An Open Letter to Dr. Weil

The following open letter was written as a "public argument" assignment during a course at the University of Arizona. A copy of the letter was sent to Dr. Weil at the Center and to The Daily Wildcat (the UA's student paper).

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A True Integration of CAM and Homeopathy:

Educational Outreach Programs for College Students

An Open Letter to Dr. Weil, Founder and Director 

of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine

Dear Dr. Weil,
          I admire your success at incorporating complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) into the University of Arizona (UA) College of Medicine’s curriculum twenty years ago. It has been an excellent resource for UA medical students to explore all aspects of healing. But why stop there? You have a unique opportunity through the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine (“the Center”) to develop an on-campus educational outreach program for rest of the UA students’ benefit. I salute your commitment to uniting CAM and conventional medicine through the Center. However, to move toward true integration—which means going beyond the limitations of educating only health care professionals—requires reaching out as well to non-medical students who may be unaware of CAM’s many benefits. Most of them would greatly benefit from knowing about CAM’s uses in acute care and first aid; homeopathy, in particular, is an incredible system for addressing both prevention and healing.

The Substance of Homeopathy: Fact or Fiction?

I am pro-homeopathy. The following paper was written as a controversy analysis for a course at the University of Arizona; in this particular context, it provided me with the opportunity to take a look at both sides of a long-standing controversy within homeopathy: placebo or not. As far as I'm concerned, homeopathic remedies are effective and are not placebo. 

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Did you know that Arizona is home to a college dedicated to the study of homeopathy, a controversial medical system? To elucidate briefly, homeopathy is a two-hundred-year-old medical system, using highly diluted natural substances as its medicines. In the United States, homeopathy falls into the category of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) as designated and regulated by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which is under the governmental direction of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Homeopathy is, however, taught and used in other parts of the world; Great Britain, Denmark, Germany (the home country of its founder), France, Cuba, and India all currently teach and use homeopathy in various forms to a much larger extent than done here in the United States. The three prime reasons for its continued use around the world are that homeopathy is nontoxic, effective, and ranges from costing little to being relatively inexpensive depending upon how it is used and by whom.

The Healing Script

Writing is a powerful form of healing, whether one chooses to explore through the imagination, self-reflection, stream of consciousness, or a myriad of other paths...

Journey Into Soul and Soar With Spirit

Contemplative writing is known in various spiritual communities as a way to tap directly into a connection with Soul, Spirit or Source. One definition of contemplation is “A concentration on spiritual things as a form of private devotion – A state of mystical awareness of God’s being.” 

The process I share with others is one I discovered during my own Journey of Soul Inquiry, and later explored further through Reflections of a Journey. I wanted to feel a different catalyst, a different stimulant, to my morning pages of writing; to see an image and write what I envision and feel and imagine. I was seeking a beautiful way to dive into my root energy, beat in rhythm to my heart energy, and soar to the transcendent--to find a method for opening more deeply into my Self and that which is Sacred.

When I lost my sense of purpose, I went on a pilgrimage to Crete and that journey is shared through my memoir Minoan Messages on the Gaia Path. My book expresses perspectives on eclectic earth-based spirituality as well as how earth divinity supports the universal relatedness of women’s journeys and our subsequent healing through those experiences. Another memoir has been Desert Fire on the Gaia Path: Befriending the Monster in My Mind, which details my struggle to understand the effect of desert landscape upon mind-body-soul. My paths as spiritual seeker and practitioner of earth-energy healing modalities have merged; this union enhances my ability to not only explore inner and outer landscapes, but to share my perceptions of them in a variety of unique ways that includes metaphor and tales of the ancient past.

Writing is another way into the flowering of body, mind and soul that is the core essence of Pushpavati Ayurveda. My article Word Soup, published at All Things Healing, describes one form of healing writing. 

Let’s travel together. I'm available for private sessions or to facilitate group writing. (The guidance I provide is from personal experience and study, rather than any certification as a "journal therapist.")

I trust that the messages and impressions created through my writing and shared in my books will touch you as they have me, bringing inspiration and insight, joy, and healing reflection. May they open you to explore new ways of being and doing in the world, whether through your own process, or through the messages that were revealed to me.

My books are available in print and digital at 

Vibrational Healing

Energy Connects Everything

Vibrational healing is the wave of the future, ebbing and flowing to us in many guises, from remedies whose energy is suspended within a material substance to offering our bodies as channels through which universal energy may pulse, and/or from working directly with specific energy paths of the body to allowing the shining light of Prana to illuminate a template toward self-healing. 

We have a lot of different names or concepts for how we may work with this energy; those with which I resonate are Flower Essences, Ayurveda, Prana, Reiki, and Homeopathy (including Biochemic Therapy). We also have words as pointers to describe the energy such as harmonics, frequencies, vibrations, waves, electrical or magnetic fields whether subtle or gross. And our understanding of how they work and make their presence known is explained as through fields, vital force, subtle bodies, templates, patterns, holograms, maps. 

All of these modalities are, however, simply offering support that allows a way for us to self-heal without separating body from mind and spirit.

Pushpavati Ayurveda

Conscious Living ~ Lifestyle Choices and Routines

Ayurveda, sister to Yoga, brings us the gifts of our earth in all her wisdom, and shines through us when we embrace the luminescence of our universe. Born in India thousands of years ago, and founded upon sacred texts, Ayurveda is nevertheless a global health system in resurgence because its concepts are universal. This manifest world is composed of the five elements - Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth - and when we once more recognize how they reveal themselves in our bodies, foods, environment and actions through certain qualities or attributes, then our path to health is only a foot-step away. We soon realize that everything we take in - from impressions to food to the company we keep - has an impact upon our well-being on all levels. When we remember what we already know, the truth of self-healing becomes clear and this light leads us forward. 

How we breathe, think, listen (sound), move and eat - all of which are addressed through Ayurveda - powerfully impacts our subtle bodies as well as our physical ones. The nuances of Ayurveda can be further revealed through the ethereal purity of Flower Essences. From spirituality to cosmology to the material, we are uplifted through the delicate wisdom of the flowers, and we open to the miracles of spirit, flora and fauna of the universe just as the petals of a flower open to the mysterious field of Akash (Ether).

“The Universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”

~ Thomas Berry

Flower Essences

Awakening and Inspiring

Shifts in awareness, lifting of spirits, welcoming arms, loving embrace, boundless bliss ... these are all sensations we may receive from the etheric wisdom of flower essences. Flower essences share the energetic patterns of mental, emotional and spiritual balance; each one unique in its essential nature. And by offering us these maps, flower essences show our own body wisdom how to see once again the path of truth that we temporarily stepped away from. Then, as we come into alignment energetically, our cells take up the infusion of remembering how to self-heal. In material form, flowers bring joy as our eyes behold their beauty, our nose may inhale their aromatic splendor, our skin luxuriates in the softness of their petals, and some even nourish with a sweet taste. Their power is no less potent, rather more however, when we accept into all levels of our being the flowers’ deep, true vibrational essence.

Flower Essences can help support us through Ayurveda’s opportunities for change smoothly and with less effort. The essences of the flowers guide us gently, like dear friends who desire our well-being, for when we are healed, our entire collective is healed, and we may realize universal transformation.

Silently a flower blooms, in silence it falls away.

Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,

The world of the flower, the whole of the world is blooming.

This is the talk of the flower, the truth of the blossom:

The glory of eternal life is fully shining

~ Zenkei Shibayama

The essence of a flower is carried within the memory of water by the sunlight (or moonlight) transmission of its prana (vital force). This co-creation process allows us to receive the gifts of flower healing even without the presence of the physical flower; an amazing gift that is transforming our world as we can share a flower's healing energies across the planet, and, in a healthy, sustainable balance with Mother Earth.

“There is more to the power of light than meets our outer vision. 

Today scientific outbreaks have experienced the power behind a beam of light -- 

its mere pressure or force can move, bend or direct liquid. 

Waters carry the sacred soma, 

and light passing through water manifests as the highest blessing. 

Flowing rivers and sacred waters of mountain lakes reflect these wonders of beatitude.” 

~ Shambhavi