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Herbs, TCM and Hospitals
By Leslie Goldman, Enchanted Gardener Leslie Goldman is our Enchanted Gardener at Pacific Symposium. He asks each practitioner to grow at least one TCM healing herb and one organic vegetable. In January 2003, I was in the state-of-the-art UCSD Thornton Hospital in La Jolla, California, getting the second of two bilateral Hip Revisions in 13 months. I treated the experience as a performance piece and I've named my experience "Getting Hip." I considered this my opportunity to bring the healing power of herbs and organic foods into the traditional western medical facility. I brought in beautiful foods from my friends at the local farmers' market, as well as live plants and flowers. Another friend gave a live harp concert and still another friend stayed by my side throughout my recovery, massaging my weary body and soothing the pain. In intervals I would rub some herbs in my hands, then breathe in the deeply healing scent that is its Chi. One of my favorite herbs, an American upstart called Chocolate Peppermint, may not have its station within TCM, but rubbing it between our hands and breathing in the live Chi can transform our world in 15 seconds. I often wonder what we are leaving out of our TCM practices if we don't grow and immerse our lives and our patients in live herbs? For more than 20 years, I have held a vision that we could grow a more beautiful world called the Enchanted Garden. This world grows one person and one plant at a time. All our dreams are intended to grow in harmony with Nature's Original Technology. Plant a Seed, grow a whole new world. One of the most difficult conditions I faced in the hospital was the ambient noise, the constant whirl of the air conditioning. As I lay there, I thought about how much better it would be to have the sound environment transformed into a healing environment through the use of visionary music. Within the last month, I have been listening to CDs produced by some of our most talented musicians. These creative works are up for the 2003 Visionary Awards sponsored by the Coalition of Visionary Resources to be presented at the International New Age Trade Show this June in Denver. Our talented artists are creating sound-scapes that are making a vital contribution to our "sound" health. These visionary works of art are helping to transform healthcare facilities into healing havens. Beautiful sounds, growing live fragrant plants, and expressing our inner poetry are some of the essential Chi-raising remedies I use to inspire those I love to plant their dreams in harmony with nature. This past April I attended the Symposium on Healthcare Design at the Loew's Coronado Bay Resort, in San Diego. Architects, interior designers, facility managers, and healthcare executives attended. The theme was "Working Together to Enhance the Healing Environment" - they call this Vital Design. In a workshop on "Energy and Medicine," Vital Design presenter William Spear addressed the unique design needs of complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine. Vital Design is nurturing, healing, and alive. It soothes the senses through the use of living plant life and it expresses an awareness of ambient noise. I learned that many traditional western medical facilities are beginning to incorporate sound dampening into their environments. It seems that we are primed at a new epoch where sound healing as well as healing gardens will be become a Vital Design principle. Health care managers are now recognizing that healing environments may actually lower health care costs. All dreams grow one see at a time. We can begin now to help create a new healthcare system through taking charge of our own individual health care both at home in the medical facilities.
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