“Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.”-“Equal Rights” Peter Tosh Are you healthy? Most people would answer yes - except for this pain, my arthritis or allergies, my high blood pressure, etc. As an industrialized nation most of us have come to define health as the absence of disease above a certain level of distress to our bodies. Below that level, we think we are healthy in spite of the pain, sleeplessness or other stressors that plague the happiness of life. Above that level is “disease”. Diseases have names, symptoms, and pills or surgery to counteract them and bring us back within the level we consider “healthy”. One dictionary defines health as “soundness of body; freedom from disease”; another states that health is “optimal functioning with freedom from disease and abnormality”. Throughout our day we deny, accept, and live with our lack of health, yet, when we wake in the middle of the night feeling discouraged, in pain, and lost, we know we are not healthy. Gwenio.com goes where few have gone before…seeking optimum health. Optimum Health is not just the absence of disease. It is soundness of body, a creative mind and stability of emotions. Pain, fear, and doubt are characteristics of the lack of optimum health. Gwenio will guide you toward optimum health by teaching you how to bring yourself into resonance with your environment. Resonance occurs when two natural vibrations come into harmony with each other. When we are in resonance with our environment, micro-organisms cease to cause colds and flu. The stagnation of our energy and blood that causes pain is relieved. We wake in the morning rested and ready for our day knowing we are physically, mentally and emotionally ready for anything. The name of this site is taken from the Seneca the name “Oh-yeas-seh-noh-ne-gi-wa-gwen-i-yoh” which means “She Who Restores Truth”. It is the responsibility of every individual to restore their own truth. With that restoration, optimum health is achieved. However, Optimum Health is not a substitute for treatment of disease by trained medical practitioners. The idea of this website is to show how each of us can achieve Optimum Health ourselves so we can reduce the cost of medical care in America. With 75% of medical costs currently spent on diseases that result from life style choices such as poor diet, lack of exercise and stress; a simple, effective way to restore our own health is certainly indicated. Nowhere in the current money-driven debates has the concept of health education been fostered. This is not another diet/exercise program. Gwenio is based on the knowledge of Traditional Chinese medicine. For over 5,000 years this knowledge has explained how the vibrations within our bodies interact with the physical, mental and emotional functioning of our bodies. Gwenio is also based in Seneca philosophy. The Seneca Nation of Indians have for centuries taught the concept of our relationship with the world around us. Like Taoism that is the well from which Chinese medicine drinks, Seneca philosophy is grounded in Motherearth. Combining these two great philosophies in simple to follow exercises allows us to move stagnated vibrations throughout our bodies so we choose healthier foods, exercise more effectively, and improve our relationships by simply speaking the truth. We don’t have to be health practitioners to learn how to care for our own bodies. When Gwenio first began teaching over 20 years ago one of her students asked: “Why don’t we get a shop manual for how to fix our bodies when we are born?” Gwenio.com is that shop manual. With Gwenio we explore two pathways to health: Optimum Health and Councils in Truth. Below is a chart of the discernments between the two. Throughout the site both pathways are linked to the other path so you can explore conveniently. You’re invited to explore both in your personal search for Optimum Health. 2 Pathways for Exploring Gwenio
Our gracious Seneca guide, Twylah Nitsch - a Seneca Elder and woman of wisdom, explained the importance of gratitude in all aspects of life, including health. Read the following poem. It is based on the Seneca word, NYAH WEH, which means “thank you”. N is for nature, the lessons she provides Nyah-weh, one love |
Coming soon…click here Council on TruthThousands of years ago Native Americans developed the medicine wheel as a symbol for their understanding of their environment. It included all that they then knew and all that they did not yet understand. It became a foundation as well as a guide to living. The Seneca refined the medicine wheel concepts into three great wheels: The Pathway of Peace, The Cycles of Truth and the Body Wisdom Wheel. Twylah taught the Pathway of Peace and the Cycles of Truth as taught to her by her grandparents and parents. Her grandfather, Moses Shongo was the last of the traditional Seneca medicine men. When she initiated Gwenio into the Wolf Clan, she gave her the quest of recovering the Body Wisdom Wheel. These three great teaching wheels are presented in the Councils on Truth. Though circles have no beginning or ending, each of the wheels has a natural opening to facilitate learning. In all we will explore each wheel three times (nine individual Councils) expanding and deepening our understanding with each trip around the wheels. In nature based cultures like the Seneca and the Chinese, wisdom is passed from one generation to the next in teaching stories, sometimes called medicine stories. They are called “medicine” stories because their purpose is to help the listener heal themselves within the structure of their environment – the nature around them. These stories carry multiple messages depending on what the listener is facing in he or her life at the moment. As we begin to discover ourselves through the medicine wheels, we’ll see the story they tell in different ways. Each time we revisit each stepping stone of the three medicine wheels, it is like visiting an old friend. We already know a lot about them, but there is always something new to learn. Keeping this in mind we can gain the wisdom we are seeking with an open heart and willing hands. Our story of the three medicine wheels begins with the Body Wisdom Wheel. According to Chinese medicine our Shen enters our body with our first breath and is then housed in our hearts. The story of the Body Wisdom Wheel is the story of our body, its energy and its purpose in manifesting as “our” body. It is the story of the Temple that houses all our inner desires, all our thoughts and all our emotions. The Body Wisdom Wheel is the love story between yin and yang within the limits of our physical vehicle. It is here in the cauldron of chemicals that we call a body that we have the most - indeed the only – control over our environment. For the purpose of having a body is to draw the Yang – Sky Energy down into the earth as we draw the Yin Earth Energy up into the Sky. This is the exact same purpose that all of nature has. In this process, as with any machine, energy in the forms of heat and light are released. There the work of the body ends. It has transformed yang into yin and yin into yang. Now it is up to the mind and the emotions to determine what to do with the by products of heat and light that our bodies have produced. The Mind and Emotions in the natural worlds of the Seneca and the Chinese are housed in the heart, not in the brain. They both gain information about the world around them through our senses. They are accessed through chemical reactions throughout the body and they are very powerful. However, they differ in their approach to change. The Mind, represented by the Pathway of Peace looks at the world in a logical, rational manner. It thinks. If there is this, this and that, what can we do with them? It is concerned with the future. The favorite question if Mind is: What does the future hold in store for me? Emotion determines its position in the world through relationships. It is concerned with survival. The future is a dream beyond its ken. Emotion keeps track: What happened the last time these energies combined? Emotion’s favorite question is: Who am I right now? In the past we have seen Mind and Emotions as enemies… a battle between instinct and intuition while our bodies, the starving child, is caught between them. It’s no wonder that so many of the world’s problems revolve around hunger, and its sister – greed and the whole issue of scarcity and abundance. We are at a critical point, as a species and
as a planet. We are at the point where our mere survival not only depends on following our instincts, our ability to get food, shelter and clothe ourselves, but also on our ability to recognize the direction our logical, rational minds are taking us and make the changes necessary to let our planet heal and all on her not only survive but thrive. Through our struggle we have earned the ability to create. Now we need to learn to create from resonance so no energy is wasted in maintaining destructive postures. Let's begin with the Body Wisdom Wheel |
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October 2012 |
Kaunakakai, HI |
