Are You Using Both Sides of Your Brain?

Finches impatiently waiting to feed

In looking at the science and art of homeopathy, I am struck by the inclusion of both hemispheres of the brain in using this wonderful modality. We listen and look at our clients; we analyze. We read our rubrics, and select which thoughts best convey our conception of the client. We may come to a few remedies that we feel are right, and whether through intuition backed by logic, or logic alone, we dispense a particular essence to our clients. This composition is rife with words that use one part of the brain. The act of typing involves both. Should we go to our software and look at families of remedies, we may take in text, and various icons or images that engage both sides of our brain. Left brain is hunter, killer, logic, analytic, causal, and linear. Right brain is iconic, illogical, intuitive, nurturing, empathetic.

Recently reading a skeptic's post on homeopathy online, it struck me that most of these skeptics are men. Most are young and white. I thought it odd, and talked with a fellow homeopath about his thoughts. He perceived them to be angry young men engaged in some science based career, feeling they didn't quite live up to the solid science academia that would recognize their talents. I got the feeling that they were angry they felt slighted by the scientific world, not being bright enough to make a name for themselves. After thinking on this for a long time, I added a bit more to it. Most homeopaths are women, most skeptics are men. Most women use their right brains, buttressed by their tendency to listen to intuition, and, having children, a nurturing tendency. Most men use their left brain, and tend to prefer science and logic over intuition and nurture. These men went deeper into their left brains, instead of correcting the imbalance. The imbalance comes when one lives solely on one side; when a man becomes too vested in his logical, alphabet-dependent left brain, which favors math and science. This is true with women, as well, when logic flies out the window, and intuition and emotion carry the reasoning away. When one lives too much on one side, perversity and psychosis can develop. Often, though, I find myself telling new mothers in my office to listen to their intuition; nothing brings it out more than a newborn baby. We were told by Dr. Spock to let the baby cry; a male writing a book on something we should have trusted ourselves to know! We are so much in our right-brain after childbirth, there is often that 'lost-my-brain' feeling we often describe as new moms. The left brain (memory, linear thinking) takes a back seat to our right brain (nurturing, intuitive), so desperately needed to raise our young.  How often does the young mother, craving some left-brain stimulation, feel ravenous for some adult conversation? This may be the overworked right brain letting her know there is an imbalance.

What about ridicule, a tool often employed by skeptics?  This is a fear-based, rigid reaction to losing power. The left brain is struggling to maintain power, and the right brain is dormant. The hunter/killer instincts are overdeveloped, and seeking blood. Feeding this need, the skeptic attacks, over and over, unaware of how it must look to onlookers. Looking back through history, we see the overreactions to new thought, new paradigms: witch hunting was the most obvious of these overreactions. Killing women was the largest mass murder in history, a hysteria there was no basis for it. Here were left-brain centered men attacking harmless, innocent women, and often children.

A junko pretends he's a finch

Sometimes, as with homeopathy, we must use both sides; either side will not carry the day. We must use our senses and our logic, our intuition and our analysis, to be successful. I've noticed sometimes, that I have a strong hunch that one remedy will be better than another. When alone, I often do not verbalize or cogitate on the reasoning. When at clinic with another homeopath, I often must. I now see how and why this happens, and realize it is more that I intuit something that has an actual logical thought process; selecting the remedy is often just the most obvious point this occurs.


How often do we use one side of our brain too often? Can you see in your own life where you may become stuck on one hemisphere? Too much book-reading, not enough image, or vice versa? I often feel the need to spin wool into yarn, or knit a few rows, just to center myself. It's often when my left side has become hypertrophied, and my right brain is screaming for attention. This morning I went outside with my tea and book. I sat and watched the finches fighting for room at the feeder. Even with 5 pages left in my book, I could not concentrate, and sat watching the finches till my right brain was happy. 

Taking It Slow

Ecstatic mustard

Sometimes life gives us a message. Sometimes it’s pretty loud. Other times it’s a whisper, a gentle nudge. A hand waving in your face when you’re focused on the distant mountains. We listen or not, we see or don't. We may not have another chance. Is this a bad thing? I don’t know. 

Recently I had a doctor berate me because I hadn’t had some exam that was expected. I got the typical run around about how they can find things 15 years before they become a problem. I responded by saying that it may never become a problem. Why would you want to go to the doctor and check regularly for growths? How many parts of your body are you going to do have checked? I'm not interested. I'm the kind of optimist that will step in a mud puddle expecting it to be shallow. It always has been.

Tomatillos holding seed

You can excise something and take it away, but your body grew it, it came from you. It’s your disease. You can’t hide it, it’s your burden. I say let it go. Maybe it disappears in 5 years. Or wait 15 years. Deal with it. Find out what makes it go away. Awhile back a close family friend said he would never go back to a hospital ever, for anything. I immediately thought, no, you must go, I wouldn’t want to lose you, and neither would your mate. But thinking about that sentiment lately, I realize it was selfish. It’s his call. He must decide what he wants to do with his life, and no one else.

Happy parsley

If you can walk in someone else’s shoes, then you may see. I see now the point he made. Is it really necessary? Do we need to intervene in someone else’s path? What if they find what they are seeking on that road, the joy from the little things in life, instead of the cold hard world of a hospital? This may sound funny coming from a woman that went through IVF many times to have a wonderful, healthy, happy pregnancy and baby. But sometimes we don’t focus on the things we’re doing while we’re living through them. We focus on the goal. I always knew I’d have my baby, and I stayed the course through a lot of pain and sorrow. I’m so happy I did. I can look back and see the grief, but so much more the joy from looking at his face.  

Almost looks like snakeskin.

Having this son, I have had so much more from life, seeing the things we shared. I remember taking him to the health food store before he could talk, and letting him point to what he thought we should buy in the produce section. It was an experiment. I learned about passionfruit, cherimoya, and many other fruits and vegetables I’d never tried. Now I’ve let him go, finding his own way and am confident his childhood was happy and sound. 

 When I look around my garden, and dig my fingers into the dirt, pulling up a carrot, or removing a caterpillar, I feel the life, and love the wholeness. I wander outside and pick a few leaves of sorrel, munching on them as I water the blueberries and blood orange tree on the porch. The blood orange that’s never had a single blossom will bloom when it’s ready. I’m confident I will find the right combination, not allowing the clover or the vetch free reign at its feet, not too much citrus food, just the right amount of water, to make it healthy and productive.

Out for a walk: Luna, Renita, Jane, Rio

There is so much to be thankful for; these wonderful friends, human and animal, the wild and the tame, the life and the death.

Yesterday, Luna, my friends' almost blind and deaf 13 year old dachshund, was around the back of my cabin. When I caught up with her, she had feathers all over her mouth. She'd found a dead bird and made herself a meal. She was so happy.

It's all natural, it's the life we live. We take it or we leave it. So I’ve cut out the coffee, and have done some fasting. Will I flower? We’ll see. We have one life each. Live yours the way you want. Don't let others voices drown yours out. Above all, be happy with your choices.

Placebo Therapy

It's always fascinated me, the way people can take pills and assume they're going to do some good. What happens in the mind, that we trust someone to help us, and not do harm? Part of that answer may lie in the person taking the pills. If you're an optimist, I'll bet you're more likely to think your fellow man has your best interest at heart. If you're a pessimist, you may be suspicious, but depending on your age, you may put that thought aside. I've noticed people over about 70 or 75 tend, generally, to believe everything an MD tells them, and not question their instructions.

Once, my father-in-law, when offered juice, said he couldn't drink OJ. I asked about grapefruit, since I was about to squeeze some fresh. He said his doctor hadn't mentioned grapefruit. Of course, knowing there are meds that have been shown to be less effective with grapefruit, this had me wondering. When I asked him why his doctor told him no OJ, he said (rather curtly) 'I don't know, he just said not to drink OJ.' Acid? Sugar? I couldn't quite figure out the reason for the dietary restriction. As he got more annoyed with me, I asked, 'What about tomato?' He just about fell off his chair, 'I don't know, he didn't SAY tomato, he just said ORANGE juice!!'  The trust was there, no need to ask why. Giving up the responsibility for your health to the doctor was the mantra of his era. Now, I think the public has become a little more wary. We've seen our trust eroded by the machinations of the pharmaceutical industry time and again. This has encouraged us to learn more about our health.

But now more information has come out about placebos. PLoS One researchers gave patients pills and TOLD them there were no active ingredients. They also told them these sugar pills might help their IBS. The pills reduced symptoms and improved quality of life! What happened here? The researcher, at Harvard Medical School, said, "We told participants they didn't have to believe in the placebo effect at all - but they had to take two pills a day." How do we tease out the many psychological influences here, not the least of which is the worse it tastes, the more painful the procedure, the more expensive it is, the more 'effective' it is deemed to be.

The interesting thing here, is that the control group also improved. Part of it may be the therapeutic relationship, which we've always recognized in homeopathy. Telling the story is the start of healing oneself. 

Lies About Length

I know what you’re thinking. This is not how to buy lumber. This is how not to buy lumber.  If you’re a guy, you already know this. You can stop now, unless you want a good laugh. The rest of this tirade is for women who may one day find themselves in the lumber department of a home improvement store.

There is a law that says you must have truth in advertising. These guys have NOT gotten the message. They maybe have and don’t care. It’s just unbelievable no government agency hasn’t confiscated their measuring tapes. They should all be ashamed.

If you went into a yarn store and asked for 6 oz of a yarn, and they handed you a skein that said 6 oz, you can be sure you’d be getting 6 oz. If you went into a fabric store and requested 3 yards or 5 meters of a fabric, you can bet they’d give you what you asked, and possibly a tad more for good measure.

Not so in a lumberyard. Ask for 2x2s (short for 2” x 2” with varying lengths of stick) and they give you anything but. When I first built my cages to cover my vegetable beds, I used whatever was at the store, and went to the joist department to complete the (what I thought was a) good idea I had. When I got to my cabin and started cutting, I realized the joists were for 2x2s, but the wood was only 1 ½” square! What? How did this happen? I must have bought the wrong wood. Well, I would make it work, I didn’t want to drive 45 minutes back to the nearest place to get more wood. My veggies wouldn’t get planted and I wouldn’t have dinner.  Time waits for no veggie. The next day, I got busy.

Reclycling the corners and screws with new wood.

I had to make reinforced corners to fit over my ‘shoebox’ covers. The metal corners were bigger than the wood! If I made the '2x2's larger, I couldn't lift the cages up, they'd weigh a ton. When I tried to fit them together, nothing really worked. The wood was too skinny. And if I used the metal corners the way they were intended, the mice could get in underneath the base. You have to use screws that, together with the metal reinforcements, make the wood sit almost ¼” above the base of the bed. I needed the lip of the cage to be as flat as glass. If you know how little a gap mice can get through, you know what I mean. That just wouldn’t work. The mice would have a field day. I did it anyway. I didn't have time for the little details. 

The old cover in front, new one in back. 

For awhile, the mice enjoyed the bounty of my garden. Mostly it was the baby leaves they ate, and they were reasonable. I couldn't complain. Once I found a dead finch inside. I never did figure that one out. Pretty yellow feathers everywhere. 

You’d think that was the end of the story. But no. That was 3 or 4 years ago, and I needed to replace the covers I’d made. Back to Home Depot I went (Friedman’s was closed) and as I looked up at the signs to figure out which way to Oz, a guy asked if I needed help. “I need redwood 2x2s.” No problem, sucker, just follow me.  While too busy asking why they only had 3’ long pieces, I didn’t really inspect the pieces he loaded into my cart. My beds are 3’x5’ and I needed some 10’ sections too. That was good, I reasoned, I’ll have to make another stop, but I won’t have to make more than a few cuts with my rusty saw. Another stop, and by this time, I don't want any help. I just want the damn wood.  After unloading the wood, I started eyeing the small pieces. It looked rather feeble for 2x2s. I was too busy unloading in the dark, tired and hungry from a long day. 

The next morning, I grabbed my measuring tape, and, WTF? 1 ¼” square. How? How can you call them 2x2s by any stretch? So the lesson is: Don’t believe any measurement a guy gives you for ANYTHING. They exaggerate.

Quail Death

Today while sitting in my favorite chair, reading a suspenseful novel, just at the crescendo of excitement, with my nose buried in the book (Mule - at the heart of harvest season, a book on moving pot!) a loud thud levitated me off my seat by a few inches. Just behind my head, I realized a bird had hit the window. After just having taken down my summer shades, white panels that hang with suction cups, I wasn't ready for such an immediate kamikaze. Normally it's a finch. This was obviously much bigger. I grabbed my Arnica spray from the bathroom and rush out barefoot. There just off the back step, a quail moved a bit, then lay still. I picked her up, her eyes still open. Before I could spray her, her eyes closed, and she died.

Everything I need - and the fateful glass door behind me.

I wasn't ready for this. This was my first casualty. The finches always sat on my open hand for a few moments after a spray, and after fluffing their feathers, and would flit off. She was the size of a softball, round and soft and now dead. Her neck was broken. I didn't need this after yesterday. It was too much. I gently set her down in the only place I saw; a planter at my feet, white and clean and safe. I went back inside, and just sat there, my sadness growing. Normally death and dying doesn't bother me, but I had held this life while it passed, and somehow it made it different. Maybe it was the underlying sadness of losing a friend.

After standing over the planter for awhile, I realized I needed to do something. Normally if I find a dead animal, whether on the road or off, I put it somewhere that is conducive to being returned to the earth. Once my son, at maybe 5 or 6, went to the airport with me. On the lonely road to the airport, there was a dead jackrabbit in the road. We got out and looked at him. There was no blood or apparent injury, so I talked to my son about death, something he didn't understand when his grandmother passed recently. I explained the rabbit's body stayed behind, and it's spirit had gone. I set him carefully off the road, so no other animal would get run over. I thought I did a rather good job of it. One the way back, as we approached the spot we'd found him in, he got agitated, 'Maybe he's alright now!' I realized, he just wasn't ready. Maybe it was because there was no blood. Not on the rabbit, not on my bird.

As I left to walk with my neighbors (a first mushroom forage) a short time later, still contemplating how to care for this dead thing, I wandered out front to look around. There, not 4' from the front door, was a large hole. Not a gopher, probably the ground squirrel that ate all my grapes and grapevines, the calendula and hollyhock flowers. I decided here was a perfect burial spot. I tucked her gently into the hole, and apologized for not marking my windows.  RIP, my soft chubby quail, may your next life be better.

Don't Hide

When did I get so reactionary? I don't know, maybe it was my latest birthday. Taking stock of what I have and what I don't. I am immensely grateful for all my friends. But there is one issue with a friend I feel strongly about, and if you know me, I don't sit still until I've said my piece.

So these aren't people, but you get the general idea.

We all need people. It doesn't matter how long it takes, we all have that 'discharge' when we connect with another - like a capacitor that suddenly lets it all hang out. Skinner did those horrible tests on real kids 50 years ago (including his own daughter, poor thing) and we came to realize that when humans aren't touched or stroked (physically or mentally), they become stunted or blocked. Their higher purpose is thwarted.

You can't just decide not to connect. It's like denying your humanity. If we look at people that are really happy, what is it that makes them this way; is there a common theme with these people? I think there is, it's strong ties to one or more people. Maybe it's not love, maybe it's desire, or hate, or community. It's a connection.

Suppression is the worst way to be unhealthy. Everyone has needs. We don't live isolated in our own little boxes for a reason. To think you can do so is courting trouble; it's denying and punishing yourself.  This is especially true if you have passion. When you have a fire in your soul, it should be allowed to burn, not to be hidden or snuffed out. Opening one's heart is hard, I know. It can cause immense suffering, but also immense joy. Don't hide, come out into the world.

What We Feed Our Kids

When my son was in second grade, he managed to get a spiral fracture of his femur. The indescribable need for young boys to jump. On skis. Over nothing, over a bump, over a person, it doesn’t matter. They’ll jump just thinking about it. Needless to say, an external fixator (like a towel bar) was drilled into his remaining bone, and mom got to carry him from class to class till we finally (out of disgust) bought our own crutches for him.

Lucien doesn't need to be encouraged to eat dessert.

During this time, I was advised to carry him into the lunchroom prior to the bell ringing, or we’d be trampled. It was a boys’ school, after all. Every man for himself. It wasn’t like there wasn’t enough food, and they got a choice of anything they wanted. But these were hungry growing children, and don’t get between the fork and the mouth, for risk of losing limb.

The first few times I sat at his lunch table, I was amused. This quickly turned to concern. I sat next to an overweight child that downed 2 apple juice cans and the cream cheese off a bagel. Not the bagel, mind you, just the top. Not that the bagel would have been much better, but the apple juice sugar and yeast was enough to make me wonder how he was able to do any school work. The third or fourth day was even worse. It was ‘burrito’ day. They had wrapped Taco Bell tacos on their plates, those that chose to eat. I picked up the wrapper and read off the ingredients. The kids were all scrunching up their noses, and I think it was the first time they realized they could read the ingredients of what they ate. This was such an eye-opener for me.

At first, I was in shock. I confessed to other mothers I was not at all happy with our childrens’ lunch menu, not the least of which was the cheapest food possible, but the fact that they could choose anything they wanted (only dessert, only cookies, etc) was really upsetting. The more I looked, the worse it got. While it’s true the teachers and other moms would walk around and advise, most kids would choose a healthy looking tray, then toss anything they didn’t want before anyone was the wiser.

Not only did our children eat whatever they wanted, but they ate as much as they wanted. No one said no seconds on potato chips or cookies. Eventually the problem was rectified, but after many months (almost a year) of parents professing disbelief. The class was about 25% overweight, and we moms actually counted the kids we thought overweight as they jogged around the gym perimeter. We came up with 10 out of 40. It was a horrible feeling.

Here we were paying an astronomical figure for a year of  private school, dressing them in expensive clothes, driving them to school in expensive cars, tutoring them in languages of our choosing, raising money for special programs, and dumping the most hideous foods into their bodies. Our precious children, eating so poorly turned my stomach.

After making an appointment with the headmaster, I made up a list of things I wanted to talk to him about, among them the need to teach these boys about nutrition. I mentioned the East Bay school district (PUBLIC school!) doing a great job with Alice Waters - why couldn’t we do that? After all, our kids were worth it too. All I got was a blank look. "Where do you think I could put that in the curriculum?" he asked. "There isn’t any time to teach that." He was obviously obstructionist. He wanted no part of the dialog. I was shut down from the moment I walked in. I had even mentioned the girls' schools teach this stuff in third grade, why couldn't we teach it too? And about how the roof, it would be perfect for growing some plants - lettuce and science experiments, and art class drawing the delicate leaves…there were so many options besides just eating the healthy produce!

Fresh from the garden

As I rose to leave, he asked me to leave my notes. I wondered, ‘why bother?’ He seemed to be completely closed off the idea. Now my son is finishing his second year at college, and I got a call last fall from another mom. She said she just thought I might want to know that the school did end up setting up a healthy system, but they waited till our kids were gone. It’s sad people aren’t more open minded, it really doesn’t matter to me who came up with the idea, it benefits everyone. We are all connected.

Some ways we thought would be better:
1. Grow plants to eat: Start simple, with fast growing foods. Lettuce, arugula, flowers (edible?). There are so many ways to use them as a learning tool. Have the science class germinate them in different conditions. Give them different light sources. Let the art class draw them in different stages of growth. Outside light, inside light. Paint, pencil, charcoal. Talk about soil and it’s importance to the plant, much like fuel in the human being food. How the quality of food makes a difference to the plant.

2. Have a system of dots on the food: Green dots mean you can have as many as you like, yellow means just one or two. Red means you get only one of these, and that’s it. You can’t have 2 red dots on your tray, but you can have 2 yellow. Potato chips and cookies are examples of red dots. This way kids get to know what food is unhealthy in large quantities from kindergarten.

3. Teach the kids in the first 3 years what nutrition means. Calories, protein, fat, carbs. Sugar and its problems, disease you might get from eating poorly. What a healthy body looks like. Activity and why it’s good for you, and what fuels it. Most schools probably already do something like this, but to have the girls’ schools do it and not ours, you have to wonder about sexism!

4. Have a person assigned, possible surreptitiously, to keep an eye on the eating habits of the kids. If they take a healthy tray, it doesn’t mean they’re eating it. Watch for kids that consume other kids’ leftovers, throw away good food, and don’t eat well, and I guarantee you’ll find a child with attention problems, performance problems, or social problems in school. We don’t eat in a vacuum, it reflects in everything we do.

Twenty years ago doctors didn’t believe food made a difference in our health. How wrong they were!