Hippocrates (460-377 BC)
"Absorbed in your thoughts, absent from your belly", by Valérie Mallet
What messages for us and medicine today? During my time, to heal the body was to cure the soul. It was understood, today you’ve hardly discovered it. It was about the learning of one’s gray areas, shedding light on doubts, fears and anything that could, like evil, darken the free flow of fluids, of vital energy. To cure oneself was to cleanse oneself, while respecting life above all. It was about putting oneself at the disposal of one's resources. Today you are bombarding the body, so you have created higher thresholds of resistance. The terrain is no longer the same. To destroy concrete, you have to use explosives. Likewise, the earth is no longer bare, so it cannot have recourse to its own curative resources, those that had been deposited in it. Rejuvenating, something you are talking about today, is difficult because you have drunk too much water from the spring and above all, you have deviated it from its initial course. Recovering old dreams to clean them up, that was what it was all about. The cure was the therapy, to cure was to heal oneself.
A cure, is that all? Thermal cure, of course, for the cleanse, cure of silence for the listening of one's innermost depths, cure of the matter to consciously transcend gravity and one’s hardships. Experiencing, to no longer endure the hardships. What I was teaching right here was to be considered in the globality of the humors. You have dissected the human body and therefore cannot contemplate the breath. But it is this breath which, like water watering the plant, gives it its good health. Healing was about restoring the breath, opening the doors that had closed, to go where one could no longer go. It’s all a question of circulation, at all levels, in all humors. You talk about networks, you see them as exogenous, while you should care about your endogenous networks, because it is through them that you dispense, that you authorize yourself to spend. Absorbed in your thoughts, absent from your belly. You start from the thoughts to go to the paunch, but it is to the paunch, as a starting point, that we must return.
Are you talking about the belly? Yes, everything starts from the belly.
Did you teach here on the island of Kós? Yes, people would come to listen to me out of curiosity. Let's not refer to them as disciples, for me school should have been human.
But what is that oath? You named it that way. Rather, it was a connection of truth, a personal commitment to pursue the lines of conduct I had prescribed.
Knowledge, where did you get it from? From stars, texts, so Egypt, of course.
You have been initiated in temples ... Yes, and those are the teachings that I wanted to continue to preserve the authenticity of the precepts transmitted (1) there, but I knew that it was wasted effort for the future.
What meaning should be given to medicine? It's not about extending life, because you shouldn't walk by your life. It’s not a length of time. It is a circumference, a womb, a unit. You see things from their length, down the line ... Life is not held by a thread, but by several power cords, all of which must be considered as a whole. This is why some people alive are almost dead and conversely, others almost dead, still alive. Yes, medicine has made strides to counteract the damaging effects , but there was a time when people lived much longer! The day when you will understand that longevity is not health ... The essence of health is to be in one whole life, that is to say that the fountain inside gushes out, dispenses and waters all parts of the body, so that there are no more dead branches.
So what is life? Life is a sum of 9, proofs by nine, cycles of 9. Look at this tree (2) you are trying to save, isn't it miserable? Empty, hollow and sapless? Is that what you understand from what I left behind? An oath that would rather be branches only? It resists. Likewise, you are in resistance rather than in existence. Resisting? Therein lies the scourge. Resisting germs, diseases… By establishing these zones of resistance, you have created concrete, a dead material. Look behind the collapse of that building (3), what remains of its resistance: crumbs. There you go, by resisting, you fall apart. There is no point in picking up the pieces, the main thing is to maintain the coherence of its unity, and for that, I repeat, the free circulation of fluids. The tissues, the fascias ensure consistency. Kinds of amniotic bags, peritoneum. All pockets have their role. As in geology, the pockets are the very loving parents. Going with the flow is the recipe for healthy body and soul. The acceleration of time causes the acceleration of space: it goes round, but it spins faster. Adapt your pace. It's going to be tough on the body, as it's designed, to continue to maintain balance, with the accelerators of particles, molecules. If the fluids are in good condition, the dams won't break… Look at the strokes, the heart attacks, the panic of the cells… It rumbles in you, like it rumbles in the belly of the earth. The threads of your womb, what are they?
What to do, what advice? I obeyed the laws of the cosmos. First of all, I understood those are the laws that they body obeys to. You can change some of the mantles of Earth and of your belly, but is this a form of suicide of the species, perhaps to make room for another? Take care of your body, you have understood it, it is your guide on this earth. Cherish it, take care of it. Do not believe it is invincible and fast, get in tune with nature and its cycles, do not go to the warmth during winter, give time to each time - rest, food, exercise: this is how one finds the universal rhythm, which ensures the balance of the body momentarily embodied, expressed. Plot, seed of the universe ... like this tree admired for being only the extension of itself, of myself, while the one next door shines. In my time, it was not a plane tree, but a fig tree, a sycamore ... I taught the virtues of nature there, under its inspiration it is true.
Notes
(1) Teaching given in the temples within the School of Mysteries, or School of Life.
(2) The tree under which Hippocrates taught in Kós, Greece.
(3) Behind the tree is a wall that collapsed following the last earthquake on the island in 2017. To read and watch:
The 9, creation number (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu2RVs-TjiU) The Hippocratic Oath (https://www.ordomedic.be/fr/l-ordre/serment-%28belgique%29/serment hippocrates/)