Physician Treating Patient Is the human body like a machine so when we're ill, a physician treats us like a mechanic repairing broken parts or is our body like a plant needing a gardener's care with sunshine & water to bring a wilted flower back to life? Albert Schweitzer confides that physicians have no real power in curing their patients but it's nature doing the healing with time. He could repair skin wounds and broken bones but when natives complain about jungle fears Schweitzer sends them to the village witch doctor. Now I'm at a "Minds & Medicines" seminar at Stanford listening to Dr. Victoria Sweet talking about her book God's Hotel— how she went to Laguna Honda Hospital for two-months and remained for 20 years practicing slow medicine and patient care. She learned from the 12th century mystic nun Hildegard von Bingen about viriditas— "greening power" & brewed her herbs to treat those patients at Laguna and they got well because she listened closely to their pains and problems that speeded up their healing. She quoted Dr. Francis Peabody's talk to Harvard students "the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient." After her talk, I'm thinking of Buddha the greatest physician whose 8-Fold Path ends suffering, that Emptiness brings bliss that our body is a mysterious miracle— a sacred shrine, home of the Real Self— wonder of wonders filled with rainbow light.         — Peter Y. Chou             Mountain View, 11-29-2012

Body as Machine Body as Plant Body as Rainbow Light Alex Grey (born 1953) Heart on Fire (1970)