SISTEMAS FOLCLÓRICOS DE SANACIÓN Y LA MEDICINA MODERNA

              De Luz María López                      
La medicina moderna actúa de acuerdo a un paradigma físico que se aleja, lamentablemente, de la visión holística de la vida que incorpora la ciencia, hombre, mujer, espiritualidad. Si se aborda al ser humano sólo como si fuera una máquina que deja de funcionar, entonces no se está considerando a la persona como un todo. “Los médicos y profesionales de la salud que busquen estar a la vanguardia en cuanto a tratamientos, no deben desenvolverse únicamente en los campos “clásicos” de la medicina sino que deben permitirse abrir su mente para comprender que la salud y el bienestar humano dependen de factores que van más allá de lo concreto y lo evidente.” (Vega, 2007). Numerosos estudios científicos apoyan el concepto de que atender la salud espiritual ayuda a la recuperación integral, sobre todo a prevenir trastornos posteriores (Osío, 2007). 

En Puerto Rico varios investigadores han recomendado la colaboración entre los sanadores folclóricos tradicionales y el sistema profesional de ayuda con el propósito de proveer un tratamiento armónico, completo. Por sistema folclórico se debe entender aquel sistema que ha sido desarrollado y que es practicado por personas que no tienen un grado académico que los capacite para la tarea de sanación. A estas personas se les denomina “sanadores folclóricos”. Una seria dificultad para que se establezca tal colaboración entre profesionales de la salud y sanadores folclóricos es “el hecho de que la medicina moderna se ha resistido a considerar el rol de la dimensión espiritual en la prevención y el tratamiento de las enfermedades”, afirma Núñez (2007).

¿Es viable la colaboración entre los sanadores folclóricos y los profesionales de la salud? Si bien es cierto que las sanaciones tradicionales han existido desde tiempos muy antiguos, también es cierto que no hay cultura que no haya desarrollado un sistema para lidiar con asuntos relacionados a la enfermedad y la sanación dentro de un contexto socio-cultural. Un aspecto a considerar es que la medicina profesional no necesariamente es efectiva al ayudar a personas con diferentes trasfondos étnicos. Los profesionales de la salud tratan la enfermedad con sus síntomas con un protocolo ya establecido, validado empíricamente. No se explora otras alternativas como lo sería, por ejemplo, la religión u otras creencias. Un aspecto a considerar es que las prácticas espirituales tradicionales desvían, por lo tanto fallan en transformar, los patrones sicológicos condicionales y creencias inconscientes que surgen de nuestras historias personales y adaptaciones, reitera Neddermeyer (2005). Lo espiritual, por tanto, parece definirse de diversas maneras en diferentes contextos, al igual que la enfermedad.

El término “enfermedad” posee un significado amplio que incluye no sólo la dolencia específica sino también la percepción cabal de la persona enferma, tanto respecto de sí misma como en sus relaciones inmediatas, esto es familia y sociedad. Las ideas modernas sobre la enfermedad y la curación no ayudan mucho a entender la naturaleza de la enfermedad más allá de los síntomas. La preocupación por la enfermedad se percibe como una experiencia de no estar completo física, fisiológica, espiritualmente, de no ser una parte integral de una totalidad (Pilch, 2000). Las personas enfermas necesitan volver a su estado previo de bienestar, lo que no se percibe en términos de la restauración de la sanidad únicamente sino de la reincorporación de la persona en la sociedad. Es en este aspecto que la colaboración entre los profesionales de la salud y los sanadores folclóricos podrían viabilizar la pronta reintegración física y espiritual de la persona enferma a su medioambiente socio-cultural. 

    Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet

     Gaia and the new politics of love

     y Serena Anderlini

     Meandering through steel night to the fire,
seeking out her eternal light inflamed.
She is calling at some secret desire,
to silence and burn at the heart untamed.
Earth Believer by Todd Nelsen

                           

         Gaia theory argues that the flora and fauna of the planet operate in a self-regulating web that keeps the world livable. According to this theory, shaped and voiced by Serena Anderlini, humankind is the most powerful species in this web and also its biggest threat. In her book, which is an echo of her theory, she explores ways to minimize and ultimately eliminate this threat with love and intimacy in a sort of a global ecology based on an analysis of human health, particularly the oxytoxin hormone. The remedy for the threat is identified within the context of her Gaia theory. She re-envisions it as a more inclusive philosophy that surely impacts not only relationships, but world ecology under threat. The key point is that the author links human sexuality to the global ecosystem, claiming that freedom from fear will stimulate a holistic health movement powerful enough to heal relationships and restore a planetary balance.

Gaia and the New Politics of Love weaves together issues of human and global health, sexuality and ecology and practices and styles of love. She also focuses on the changing roles of eroticism and gender in our lives. She talks about a polyamorous bisexuality and links it, somehow, to the AIDS prevention movement. From a sex-positive, eco-feminist perspective, she argues that love, life, sex and a global ecology, as a whole, will turn into world joy, peace, and health. Dr. Anderlini explains why bisexual and polyamorous love practices, with their sharing of emotional resources, enrich and sustain emotional lives. When practiced on a global scale, this abundance of love would then produce personal emotional and global ecological sustainability. It is evident that she considers sexual freedom a human right and a key to unlock healthiness for the Planet, by way of abundant bi and poly love. 

I totally agree with the idea that the Earth is an ecosystem that pulses in tandem with all living and non living organisms. What hurts here, hurts there. Being polyamorous towards our Blue Bubble certainly is worth the whole theory. We are not conscious, seriously conscious, of the harm we produce to our ecosystem. Maybe we should learn something valuable from the Gaia concept: the Earth needs to be loved in a totally human bisexual way, that is men and women alike loving and caring for it.

Now, what I feel that has to be seriously considered is the sexual aspect of the theory - that polyamorous bisexuality call the author proposes. The whole perspective seems unfocused, a bit wild, if you will. A giant orgy does not seem to me the way to heal a planet. I actually doubt it can heal the planet. It would if being sexually amorous towards anyone and everyone leads to no prejudice, no intolerance, no jealousy, no bad feelings, no sense of possession, no egoisms, no wars, no destruction, no garbage, no pollution… The list would be endless. But this not the nature of human beings! The total sexual freedom idea to heal the Planet won’t save it!

As for the sexual freedom per se, I am not totally into it. We need values, mores and order. We need rules to live by, because chaos in terms of relationships turns into social chaos as well. We need to be polyamorous, I agree, but at a social level more than at a sexual level. True, the force of erotic love can also turn into a creative urge, a flowing nature, the coming into being, a sense of a satisfaction and a good flow, but there is a slim chance that it will work in such a harmonic way for a mass that is less than uniform in all senses. She sees the sexual freedom in terms of an idealistic kind of occurrence that is not likely to happen and not likely to heal the Planet, and humankind either. 

Healing Gaia seems to be a masterpiece of vision and thought, on the other hand. Through the aid of a power point presentation of the aspects of Earth's many life cycle systems, pinpointing to what a self-regulating life support system is and how it works, we were guided to some thinking. When we understand life cycle processes and understand what we as humans are doing to upset and alter them, we then have a sense of which direction to go in order to modify our life styles and bad environmental habits. I guess this in part the idea. Anderlini’s philosophy seems to cover a spectrum from a discourse in Earth life support cycles to avenues of approach to healing Gaia. 

The approach seems exhaustively researched and carefully put together, philosophy and mythology (Eros in particular) considered as well. Of course, at least from what I heard there, religious believes were not even a factor considered in this new theory. Probably the author sees this thinking as a new religion, or sort of.

Not to be ignored in this personal assessment is the audience: mostly traditional, mostly Christians, mostly conservatives, mostly monogamous, mostly unprepared for polyamorous adventures to heal the Planet or themselves... Out of curiosity, I would like to know if those polyamorous friends have been able to change to eco-friendliness and human-friendliness, once embraced to Gaia and its politics of love. I know, but we are from the scientific era! See, bacteria, ryzomas or amoebas can get all entwined, and maybe the Earth gets better or maybe not. The whole system will adapt to one or the other circumstance. But if we do, I don’t see how that will help to regulate or heal the Planet, even ourselves as a matter of fact. Ecologists and Naturalists maybe have a better clue. 

As a final thought I can ascertain that exposition to such lines of thinking open new avenues to our own thinking. To be able to critically, or passionately, accept or refuse new approaches, new possibilities, expands our limited horizons, restricted in terms of our culture, mores, insularism, among others. No doubt that each one of us left the conference with an ebullition of contradictory opinions. I must admit that Serena Anderlini is a woman of convictions, which merits praise. To live by your own standards is not an easy task.