Why "Nature Goddess"?

Credit goes to the lovely and talented Rosa, who comes to our center not as my patient, but as my belly dance student (and a wonderful student she is, too!) Rosa called one day to tell me that she would not be at class, as she was sick. Then she remembered the various herbs and formulas she had seen at the center, and wondered if there was anything I could do for her. There was, and later that day, she picked up a formula for herself and her daughter.

I saw her again a week later, at class. She was feeling much better, and as it turned out, had recovered quite quickly from her illness. "We call you the Nature Goddess now," she said, "that stuff really works!"

That stuff *does* work. That's why I do what I do.

There is another goddess I had in mind when I named the blog. Hygeia was the Greek goddess of physical health, and the daughter (in some accounts, the wife) of Asclepius/Asklepios, god of physicians. (Her father, by the way, may have begun life as a mortal man, and been deified later--sort of the ultimate promotion.) The image above is one of my favorites; so calm, so reassuring, so authoritative--don't you feel better already?

I nearly named my center "Hygeia Natural Health", but I found most people didn't quite feel the way I did about the word. The goddess's name has come down to our century as "hygiene", and while the concept is entirely appropriate for Her scope of practice, it denotes bleached sterility to most people. We are as clean as we should be here, but "sterile" is hardly the way I want my patients to think of natural medicine.

To me, natural medicine is alive, growing and changing; which is why it seems so obvious to embody these concepts as goddesses, with their vibrant natures, gorgeous images, and all that their names evoke.

"Hygeia, most revered of the blessed ones among mortals, may I dwell with you for what is left of my life, and may you graciously keep company with me: for any joy in wealth or in children or in a king’s godlike rule over men or in the desires which we hunt with the hidden nets of Aphrodite, any other delight or respite from toils that has been revealed by the gods to men, with you, blessed Hygeia, it flourishes and shines...and without you no man is happy." - Greek Lyric V Ariphron, Frag 813 (from Athenaeus, Scholars at Dinner)

"I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asklepios, and Hygeia, and Panakeia, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation ... " - Hippocrates, The Hippocratic Oath