Nay_ho_tze's Medicine Musings

NHTs unique and apolitical take
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9 may 2023
When Mental Health and Guns Collide
or, how did we get here?
the truth is the budget
for mental health care
budget has been a target of vicious political robbery since Reagan –
this man, at left, is just the most recent in a neverendingly long list
of saboteurs…  
it started when Reagan’s de-regulation mania closed the mental hospitals which, he told us, he was doing out of his 

humane desire for those afflicted with mental illness to live ‘normal’ lives – 
the key to Reagan's vainglorious vision 
included planned mental health clinics "in every neighbourhood" –
what’s more, sufficient funds were even appropriated to attain this goal --
well, how many neighbourhoods do you know of that have their own clinics?  
Sadly typical, mental health clinics are few and far between -
that’s because the funds appropriated for mental health clinics
 were incrementally "mis-appropriated"
i.e.: stolen 
(probably for political favours) -

Imagine, if the GOP had had the juevos then
to do what was right,
how differently today's headlines would read -
instead failure to achieve Reagan's vision for the mentally ill
was a spectacularly missed GOP opportunity -

as a result today we find ourselves in an utterly alternative reality,
having created a society in which battleground weapons 
are wielded on American streets by the mentally ill -

i doubt that today's violent reality is the ‘normal life’ 
to which GOP-hero Ronald Reagan referred -
and while his intention may have been honourable,
it was seen as a pipe dream by the GOP, 
which speaks volumes about his party today

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tuesday, 11 apr 2023
Where did the rhythm go?

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saturday, 8 april 2023
rambling thoughts on Easter

when i was a child, there was no mistake that the feast's focus is the resurrection,
with the baby animals and candy baskets definitely rendered secondary, compensation for surviving
the mind-bending 4 days before Easter of long-kneeling, standing and sitting ritual (from a kid’s POV anyway) - 

as i got older, the rituals i’d learned as a child spoke to the emerging shaman me
without need of further interpretation,
and ultimately brought me to the understanding that, as a pre-Vatican II cradle Catholic (read: septuagenarian),
in fact, i wasn’t Christian - 
technically a Christian believes that Christ died for his/her sins –
and i just don’t believe that –
i believe Jesus died to teach me how to live and die for my own sins …  
that’s what i’ve always believed,
even despite my teachers, the venerable Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet
 whose history dates back to the 1650s France -
thankfully because their rule requires that each child be treated as if he/she were the Christ child,
 i was spared punishment for thinking freely – instead, i was required to dogmatically prove my beliefs …
to ensure that happened, i studied one on one with Mother Superior,
who sagely allowed for exploration of arcane concepts, such as,
why Catholic didn’t necessarily mean Christian –
we both agreed that the first Christians were the Catholics,
but when i countered that Catholic then and Catholic now are two very different animals,
Mother had to agree -

one reaction in particular of Mother Superior to something i said has stayed with me all these years -
we were discussing the God vs man issue …
and i was feeling rather vindicated at a recent discovery that in fact,
Jesus consistently refers to himself as the ‘son of man’ and never as the ‘son of God’…
(that appellation was ascribed to him by later gospel writers) ... 
i realized that if we look at Jesus the way he sees himself,
then his miracles are something else again
and take on huge implications for the capabilities of humankind as a whole …
conversely when we chose to see Jesus as God
(isn’t that idolatry? i remember asking Mother),
then we lose the truest, most intrinsic power in his miracles --
i mean, for God to do miracles, well, that’s no big deal, right?
but for man to do miracles, ah, now that’s a whole other, empowering concept to consider …
of course  i didn’t say it all like that to Mother – i was 10 -
but her thoughtful expression made me feel like my message had met its target 

so it is that, Christian or not, every year on holy Saturday i consider the feast's meaning anew…
and while it is still about the resurrection it goes much deeper than that because truth be told
the resurrection plotline is not exclusive to Christians -
across the globe cultures share similar life/death myths and stories 
which speak to the divine amongst us 
wherein the soul superseded ego to manifest self-enlightenment …

maybe that’s what we really ought to celebrate tomorrow: divine manifestation -
heaven knows such universal alignment is muchly needed now more than ever



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sunday, 2 apr 2023

For obvious reasons, big media companies didn't pick up this story,
but it appears in a number of local Florida sources,
so i’m going to run with it …

the headline reads: 
Florida School Censors Madonna and Child;
Calls It “Assault on Family Values”
apparently Mary “doesn't look happy enough about being a mother”  --
wow … spoken like a man –
here’s what i was taught about Mary –
that, as a mother, she sensed what was going to happen to her child –
that’s called maternal instinct and it is far more important than smiling pretty in artistic renderings …

it would seem, embracing darkness means to extinguish humankind’s rightful abilities -

here - read the article for yourself

below, the offending image