Sublime

To integrate is to bring together into a nonconflicting, noncontradictory unity those elements that are being integrated, in accordance with a goal, need, or standard that operates as the organizing principle. The ultimate biological principle of integration is, of course, that which is required for the life of the organism. All self-healing, at th

Enlightenment thinkers once disparaged animist ideas as backwards and unscientific. They considered them to be a barrier to capitalist expansion, and sought desperately to stamp them out. But today science is beginning to catch up. Biologists are discovering that humans are not standalone individuals, but composed largely of microorganisms on which

A SYSTEMS APPROACH To do this, functional medicine takes a systems approach to the body. We’ve already spoken of the network of organ systems in the body—immune, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, etc.—but here the important word is “network”; in other words, all these systems are linked. Therefore, as we know, an event in one system can affect so

This Taoistic view is typical of Chinese thinking. It is, whenever possible, a thinking in terms of the whole, a point also brought out by Marcel Granet,12 the eminent authority on Chinese psychology.

The movement advocates a holistic philosophy that takes non-human life as an intrinsic value and seeks a better quality of life grounded by values rather than goods. This holism is particularly sympathetic to Asian and pantheistic wisdom traditions such as Daoism, Buddhism and Native American religions.

This work is about relationship—with sacred medicines, self, loved ones, community, humanity, and the miracle of life on Earth. None of our healing, empowerment, and self-liberation matters if we cannot be in high relationship with this most exquisite and extraordinary home planet—and all the other precious living beings we share her with. That is