POCC interviews Queen Afua

[XXPANTHAXX]

POCC interviews Queen Afua
Date: Mon 10/11/04 10:20 AM
Heal Thyself: an interview with Wholistic Health Doctor Queen Afua
Part1 courtesy of The World Wind Newspaper (theworldwindnews@yahoo.com)
By JR, Natl Minister of Information of the POCC
Rashida, West Coast Chairwoman of the POCC

Last month, we went to the Black Womens Wholistic Health Conference at the Richmond Auditorium where we met Queen Afua, who is one of the most prominent Black wholistic health doctors in the nation. What that means is, she will not tell you to go home and take two Tylenol and four Vicatins for the pain that you feel in your body, like a normal pharmaceutical-dealing (dope-dealing) hospital would. Wholistic health doctors prescribe natural remedies like herbs, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, aromatherapy, meditation, and exercise, just to name a few, to heal dis-eases. Queen Afua has written Heal Thyself and Sacred Woman in her quest to educate the Afrikan community about our health and how to preserve it. She is also a much sought after speaker among Afrikan-minded circles in the U.S., who teaches our people in general, but our women in particular how to care for their bodies in the ways that we have since the most ancient of days. In a society where we are kept ignorant within these mis-educating schools and further taught to hate ourselves through the media, Queen Afuas teachings can help to bring us back to our natural independent state where we love ourselves enough to not need the slave-masters/governments hospitals to recuperate. We can depend solely on our knowledge of how our bodies work, in relation to nature, and heal ourselves. So read part 1 of this interview and learn something

JR: We are interviewing you at the Black Womens Wholistic Health Conference, why is it important for Black women to convene on such a topic?

Queen Afua: Because we have the highest incidents of AIDS, of diabetes, and of high blood pressure. Fibroid tumors are very prevalent in our communities. Its like a common cold but it is very serious, and it can be eliminated like a common cold, but it has to be done wholistically. So women are going to have to become more empowered naturally, in order to overcome these dis-eases. So this is an empowerment movement for women to overcome dis-eases; from having children who dont go full term in pregnancy, to children who are coming full term, but have crib death. So when women are empowered and they know what to do like their Great grandmothers did. They worked with the fields, they worked with the leaves, they worked with the herbs, they worked with the mud. When they become aware of that natural healing technique as in old times, and bring it to the present time, than we are able to eliminate dis-ease and this is the time for women to overcome because we are the foundation of the family. If the women are aware of wholistic natural healing, which is really Afrikan natural lifestyle, then the family is empowered and the men are not sick, and they dont suffer from prostate cancer and diabetes, and our children dont suffer from childhood dis-eases. So the power for healing is primarily in the womans hands.

JR: Whats the difference between western medicine and wholistic medicine?

Queen Afua: Wholistic medicine is actually Afrikan natural lifestyle. Afrikan natural lifestyle medicine started thousands of years ago in the temples. And so what we call wholistic healing, dealing with the body; healing for the body, healing for the mind, and healing for the spirit, there were certain techniques that we used to balance us out as Afrikan people. And for example when we look at wholistic health, we might categorize one of the techniques as aromatherapy, but that is an Afrikan form of healing. If we looked at herbology, thats an Afrikan form of healing; using the plant life to heal our bodies. When we deal with hydrotherapy, healing baths, and internal hygiene of the colon, that is how we healed ourselves, internally and spiritually. So everything that you see, all the different modalities of wholistic healing, is all Afrikan natural lifestyles; from the vegetarian lifestyle to fasting, to astrology. This is all how we lived our lives then, and we must take our ancient ways and bring them to the present.

Rashida: A lot of people think that jogging around the lake and having an apple a day is being healthy, and I know that there is a lot more to being healthy. So what do you think being healthy is?

Queen Afua: Being healthy first is a change of attitude, a change of mind. One of those things that we say in Heal Thyself is, I have the power to create in my life what I want it to be; purification of body, mind, and the spirit is the way back to health. You have to begin to take on a wholistic approach. Yes, jogging is a beginning. It is a good beginning step. Power-walking is a wonderful step, but if you do that and you dont eat healthy foods, and you eat fast food, processed foods, and junk food, even the running wont help. We have to use what is in nature to heal our bodies, and so learning to work with herbology, and bringing it into your kitchen; making your kitchen wake up as a kitchen healing laboratory, and making your bathroom wake up as your hydrotherapy room. These are techniques that we have to learn, to overcome all of the dis-eases.

JR: Youve used the word dis-ease. And when I was in your workshop, you said that all dis-eases are mental and psychological, can you expand on that? Can you explain the connection between the mental and the physical?

Queen Afua: Well mentally, Afrikan people here, from slavery, we havent gotten over our mental internal war. That slavery piece of 8-10 generations has mentally continued our dis-ease, so we continue the slave culture, the division. Light-skinned against dark skin, thats mental illness. The young against the old, thats mental illness. You need your elders. You dont need to put them in old-age homes. We need to gain from their wisdom. Separating genders, male and female, we cant get along with each other, that is mental illness. Having children out of wedlock because were not married, because we havent loved ourselves enough, thats a part of mental illness. Those are the end results of mental illness. Those are the end results of slave-trading. Eating soul food is actually a mental illness if we dont know, and that mental illness eats away at our brain, because that food clogs up our thoughts, clogs up our lungs, takes away our life-force, and thats why so many of us have diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer. The mind is connected to the body; whatever happens to you mentally and emotionally is going to show up in the body. The body gets it 5 years later, but the mind and the spirit received it years before. If someone has cancer for example, they had a cancerous soul, they had a cancerous mind. Life was eating away at them. Maybe their father was not in their life as a young child. Maybe their mother was out working all of the time, and so she could not be in their life, thats like a common scenario that is happening to our families. That affects the childs mentality, then when you grow as an adult, you have these rooms, these gaps, and these holes in your soul because your beginnings were so unbalanced, and that created your present-day depression, sadness; not able to be in harmony with your reflection, our brothers and our sisters because of what youve gone through from unsettled emotional baggage, from a child. Thats our mental illness. But we can overcome by taking on the village approach, taking on the community approach, and making our selves responsible to one another, not Im just responsible for myself, and my little children, and my husband. That is going to kill us. Whatever we have as a collectivethat collective energy is the power. Divided energy is the way that we destroy ourselves. Thats the Willie Lynch Syndrome continuing.

You can contact Queen Afua at (718) 221-4325 or at www.queenafuaonline.com

Look for this story in the October issue of the World Wind Newspaper (theworldwindnews@yahoo.com)
:waving:

[DJ RBG]

Damm look what I found in the archives

[Elisa Keisha]

yeah I remember readin this... thank u for bringin it back! she speakin some truth. savin this piece on my susbcribed threads for future readin

[QueenWarriorNefertari]

How can a sister get down with part II of this gem??? I don't mind subscribing to anything feeding my people...

PEACE

[WombanAuset]

Bump this back up to the top