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The Fruits of Desire
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Democratic Forest Trusts (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.Democratic trusts with leadership elected by citizen-members promise to solve many of the problems afflicting both traditional government and corporate ownership of forestlands. This article explores these issues in some depth.Complexity and the Dream of Human Control of Eco-Systems (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.The title captures it. I then explore the kinds of institutions compatible with both nature and the modern world that are implied from this analysis.Rethinking the Obvious: Modernity and Living Respectfully With Nature (PDF)The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Winter, 1997.Modernity is usually considered a wrong turn in terms of respect for and sustaining the environment. I argue the reality is more complex, for modernity has freed us from personal dependence on agriculture, ended the economic value of children, radically reduced the likelihood of large scale wat, and shifted much production to intellectual rather than material capital. This partially decouples society from nature, which gives us important opportunities as well as problems.Towards an Ecocentric Political Economy (PDF)The Trumpeter, Fall, 1996.This paper begins my effort at showing how liberal modernity can be harmonized with an ecocentric perspective on our relationship with the natural world. It is a corrective to much “free market environmental” literature that sacrifices Nature to money as well as to anti-liberal attacks by well-meaning but economically naïve environmentalists.Unexpected Harmonies: Self-Organization in Liberal Modernity and Ecology (PDF)The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, 10:1, Winter 1993This is my initial paper exploring how what I term ‘evolutionary liberal’ thought can be an important means by which society and nature can be brought into greater harmony. The other Trumpeter papers build on it.Deep Ecology and Liberalism: The Greener Implications of Evolutionary Liberalism (PDF)Review of Politics, Fall, 1996.Liberal thought and deep ecology are usually regarded as mutually exclusive. But the “evolutionary” tradition offers a way to integrate the two through commonalties in the work of David Hume, Michael Polanyi, Arne Naess, and Aldo Leopold, providing a stronger foundation for liberalism while strengthening the case for an ecocentric ethic.(Related subjects: Ecology)Saving Western Towns: A Jeffersonian Green Proposal (PDF)in Writers on the Range, Karl Hess and John Baden, eds., University Press of Colorado, 1998.Developmental pressures in the rural and small town West involve three groups: long term residents, new arrivals, and environmentalists. Today their interests often conflict. This conflict is in part the outcome of institutions which prevent harmonizing competing interests. The concept of developmental trusts, both for rural regions and for small communities offers a means whereby these interests can be harmonized for the benefit of all concerned.(Related subjects: Politics)Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism (PDF)Critical Review, 6: 2-3, 1992.Murray Bookchin is considered a leading radical environmental theorist. However, his analysis is incapable of leading humankind towards a more respectful and sustainable relationship with the natural world. Criticisms of Bookchin from both the deep ecology and evolutionary liberal perspective complement one another, pointing the way towards a better understanding of how modernity relates to the environment.The paper as a whole offers an early discussion of issues that are more clearly addressed in later papers, particularly Deep Ecology and Liberalism (1996) and the three Trumpeter articles in 1997, 1996, and 1993. However, there are other ideas in the article which have not been developed more thoroughly elsewhere.
I believe my unusually rapid recovery from a stroke in 2008 was connected to working with healing energy for 25 years. My belief just received a boost.
This week (April 24)
the New Scientist gave a fascinating account of an experiment first reported in the Neurobiology of Disease. Seventy five rats initially had their spines damaged. One third were then given acupuncture on two locations far from the spine -
near their mouths and in the upper hind leg. One third received “simulated acupuncture” with a
toothpick. Another third received
no treatment at all. Within 35
days those rats who received acupuncture evidenced better balance, walked
better, and had less nerve cell death.
Acupuncture had already demonstrated its ability to help
human beings with spinal injuries. But many doubters and “skeptics” remained. Someone irrationally committed to
their view of reason could and did suggest its impact was primarily
psychological. It’s hard to make
that argument with rats.
Last Spring I was describing what had happened to a friend
studying acupuncture. I mentioned asking a TaiChi/XiGong master I knew to help me over the last
hurdle between being unable to write my name and driving alone to Maine a
little over two months later.
She told me that in China when people had a stroke many went
to acupuncturists if they could, in order to prevent worse nerve damage and
speed up their healing. Like Tai Chi and Xi Gong, and the work I have done for
so long, acupuncture works with chi, and chi in my experience impacts
nerves. (Working with chi is also
deeply impacted by intention, but that’s another discussion.) I described my conversation on this blog last June.
When someone, usually a bright skeptic, but one not quite as
bright as he or she imagines, points out that modern science cannot find chi, I
remind them that until the late 19th century it could not find
radiation. Did that mean that
radiation did not exist until we discovered it? Or perhaps it suggests many admirers of science confuse
present knowledge with possible knowledge. Which is a very anti-scientific attitude, as the experiments
above indicate.
If you know anyone who has a stroke, or recently had one, I
urge you to have them see a competent acupuncturist or Tai-Chi/XiGong healer.
posted April 28, 2010 at 1:43 pm
If the existence or non-existence of qi is a stumbling block for scientifically-minded people to accept acupuncture, then we can ignore the issue entirely. We don’t have to believe or even acknowledge the concept of qi in order to use acupuncture effectively or to do clinical trials of acupuncture. Chinese medical theory can be viewed as a description of natural patterns or as simply a useful tool for making effective clinical decisions. There is no reason to get caught up in “does it really exist or not”, you don’t need to beleive in acupuncture for it to work.
posted April 30, 2010 at 11:26 am
My husband and I have both been working with healing energy over the last few years. We have several special needs pets that we do healing work with, mostly dachshunds with back problems and/or arthritis. In 2008, one of our dachshunds blew a disc in her back and her hind quarters were completely paralyzed. She had no movement and no feeling. The vet’s prognosis is that she would recover very little if at all. So we set up our life to dealing with a disabled pet. We got her a little doggy wheelchair, learned how to fit diapers on a dog, how best to help her go to the bathroom (she had some bladder control, but not 100%). While we were working with her, changing diapers, managing diaper rash, and all the dozens of other things you deal with when your dog is paralyzed, we also spent time sending healing energy into her back and legs. After 2 months we started seeing small signs of movement. A week later, she started showing signs of having some feeling. A month later, she was walking on her own, a bit wobbly, but walking. By the end of the year (about 5 months after blowing out the disc), she was fully recovered. 2 years later, the vet is still amazed every time she sees Amber. Heck, we’re still amazed and we see her every day.
Right now we have a cat in kidney failure. We’re working with him the same way. Right now we’ve got him down from daily fluid infusions to every other day. We’re still hoping and working to get him beyond that. He’s only 8, so he could still have some good years ahead of him, and we’re not giving up.
People can say all they want about psychosomatic and it doesn’t really exist. Then I look at my little miracle dog, and I know they don’t have a leg to stand on. Amber does though. She’s got two steady little hind legs, thanks to our energy healing.
posted January 12, 2011 at 4:04 am
Are there instances that a person die because of acupuncture? If ever, what’s the ratio? TIA.
posted February 3, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Such a nice information shared in this post. Acupuncture is an alternative medicine known to be effective as remedy in body pains. It treats patients by insertion and manipulation of needles at specific points.
posted February 8, 2011 at 3:10 am
I haven’t tried acupuncture yet.. I’m afraid of needles but then as what they say it really help us, I will try it next week, see what improvement in my health can do this thing.