Finding My Own Medicine Kahlee Keane — Root Woman

 

Those who analyze such things, say children who lack parental love don't thrive. It was true for me — I didn't thrive, I didn't want to thrive. Specifically, I lacked the will to live. So when in my early thirties, I discovered my life might be over within a year, I chose to abstain from treatment. Instead I embraced death.

         

I had no close friends and severed family ties long ago, so it was easy to slip away from my urban life. I had enough money on hand to last a year, six months more than I figured I needed. I chose for my retreat Quadra Island, just across an inlet from Campbell River in British Columbia. I found and rented a small cabin by the Pacific shore at Cape Mudge near an old Indian village. I settled in with booze, music, books and death on my mind.

         

Some days were good, some bad. I walked and contemplated, cried and laughed. I sometimes met people around the area, but if they got too curious, I lied. Whatever came to mind was the theme for the day.

 

Some days I was sick and frightened of what was coming but oddly most days were filled with an uncommon feeling of serenity, of being cared for and nurtured from an unseen source. Days were spent wandering the shore and tidal pools where I watched the water people. Higher up in the meadows I took on wings and flew with the sky people.

         

I first saw her in a high meadow ¾ a native woman gathering plants. "Medicine," she told me. I watched her as she gathered leaves, flowers and dug roots ¾ stooping low to bury tobacco offerings in the Mother Earth. Her connection with the plants made me conscious of the tall, graceful, shaggy-headed plants circling my cabin. My landlord had told me to get rid of them. They take over and are just "weeds," he said. I'd put it off, couldn't do it, they seemed to be there for me, guarding me, looking for me in some way. I realized then these were the standing people.

         

The next time I saw the woman she was digging the root of the very same plant. Surprised by the synchronicity, I asked her to tell me about them.

         

"You've found your medicine," she said. "This root is good for the blood, good for tumors, this is your medicine." She handed me a small shovel and we dug maybe twenty roots together. For every root she dropped tobacco in the hole making an offering of thanks to the plant. She gave me some so that I could do the same. I began to feel connected to life, part of something greater. I began to feel the power of medicine.

         

Words were seldom required between us, she knew all she needed to know about me. That day she invited me for tea at her summerhouse — a tent beside a creek at the edge of the tree line. The tent was large and airy and filled with earthy smells. It was furnished with a cot, table and chairs. As we sipped our tea she told me that she had known about me before we met and knew that she would be able to help me. She said, "The grandmothers had told me this." It was simply understood between us that I would stay with her and use the medicine to get well.

         

I learned her name was Standing Woman, she was Kwakiutl, and I stayed with her for three months. She took me with her to gather plants for my daily needs, telling me their story, and how to prepare them. Afterward we would make the medicine together. Some days I wasn't well enough to venture out, and on those days she sat with me and cared for my needs with more love and tenderness than I had ever known. As the days passed I became stronger and more confident that I had ever been. I was deeply connected to the earth, the same earth that I had wanted to leave just a short time before. One morning, I awoke and simply knew that my disease was gone. I also knew that my apprenticeship with nature had just begun.

         

Now, some twenty-five years later, I walk close to the earth, and like her, I listen to stories the plants have to tell. They teach me their medicine and I pass it on to those who want to learn. Before she died, Standing Woman asked me to carry on her work. I cannot replace her but I can walk with people to help them find the medicine they are seeking.

         

Some want to walk this way, and some do not. For those who do, I am here in the meadow.

 

Finding My Own Medicine by Kahlee Keane - Root Woman - Reprinted by permission of Kahlee Keane ©1999 Kahlee Keane.

Excerpt from Conscious Women-Conscious Lives: Powerful & Transformational Stories of Healing Body, Mind and Soul (White Knight Publications, Toronto, Canada) by Darlene Montgomery.

Originally published as Finding Your Own Medicine, Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul (Health Communications Inc. 2002)- Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Janet Matthews, Raymond Aaron - Stories to Inspire and Uplift the Hearts of Canadians

 

Darlene Montgomery author of Conscious Women-Conscious Lives: Powerful & Transformational Stories of Healing Body, Mind and Soul, is an internationally respected authority on dreams, spiritual perspectives and ideas. She is an author, speaker and clergywoman who speaks to groups and organizations on uplifting subjects. Her first book, Dream Yourself Awake, published in 1999, chronicles the journey she took to discover her own divine mission. As a consultant, she helped compile two of the famous Chicken Soup books where she also published several of her own stories. Her stories have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul and Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, The WTN website, Vitality Magazine, Synchronicity Magazine, and the Eckankar Writer's Newsletter. Darlene's recent book media campaign took her across Canada and the U.S. where she appeared on national television and radio shows, including Michael Coren Live, Rogers Daytime, ON TV news, Breakfast Television, The Patty Purcell Show, The Life Station and more. As well, Darlene operates her own public relations firm, helping to promote authors and experts. For more about Darlene Montgomery and Conscious Women-Conscious Lives, visit www.lifedreams.org.

 

Kahlee Keane, Root Woman is an educator and eco-herbalist. Her lectures, books, videos and herbology courses stress the sustainable use of medicinal plants while teaching others to make and use the medicines that are their birthright. She is the founder of Senega Watch (branch of Save Our Species). Kahlee and David Howarth have just published The Standing People, a guide to the medicinal wild plants found in Canada.  Web site is www.connect.to/rootwoman . Her e-mail is rootwoman@sasktel.net, and  mail address, Box #27 2001 - 8th St. E., Saskatoon, Sk. S7H OT8