to this Libra Moon child. If one parent admits to the infidelity and the other decides never to have another relationship, the child is even more traumatized by the scene at the table. If the child gets nervous and knocks over a glass of milk, this is almost to be expected. However, if the child is then blamed for being clumsy or for wasting precious nutrition, the whole trauma escalates. If the parents do break up and life is much harder after the divorce, then the loss of opportunity due to diminished circumstances is a further trauma.

With a normal individual, we would see a crisis in the horoscope at the age when the blow up occurred, let's say age three. Now, let's scroll forwards and the child wants ballet lessons but the parents cannot afford separate maintenance and lessons. This is a second trauma, perhaps involving the same planet as before, but definitely a trauma. Later, the individual might fall in love and go through rejection and break up making for another trauma. In such instances, there might be an inherent vulnerability that is reinfected every time the pattern is triggered and there is a new incident; but in most cases, people do not fragment into separate personalities, and they do not lose memory. Depending on how the scenes were stored in memory, the images that arise may reflect different aspects of the life dramas. For example, one may remember a hand shaking, facial muscles quivering, milk spilling, or deep depression over the wreckage occurring to the family. Thus, unhappy as the experiences were, the memories are basically stored in a normal manner, at least insofar as the person has recall and some degree or other of recognition of the issues.

Now, if the patterns are reinfected by quarrels or the sight of spilled milk, we can understand that hormones will fluctuate; and this, in turn, may affect blood sugar, menstrual cycles, immunity, and a host of other physiological functions.

What is different with a multiple personality is that fragmentation does occur. One part of the psyche freezes at age three. It is walled off from the rest of the personality. This alter gets nervous if there is quarreling and its vocabulary may be quite limited. Of course, it may continue to knock over glasses of milk also. I am obviously trying to keep this simple so as not to lose anyone. Then, there is the alter that wants ballet lessons. It may be essentially similar to the younger child, i.e., perhaps a teenage version of that child. It may or may not be the same gender. Theoretically, one could have separate alters for each trauma: the scene at the dining room table, the refused request for ballet lessons, and the romantic failure as a young adult. Or, we could have one alter with tremendous gaps in memory between each of these events. In either case, the alter is separated from the rest of the personality. That personality can be split into a few or almost countless pieces. Each piece or alter was invented to handle a particular life experience but there is no exchange of information between the alters and no accessible archive where all the memories can be explored in a coherent manner.

Trauma and Turmoil

This is the difference between coherence and incoherence, but when we understand the fragmentation of personality, we can also understand that specific events can make us go haywire for longer or shorter periods of time. In such cases, it is possible that neither herbs nor medications work as expected, at least not when the chemistry of the body is affected by the upheaval being experienced by the personality.

Now, let's try to be a little concrete.

As we all know, an individual may feel perfectly fine and then suddenly come down with something that changes the whole game plan of life. A protocol may also seem to work and then cease to be effective, but what we seldom ask is how the attitude of the patient has changed, either prior to the onset of symptoms or because the symptoms have worsened and threatened all the plans that the individual had for life. A relatively easy to treat condition like malaria can be fatal, rather is fatal, for many people. In Africa, the symptoms might be recognized but limited financial resources mean that countless infected persons will not receive help. In Europe, the condition will probably go undiagnosed because the doctors are taught that malaria is a tropical illness. So, besides the infection, the patient has to manage feelings of hopelessness and despair and maybe even rage since lack of access to effective health care can cause anger, especially if some people receive the help they need while others do not. The malaria thus comes to represent both the danger of death as well as social injustice. If our tolerance for injustice is limited or non-existent, the emotions surrounding the illness will be fierce.

Bringing this a little closer to home, Lyme disease is a case in point. Because of money and politics, Lyme disease is officially "easy" to treat so even if it happens to have been diagnosed, neither the necessary treatment nor proper monitoring will be available to most patients. For example, "it does not exist" in Australia, and it requires only a few weeks of antibiotics in the U.S. Obamacare will not change this. In fact, it may criminalize the efforts of compassionate physicians to provide the treatment required.

Lyme disease is a good example for our hypothetical Libra Moon individual. The reason is that the patient will have many of the symptoms of deranged vata, everything from painful joints to heightened anxiety and possibly paralysis. The role of amalgams in destroying the immune system, the injustice of prevailing medical policies, and the incredible pain and sensitivity to pain will all be felt deeply, but they will be felt much more deeply by those who are sensitive to the social and political issues surrounding the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease and its co-infections.

I deliberately used this as an example because babesia, one of the co-infections of Lyme disease, is remarkably similar to malaria so what a patient in Africa feels when seeing a loved one dying of malaria or when seeing others receiving treatment when his or her needs are not being met is not the image one wants to have of life when crossing from this dimension into the next. Likewise, almost no one in more temperate climates where Lyme disease is prevalent will find the system supportive of his/her needs. This is the rub. The disease is bad enough, but the additional stress of disinformation and denial adds to the stress. This erodes coping margins. In my position, I would argue that those who are less concerned about fairness will be easier to treat. This is not to suggest that one should give up one's ideals but rather to illustrate how individuals vary. Libra is an air sign and hypersensitive to issues of equality. So, when it experiences inequality, it becomes turbulent and this is what precipitates the vata derangement.

We are all very complex. We have opinions that operate below the threshold of consciousness, but these opinions govern how our bodies operate. It is foolish to think that mind rules matter. The body is ruled by feelings that are in turn affected by all sorts of intangible as well as measurable variables that affect chemistry, reactivity, pain, and much more. Whenever we use the mind to dominate the body, we are giving the feeling part of our nature the message that the feelings are not important and that the mind is smarter and possessed of superior information that gives it the prerogative to rule. This is a very dangerous assumption and almost invariably incorrect. Moreover, the more pressure the mind puts on the individual to comply, the more risk there is of exaggeration and perhaps also fragmentation — and this takes us back to square one: we cannot be integrated if we are fragmented. We must be coherent lest we function incoherently which, alas, is how most people function.

For me, it is incoherent to say "what" instead of "why". To take a piece of the whole out of context of the whole is "what" diagnosis is all about. I am not saying that we should chuck diagnoses, rather that we need to understand that a diagnosis is usually based on a temporary anomaly of one or more numbers. We have to ask why those numbers are out of range and correct the problem at the roots, not on the surface.

For instance, is all hyperglycemia the same? Why does blood sugar fluctuate? What does it mean when there is inconsistency? Why is there such inconsistency? Are we going to try to lower the blood sugar with insulin or fix what is broken? Every disease has characteristics that lend the disease to such questioning. Why is there so much candida and why do people with cancer often have candida or why do people with candida often develop cancer? Are we going to treat the candida or the cancer? Are we going to look for dietary and emotional patterns that aggravate the tendency towards ill health? Are we going to sacrifice organs before trying to correct the underlying body chemistry or are we going to see what happens if we deal with the easier conditions as well as our stress before making decisions that cannot be reversed? You are in charge. You make decisions regarding your own life.

When I ask patients and their doctors what the cause is, most say they do not know. Well, the truth is, the patients do know. If the patient does not know, who does? The doctor may not know. He or she may have suspicions, but most doctors give more weight to the diagnosis than to the cause of the problem. I am proposing that we change this: concentrate on the cause, correct it, and there is a very good possibility that the associated disease will simply vanish, just like the diabetes vanishes when one alter takes command from another in a person with multiple personalities. If you understand this concept, then you know you are in charge, you have power beyond your wildest imagination. You can therefore master this power and conquer all your personal issues. The problem is that we went to school on a mind ticket and it is not even privy to our emotional truths. We therefore have to get into ourselves to find those truths. Our emotions are fascinating to us. Most others do not find them nearly as fascinating. I think one has to be very compassionate or caring to find the emotions of others interesting, but these emotions require validation so the first step is to see that feelings have causes. The second is to accept that life is egregiously imperfect. The next is to see our vulnerabilities and to develop strategies for overcoming our weaknesses. When we forge skills for dealing with situations that were previously impossible to manage, we are halfway home to ourselves. For instance, the three-year old had no way to influence the parents, but a 25-year old or 40-year old has lots of potential and this is what needs to be explored and developed. It takes creativity, a willingness to fall short of the mark a few times before perfecting the skills, and some softness with oneself. Dare I add that a sense of humor will also help a lot.

Many blessings,

Ingrid
http://shop.kitchendoctor.com/
http://bioethikainternational.com/

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2014

The Ascendent || Beyond the Rings || Calendars
Changes Leading up to 2012 || Eclipses 101 || Saros Cycle 146 || Jupiter-Uranus
Piaf || Reflections on the Future || Religion and Politics || Scherazade
Third Dimension || Three Selves || The U.S. Horoscope

Design by Damien Francoeur