Roots and Branches...

Many of you are interested in the concept of roots and branches in health and healing. This is a topic vast enough to warrant a whole book. Although I hope to write about it in a more extensive manner in the future, I thought that it would be useful to write a little bit more about it, and especially to introduce some intriguing ways to view it.

The basic concept behind roots and branches is that the root is the cause and the branch is the manifestation. A classical example of this metaphor is lack of insulin being the root, and diabetes is the manifestation of the branch, with its accompanying symptoms.

With this in mind, let’s look at it a little deeper.

Let’s say that we have a symptom such as a headache, or abdominal pain, etc.  This is a branch, a manifestation. We have the physiological changes--change in blood supply, excretion of inflammatory compounds, fluid retention, stimulation of local nerves, etc.  One of the end results is pain.  Now we have an emotional reaction to the pain. It can be anger, frustration, fear, etc. We also have a psychological response- it can trigger memories of the past, affect our view of the future, create certain dependencies, etc.

The experience as a whole can effect our perception of time. It can affect the way we experience life.

So within the manifestation of a problem, we can find physical, emotional, psychological and psycho-spiritual elements. Each of these elements can now become a cause, a root for another manifestation, as the tree grows new branches and stems.

There is a dynamic and ongoing movement between all of these roots, branches and stems. When something manifests on the surface, it can be a result of a long term process, and at the same time it can start another process. This cyclic movement of interdependence can create more disease, but it can also hold the key to healing. Benefits to one system can be experienced by the whole organism if the healing is unobstructed and allowed to traverse all the branches and stems, down to the original root.

Why is all of this important? It helps to determine the direction and timing of our healing, of our growth and our unfolding.