Staying Healthy With the Seasons came out of relationship challenges and healing my reconnection to Nature. Victories occur when we believe in ourselves and in what we are called on to do, as I did with this timeless teaching text. Like most great ideas shared, it did not come easy. Yet, it came with divine ease, from having been given an assignment and been willing to pay the price and do the daily dharma and invest five years of my life to learn and grow and use my publishing skills to create this first book with Dr. Elson Haas. We lived Staying Healthy with the Seasons.
Elson seemed to know certain things made out of Nature’s cycles and I wanted to know more. When I first met him by “coincidence” during a full moon herb walk 25 plus years ago, he wrapped me in “Nature’s Band-aid” made out of plantain … not Prozac, not Ritalin and certainly not a shot or a drug, just a simple gesture which bonded me to this simple way. I wanted to know more and share what I learned with others. He seemed unaffected by “being a doctor.” He was more interested in what created dis-ease in the first place. He had studied with two others who were using tuning forks and guided imagery to assist their patients in going deeper and actually communicating with themselves, their cells, their relationships and their inner truth, which seemed to provide answers. Elson sure wasn’t like the doctors I had met. Most usually when I had a problem, they had a pill and a refill and the name of the latest designer disease$. Where did this young doctor come from? I had my share of removals of my symptoms and my organs and he helped me to have confidence in my ability to really listen to myself and to approach the altar of pain as the door, but not the destination, to my health, my freedom.
We met and decided to work 2gether 2ward greater goals. I began organizing his herbs from paper bags in cupboards and on the floor into glass jars in special cabinets, and continued organizing his oils, his tuning forks, and his mind and body. We began to fast each new moon and spent the time listening to what we needed to incorporate to create the present and future, and the first book.
There was enormous response locally for the seasonal cleansing and our initial writings in our local newspaper. After five years of extensive collaboration and other magical mergings with Neil Murray, Hal Kramer, and inevitably David Hinds, we had our first book. We also used our creative energies to produce a line of consciousness fashions that are still available today. These products include Sole Sox with reflexology, the Acupuncture T-shirt, the I-Ching, and the Chakra-T. We were exploring the subtle energies of life, as we express in this book. Folks teased me incessantly about these products that Elson and I co-designed, such as the acupuncture shirt. They said, “What is that? Follow the dots!” HA! Xactly! Follow your energy dots … stepping stones of chi, your electrical body. I had never heard these concepts before my Elson Education and I still use the Seasons book myself to remind me of the simplicity of the divine plan, which is built in2 Nature—and without Nature, there is no healing.
After the book was published in the Spring of 1981, the next question was, “How to begin sharing (marketing) this motivational information?” So, we hit the road and went to seek the few limp carrot health food stores at that time; there were no chains, let alone supplement sections. However, there were the Chinese pharmacies in Chinatown, there were schools of thought such as Esalen which had acupuncture on their edu-agenda. People were quite receptive to our new book and our educational products.
There are so many tuned in and certified healers at this time, why are we allowing our connection to Nature to lose its trueness? We are a part of this natural cycle, this clock revolving through the seasons, giving us rest, giving us sunny times, being blest, harvesting, all in order—now the spring is too hot, the summer too cold. How can one really listen if their appliance addictions keep them and their essensual beingness occupied? Becoming really silent, you hear much … and you feel the natural changes upon your skin, your hair, each other, and our at-one-ment beyond separation and this or that nation. United we Heal, Divided we Feel pain and separation from our true source.
Everything’s connected—this book to the others, which came out of it, and the current ones we are now working on. The blest heart part is that after all of these years, we are still allies in the work and we have been through much. No longer an office in the only bedroom, Elson now has his Preventive Medical Center with nearly 20 rooms to include many of the practices he believes keep us well as we change through the Seasons of Nature, of Ages and Stages. I also have other author clients and my own projects, yet we are the “beam team,” focusing on keeping the simple alive in each and all that find this book both inside and outside of themselves, their families, their healing centers, their schools.
I am not an expert, not an acupuncturist, not Doctor Argisle, not a nurse, not even an officially certified healer, but I feel the breeze through the trees and I am thankful for all who share what they know and keep the health flow, especially to Elson who is a true healer, even though he is a doctor!
Do you understand your need for physical rest when others talk you into doing that which wears you down? Cycles can heal us, as they let us know what’s best for our own special rhythm. How then do we cooperate with our own cycles?
Your elemental conditioning creates your body, your opportunities, and how things add up is based on your cycles, your connection, your self-sphere, and in some cases, the more you are attuned to your cycles, the more you get in touch with why you are truly here. We are the time tribe and when we know our own cycles, we stand a much better chance to make the most of our time, which is the true gold we are given at the end of our chakra rainbow.
It took me a long time to learn about myself. As it is with most young people, I had an abundance of NRG, for better or for worse. I just couldn’t get enough of myself, of seeing how deep, how dark, how high, how light I could live my life. I knew nothing about pacing, about prevention, about breathing, about aim and focus, about preparation and dedication. I knew how to react and act and through this type of living, I created many health and relationship crises. Now I am thankful, for I believe that there are two healing allies, one is named Crisis and the other is named Vanity.
Health Weather Report Question: Have the seasons been revised by our abuse and overuse of Nature’s bounty? How do we stay in sync in these modern days?
When we are born, each of us has a special kit—we have a day we come in on, a mother we come out of, or a petrie dish or a secret cave or an alien ship. We emerge with an urge to eat, to make our needs known if we are to not only survive, but thrive and be fully alive!
When we are attuned, we begin again in the cycle game—when to stand still, how and when to run up and roll down a hill, and whether or not we should ever take a pill—that wheel keeps spinning in the morning light and the deep dark mystery that we all inhabit. We are each set with a number of teeth, with a blood type, with height, eye color—we are all a musical note in a cycle symphony and many hidden talents to share. We are the time tribe.
What has changed since the inception and production of this book? Earth has more children, all of us using more of her resources. There are many more schools teaching technical healing skills and today the web connects us globally in a moment. Yet, what are healing theories without self-healing experiences? This book represents a healing way of life aligned with the seasonal cycles.
Gather what knowledge you can and use it wisely. All we can ask of ourselves is to do the best we can with what we are given.
Bethany Argisle
January, 2003