As Sister Science percolated in my brain, I began to think past the collaborative and supportive relationship of Yoga and Ayurveda. I began to think of all the ways that ancient practices and indigenous wisdom has been systemically squashed.  For most of my life I have felt like I need to be careful about who I share my ideas with, acknowledging that I might be branded as granola, "woo-woo" or naive and simple.  

Powerful practices have been locked away or demonized so that those who want power can keep it.  I want to share my top 4 ways I think that the quietly powerful healing that comes from the natural world has been silenced, and importantly why it needs to come back:  

1. WOMEN ARE WITCHES became a religious effort to demonize the feminine healing knowledge. 

During the Middle Ages and early modern period, women were often accused of practicing witchcraft, which was any healing art, including herbalism, midwifery, and divination. These practices were seen as a threat to the established Christian church and the dominant patriarchal social order, which sought to control women's bodies, knowledge, and power. 

Women accused of witchcraft were subjected to brutal torture, forced to confess to their alleged crimes, which included using their knowledge of herbs, astrology, and other forms of intuitive healing to harm others. Many were then burned at the stake or otherwise executed, as a means of suppressing their knowledge and silencing their voices. Is there any wonder there is still fear around sharing these sister sciences. 

This persecution contributed to a culture in which women's knowledge and power are devalued and dismissed, leading to a lack of recognition and support for intuitive healing practices in mainstream Western healthcare. Today, non-Western healing arts are not fully recognized or integrated into Western medicine, coved by healthcare insurance, or offered as options. Women continue to face barriers to accessing and sharing their knowledge and expertise in these areas.

2. COLONIZATION gained power by destroying connection to ancient health care practices. 

As Western powers spread out, claiming one territory after another, they suppressed or eradicated local  traditional healing practices in the name of modernization or progress. Western Medicine was seen as superior to the practices of indigenous healers. British colonization around the world was dismissive of practices such as Yoga, Ayurveda, Vedic Astrology, Shamanism, Plant Medicine, and so many others overriding others wisdom with their own egocentric viewpoint. 

3. WESTERN SCIENCE where we must measure and quantify everything, and we we only value what we can measure. 

The rise of scientific medicine in the 19th century, which prioritized objective, empirical evidence over subjective experiences and intuition. This shift led to the marginalization of alternative healing methods that did not fit within the reductionist framework of scientific medicine.

Following that, the growth of the pharmaceutical industry and the increasing role of technology in medicine reinforced the dominance of Western medicine. These industries are driven by profit, require regulatory approval, and are based on clinical trials and scientific evidence of chemical compounds or drugs. Today, natural healing methods disrupt the profit making potential of the existing system and so it remains in the best interest of the power structures in place for us to rely on their products. 

I want to state here that Western medicine is top notch when you are in a car crash.  My aim here is not to say that these intuitive healing arts hold all the answers, only to express how pissed off I am that no power has been acknowledged for them.  We need both, that is all I am saying. 

4. WOMEN ARE A TOUGH STUDY so lets not include them, things get to messy. 

Women have been historically excluded from scientific research and education. We operate on a monthly cycle, dictated by the moon, often cycling together with other women, our hormones ebbing and flowing in unpredictable ways. Women are more difficult to design studies and control for confounding factors. Therefore the dominant scientific paradigm in Western science is based on a male-centered view of the world, a 24 hour cycle, reliable day after day to give consistent results. It was just easier to assume that male biology is the default or norm, and that women's biology is some weird variation or anomaly to that norm. This assumption has led to a lack of understanding and knowledge about how women's bodies work, and has resulted in a lack of research and investment in women's health.

For example, cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in women, Yet, the risk of heart disease in women is often underestimated, under-recognized, because fewer women are in clinical trials, principle symptoms taught are those that affect men, while symptoms that occur in women are listed as possible rather than probable. 

To dive into this, please read "Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men" by Caroline Criado Perez to get an indepth look into how prevalent this in all corners of our society (way past our health care to product design, measurement of GDP, women's unpaid care burden, and violence against women)

Addressing this bias will require a concerted effort to increase representation of women in science, challenge gender biases in scientific research, and invest in research on women's health.

All this is what is going through my mind when I consider what it is that is holding me back from screaming my alternative, holistic, lifestyle medicine from the rooftops.  Oh my god, what will people think?  

We have been well conditioned NOT to think, and those with power because of it, are in a last ditch fight of their lives to hold power because guess what.  We are on to them. 

That there is growing recognition and acceptance of how valuable and powerful traditional healing practices are. A movement towards integrative medicine that seeks to combine Western medicine with alternative approaches is well underway, although we are still met with a dismissive eye roll in our doctors office as we question whether our yoga breath practices could help our dis-ease.

As we acknowledge the limitations of Western medicine and acknowledge the importance of considering cultural, social, and spiritual factors in healthcare we are tipping the balance of power.  

Sister Science aims play her small part reintegrate healing arts that have been actively denied and persecuted. We recreate collaborative communities where people share their wisdom, trust their intuition, and connect in healing.