In this Newsletter:
-Tea Report
-Health Justice Curriculum
-What we’re reading: “Meet Us At the Table: Problems with the White Savior Complex”
-Mineral Tonic Recipe
Notes from the Office
Tea makes good medicine. It just does. It warms our hands; it warms our noses; it somehow warms our whole body. It reminds us of our grandmothers. It reminds us to take a breath. It’s affordable; it’s simple; it’s gentle; and yet it can make us feel so much better. In this way actually, I think tea exemplifies the work and mission of the People’s Medicine Project. There’s nothing that radical about offering healing care to those who need it; there’s nothing new about therapeutic touch, taking herbs, or even acupuncture. And yet! It makes such a tangible difference in people’s lives when they are given access to gentle, empowering health care. Like tea, we know this medicine. The memory of it is deep in our bones.
So, anyway, that’s the tea report… And, lest you think that all we do around here is compare tasting notes on herbal tisanes, there’s a lot more on our mind (and in our cups) than belly-soothing plants.
For one, practitioners have spent the last two months engaging weekly with a Healing Justice curriculum that brings together resources on the intersection of alternative medicine and systems of oppression. We started with history of racism in this country, read about the effect of racism on the body, listened to podcasts about current efforts to integrate somatic healing into activism, and engaged with writings about cultural appropriation. The work culminates next Monday in an all-practitioner dialogue about the work and how it should inform both what we do at clinic and where we go as a larger organization. Stay tuned for more on that in February!
Meanwhile, in the apothecary this week….
