Howdy Fellow Helfgottbloggers,

I don’t know about you all, but the shifting sands of time sure have swept swiftly through my bones as of late. When this happens, I pick up this little blue turquoise book that my mom gave me (we used to read it together over suppertime meals when I was a kid). It’s called “A Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations” by Joyce Seqichie Hifler. And it never fails to give me perspective when clarity appears out of reach or when a sandstorm seems to be brewin’ outside my cubicle at work. Today was such a catewhompus day, flying cats and dogs really, and I felt like sharing. Didn’t know if the day’s passage would offer anyone else a paradigm shift, perhaps a reprieve from the pelting poodles…. Here goes.

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“It is comforting to know that every day we are in contact with people who put such confidence in us that we strive harder to do our best. These are the ones that build people and there’s no job more fragile or creative than giving others confidence. No two people ever respond the same way, and since there can be very little trial and error in handling individuals, sensitivity to hurt and fear must be considered. Where one person can be challenged, another may need to be told how to rise above emotions and imagined shortcomings. The Cherokee, like so many others, appears u wo we la nv, composed or stoic, but his nature is sensitive to criticism in any form. We all need approval and attention, and when someone cares, it makes an important difference.”

That hand is not the color of your hand, but if I pierce it I shall feel pain. The blood that will follow from mine will be the same color as yours. The Great Spirit made us both.

~Standing Bear

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By Natasia Rana

After years of academic research and personal experience, I concluded that maintaining a vegan diet was the highest health summit one could reach. This theory was challenged in 2002 when I completed a month-long raw food immersion and felt more physical ease, mental clarity, and expanded awareness than ever before. On Tuesday, August 18th, one of the world’s leading authorities on raw food nutrition is visiting Portland, and you better believe that I’m not going to miss this event!

Dr. Brian Clement, Ph.D., L.N.C. will be speaking about the half century of work on disease and longevity conducted at the renowned Hippocrates Health Institute where he is Co-Director with his wife Dr. Anna Maria Clement. Cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, MS, ALS, Parkinson’s, fibromyalgia and more can be altered, prevented, and at times conquered with phyto-chemicals, antioxidants and other nutrients found in a diet of organic vegan living food.

Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide improve their health by utilizing unprocessed green foods, and one of the exceptional benefits acquired from this powerful cuisine is longevity. Dr. Clement will explain the basic science and extraordinary mechanisms that bring about a heightened and balanced immunity and how individual choices have global impact. An extensive question and answer period will be offered so that audience members will leave with viable, personal roadmaps back to healthy lives.

In his role as a progressive educator, author, and international lecturer, Dr. Clement conducts countless seminars and educational programs, traveling extensively to more than twenty-five countries around the globe. At home in the United States, he takes the message of this widely successful program across the country. In recent years, government-supported organizations commissioned Dr. Clement to establish, organize, and direct health programs in Denmark, Switzerland, Greece, and India. He has also written numerous books (such as the best-selling Living Foods for Optimum Health) in which he explores the multitudinous dimensions of health, spirituality, and natural healing.

Dr. Clement’s progressive ideas on natural health approaches coupled with his vast theoretical and practical scientific experience have earned him a reputation as a leading expert in the natural health field. He has spent more than three decades studying nutrition and natural health care and has received graduate degrees in both naturopathic medicine and nutritional science. Since 1980 Dr. Clement has directed the growth and development of Hippocrates Health Institute as well as facilitated the implementation of such progressive natural health treatments as the Living Food Diet, Wheatgrass Therapy, Dark Field Microscopy, and the essentials of mind-body therapies.

Over the years Dr. Clement has assumed the role of a health advocate, motivating a very eager public to experience quantum health and take action to improve their lives. There is something bigger and better on the horizon for every one of us regardless of age, fitness level, or current health status.

Learn what next steps you can take – you’re worth it.

Complete details for Dr. Clement’s talk

A limited number of books will be made available for purchase for the post-lecture book signing and are available for pre-ordering online.

Inspiration can prompt people to get involved… yet health care legislation tends to be too pie-in-the-sky for average peeps. Therefore, the HeART of Healing project acts to engage on a level everyone can understand, regardless of age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or educational background.

The HeART of Healing October event, sponsored by the Archimedes Movement, promises to contain viral aspects that you all are batting around, AND it will essentially be a homerun because it collectively pools our Archimedes/community efforts creativity under one umbrella.

ART is a language we all understand… that’s why it’s so effective with advertising… and, as always, we’re looking for new suggestions (and you don’t have to be an official artist!), think:

A Healthcare Haiku
On anabolic steroids
The People’s muscle

Let us flex our minds
Backbend around policy
Open other’s eyes

There are outlets for all walks of life, and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, simple locate organizations that help the community…. make a personal visit/call… send them a link to the website… There is no arm twisting involved… so many people want to join in… the awareness that you seek on a national level is TRULY possible with this HeART of Healing event.

Want to create an artful demonstration of reading poetry? Got a burning desire to juggle at a bus stop? Sure! Tell us when and where and we’ll site you on the map. Want to create a rally in your neck of the woods? Sure, let us know when and we’ll tell a wider audience. Want to make a series of YouTube videos with mockumentary commentary about our current state of health affairs? Sure, just send a link! Want to hold a movie night and discuss the implications for a wider audience (Corvallis?)… really, whatever insights for community awareness/AM/thinking differently, empowering populations…. Shifting the paradigm…. It is possible through this exact forum.

Points to consider:

1. The internet is a powerful tool that can help us collaborate under a common goal: health.
2. If we focus behind the HeART of Healing project, we utilize this precisely placed fulcrum. We will raise awareness, get other people involved, and begin to have the leverage for health reform that we’ve sought after.
3. Our voice will not only be loud, but it will be a voice for the people.

You can access the basic Join the Fun Page, where you can learn about the different HeART of Healing events you that can pARTicipate in.  I encourage you all to think out-side-the-box and see how you and other community members can plug in, tune in, and sing with a much stronger voice through the HeART of Healing message. This Archimedes Movement project is an effort that is -tapped into mainstream-and your message has a greater potential to be heard. Moreover, it’s crazy enough to work.

Whew! Stepping down off the soapbox, my 3 cents for how we can create true change…

Thanks for reading,

Kimberly Ann

check out what the buzz is about online: www.theheARTofhealing.us

By Marilynn Considine, PR & Communications

According to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study released yesterday, Americans have spent $34 billion in the last 12 months on Complementary and Alternative medicine health care systems, practices and products. This is especially newsworthy now, when health care access and affordability for all Americans dominates the headlines. NCNM was asked yesterday to comment on the study by reporters from ABC News and Portland’s NBC TV affiliate, KGW-Channel 8 News.

The ABC News online story, by reporter Lauren Cox, includes comments from Dr. Marnie Loomis.

Partly shot on campus, the KGW Channel 8 video story by reporter Joe Smith features NCNM board member and CCM alum Ellen Goldsmith, ND alum Dr. Gary Weiner, and Dr. Loomis. This video link does not include yesterday’s news teaser, in which reporter Smith says that “Oregon is a leader in natural medicine.” But it does include Smith wrapping up the segment by saying, “NCNM is opening a new clinic in September. It will be the largest natural medicine clinic in Portland.”

This may just be the beginning of a news cycle of interest in CAM. There have been other media calls this week as well, so stay tuned for more.

We like to describe the HeART of Healing project as an ingenious way to advertise to the community at large, what health care transformation truly means: (e)quality for everyone. Organizations and people who participate will act to resculpt, reframe, and revitalize the health care system.

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What is the HeART of Healing Project about?
The HeART of Healing project is a very exciting month-long celebration coming up this October, 2009. We’re planning live poetry readings at Trimet bus stops; a 112-member strong, Patch Adam’s inspired clown appearance in downtown Portland; art fundraisers; avant-garde minglers portraying friendly guerilla art; a week of movement therapy demonstrations; a four-day film series; and musical concerts by nationally known bands. We’re working with local nonprofits, arts organizations, and health-related colleges to co-produce some of these events. The net benefit we envision will be a huge boost in awareness for all partners involved… plus strides in awareness around the urgency of health care reform, especially detailing how the structure of health care affects artists and creative professionals.

The premise of the HeART of Healing’s month-long engagement is to create a forum in which we will bring key members of the health and art community together to discuss how art and medicine are connected, and, more importantly, how we can incorporate these functionally innovative approaches for the next phases of health care development. Here are a few examples of how we see health reform and artists working together through the various venues throughout the month:

Dr. John Kitzhaber or Archimedes Executive Director Liz Baxter will present on behalf of the Archimedes Movement and its efforts with local health reform, outlining the stages of policy advancement in our legislative system.

Artists will have the opportunity to describe the process of channeling imagination into materials that contain purpose and passion. Moreover, each shall detail how art can act as a means to express personal and contemporary conditions, and what it’s like to be an artist in today’s health care system.

Health care administrators will discuss how to generate working templates to meet the real needs of people, as well as how to appropriately direct artful ideas within the existing medical system.

Art therapists and creative organizations will demonstrate how to use artistic expression to create health and emotional healing through various methods of art media.

And lastly, innovative researchers will describe how artists and medical practitioners can generate ‘evidence-based’ medicine so that healing arts communities can translate clinical and creative healing into words, facts, and figures that funders and governmental policy members can understand.

Simply put, the HeART of Healing project is designed as an informative, working model for the future of art how art can help medicine. This particular pART of the HeART of Healing project has the potential to reshape health policy in Oregon so that the artistic community becomes an active element in discussions surrounding subsequent health-oriented infrastructures.

What does the HeART of Healing build upon?
Founded by former two-term Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, M.D., The Archimedes Movement is paving the way to health care reform, starting with Oregon. Already the organization is making serious waves for Oregon to change legislation and to work with insurance companies and health providers in order to ensure that every person gets access to basic health care – regardless of condition, age, employment status or income. To promote its powerful work and to build awareness, Archimedes has launched its 2009 fundraising lecture and event series and October’s theme is called the ‘HeART of Healing’.

How can I get involved with the HeART of Healing Project?

You can follow a behind-the-scenes look at the HeART of Healig Project here, at our Archimedes subscribed RSS feed. This site is meant to keep community organizers and HeART of Healing artists coordinated during the planning stages and the month of the project. Think of it like a high-tech walkie talkie version, where google documents, and meeting minutes are utilized to make the magic happen.

In the event that you would like to sign you or your organization up to be a pART of the HeART of Healing project, you can; in fact, the more the merrier. You can also follow a “who, what, when, and where” approach to the HeART of Healing events on these respective pages, moreover if you decide to become involved on a more prominent level, your information would also be displayed in these locations, too!

Who / What = Organizations Involved
When / Where = Calendar of Events

Follow the HeART of Healing on Twitter

By Carlo Calabrese, ND, MPH, Senior Investigator at the Helfgott Research Institute

Why do people choose to enter medical studies as research subjects?

Notoriously, people get involved in research for money. However, even most clinical trials— the type of study most likely to be associated with cash rewards— do not return significant remuneration for participation, with compensation more often on the order of lunch and bus fare or small token thank you gifts. Many other kinds of studies, such as epidemiological studies and surveys, for example, or studies that desire access to personal medical records to be used in research, offer nothing material at all in return.

Very few people enter studies for access to otherwise unavailable life-saving treatment. Patients with incurable and chronic diseases may enter studies in the hope that they will derive health benefit from participation. More often, they realize that others with their condition in the future are the more likely beneficiaries of their efforts. So, why do they enroll?

I believe that most research participants think it is going to help someone. Concomitant requisites for participants are respect for the general progress of humankind and the desire to be affiliated with the community in what may be an epic battle: human survival.  Some volunteer for enlightenment— the curiosity of seeing what the study involves, learning more about their bodies and health. Some enter for entertainment— social aspects for the lonely, relief from a boring job. But mostly they participate in a study because volunteering for medical research adds meaning to their lives.

We should also acknowledge the virtues of those willing to put themselves on the line for the specific altruism of medical investigations: courage, curiosity, the willingness to look very carefully at themselves and to be precise…maybe even wisdom… maybe even heroism.

Oregon state Senator Ron Wyden was in town this week, and I was lucky enough to share a meal with this man of action. Senator Wyden has served Oregon in the US Senate since 1996. He sits on several senate committees—including the important Finance Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee (both of which he chairs). What is perhaps even more noteworthy is that Senator Wyden and a group of bi-partisan senators recently proposed the Healthy Americans Act.

If you know me, you know that I regularly grumble about the “health care” discussion. It seems to focus far too much on payer models (who is paying for what) than it does on health. The US is currently 37th by the World Health Organization (WHO)  when it comes to health care. We are behind Costa Rica, and just ahead of Slovenia; France is ranked number 1. No offense, but for a country like the US that spends more than $2.4 trillion on health care each year, we ought to be doing better than less developed countries! In life expectancy, we’re a little better. We’re 24th, with US males living an average of 67.5 years, and US females living an average of 72.6 years.

So what does the Healthy Americans Act do for us? Well, this is another payer model that would guarantee that “all Americans receive private affordable health coverage that can never be taken away.” I rolled my eyes at Senator Wyden when he told me about the plan. “It’s another payer model, designed to make insurance companies even more rich,” I retorted.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against capitalism. However, in the case of health care, the system is set up so that insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, physicians, lawyers, etc., all benefit when a person is sick. I think we need to shift the focus so that people make money when Americans are healthy. Then we’ll no longer have pharmaceutical companies only looking for treatments for disease, we’ll have them looking for cures. Unfortunately, with the health care plan in play, if a pharmaceutical company cures a disease, a lucrative market is lost.

Senator Wyden explained the philosophy behind the Healthy Americans Act. If all Americans are covered by insurance, and companies are not allowed to cherry-pick only healthy people, the insurance company is now motivated to keep people healthier, or they lose money.

Are they? Or will our premiums just increase? That’s actually another point of the bill. President Obama has suggested that there be an upper limit on health care insurance costs for a family. His original suggestion in 2008 was $2500. While that may have increased a little, it’s still affordable for most Americans. Furthermore, in the Healthy Americans Act, people and families who cannot afford their premiums would be subsidized.

There’s another interesting component of the Healthy Americans Act. Senator Wyden said that staying healthy often requires an individual to change behavior and assume more personal responsibility for his or her health. That certainly fits the philosophy of natural medicine, where prevention and patient empowerment serve as the foundation for creating sustainable self-care.

Are there things I don’t like in the bill? Absolutely. Section 702 promised enhanced drug and medical device approval. The definition and implementation of the word “enhanced” is cause for concern. While we certainly need to look at the way a new product comes into the market (it currently takes too long and costs too much money), it troubles me that the pharmaceutical lobby may have slipped that into the Healthy American Act, which may ultimately hinder the few checks and balances we have in place for our health care.

Nevertheless, Senator Wyden is thinking about adequate, cost-effective health care for all Americans. It’s clear to me that he’s a smart and thoughtful man. He met with President Obama last week—a fact that may have been lost to the media among the Michael Jackson hype. I expect that we will see more of the Healthy Americans Act. You might want to check it out and see the direction your health care is heading.

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Note: Since this article was written President Obama rejected the Health Americans Act, citing the bill as “too radical.”

By:  Will Newman II, Co-founder of OSALT and thoughtful blogger for Think About it

Dr. Albert Bartlett has brilliantly noted:  “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”

We are the first generation who inhabits a world in the near vertical stretch of exponential growth in every sector of human society. No (previous) generation in the history of our species has ever experienced this reality. We are currently living through a historically brief phenomenon, which is wholly unsustainable, and which in all probability, has only one outcome.

“No one in their right mind wants to believe any of this to be true.”
~ Daniel Drumright

Nevertheless, it is true.

It is time to face the reality of our situation, and make the tough choices. The first choice is: are we willing to recognize that there are physical realities that are not subject to manipulation by science, technology, faith or hope?

If not, then we need do nothing, and “what will be, will be.”

If so, then there are some other things we need to acknowledge:

We are at an unavoidable turning point in human history, and our actions now will determine whether or not human civilization, and even the human race, will last past the current generation.

Human civilization worldwide is based on the exploitation of non-renewable resources. Many of these resources are now running out.

Anyone who consumes more than they produce is being subsidized, usually by a combination of other people’s efforts and cheap energy.

We are running out of cheap energy. At the levels we currently use energy, there is no functional replacement for our major source of cheap energy (petroleum) available. There is no prospect of a replacement for petroleum in the foreseeable future – not solar, not wind, not nuclear fission or fusion, not coal, not tidal – no source at all.

Based on what we know of the natural dynamic balance of the natural world, in any sound vision of sustainability there will be only a fraction of the current human population.

So, what can we do?

We can change the way we live.  Starting today.

We all live in a web of possibility. There are things we can do and things we cannot do. Every time we make a decision we change the web.

If we all decided tomorrow that we should park our cars and walk to work we could not do it. Most of us live too far a distance from work to walk there daily. What we can do is look for work (or create a new job) that we can walk to.

If we all decided tomorrow that we would stop funding military activities throughout the world we could not do it, because we no longer have the ability to control the parts of our governments that makes those decisions. What we can do is elect different people to office, or better yet, rebuild community from the local level so that we take back control of our lives and our governments.

If we all decided tomorrow that we would have no more than one child, those of us with more than one child would be making the decision too late. And while it is conceivable that we could kill all those “extra” children, I think most of us would find that unacceptable. What we can do is change the social contract so that having only one child per couple is the norm. (If, for four generations, each couple had only one child, the human population would drop to one sixteenth, or 6.25% of its current size. That population may well be sustainable.)

If we all decided tomorrow that we would not buy anything made from plastic, nor use any containers made with plastic, we probably could not do it. What we can do is pay attention to what we buy and what we use, avoid plastic whenever possible, and let our preferences and buying decisions be known.

If we all decided tomorrow that we would repair things rather than replace them we could not always do it. What we can do is, when we buy new (or better yet, used) things, select those that will last for a long time, and can be repaired if and when they need it.

Each action we take influences the web of possibility. When we take responsibility for our decisions we make better decisions. When we avoid using plastic we make it more possible for others to make things that do not contain plastic, supporting the use of renewable, rather than non-renewable resources. When we walk to work instead of drive we make it more possible for others to walk also, and we encourage allocation of resources to support walker sin preference to drivers. We also cut down on air pollution, which helps restore clean air, and hence, supports better health for all. When we prefer locally made products we help create local jobs.

If we focus on living satisfying lives, based on real wealth instead of consumption and distraction, we may find that we are happier, healthier, and no longer facing the imminent destruction of our own lives as well as that of the planet.

“The biosphere which supports all life, and the only life we’ve ever discovered to exist in the known universe, is in an acute and exponential stage of collapse. This is empirically irrefutable. If humanity continues to function under the same economic, political and social ethos it does today, we will simply drive ourselves into extinction, along with most of life on the planet, and in all probability, within our current lifespan.”
~ Daniel Drumright

What do you think?