I grew up the granddaughter of a "witch doctor".

My grandmother has passed but the legend of her "magic" lives on. I still run into folks that have been impacted by her ability to heal. People sought after her for physical ailments or physical manifestations of spiritual problems. She'd address each of them in nearly the same manner. Often, she knew their condition before they even approached her. (There's nothing eerie or spooky about that. Not to me, at least.) That was part of the process of her being able to help them.

Days before a person would come for help, my grandmother would start feeling pains. These pains indicated what the person was coming for. For my grandmother, it was a glimpse into their world. She knew where the pain was and how intense and whether it was a muscle, bones or a certain organ, etc. This allowed her to craft the EXACT healing process.

The healing regiment could be a combination of several different activities. It could be to avoid certain food. She was VERy specific, in terms of what types of food to avoid and it was dependant on your condition. Sometimes she would do a full body massage. She had several herbal concoctions. She would dispense the appropriate one. The herbal concoctions were not the tastiest. Actually, it did have a taste and that taste was HORRIBLE.

But the benefits.... they continue today as both my parents learned to make the "medicine" when my grandmother was alive and now pass that information to me. With such a daunting task of perpetuating this holistic approach I wonder if the Witch Doctor In Me is ready. The responsibility of KNOWING and not DOING will be my heaviest burden. But I look forward with a hopeful heart that I might be an appropriate tool in the service of people in need.

We all struggle with the desire to make an impact on humanity. This path that I choose, to nurture the Witch Doctor In Me, is just one facet of an ever-evolving ME. My gift to self and my gift to the world is to store the knowledge and share it with others.