I'm making this video to ground the practice of stone medicine. I'm making this video to address
anyone who's ever heard of healing with stones and thought "that's way too out there. That's
way too weird." I'm making this video to speak to anyone who's ever been drawn to healing with
stones and thought that it was in any way silly. Because stones have been codified as new-age but
the reality of using stones as medicine is very very old. From the Aztecs to the Aborigines,
the Inuit to the Greeks, we see the use of stones as medicine in many many different cultures
throughout the world. Stones have appeared in burial sites, there are prescriptions for stones
in ancient Chinese medicine. And when we actually look at the practice of acupuncture, one of the
things that we see is that before practitioners were even using needles they were using stones
on these acupuncture points to create deep and profound healing. The concept of using stones as
medicine is grounded in the philosophy that was inherent to all indigenous people throughout the
world, that was inherent to your ancestors. This philosophy or idea that everything in our world
is animated by consciousness, that there is no division between animate and inanimate, that there
are no objects there are no things— that every aspect of this world is alive, and that because
it's alive, it has its own medicine. And don't we feel this to be true? Isn't this why we climb
mountains or sit by the seaside? And can you name a time that you took any pharmaceutical medicine
that was as magical or enchanting or powerful as the first time that you fell in love? This is what
true medicine is. True medicine is wild, abundant, and free. Now to ground this idea of the practice
of stone medicine, of being very very ancient and being something that you should be proud to
be drawn to, I want to talk about this word "woo." So if you've ever heard this term "woo," then you
might be familiar of the way in which it's used. It's often used to really denigrate someone who
is considered to be a new-age practitioner. To be "woo" means to be ungrounded, it means to
be flightly, strange, untrustworthy— really just not connected to reality. Now when I first moved
to Asheville I did everything I could to sort of separate myself from this idea of "woo," because
I wanted to be seen as you know intellectual, as serious, as really intent on aligning myself and
my community back with the healing of the natural world. And it wasn't until I learned about the
history of this word "woo"— its roots— that I really started to own it and love this word.
So the word "woo" comes from the Chinese "wu," and what this word really means is "doctor, healer and
"shaman," And by 250 BC this word specifically meant "women healers." So the Wu were women who
were working with plants, they were working with nature, they were working with stones,
to promote healing on a multi-dimensional level. Because let's be serious— we're not just physical
beings, we are multi-dimensional beings of consciousness. And in northern in order to deeply
heal we need to address all levels and layers of our beings. So just like the term "witch" from
the European heritage was bastardized— was made into something that meant a person to be feared,
revulsion, and really a person that that brought denigration to a community— just like that term
was bastardized from its original meaning—which meant a healer, someone who brought wholeness,
who worked with the conscious of nature in the wider world to heal communities— just like that
word has been bastardized, so has this word "woo." So I love seeing how many young women are really
taking this word "witch" and owning it again, loving it again, making it into what it originally
was, and I would like to see us do the same with this term "woo." Because the truth is that when we
can connect into the idea of stones as medicine— stones, rocks, these beings that literally are the
definition of "inanimate" in our English language, in our culture— if we can even see these beings,
which we've marked off as basically the opposite of alive as alive, and as containers of medicine,
is this not revolutionary? Does this not reclaim the magic, the power, the medicine, inherent to
the word witch? Inherent to the word "woo?" And is the division between medicine and not medicine,
between alive and not alive, not what has caused so much devastation in our world?
We wouldn't be on the possibility of a brink of ecological collapse if we hadn't started to make
that division in our hearts and our minds. So by opening up to the possibility of stones carrying
innate, transformational and truly ancient healing— because stones are some of the most
ancient beings on our planet— we are literally opening the gateways to revolutionizing culture,
to revolutionizing our interaction with the world around us and coming back into greater
whole and healing with this world. So if this video resonated with you in any way, feel free
to share it. If this video helps you describe to your family or your friends or your loved
ones why it is you're drawn to stones, why it is you're drawn to earth medicine, then share this.
And if this video sparked any flame inside of you to want to begin working with the mineral realm,
to want to begin opening up your consciousness, to seeing this world as as an entity alive,
as full of medicine, then I've created an online course called How Stones Communicate that is
specifically about opening up this portal to the stone medicine world in a way that's grounded,
in a way that's practical and fun and infused with stories. And a course that will help you to
begin opening these channels of communications with the stones, because truly there is no one
medicine and there is no one stone medicine. Medicine is about a relationship between you
and another living being. So if you're interested in this course, the link for that is down below.
And no matter where you're at on this journey of healing, of recognition, of opening,
of revolution, may this time of remembering what medicine means to you be truly blessed.