Wellness and Alternative Medicine (WAM) students participated in several events this semester to increase their knowledge and understanding of the human mind and body and what it means to be in a state of wellness.
Students attended the Integrative Healthcare Symposium in New York, were taught and led in a sweat lodge by Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, visited Kripalu Center For Yoga and Health, and experienced the alternative healing modalities of several established practitioners at the Awakening the Spirit Day.
WAM majors attended these events with the goal of fostering a sense wellness in their own lives, bringing it to the Johnson community, and educating others who may be interested in different ways of looking at health and illness.
For WAM students, the semester began with ten students attending the Integrative Healthcare Symposium in New York City at the Marriott Marquee Hotel, held from Jan. 17-19.
The students later presented on lectures that they found interesting, on March 11 in the Ellsworth Room.
The integrative healthcare that was talked about at this symposium is the combination of allopathic medicine and everything that allopathic medicine considers itself not to be. Allopathic medicine is the type of clinical healthcare that has been developed in recent Western society and is what is taught to medical students in American medical schools.
If you have ever practiced yoga, received a massage, drank herbal tea, or even gone for a jog, you are partaking of alternative healthcare.
Integrative medicine is also called complementary medicine, as the alternative healing methods can be used to complement conventional medicine, and not simply replace it.
The symposium attracted a variety of healthcare practitioners, including MDs, doctors of osteopathy, chiropractic doctors, homeopaths, midwives, nurse practitioners, cardiologists, massage therapists, etc.
At the symposium, students learned about things such as a breathing and alignment practice called the Alexander Technique, a means of measuring and adjusting one’s heath called biofeedback, and the steps that are being taken to regulate and ensure integrity in integrative healthcare.
The next event (which was open to all students and members of the public) was the Native American Healing Stories and Ceremonies class taught by Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona on April 18-20, which included a traditional Lakota sweat
lodge. He also gave a public lecture which discussed some of the inadequacies of conventional medicine, with a focus on the problems associated with too much labeling of illnesses and over-medicating people.
Mehl-Madrona is a medical doctor who has also been trained in Native American healing techniques and is the author of several books, including Coyote Medicine.
In the class he told stories and talked about Cherokee and Lakota ways of viewing the world and humans, and how those views manifest in their healing traditions.
The sweat lodge is a very intense experience and is different for each individual. In a sweat lodge, people are seated on the ground in a small lodge and extremely hot rocks are placed in the center of the room, whence water is then poured on them to create steam. A series of ceremonial activities are conducted and the participants are given instruction by the Native American elders. They can go for varied amounts of time, but the ones done with Mehl-Madrona’s class lasted for about four hours.
The week after that, a group of WAM students visited Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass., on April 25-26. They were invited to the yoga retreat center to get a feel for the center and to share with Johnson information on the Kripalu Semester Intensive.
While at Kripalu, students wandered through the woods, walked through a labrynth, ate great food, and took a Yogadance class, which was a huge dance party with live drumming. Then they were told about the semester intensive, a semester long intensive program offered in the fall for students looking to live in a close-knit community and have the opportunity to venture deeply into themselves.
Each semester has a diverse group of 35 18-22 year-olds and most students coming out of the program view it as having been a life-changing experience.
The main thing Kripalu looks for in applicants is a strong passion for something, and no prior experience with yoga or philosophy is necessary. The way the program is set up now, students are able to receive up to 15 credits through Leslie University in Boston, but JSC is working to make it a program similar to NSE for JSC students by 2010. For more information about this program, please contact Faith McClellan at faithm@kripalu.org or visit kripalu.org/semesterintesive.
To close the semester, students went to the Awakening the Spirit Day, sponsored by Johnson’s WAM program at Dreaming Mountain in Johnson on May 4. Practitioners from all over Vermont showcased their techniques for a day of relaxation, fun, and education. People brought food for a potluck and experienced an array of alternative therapies, including massage, reflexology, meditation, reiki, aromatherapy, qi gong, naturopathy, and astrology. Students were grateful to be able to relax and to have this opportunity to integrate the knowledge they had gained throughout the semester into their lives through direct experience of these complementary healing methods.