Out balance and Being ill/sick

Being ill in Western culture mostly means a physical disruption of health.

Becoming and staying healthy is the result of something not the beginning.

Being Sane, Healthy and Whole is starting-point and the norm in most non-European cultures.

Being sick is in Asia, Africa and South America also indicates emotional and social imbalance like being damaged by evil talk/thoughts of others, like loss of a loved one or other intrusive changes in the life of a person, family and/or community.

Experiences of excluded, expelled or damaged (abuse/sexism/racism/domestic/sexual violence) in many non-European cultures are indicators of ‘soul loss’ (see Susto).

Part of your ‘sacred uniqueness’ is damaged and this brings about deeply out of balance and it makes physically/mentally ill.

The emergence of Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) in the West is going on for more than a century and went along with Western medicine spreading beyond Europe and USA.

The wide-spread use of CAM, in The Netherlands and elsewhere, such as acupuncture, mindfulness, meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, QiGong indicates a long-term shift and mutual influence and integration of different cultural medicine systems.

From a cultural comparative (anthropological) position the concept of ‘frequently uniting body-mind-soul’ habits/ceremonies fits these major shifts around views of sanity and health.

For an arts & crafts activating representation of this concept see: Squinted Hawk Lost Powers Returning 1996

For a more intellectual/academic conceptualization see: 2001 Bekkum Health as Balancing Mind Body and Soul