Comments on: Medicine Show (3) http://www.vianegativa.us/2010/02/medicine-show-3/ How can we live without the unknown before us? —Rene Char Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:48:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dave http://www.vianegativa.us/2010/02/medicine-show-3/#comment-13138 Dave Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:54:06 +0000 http://www.vianegativa.us/?p=6690#comment-13138 Thanks for these thoughts. I'd like to hear more about the dulcimer sometime. I meant "roots" here in several different senses, including the sense of ancestry. But I think this is a valid insight about American medical practice, too: ever since the medicine shows with their miraculous nostrums, and maybe as far back as the alchemists, we've been searching for a panacea, and we love the idea of pills that are like a vampire-killer's silver bullets in the war against disease, ideas inimical to the African and Native American approaches, with their emphasis on roots and herbs and the restoration of harmony between body and cosmos. Thanks for these thoughts. I’d like to hear more about the dulcimer sometime. I meant “roots” here in several different senses, including the sense of ancestry. But I think this is a valid insight about American medical practice, too: ever since the medicine shows with their miraculous nostrums, and maybe as far back as the alchemists, we’ve been searching for a panacea, and we love the idea of pills that are like a vampire-killer’s silver bullets in the war against disease, ideas inimical to the African and Native American approaches, with their emphasis on roots and herbs and the restoration of harmony between body and cosmos.

]]> By: kasturi http://www.vianegativa.us/2010/02/medicine-show-3/#comment-13137 kasturi Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:37:43 +0000 http://www.vianegativa.us/?p=6690#comment-13137 i'm enjoying your poems about banjos. i haven't written, but have felt, a great deal about the dulcimer in similar ways. i like the idea of not needing roots, simply taking the small white pill, a chewable eraser. i think my mother took that pill but forgot to give one to me :-) a friend of mine, a uu minister who participates in 'white studies,' tells me that that is the whole secret to 'white culture.' seriously, i haven't been looking for roots, because i've always known/experienced them, but just looking for greater understanding and recognition, a language if you will, to express my past experiences. that work is nearly completed now. i’m enjoying your poems about banjos. i haven’t written, but have felt, a great deal about the dulcimer in similar ways.

i like the idea of not needing roots, simply taking the small white pill, a chewable eraser. i think my mother took that pill but forgot to give one to me :-) a friend of mine, a uu minister who participates in ‘white studies,’ tells me that that is the whole secret to ‘white culture.’

seriously, i haven’t been looking for roots, because i’ve always known/experienced them, but just looking for greater understanding and recognition, a language if you will, to express my past experiences. that work is nearly completed now.

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