Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from all of the staff and practitioners at One Sky Wellness Associates!

We will be closed for the holiday on Monday 12/31 and Tuesday 1/1. We have been having some voice mail difficulty lately but if you phone us (206 363.5555) during the holiday, you will be able to obtain the number for the on-call doc. If you want to leave a message and don't get that option, you can email us at and we'll get back to you on Wednesday 1/2. Remember that pharmacy refills need to be phoned into your pharmacist and they will contact us if necessary.

May 2008 be a year of increased joy and health for all.

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Dream Work)
(from the poetry archive at Panhala.net)

Tomato-Buttermilk Skin cleanser

Our friend, herbalist-wizard Rowan Hamilton, with the first in a series of videos about superb skin care using ingredients from the market and the garden:

bee people

This is from One Sky Wellness psychotherapist, Karen Stocker:

Dear Human Cousins,

You worry we may be disappearing.

You wonder if we've died, become lost or run away.

We give thanks you wonder! We like it when you Human People wonder.

Please wonder!...about our lives, our days, our ways of flying out and all the way home on any available breeze; our yellow pollen fuzz leggings and blur of glascene wings; our ancient intimacy with blossoms; the precise hexagonal wax of our edible hives; the amazing, thick, sweet medicinal translucence of honey; our dance vibrations languages and questioning antennas, our irresistably magnetizing queen, and faithful tender attentions to each of our precious jewel-like sleeping unborn; our reason for being bees.

Please wonder!...what is flight like in a tangle of satellite signals, cell phone fequencies, exhaust and high voltage wires? What does Life feel like without Her, without Them? What meaning can be made from the taste of sugar water and 'pollen substitute'? Can we be shipped by the thousands, thousands of miles in the chaos and din of metal eighteen wheelers? How many times can we land on the open petals of ancestrally welcoming flowers to find the heart we enter sprayed or engineered hostile?

Wonder Human Cousins, could you live like this? Released, would you come back?

with Respect and Love to our Human Cousins,

Bee People

Bumblebee on bramble, originally uploaded by SouthbankSteve.
Crossposted from Life Cultivating Life.

Step It Up 2007: National Day of Climate Action

April 14, 2007, is "National Day of Climate Action." Serving as the organizing hub is Step It Up 2007, a grassroots group which has used email, word of mouth, and online networking (plus a write-up in Business Week, and an endorsement by Al Gore) to inspire and invite gatherings, actions and rallies of all kinds, in order to send the message to Congress to "Step it up -- cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050."

The Step It Up 2007 team writes,
"As a truly global crisis, global warming will impact everyone. However, the impact will be felt greatest among the most vulnerable of the world’s population. While global warming presents us with our most pressing challenge, it also presents our most inspiring opportunity. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to ensure that our solutions to this crisis take these populations into account."

So far there are over 1300 rallies and actions being planned by local volunteers, with at least one in every state, and people adding new ones to the list every day. There are going to be over a dozen in Seattle alone, including "The Marching Forest of Shoreline" ("Calling all aspiring trees, squirrels, mushrooms, suns, streams, hills, bunnies, bushes, butterflies, birds, bees, fish, flowers and bad English Ivy! We invite you, even if you don't live in Shoreline, to join our carbon-offsetting forest to help raise awareness about the global warming crisis"), a Solutions Fair, a couple of actions to mark how far the waters will rise if the polar ice caps melt into the sea, and a march between Occidental Park in Pioneer Square through downtown to a rally at Myrtle Edwards Park (across the street from Seattle icon the Pike Place Market).

Please join us! (even if you don't dress up like a squirrel, or bad English ivy!)

(cross-posted at life cultivating life)

Yoga Class Series 4/8 - 4/29

Dr. Marcie Hamrick is offering a series of gentle viniyoga classes here at the Seattle Healing Arts Center beginning on Sunday April 4, from 4 - 5:30pm. Please phone (206) 363-5555 to register or for more information.

More Fruit and Veg

A nice little article on 10 secrets to eating enough fruit and veggies:

To maximize your intake of health-enhancing nutrients like vitamin C, carotenoids (beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein, zeaxanthin), folate, potassium, fibre, and antioxidant-rich plant compounds like flavonoids, you need to reach for at least seven, ideally closer to 10, servings of fruits and vegetables each day. One serving consists of:

• 1 medium-size fruit or vegetable (an apple, orange, carrot or pear)
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) raw, cooked or frozen fruit or vegetable (a scoop of cooked peas or a small bowl of sliced peaches)
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) juice (a small glass of orange or tomato juice)
• 1 cup (250 mL) salad (a small side salad)
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) dried fruit (a medium-size handful of raisins)

For those of you who think this sounds like a truckload of fruits and vegetables, let me assure you it's only a wheelbarrow full (just kidding!). It's easier than you think:"

go read the rest!

(thank you for the pointer, Curt)

People are Each Others' Medicine

Another modality in medicine, and one that is particularly important in naturopathic medicine, is the human modality itself. I refer to this as the application of “people and organizations” to the patient. Giving the patient people, or groups of people, contains within itself a healing power. This may seem obvious to us, but we seldom prescribe people as a medicine or modality. In the practice of naturopathic medicine, as I view it, I often refer patients to a yoga class, not only for the exercise, a well recognized modality, but for the interaction of the patient to people who are also seeking wellness. People are each others’ medicine in the ideal world.

- William A. Mitchell, ND (1947 - 2007, one of the three co-founders of Bastyr University, the preeminent natural health sciences institution in the country. Remembrances of Dr. Mitchell are being posted here)