Intro, cont'd

A strange thing has been happening to me over the past year or so. I seem to have been hijacked (for want of a better word) by the natural world—and I don’t mind a bit!  From where I sit, conventional medicine and the scientific paradigm that underlies it continues to be constricted and contorted into the uninspired, inanimate, and rather ruthless “evidence-based medicine” model of practice, a kind of  “medicine by numbers.” Even many of my holistically inclined colleagues have been sucked into playing the Science game, or at least playing by Science’s rules. Whoda thunkit, but the science geeks have become the bullies on the playground!

I find myself inexorably drawn in the opposite direction. It’s as if green tendrils have reached out to me from some place beyond my sight, wrapped themselves around me, and are now drawing me to... I’m not sure what, but I think it’s an apprenticeship with Nature. So, that’s me, the person in the title: Nature’s Apprentice.

Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against science as an approach. In fact, for a long time I was “Science Girl,” complete with the white cape (aka the lab coat). I have an innate mental propensity for the sciences, my entire formal education emphasised the sciences, and the profession I chose is one in which scientific method, currently labelled evidence-based medicine, is considered the standard of practice. So, I’m very comfortable with the scientific approach. I speak the language, I know the terrain. And I will forever be fascinated by how bodies work, in all their amazing and intricate cellular and biochemical detail. I simply object to the concept of science being the only way of seeing and operating sanely in the world. In a way, Science reminds me of the one-eyed man: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Now, doesn’t that perfectly epitomise where we so often find ourselves when it comes to matters of health: feeling completely and utterly blind, and in desperate need of someone to tell us what to do? You’ll find any number of people - well-meaning and otherwise - who are only too willing to do that. What I’d like to do in this book/blog is try to help you regain your own sight. Begin your own apprenticeship with Nature.

Stay tuned...

Dr. Chris King

Nature's Apprentice

www.animavet.com