Planting Seeds of Wellness: A Conversation with Dr. Tieraona Low Dog

“At the end of the day, when you lay your head down to go to sleep, you want to think that the things that you planted were seeds of love and compassion and generosity of spirit, because we reap what we sow. And so at the end of the day, I feel a little less angry, a little less righteous. Anger is healthy if you do something about it. But at the end of the day, remember the things that you want to plant. You want those to be seeds that you really want to see grow so that long after you’re gone, you feel you’ve left something better than you found it.”

— Dr. Tieraona Low Dog

I was so honored to be able to spend an hour speaking with Dr. Tieraona Low Dog as part of the SHP Webinar Series. The conversation focused on how young adults can stay well in the time of COVID and Tieraona spoke about garlic and thyme and vitamin C and D, about eating clean healthy food and getting lots of rest.

But she spoke about so much more. Below I share some of the highlights. I encourage you to listen to the whole recording at the bottom of this post. The insights Tieraona shares can’t easily be captured in a blog post.

Power

I introduced the conversation by saying that so much about the coronavirus felt disempowering, whereas working with herbal medicine had always felt empowering.

Tieraona responded, “While things can feel disempowering, people cannot take your power. Nobody can take your power. You can surrender your power, you can give away your power. You can share your power. Whatever you do, it’s your power. I’m an older woman. So perhaps it feels easier to say that then when I was maybe 25. But in times of uncertainty like this, it’s really important to remember that that’s unshakable. It’s yours. It was your birthright. It was given to you before you ever entered this world. And it stays with you throughout this entire journey. So that would be what I would say.”

We are Never Not Connected

She also talked about the emotional toll of living through this time.

“In this culture, we don’t talk to people about hard times or that we’re going to go through hard times. And you’re going to. You’re going to fall out of love and you’re going to lose people that you love, and you’re going to leave people that you once loved. You’re going to lose your job. You’re going to not like your job. All of these things. The world has a lot of struggles and hard times and we don’t help people understand how they can tap into their power to move through that. And I think that we’re seeing that result right now.

The plants teach us about empowerment. But we also teach each other about empowerment. And so, if you’re feeling isolated right now, reach out. Talk to other people. Get help, if you need help. Use this time to say, I feel sad because I’m disconnected.

You know you’re never not connected. That’s the biggest illusion of all. Somebody said to me the other day, ‘I feel so disillusioned’ and I said, ‘Hallelujah!’ Isn’t it great to be with without an illusion? Because to become disillusioned means you no longer are seeing an illusion. You’re actually seeing what’s real. And that can be hard. But the first step towards better health and perhaps even enlightenment, is to actually see things the way they are and not just the way we would wish them to be.”

Hope

And finally she spoke about not giving up hope:

“When I think back of all my ancestors, especially the women in my line. I think of the thousands of generations that suffered and struggled and died, so that I could be here, so that I could have this life. And it seems like a tragedy for them to have given so much for me not to be hopeful. I want to be strong for those who come after me and I want to honor all of those people who went beyond before me.

Hope just means really, that you believe when you look to the future, there’s more good days and bad. That’s what it is to be hopeful. That doesn’t mean there won’t be bad days or that we’re not going to still have lots of problems. But I believe there will be more good days than bad.”

You can listen to the complete conversation here. We will be posting a list of the herbs she recommends along with links for more information soon!

(Click the arrow in the center of the image to play the recording and turn up volume on the right lower if it doesn’t automatically turn up).