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The ability to communicate with nature and understand the properties of plants is one of the key gifts possessed by African traditional healers in a
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iding them to understand their curative elements so as to use them for healing.
Often innate and intuitive, it is also further developed over years of training and initiation into systems of knowledge going back centuries. Unfortunately, with the advent and rise of Western conventional medicine, most of these healers and their practices were labelled ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’ with the result that much of this knowledge has been lost over time.
However, the illustrious life of George Washington Carver demonstrates what can be achieved when one embraces talents that can often be considered ‘superstitious’ and ‘irrational’ from an ‘empirical scientific’ perspective.
Carver used his inherent abilities to guide him into developing various uses for crops such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. His impressive work led to numerous awards and accolades including being dubbed the ‘Black Leonardo’, having the Crown Prince of Sweden study under him, and meeting with 3 US Presidents.
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His legacy left behind is a testament to the benefits of integrating systems of knowledge, with more benefit to be had overall and most importantly, not disregarding what one knows to be true personally, even if it can’t be proven ‘empirically’.
There is currently more efforts being made in African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa amongst others to build a bridge of learning between the traditional healing technologies and conventional medicine.
More commentary on establishing a learning relationship with nature via various spiritual practices from varying communities will be covered in more depth in the upcoming sequel
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