The First Nurse: HYGEIA

🏵 🕯 🏵

Share healing water.
Sister, here is your calling -
Always in prayer.

🏵 🕯 🏵

In the beginning of my career in nursing, I worked on the Oncology Unit of St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard California. I chose to start my career in this hospital because I wanted to work in a place that held prayer in as high esteem as nuts and bolts care for the body. At the time I entered nursing, it was no longer popular to call nursing a ‘calling’. The professionals thought that making it a ‘calling’ was a diminishing of the work. I never accepted that appellation as diminishing of the work. For me, nursing has always been a calling. It has been and continues to be about serving the people.

An ancient story coming down to us is the story of The Healer, Aesceplius. His daughter Hygeia was his assistant – perhaps what we would today call a nurse.

The image I share here is from Gustav Klimt. The piece is titled MEDICINE and depicts Hygeia – the first nurse. I do not know for sure what the symbols in the painting meant to Klimt. I do consider that the snake climbing a staff was the symbol of Aesceplius. I do know that the snake is a common symbology of the rising of the feminine shakti / kundalini life force which lies at the base of the spine and rises up the spine when called through prayer and meditation. Then in the rising of the life force up the spine - that true healing occurs - and the human becomes whole / holy. Some say, the bowl she holds represents healing herbs and this may be true. Some say that the ancients would use snakes to help them find healing herbs and this may also be true. However, what I see in this image is the life force curled at the base of the spine rising up the spine and then drinking from the luminescent waters of life.

🏵 🕯 🏵 🏵 🕯 🏵 🏵 🕯 🏵

Hippocratic Oath: 

 
I swear by Apollo the Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the physician’s oath, but to nobody else.
I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.
Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.

(This translation by James Loeb)

🏵 🕯 🏵 🏵 🕯 🏵 🏵 🕯 🏵

🏵 🕯 🏵 🏵 🕯

🏵 🕯 🏵 🏵 🕯

Homage to the Migrant Farmer

With straw hat in hand,
The worker of the land does pray –
God brings new green shoots.

💙 🌸 💚 🌸 💜 🌸 ❤️ 🌸 💛

When I was working as a floor nurse in Oxnard California in the 1990s it was not uncommon for field workers or their families to come to be patients in our beds. I especially remember one particular wrinkly old grampa who worked the land. He did not have any family available to visit him. Like many workers of the land in Southern California, he likely had family in Mexico and was sending money to them monthly.
Early on the evening I am remembering, 3 grampas came in to visit him. The three men visiting were dressed in clean, patched and well cared for clothing. In their hands they held their straw hats which protected from sun and then rain as they worked the fields. All 3 wore an aura of peace and humility. It would have been easy to miss really seeing them. They wore colors in the beautiful tones of our Mother The Earth, also their walk and words were quiet.
It was rainy on the night of their visit. Going in the room, checking to see that the grampa was comfortable and his needs were met, I sought to make the visitors comfortable also and so opened up a casual conversation with the intention of putting at ease.
Proverbial conversation opener, I noted the sound of the rain falling outside the window. With ease we fell into conversation, I was in their territory now – the realm of Mother Earth and our relationship with her. Their english was limited and my spanish even more limited. In the few minutes I was with them it became clear to me, these were men of great knowledge related to the earth and her care.
In Oxnard two of the primary crops are strawberries and Oranges. With ease, the grampas noted how the amount of water falling could drastically change the outcome for these two crops. They spoke of the delicate balance needed to create success in flavor and production for both and further how the needs of one was somewhat different from the needs of the other.
Wherein a moment before, I had mistakenly thought that I was the only healer/nurse in the room – I clearly saw I was in the room with 4 healers of the land.
They thought I was special – educated – the ‘enfermera’.
It was now my turn to be humbled. These 4 men who had over a life time gathered an understanding of the land and the care of the plants living on the land, were respectful to a young woman who because of a few years spent with her nose in a book thought she knew something about healing and care for living things. These mens' lives were spent at-one with the living book of the earth.
As the 3 grampas, and the patient himself thanked me for the care I gave – I in turn thanked them. Their soil stained hands brought life to the people day after day and year after year. They took their ‘knowing’ as matter of course.
I learned something very important that evening. My life was changed forever. Those four grampas had a relationship with the land and a knowledge of how to nurture life that was and continues to be sorely needed.
Many times through the years, I remember specifically those 4 men, who changed my perspective forever with their simple talk of plants, soil and rain. Many times through the years, in prayer I say, “Thank you for taking care of the land. Thank you for taking a few minutes to teach me a little bit about the land.”

💙 🌸 💚 🌸 💜 🌸 ❤️ 🌸 💛

With gratitude for those who care for the land,

bringing us nutritious food and beautiful foliage. 

💙 🌸 💚 🌸 💜 🌸 ❤️ 🌸 💛

With gratitude also for the migrant farm workers in California

and through out the world who sustain the people. 

💙 🌸 💚 🌸 💜 🌸 ❤️ 🌸

💛

💙 🌸 💚 🌸 💜 🌸 ❤️ 🌸 💛
I do not know the source of the photos used in this blog
💙 🌸 💚 🌸 💜 🌸 ❤️ 🌸