Mother Nature’s plant medicines have been vilified unjustly. Looking forward to Naturopathy becoming the prevalent health-care system.
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The Heart of a Good Man
Published August 11, 2025 by tindertenderTestimony from a Veterinarian
I once stitched up a dog’s throat with fishing line in the back of a pickup, while its owner held a flashlight in his mouth and cried like a child.
That was in ’79, maybe ’80. Just outside a little town near the Tennessee border. No clinic, no clean table, no anesthetic except moonshine. But the dog lived, and that man still sends me a Christmas card every year, even though the dog’s long gone and so is his wife.
I’ve been a vet for forty years. That’s four decades of blood under my nails and fur on my clothes. It used to be you fixed what you could with what you had — not what you could bill. Now I spend half my days explaining insurance codes and financing plans while someone’s beagle bleeds out in the next room.
I used to think this job was about saving lives. Now I know it’s about holding on to the pieces when they fall apart.
I started in ’85. Fresh out of the University of Georgia, still had hair, still had hope. My first clinic was a brick building off a gravel road with a roof that leaked when it rained. The phone was rotary, the fridge rattled, and the heater worked only when it damn well pleased. But folks came. Farmers, factory workers, retirees, even the occasional trucker with a pit bull riding shotgun.
They didn’t ask for much.
A shot here. A stitch there. Euthanasia when it was time — and we always knew when it was time. There was no debate, no guilt-shaming on social media, no “alternative protocols.” Just the quiet understanding between a person and their dog that the suffering had become too much.
And they trusted me to carry the weight.
Some days I’d drive out in my old Chevy to a barn where a horse lay with a broken leg, or to a porch where an old hound hadn’t eaten in three days. I’d sit beside the owner, pass them the tissue, and wait. I never rushed it. Because back then, we held them as they left. Now people sign papers and ask if they can just “pick up the ashes next week.”
I remember the first time I had to put down a dog. A German shepherd named Rex. He’d been hit by a combine. The farmer, Walter Jennings, was a World War II vet, tough as barbed wire and twice as sharp. But when I told him Rex was beyond saving, his knees buckled. Right there in my exam room.
He didn’t say a word. Just nodded. And then — I’ll never forget this — he kissed Rex’s snout and whispered, “You done good, boy.” Then he turned to me and said, “Do it quick. Don’t make him wait.”
I did.
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat on my front porch with a cigarette and stared at the stars until the sunrise. That’s when I realized this job wasn’t just about animals. It was about people. About the love they poured into something that would never live as long as they did.
Now it’s 2025. My hair’s white — what’s left of it. My hands don’t always cooperate. There’s a tremor that wasn’t there last spring. The clinic is still there, but now it’s got sleek white walls, subscription software, and some 28-year-old marketing guy telling me to film TikToks with my patients. I told him I’d rather neuter myself.
We used to use instinct. Now it’s all algorithms and liability forms.
A woman came in last week with a bulldog in respiratory failure. I said we’d need to intubate and keep him overnight. She pulled out her phone and asked if she could get a second opinion from an influencer she follows online. I just nodded. What else can you do?
Sometimes I think about retiring. Hell, I almost did during COVID. That was a nightmare — parking lot pickups, barking from behind closed doors, masks hiding the tears. Saying goodbye through car windows. No one got to hold them as they left.
That broke something in me.
But then I see a kid come in with a box full of kittens he found in his grandpa’s barn, and his eyes light up when I let him feed one. Or I patch up a golden retriever who got too close to a barbed fence, and the owner brings me a pecan pie the next day. Or an old man calls me just to say thank you — not for the treatment, but because I sat with him after his dog died and didn’t say a damn thing, just let the silence do the healing.
That’s why I stay.
Because despite all the changes — the apps, the forms, the lawsuits, the Google-diagnosing clients — one thing hasn’t changed.
People still love their animals like family.
And when that love is deep enough, it comes out in quiet ways. A trembling hand on a fur-covered flank. A whispered goodbye. A wallet emptied without question. A grown man breaking down in my office because his dog won’t live to see the fall.
No matter the year, the tech, the trends — that never changes.
A few months ago, a man walked in carrying a shoebox. Said he found a kitten near the railroad tracks. Mangled leg, fleas, ribs like piano keys. He looked like hell himself. Told me he’d just gotten out of prison, didn’t have a dime, but could I do anything?
I looked in that box. That kitten opened its eyes and meowed like it knew me. I nodded and said, “Leave him here. Come back Friday.” We splinted the leg, fed him warm milk every two hours, named him Boomer. That man showed up Friday with a half-eaten apple pie and tears in his eyes. Said no one ever gave him something back without asking what he had first.
I told him animals don’t care what you did. Just how you hold them now.
Forty years.
Thousands of lives.
Some saved. Some not.
But all of them mattered.
I keep a drawer in my desk. Locked. No one touches it. Inside are old photos, thank-you notes, collars, and nametags. A milk bone from a border collie named Scout who saved a boy from drowning. A clay paw print from a cat that used to sleep on a gas station counter. A crayon drawing from a girl who said I was her hero because I helped her hamster breathe again.
I take it out sometimes, late at night, when the clinic’s dark and my hands are still.
And I remember.
I remember what it was like before all the screens. Before the apps. Before the clickbait cures and the credit checks.
Back when being a vet meant driving through mud at midnight because a cow was calving wrong and you were the only one they trusted.
Back when we stitched with fishing line and hope.
Back when we held them as they left — and we held their people, too.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s this:
You don’t get to save them all.
But you damn sure better try.
And when it’s time to say goodbye, you stay. You don’t flinch. You don’t rush. You kneel down, look them in the eyes, and you stay until their last breath leaves the room.
That’s the part no one trains you for. Not in vet school. Not in textbooks.
That’s the part that makes you human.
And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Be the One Who Heals
Published April 27, 2025 by tindertenderAy-hay, nitotem. Sit with me by the fire awhile. Let me tell you a story—one the ancestors placed in my heart when I was young and full of hurt, and one that’s kept me walking straight even when the winds of sorrow tried to bend me.
Long ago, before the town came, before the hydro dams took the breath from our rivers, there was a boy named Kīsikāw, which means “He Who Comes From the Sky.” He was born during a thunderstorm—his first cries were swallowed by the roar of the heavens, and the old ones said he was destined to carry lightning in his heart. But that lightning—it’s a dangerous thing, êkwa—because it can burn just as easily as it can shine.
Kīsikāw grew up in a house where love was a quiet, broken thing. His father, wounded by residential school, carried pain like a second skin. He didn’t know how to be gentle. His words struck like fists. His silence cut deeper. And his mother, she tried—oh, how she tried—but she was drowning in her own grief. The boy learned early that some wounds don’t bleed on the outside.
When Kīsikāw was older, he carried that pain like a bone knife tucked under his ribs. He judged quickly, he rejected before he could be rejected, and his shame made him sharp. People saw him as cold, but really, he was just trying not to break apart.
Then, one day, an old woman named Nôhkom Iskwew came to him. She had eyes like the still waters of Pimicikamak, deep and watching. She said, “Grandson, the hurt you carry—did it make you stronger, or just harder?” He couldn’t answer. “You carry the hurt of generations, but you have the chance to be the one who lays it down. Be the one who breaks the chain, not the one who binds it tighter.”
He sat with that. It didn’t make sense at first. How do you heal by opening old wounds? But she told him: “When you were judged, did you not cry out for understanding? When you were cast aside, did you not long for someone to accept you, as you are? Then be that someone.”
And slowly—like the river thawing in spring—he began to change. He learned to listen without defending. To forgive without forgetting. To speak from his heart instead of his pain. He chose to be gentle where his father was harsh. To love fiercely where he was taught to be silent. He became the man he needed as a boy, and in doing so, he healed not only himself, but his children, and their children too.
So I say to you, kîsikâw pîsim, sun-child: be the one who breaks the cycle. Choose compassion over cruelty. Choose to be medicine, not more poison. You are not what happened to you—you are what you choose to become from it.
That is our way. That is the power of pimâtisiwin—the sacred life. Carry it gently.
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
Heal This Land
Published April 8, 2025 by tindertenderThe fires are burning
So reach for me
Like the petals of a rose
Bloom in it’s season
Gentle and slow
My body is the mountain
The ocean, the river
The sand and the soil
The life giver
So come on now, my friend
Speak to me
Help me understand
Let us walk together
Take my hand
And we will heal this land
We will heal this land
Do you hear the call?
We will heal this land
If you could only believe
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Tina Malia
Heal This Land lyrics © Boundless Light
Parasites and Medical Professionals with “Insufficient Knowledge”
Published March 24, 2025 by tindertenderI think parasites are a form of low vibrational “demons” that infest a “host” and feast on the life force and essence of the host.
I’m pretty upset that the medical field, having full knowledge of parasite infestations in the body, agreed to Rockefeller renaming of symptoms as “diseases” and treat the symptoms, but don’t address the actual cause.
Many cancers and so-called diseases ARE parasite infestations. The medical “professionals” failed the people miserably… all for profit.
As people age, the likelihood of them having muscular parasites increases over 90% (my estimate). These parasites feast on the muscle mass, causing “marbelling” of the muscle. It’s one reason older people lose muscle mass, becoming weakened, and age quickly, getting sick more often.
We are over 70% water.
The waters are infested with parasites.
We are the river of life.
It is our responsibility to cleanse and purify these waters.
I dreamt once of a man, woman and child. They were in the river of life, on a floating raft of sorts.
Parasites were sucking the life out of them all.
The man was dying, or dead. The woman was asleep. The infant was still moving around.
We must purify the waters of life that we are.
Shame on doctors in the medical field who left human beings vulnerable to parasitic infestation.
They betrayed the human species.
Healthcare providers with “insufficient knowledge”.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3110372/
https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2021/0900/p277.html
https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2014/p0508-npi.html
You Are the Medicine
Published February 20, 2025 by tindertenderFour Visions
Published January 16, 2025 by tindertender
Gut-Healing Vegetable Broth
Published September 29, 2024 by tindertenderA healthy gut impacts virtually every aspect of our body by improving our immune system and supporting the health of organs such as the heart. This has important knock-on effects on our daily lives by promoting healthy sleep and a better mood.
Our gut microbiome is made up of hundreds of different types of bacteria, some necessary and good (or friendly) and others that can be detrimental to our health. For that reason, it’s important to look after your gut and keep everything working in harmony. Certain factors can contribute to gut issues such as lack of sleep, too much stress, taking antibiotics, eating processed foods, or having too much sugar in your diet.
Some signs that your gut may be in trouble include:
- An upset stomach e.g. bloating or gas
- Losing or gaining weight without changing your diet or exercise routine
- Poor sleep or insomnia
- Food intolerances
Let’s look at how to improve your gut health by making a simple but healing vegetable broth. First, I’ll explain how the different ingredients support a healthy gut and then share how to make the recipe.
Gut-Healing Properties of Vegetable Broth
I’ve used the following ingredients in this recipe: cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, miso paste, ginger, coconut oil, and turmeric.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Cabbage: Cabbage is probably one of the best-known vegetables for being gut healing. The soluble fiber it contains is great for feeding the friendly gut bacteria and the insoluble fiber helps to maintain the digestive system by promoting regular bowel movements. Cabbage is also high in L-glutamine, a building block of protein, that helps to heal the lining of the gut.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Mushrooms: Mushrooms have been used in medicinal remedies for thousands of years. In terms of gut healing, mushrooms help fight bacteria which helps to keep a healthy microbiome. They are also good prebiotics that stimulates probiotics in the gut.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Carrots: Carrots contain pectin which is a soluble fiber. This slows down your digestion of starch and sugar. It also feeds the good bacteria in your gut helping your gut cells to stay healthy. Consuming carrots regularly can even prevent the formation of a gastric ulcer and other digestive issues.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Garlic: Garlic has been used in medicine for over 5,000 years and it is a superfood on many levels but is especially good for the gut. That’s partly because garlic is high in a non-digestible carbohydrate called inulin that feeds good bacteria in the gut. This helps your gut function better overall and stops the growth of disease-promoting bacteria.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Miso Paste: Miso paste is made from fermented soybeans making it full of probiotics that improve your gut health. One particular probiotic in miso paste, Aspergillus Oryzae, naturally helps maintain a good-bad bacteria balance.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Ginger: Ginger has a calming effect on the stomach and has gut-healing properties. It also aids digestion and stops food from sitting and fermenting in the intestine by helping your gut move it along. Ginger has over 100 bioactive compounds with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiemetic properties and it’s many of these that aid digestion. It also stimulates digestive acids and supports the absorption of nutrients.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Coconut Oil: Coconut oil helps to absorb the other nutrients in this broth and also has properties that destroy bad bacteria and lower stomach acid. It also works to restore a healthy balance when there is an imbalance in the gut.
- Gut-Healing Properties of Turmeric: Turmeric has long been used to treat digestive issues in ayurvedic medicine. Turmeric is beneficial to the gut in several ways: it helps the stomach lining, promotes the growth of good gut bacteria, and can prevent bloating or gas while food is being digested.
However, turmeric does negatively affect some people’s digestion, especially where they already have issues. If you know that turmeric doesn’t sit well in your stomach then leave this ingredient out of the broth.
How to Make This Gut-Healing Vegetable Broth
This is a very simple recipe to prepare and should only take five minutes or less. It will then take one hour to cook, roughly 20 minutes to cool, then you need to strain it at the end. You should take this three times a day if you are experiencing gut problems or once a day or every few days if you are looking to maintain your gut health. You can make larger batches if you are going to be taking this regularly to save yourself time. If you divide the quantities below into four serving sizes each portion will have approximately 40 calories.
Ingredients
- 4 Cloves of garlic
- 1 inch knob of ginger
- 6 Mushrooms
- 10 oz. (250 grams) of cabbage
- 4 Carrots
- A Pinch of black pepper
- 1 Teaspoon of ground turmeric
- 1 Tablespoon of organic virgin coconut oil
- 1 Tablespoon of miso paste
- 8 Cups of filtered water
Utensils
- Large pot
- Chopping board
- Sharp knife
- Strainer
- Large bowl
Method
Slice 10 oz. of cabbage up into strips and place them in your pot.
Cut 4 carrots and 6 mushrooms into quarters and add them to your pot.
- Bruise 4 garlic cloves with the side of a knife then throw these in.
- Roughly chop your piece of ginger (you can leave the skin on if it’s organic, otherwise peel it first) then add this too.
- Add 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, 1 teaspoon of ground turmeric, and a pinch of black pepper.
- Cover all of your vegetables with water (about 8 cups) and put the lid on your pot.
- Bring it to a boil then turn down the heat so the water is simmering and leave it for 1 hour.
- Take it off the heat and allow it to cool somewhat before the next step so you aren’t dealing with hot liquid.
- Wait until the soup has been taken off the heat and then stir or whisk in the miso paste. It will melt into the soup thanks to the residual heat of the stock
- ***Miso is a fermented food, meaning it contains live, active cultures of bacteria. Adding it to boiling water will kill the probiotics in the miso, nixing the health benefits it typically offers, like better digestive health.
- Strain the liquid into a large bowl.
You can take some straight away or put it in the fridge. It will also keep in the freezer for a couple of months if you store it in airtight containers.
Takeaway:
The gut microbiome is host to an abundance of intestinal flora that can make (or break) your physical and mental health depending on if it is balanced. From immunity to nutrient absorption, anxiety and depression to weight loss, the gut microflora plays a crucial role in our overall well-being. Many don’t give a second thought to gut health until an issue develops. However, this is a mistake. If you would like to truly thrive, caring for your gut should be a top priority. And one of the best ways to do this is through diet and medicinal herbs.
Heel and Heal
Published September 17, 2024 by tindertenderIsn’t it odd that the command to a canine during training and such is the word “heel”.
(of a dog) a command to a dog to walk close behind its owner.
“these dogs are born with the instinctive urge to heel”
When we are ailing, we go to the doctor to heal.
What do they do? They command you to swallow synthetic medicines … which mask symptoms, but poison the body.
You “heal” your life and give sovereignty to another, you give them authority over your life, you make yourself subservient, reliant, weak.
Owl Medicine
Published September 6, 2024 by tindertenderI was singing in the bathtub the other night and at the end of one of the channeled lyrics there was a “hoo-hoo-hoo” like an owl, and I knew I was in the presence of Sacred Feminine holding Owl Medicine. It was a little scary, but very nice too, knowing she was/is here.
In my last 7 years spending time with some Cherokee family, I’ve found the men are wary of women holding Owl Medicine … they are scary to them … the men steer real clear of Owl Medicine.
“Owl medicine teaches how to identify and stop people who seek to take energy away from you…
“The owl is a living radio telescope with sonic disks surrounding the eyes made of feathers that funnel the slightest of sounds directly into her high-range ears. Unlike most birds of prey, the owl’s satellite dish eyes are forward-facing and extra-large for her head size, giving her binocular vision. One ear is situated higher than the other. This auditory asymmetry, along with the ability to pivot the neck 220 degrees allows the owl to pinpoint the exact location of a sound without moving her body. By turning her head until the sound is heard in both ears, owl then knows she is staring straight at the origin of the sound, i.e. her prey. Once accurately positioned, her large nocturnal eyes are then able to locate a tiny object in pitch dark with minimal use of energy. Her flight feathers are fringed with a second layer of fur, making her gliding approach completely silent. Her fierce vision and hearing along with her silent cloak of feathers and razor talons make Owl a master night hunter. Her medicine speaks of struggles after the sun has set, remedies for sleeplessness, and overcoming superstitions of darkness. When the Owl Spirit Animal Totem is hovering in your life, your powers of observation are pitch-perfect and you can not be deceived by others. Messages and information are assessed with flawless precision and action is taken in a discreet and effective manner.”
https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-religions/athena-0017109
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