Live from a place of possibility, not from a place of perceived limitations, past or projected .
– ken winston caine

by ken winston caine

Reliable, detailed monographs on medicinal herbs are available free, online, from the North Carolina Consortium on Natural Medicines.

They come in three flavors:

1. For health professionals.

2. For everyone else.

3. For growers.

You can access any of them.

They are limited to herbs that can be grown in North Carolina — so you won’t find an extensive list of medicinal herbs here. But the information you will find is very thorough and well vetted.

Find them here: (more…)

by ken winston caine

Naturopath Leslie Taylor maintains an extraordinary database of known information about medicinal herbs on the rain-tree.com website. A nice feature: It includes the scientific (and other) citations.

Much of the information comes from Taylor’s book, The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs.

To look up an herb, go to: (more…)

by Ken Winston Caine

You’ve seen cartoon-like caricatures of traveling medicine show docs hawking magical remedies from the backs of wagons.

You’ve seen reproductions of the antique classified and display ads of patent “cures” sold by mail order in that same era.

Both types of medicines and tonics were ridiculed mostly into oblivion by the evangelists of early scientific medicine that took root in the 1920s and ’30s.

They were dismissed as snake oil. As nothing but 30 percent alcohol.

Or 40 percent alcohol.

Or 70 percent alcohol.

“No wonder they make people feel good,” snorted the white-coated crusaders for (more…)

Trinidad-born Canadian homeopath, herbalist, “African bush doctor” Christopher Scipio knows that healing is love, is natural and is magic.

He elucidates, beautifully, just what healing really is in his “Nine Ways.”

These are nine simple statements. Nine truths. Nine affirmations. Nine awakenings.

Explore them. Enjoy them.

Print them out and (more…)

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Who coined the phrase, integrative medicine?

Andrew Weil has popularized the term. Has been integrative medicine’s greatest ambassador. Created incredible demand for it.

Pretigious medical schools across the country have developed departments of integrative medicine in the last decade. (Including Duke University, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of California, San Francisco, University of Arizona, Columbia University, University of Maryland, University of New Mexico, Thomas Jefferson University, University of Massachusetts, Albert Einstein/Yeshiva University, Georgetown University, and the University of Minnesota, among others.)

I don’t recall being aware of the terms, integrative health, integrative medicine, integrative healing, before about 1988 or 1989.

Earliest reference I can find to “integrative health” is this (more…)

Herbal supplement manufacturers don’t stress this. (A bottom-line issue for them?) Yet it was foundational in the herbal texts and trainings I went through in the ’70s, ’80s and even early ’90s. I don’t hear it any more.

And I wonder why? It didn’t suddenly quit being true.

I was taught by traditional Chinese, English and American herbalists, that you should always take herbal remedies in cycles, or “rounds.” Such as, take the herb (or herbal combination) for two weeks, then abstain for a week, then resume for two weeks, and then abstain for a week. Or, take for two months and then take four months off. (Sort of a wash, rinse, repeat routine.)

This is because the body adjusts to the herbs, adapts to the herbs, and then develops tolerance or resistance, and the herbs lose their (more…)