medicine for the people
as someone who relies on lots of different medicines, i'm on a mission to secure healthcare, including eastern and indigenous modalities, for my community. medicine should be preventative, seasonal, and communal. there are tips and tricks i've picked up that i now swear by (hello fire cider, nettles & mullein). we run into complications around billing but to that i say FIGURE IT OUT HOMIE. somebody crunch the numbers and figure that shit out. an alternative is to throw out insurance all together and do a universal healthcare using the crooked profits that have been collected off our prolonged illness and expensive death????? luigi guide the way. these "alternative" medicines, which are older, they aren't meant for profit. they're meant to heal not just the person but the collective. that's what's special. when you start involving a third party, the nefarious health insurance industry, do you offend the traditions that surround these practices??? i think about this, and i think yes, you do. i also clearly think these lineages of medical knowledge are worth using and sharing. it just has to be done in the spirit of the original knowledge keepers.
and so: i'm imagining a world where western doctors work alongside practitioners of other lineages. because the most care i've received in this country has come at acupuncture clinics, but i also need iron infusions, and i like having the stability afforded by psychiatric meds. besides the brief couple month period when acupuncture was covered by an insurance plan (at a job i was too disabled to keep), i've done whatever i fuckin can to afford my treatments. because they work. herbs can be medicine. moxa aids in recovery. these and other methods have served a purpose for thousands of years in healing science, and yet they're not "covered." but pushing pills with wild side effects and risk of overdose is the norm. the system is corrupt and deadly. fuck it.
if you're new here, i hate the late stage capitalism game, the white supremacy game, the money over everything game. it sucks, and they're purpose is to keep the mothafuckin ruling elite class ridiculously wealthy and over-served, while the rest are just comfortable enough not to revolt. but that's the thing, that comfort is slipping. fast. SNAP is cut. we can't afford food or medicine. it's bleak. people trying to get rich, i'm trying to be happy and pain free. i'm trying to serve my community by holding peoples' Kidney 1 point and acupunking their ears for relaxation. money is made up. food is not. your central nervous system is not. listen to what your body needs.
in traditional east Asian medicine, this season, autumn in northern hemisphere, is the the season of the lung, of metal, of grief. we prepare for darkness of the winter months, and eat soups, stews, and squashs, and stone fruits. we light candles to guide us through the extended nights. and we do it every year. life is a cycle. get on.
can you do something for me? my ask is this: don't shop till you drop this holiday season. i know many of you might not be able to anyway, so please don't feel shame or guilt. the gov has really outdone themselves this time, and things are tight. prices are up, you're not imagining. my grandma and i are hunkering down, trying to see where we can save money. do the same. nuance: if you do got it, give it to mutual aid, your neighbors who are hungry, those who are without housing right now. we have to build stable networks of care among the people, or we won't survive what's coming climatologically. this cat 5 hurricane that just devastated Jamaica and the Caribbean was anything but average. and scientists have been warning of this for decades. we have to do less to fuck up the good time that billionaires have been having, because it's their extreme overconsumption fueling the climate crisis. don't be complicit in their destruction, if you don't spend they don't earn. only what's necessary, and when you need something, shop small or local. that's my ask for the day.
happiest halloween, pj
