Asking and Waiting: Seeking Answers to Disrupt the Disease Process of Global Warming

Reader Contribution by Anna Alkin
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I’ve been thinking a lot about how to affect systemic change in the face of the vast, overwhelming environmental crises facing us as a species, like that of global climate change. And my ongoing meditation about climate change, interestingly, has been shaped by my health challenges. You see, I recently discovered that I have an autoimmune disease, Sjogren’s Syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the moisture-producing glands of the body, particularly the mouth and eyes.

Because traditional medicine can’t do much to disrupt the disease process of Sjogren’s, I started seeing a Chinese medicine herbalist in April. Only two weeks into drinking an unpalatable tea twice a day, I no longer felt like I was climbing up a steep mountain in the hot sun after a night of binge drinking. My fatigue has abated, and with that, clothes have begun to be folded, strawberries planted, floors swept and mopped, and I feel like a gentler, kinder woman — some of the time at least. The effect of this herbal tea on my health has been nothing short of miraculous.

After a couple of weeks of dutifully drinking my mystery miracle potion, I asked my herbalist some questions. I learned that Chinese medicine considers Sjogren’s Syndrome, a disease characterized primarily by dryness, as a “toxic yang” condition. The metaphor he used is that my body is like a burning building, and as a consequence, the normal energetic pathways (on which health depends) are blocked. This makes for some pretty crazy, seemingly unrelated, physical symptoms, in my case ranging from having numb or tingling fingers, dental issues beyond belief, to feeling ice cold even in the unrelenting heat of the Texas summertime.

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