Mark Jensen was my teacher in New Mexico and is a great friend. His work as a chiropractor is steeped in sacred medicine and phytotherapic practices according to Chinese and Native American traditions .

He combined his devotion to the practice of qi gong and the study of shamanism (specifically the Navajo tradition).

We read his interview , in which we expand the concept of health and explain what sacred medicine consists of and in what sense healing power is in our hands.

What is health?

Something that doctors can measure with specific diagnoses and tests. The World Health Organization (NdT: for us the WHO ) defines health as a "state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease" .

Health with a capital S is another. the "Health" has to do with essence, with the soul, with our connection to the Source, to Life itself.

Are we expressing our unique and unrepeatable nature? Have we made our profound truth descend into the body? Are we offering others the gift that has been given to us? Do we profoundly embody the profound relationship that we have woven through the heart with the members of our family, the community, the people we love and have loved? Do we carry all this in our gestures, movements, daily rituals ? Is the connection with our Earth alive? And the one towards those who are on this planet and belongs to a different species from ours?

I think we can have a disease but "be healthy" in the way we are carrying our own expression of the One, if we know who we are, if we bring to our soul the gifts it deserves.

Health depends on relationships ! Through my work with dying people, I have learned that one can die healed, deeply connected to Health, to Essence, one with the Source that is Health, even if you are a terminally ill cancer patient. I have witnessed it, I saw it with my own eyes. It's something that changes your life forever.

Do you think that the healing power towards oneself and others is in the hands of each of us?

I am forced to break this question in two and respond in two ways. First of all, in nuce we all have the innate ability of healers, to be part of healing towards others, towards themselves, towards the Earth.

An important, intimate power that has nothing to do with leaving one's health to some professional. Through relationships, nature, we heal, if we allow ourselves to open our hearts and bodies and listen to us from the neck down. In this primary, original connection, the healing of the earth and of others is played out.

Now, can all this be summed up in what we could have in our hands or what we could develop with bodily and manual work? Not necessarily: there are words that cure, songs, foods, ears ready to listen, creative minds that produce beautiful, curative projects; there is the power that comes from the effort to make peace in the heart and let us not forget the goal of dreams, of the visions we share.

In this sense it is all in our hands, that is, in this phase of transition for the community and for individuals.

Healing: therapeutic efficacy, symbolic efficacy

You are a chiropractor, you have studied manual techniques. But I've never seen you do too many breakouts, too many manipulations; use a lot of listening and reconnection herbs. Many people nowadays are better off thanks to shamanic and pranic work or profound jobs like family constellations or regressive hypnosis. Do you think that in the future the work of manual manipulation will diminish, will it come to the touch and then just to an energetic work even without contact?

I believe there are many ways to heal, some of which I have just mentioned. But see, the human touch keeps its important power, we often forget about going in search of some kind of technique. Il Tocco without judgment, full of awareness and trust.

I don't think what I do is "manipulate". Let's say that sometimes I create specific adjustments to induce the body towards a healthy path. It is an impulse, a stimulus to reorganization.

If you could give 3 daily good practice tips, which ones would you give?

In the end, perhaps really the basic ones: nutritious sleep, organic and natural food and exercise.

I believe that a form of movement that keeps the consciousness inside the body is essential. I'm not talking about that gym fitness you do while you have earphones or watch television.

The Earth needs us to stay inside our Heart, in our bodies, that we stand there in the healthiest, most rested, nurtured and functional way of doing the work you have to do through us.

You are also an expert in botany. Would it be incorrect to say that the same outcome of reconnecting a chiropractic session can be achieved by embracing a specific tree for a long time?

To those who asked me who my teachers are I would put alber i on top of the list . And I admit that hugging them, kissing them, and above all bowing to them, is healing .

I often sit in ceremony with them and listen to their profound wisdom. They are my ancestors, my teachers. We must take the time to stress the relationship with the trees, generous, humble, patient healers .

You came into contact with the Native American tradition. What is the most important lesson they have left you?

That medicine is in the heart . To get there you need a whole trip. You cannot set foot in reality in the full sense if you do not make this journey.

They taught me that a relationship lives in the story that springs from it, that lives within it. A story that lives in the body, that one could write, say, sing. Think also of the relationship with our mother earth: now the story of this relationship is studded with separation, destruction, climate crisis, extinction, pollution, loss of traditions, languages, myths.

We need to rediscover a creativity that is at the center of our heart to give rise to a new story that goes beyond ethnic groups, religions, species. And the protagonists of this story now must necessarily be mountains, lakes, deserts, oceans.

It is time to feel indigenous again, not copying ceremonies or primitive rituals but rolling up our sleeves, opening our hearts to the earth and letting it "form" us to return to a form of relationship that is real again.

In this moment of fears and worries, crises and changes which are the parts of the body that can accuse more of a serious contraction?

Perhaps the heart is the organ that gets worse. But basically it is the same organ that calls us to a connection, to a profound change that is powerful and heals when it happens.

We play everything on a kind of paradox: we should be ready and willing to explore also the cracks of our broken heart without fear to find again an integrity, to warm ourselves in the light of our Sacred Fire.

Work with pregnant women. What did you learn from them?

I always thank Life for this opportunity that gave me to work with pregnancy and birth. First of all I learned to trust in the mystery that the feminine has in itself, to respect it.

Then I learned to honor birth and life and these creatures I see coming, so necessary, even for the purpose of reconnecting with the Earth.

White sugar, white flour, junk food, negative thoughts. What else pollutes the mind / body system?

Pesticides, electromagnetic and nuclear radiation, waste chemicals, drugs, modified foods, carbon dioxide emissions, the excess of technology that deviates from natural rhythms.

Even words, beliefs, programming are powerful pollutants.

Thought, meditation and healing: how do they bond?

To know more:

> Chiropractic: what it is and what it is used for