March 2009

Hello,
As most of you probably know from your own lives, we are living in fast-moving, challenging and exciting times. In my own life, just a few weeks ago I attended a lecture in San Francisco given by Dmitri Orlov, a Russian engineer who gained a certain amount of notoriety by accurately predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union and what life would look like in Russia after this collapse. Interestingly, Orlov predicted that exactly the same conditions exist in the US today and, while he didn’t fix a date for his prediction of upcoming collapse, he left no doubt that, regardless of what any bankers or politicians do at this point, this collapse is on the way. Most of his talk covered the lessons he learned from living through the collapse of the Soviet Union and how these lessons can be helpful for us. You can read more about this at the Club Orlov blog.
On another front, in mid-March I am going to give a Heart talk at Freedom Law School’s 2009 Health and Freedom Conference in the Los Angeles area. The forum’s focus is half about health issues and the other half about how not to pay income taxes. Many of you are probably familiar with these issues, but if you are not, there are some very interesting ideas floating around these days about such things as the role of government in our lives.
Coming back to medicine and healing, in this edition we present some insights and concepts that have been quite helpful to me and my patients in recent months. I’ve been working with Pete Kinkead (Super Slow Weight Training) and Terry Rowles (NLP and Golf) for some time now, and have found their ideas to be useful and appropriate to the concepts of Fourfold Healing, so I asked them to share their ideas with you.
We’ve just returned from the fifth Fourfold Healing Conference in Weston, MA. That weekend I spoke on a topic that provoked lots of discussion – The Devil in Milk. I’ve written on this topic, both the book and its health implications, in an article below. A bit further on in the newsletter, Beth Ingham summarizes and shares her thoughts on the overall three-day Fourfold Conference, which was a great success.
We appreciate receiving your comments about our newsletter and our efforts, and hope you’ll continue to share with us as we continue along the Fourfold Path to Healing. Please send your story, your email and your thoughts directly to me at drcowansoffice@yahoo.com.
Wishing you warmth and good health,

Tom Cowan

The Devil in the Milk

I have been involved in thinking about the medicinal aspects of cow’s milk virtually my entire career. As one four-year-old child pointed out to me many years ago, “Mommy, I know why he always talks about milk, his name is Cow—an.” So, I guess this milk “obsession” is no surprise.
The obsession started in earnest about 25 years ago when I read the book The Milk of Human Kindness Is Not Pasteurized by maverick physician William Campbell Douglass, MD. This was one of the most influential books I have ever read. I became convinced that a large part of the disease in this country is related to the way we handle, or rather mishandle, milk and milk products. Raw and cultured dairy products from healthy grass-fed cows are one of the healthiest foods people have ever eaten. It is the very foundation of western civilization (not that this is necessarily so good). On the other hand, pasteurized, particularly low-fat, milk products have caused more disease than perhaps any other substance people are generally in contact with. This view was re- enforced when I met and joined up with Sally Fallon and learned the principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation. End of story, I thought – I could stop thinking about milk.
Over the years, every once in a while Sally would say to me, “You know we have the wrong cows here.” I had also heard this from assorted bio-dynamic farmers but didn’t really know what to make of this or whether this was a medical issue I should be tackling. All along, though, something was not quite right. It remained unmistakably true that many of my patients, in spite of eating only the proper dairy products, still had illness and still seemed not to tolerate milk. Truth be told, for most of my adult life I myself couldn’t drink any kind of raw milk without feeling a bit sick and congested. Somehow my story with milk wasn’t quite finished.
Along came the GAPS diet (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) and the use of low dose naltrexone, both of which I have described in previous Fourfold newsletters, but the relevance here is that many patients only improved and recovered when they eliminated milk (but not other dairy products) from their diets and took a medicine that stimulated endogenous (one’s own) endorphin production. Then, a further nudge on this topic showed up about a month ago. I was asked to consider writing the foreword to a book called The Devil in the Milk, written by agribusiness professor and farm-management consultant Keith Woodford. In this book Dr. Woodford lays out the theory that there is a devil in some of our milk, and this is something we need to come to grips with. Here is a brief synopsis of the main thesis of his book.
Milk consists of three parts: 1) fat or cream, 2) whey, and 3) milk solids. For this story we are only concerned about the milk solid part, as the fat and whey don’t have this “devil”. The milk solid part is composed of many different proteins which have their own names, lactose, and other sugars. It is the protein part of the solid we’re interested in. One of these proteins is called casein, of which there are many different types, but the one casein we are interested is the predominant protein called beta- casein.
As you may or may not know, all proteins are long chains of amino acids that have many “branches” coming off different parts of the main chain. Beta casein is a 229 chain of amino acids with a proline at number 67 – at least the proline is there in “old- fashioned” cows. These cows with proline at number 67 are called A2 cows and are the older breeds of cows (e.g. Jerseys, Asian and African cows). Some five thousand years ago, a mutation occurred in this proline amino acid, converting it to histidine. Cows that have this mutated beta casein are called A1 cows, and include breeds like Holstein.
The side chain that comes off this amino acid is called BCM 7. BCM 7 is a small protein (called a peptide) that is a very powerful opiate and has some undesirable effects on animals and humans. What’s important here is that proline has a strong bond to BCM 7 which helps keep it from getting into the milk, so that essentially no BCM 7 is found in the urine, blood or GI tract of old-fashioned A2 cows. On the other hand, histidine, the mutated protein, only weakly holds on to BCM 7, so it is liberated in the GI tract of animals and humans who drink A1 cow milk, and it is found in significant quantity in the blood and urine of these animals.

This opiate BCM 7 has been shown in the research outlined in the book to cause neurological impairment in animals and people exposed to it, especially autistic and schizophrenic changes. BCM 7 interferes with the immune response, and injecting BCM 7 in animal models has been shown to provoke Type 1 diabetes. Dr. Woodford presents research showing a direct correlation between a population’s exposure to A1 cow’s milk and incidence of auto-immune disease, heart disease (BCM 7 has a pro-inflammatory effect on the blood vessels), type 1 diabetes, autism, and schizophrenia. What really caught my eye is that BCM 7 selectively binds to the epithelial cells in the mucus membranes (i.e. the nose) and stimulates mucus secretion.
For reasons which are unclear historically, once this mutation occurred many thousand years ago, the A1 beta casein gene spread rapidly in many countries in the western world. Some have speculated that the reason for this wide spread of A1 cows is that the calves drinking A1 cows milk and exposed to the opiate BCM7 are more docile than their traditional brethren (in effect, they were stoned). This is only speculation, of course. But what is true is that basically all American dairy cows have this mutated beta-casein and are predominantly A1 cows.
The amazing thing for me is that all these years Sally was right: it’s not the fat, it’s not the whey, and it’s not raw milk. Consider French cheese – mostly due to culinary snobbery, the French never accepted these A1 breeds of cow, claiming they have lousy milk. Voila, they have good milk and cheese. Our issue in America is that we have the wrong cows. When you take A1 cow milk away, and stimulate our own endorphins instead of the toxic opiate of BCM 7, some amazing health benefits ensue.
So what are we all to do with this? Does this mean no one should drink US raw cow’s milk? One saving grace, as expressed in The Devil in the Milk, is that the absorption of BCM 7 is much less in people with a healthy GI tract. This also parallels the ideas of GAPS theory which talks a lot about this. BCM 7 is also not found in goat’s or sheep’s milk, so these types of milk might be better tolerated.
One final point: we now have one more thing to put on our activism to-do list. Dr. Woodford explains that it is fairly straightforward to switch a herd to become an all A2 herd. No genetic engineering is needed, no fancy tests, just one simple test of the Beta-casein and it can be done. Hopefully, when this becomes widespread we will end up with a truly safe and healthy milk supply. Then maybe I should just change my name.

Connecting Super-Slow, NLP,

Golf and Fourfold Healing

As mentioned above, this newsletter is meant to introduce a few ideas and people I have been working with over the past year, in particular those whose ideas have helped bring major improvements in my life and in the lives of many of my patients. The first concept is super slow weight training. Pete Kinkead, with whom I have worked for over a year, explains the history and theory of super-slow training in article below, and I would like to make a few medical remarks about this method.
The idea that high intensity weight training has profound physiological effects is very well established in the medical literature. The changes that occur seem all to be the result of the body’s mobilization in response to injury that occurs with high intensity training. Perhaps this mobilization response’s greatest effect is that, in order to repair the self-induced damage, a whole cascade of repair hormones, particularly growth hormone, are increased as a result of each workout. Growth hormone works to build up muscle and bone, lowers blood sugar, reduces chronic inflammation, and is as close to an anti-aging tonic as there is. Giving someone growth hormone is possible, but the risk in that is provoking excessive growth, i.e. cancer. There is no such risk when the growth hormone is stimulated by the high intensity activity of super slow weight training where it is made by our own glands.

Super slow training is also helpful for injured joints, as the inevitable muscle strengthening that results is often helpful in relieving pain and disability in the corresponding joint. The bone activation effect make super slow a good treatment for osteoporosis, which actually was one of its original indications. Super slow weight training may not be for the faint of heart but for those willing to put forth the effort, there are huge and varied benefits to be gained.
Terry Rowles, my golf coach who hails originally from England, is also a practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and one of the lead students of the founder of NLP. While I’m no expert on the history of NLP, I do know the surprising effect it has had on my playing golf. Using unusual exercises, Terry identifies areas in my game that cause me emotional and then physiological stress. All golfers, in fact all people in stressful situations, go through a host of strong physiological responses that, at the least, make it impossible to perform to one’s best. The key here is to try to break the chain of those responses.
Stress, of course, happens regularly in the game of life, and is in many people’s minds one of the root causes of illness. We get stuck in stress responses, triggered by a myriad of events, people, thoughts, etc.; these responses become habitual, and then our bodies and minds under-perform. Try as we might to “relax”, we become even more tense, more convinced that we can’t do whatever the task is in front of us. Working with Terry and his NLP-based exercises helps break this whole chain of events. The task that has been troubling can be seen in a new light, and we can then perform to our best capacity. This pattern is a crucial aspect of healing – stepping out of the way and letting the wisdom of our body shine through – and is a much more fun and invigorating way to go through life.
We’re pleased to hear from both Pete Kinkead and Terry Rowles about how these concepts work. Read on…

Introducing Slow Cadence Strength Training

The fast track to fitness is to go slow! If you are seeking to achieve and maintain an optimal level of physical fitness in the most efficient and effective manner possible (and who isn’t?), I urge you to discover the secret that I and many athletes and fitness professionals have recently found: the fastest way to get fit is to go slow. Very slow.
What I’m referring to is called slow motion or slow cadence strength training, and not only is it remarkably effective, but it offers convenience to those who are serious about their health but unwilling or unable to devote large amounts of time to fitness activity. This method of training requires commitment and hard work, but at the same time is intuitive and uncomplicated. It was the discovery of this methodology that led me to leave my corporate career and enter the fitness industry, and I greatly enjoy watching our clients experience unprecedented results with just one 20-minute training session per week.
Obtaining and maintaining our optimal fitness takes time and patience and comes down to two simple requirements: good nutrition and proper exercise. The body was designed or has evolved to get everything it needs from food and exercise, yet most of us continually try to shortcut what nature has already perfected. Huge industries have been created to sell us the latest innovation in fitness shortcuts, be it pharmaceutical, mechanical, or electronic.

I don’t mean to spoil the party, but no shortcut exists. Innovation has its place, and modern exercise equipment helps us exercise in a safer and more efficient manner. Furthermore, healthy food is more easily accessible than ever before and in wide varieties to those who seek it. But no gizmo, machine, supplement, or überfood will compensate for an unhealthy diet or a lack of proper exercise. I’ll leave nutrition education to respected authorities like Dr. Tom Cowan, but will address instead what it means to exercise.
Most exercise falls into one of two categories: steady- state or “cardio” exercise, and resistance or strength training. The former refers to low or medium intensity activity performed for extended periods of time and is considered beneficial for fat reduction, cardiovascular and respiratory health, and overall endurance. Resistance or strength training is associated with using weight or other resistive force against the movement of skeletal muscles in order to develop strength through muscular hypertrophy: the increase in cross-sectional area of muscle fibers.
I don’t dispute the benefits of steady-state exercise, but it does not appreciably stimulate muscular strength and the repetitive movements and inertial forces common to many such activities can be conducive to joint and connective tissue injuries.
It’s my contention that strength training is the most critical component of any serious fitness program. In addition to the obvious advantages of looking and feeling stronger, strength training also provides the following short- and long-term benefits:

- injury prevention and rehabilitation
- prevention of muscle and bone loss due to aging
- prevention of diseases such as adult onset diabetes, colon cancer, and osteoporosis
- lowered resting blood pressure
- reduction in body fat through increased resting metabolism
- relief of chronic back pain and arthritis pain
- and yes, cardiovascular fitness!
Simply lifting weight until we are tired or have performed some prescribed number of exercise repetitions does not constitute strength training, yet that is precisely how many people conduct their workouts. Since muscle tissue consumes calories even while at rest, the body will not build nor maintain any more muscle than it believes is required for survival, preferring instead to store unused energy as fat. If we want to build more muscle and strength than our daily routines require, we must make the body believe it’s not strong enough. To accomplish this, we must fatigue each muscle group to the point where it can no longer perform the work asked of it. We refer to this fatigue threshold as muscle failure, and it is the objective of each and every exercise.
Muscles create movement through the contraction of muscle fibers. There are several types of muscle fibers with varying characteristics, but what’s important to know is that some of them may recover and contract again in a matter of seconds if allowed to rest, and that the number of fibers activated is limited to what is required to perform the work at hand. The more quickly we can fatigue all available muscle fibers, the more efficient an exercise is in terms of time and work required.

The two factors that will defeat or unnecessarily extend an exercise are rest and momentum. Resting or pausing during an exercise will allow partial recovery and re-recruitment of muscle fibers, leaving others unused during the movement. Momentum is the tendency of a body in motion to stay in motion, and is a function of velocity. The faster we move in an exercise, the less force our muscles have to produce and the longer we have to work to reach failure. To eliminate or minimize rest and momentum in an exercise, we must perform it very slowly and continuously until failure is achieved. This is the key distinction between slow cadence strength training and other methods.
In addition there are two other primary reasons for moving slowly during strength building exercise:

1. Reducing acceleration greatly minimizes the risk of injury
2. Moving slowly increases the number of muscle fibers activated and the frequency that motor impulses are fired, thereby increasing muscle tension and subsequent growth stimulus
Just how slow you should move will depend on your physiology and the type of exercise equipment you’re using, but roughly we’re talking about 15-25 seconds for each complete repetition. This is about one-tenth to one-fifth the speed employed in most traditional training programs. Furthermore, there are no periods of rest within a given set of exercise. The muscles should be under load and working continuously until they can no longer continue. The weight or resistance setting should be adjusted such that failure is achieved within 90-120 seconds. With the exercise time held somewhat constant by adjusting the resistance, the amount of resistance then becomes the primary indicator of strength, and you’ll be pleased to see it increase steadily between workouts. At this pace, a full body workout consisting of 5-7 exercises can be completed in less than 20 minutes. Working a muscle group to failure is a challenging and intense effort, but without the intensity there can be no growth.
Once muscle failure is achieved, the stimulus for growth has been established and the body will respond without further incentive. Our job at this point is to let the body recover from the exercise and develop stronger muscle tissue in anticipation of further stress. For this reason, we perform just one set of exercise for each major muscle group at each workout, and then let the body recover before training again.
Muscle fatigue represents a mild physiological trauma which simply requires time to heal, just as a laceration or any other mild injury. The practice of training at a frequency greater than an individual’s recovery time is known as overtraining and can severely impede progress. Generally speaking, recovery time is approximately 2-3 days for people new to strength training and increases over time as workout intensity and neuromuscular efficiency are improved. Most of our clients train just once each week with significant results. While we strongly encourage clients to participate in other physical activity throughout the rest of the week, it is best to minimize very strenuous activity or at least space it several days away from scheduled training sessions so as not to impede proper recovery.
A viable slow cadence training program ought to include:

1. A distraction-free environment with consistent lighting, human occupancy, and cool temperature to prevent overheating
2. A consistent routine encompassing one set of exercise for each major muscle group, performed in the same order during each workout and with minimal rest in between sets
3. Each exercise is performed slowly through a full range of motion without rest according to established protocol and with proper form until muscle failure is achieved
4. Accurate and consistent tracking of all weights lifted and the amount of time before failure is reached
5. Sessions must be brief and infrequent, ranging from 20-40 minutes in duration and allowing ample recovery time of 3-7 days between workouts, depending on workout intensity and individual progress
A slow cadence workout is best performed on high quality, friction-free exercise equipment, but the methodology can be applied effectively to almost any apparatus or with no equipment at all. The workout can be performed without supervision, but a qualified trainer is strongly recommended if feasible. A skilled trainer provides guidance, education, safety, progress tracking, and accountability, all of which are crucial to a successful strength training program. However, it’s vital that the commitment to fitness be internally motivated and that we take personal responsibility for the work we are performing and the ensuing results.
Health, vitality, and time are our most precious resources, and an efficient fitness regimen is vital to preserving all three. The method I’ve described is neither new nor revolutionary and is rapidly growing in popularity, but is still relatively obscure among vast choices in fitness programs and facilities. I strongly encourage you to seek out and explore this training method for yourself, and am confident you will find it rewarding and effective regardless of your fitness goals. There are many excellent books on the subject, and we are more than happy to help you source trainers and facilities in your area or provide guidance for a personalized workout that you can perform at home.
Pete Kinkead is the owner/operator of Body Mastery Strength Training in San Francisco. He is SuperSlow Trained & Tested, a member of the IDEA Health & Fitness Association, and is Reality Therapy Certified. You can reach him at 415.265.6070 or info@bodymastery.net.

NLP and Golf

Although this is an article written by a golf coach about a golf theme, my studies and experience of what makes a golfer perform well have taken me into fields which have more to do with human beings and human performance generally, rather than golf specifically. So if you find that you are challenged in an area of your life, or that you would like to perform better in a certain context, then substitute the word golf for that area of your life where you would like an improved level of performance, and you can use the information in this article to throw some light onto that area of your life.
Before I start, it is interesting to set the context. I learned about the field of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) from my friend and mentor, Dr. John Grinder, the co-founder of NLP. One of the most memorable lessons that I learned from him, and that he learned from renowned cultural anthropologist Gregory Bateson, was this:

Case 1: If you have two billiard balls on a billiard table, and Ball 1 travels towards Ball 2 at a given speed, it is possible using a scientific equation to predict where the Ball 2 will end up.

Case 2: If, in the second case, you imagine (don’t try this at home) you have a person and a dog or cat, and the person were to kick the cat or dog, then would it be possible to predict the landing area of the animal?
While this is a light-hearted example, it is important to remember anything that requires us to work with living systems (human beings) is operating in the world of cats and dogs. The Newtonian approach to predicting billiard balls does not respect the cybernetic systems that regulate our very existence. Cats and dogs as well as human beings operate in a world where there are many variables that affect our behavior at any point in time.
Golf is a complex sport. Tiger Woods’ driver is moving at around 125mph when it strikes the ball, and this will send the ball to a distance of over 300 yards. As you can imagine, if the face of the club is pointing a few degrees away from the target at this speed, then the ball will travel off line by a significant amount, costing the golfer extra shots and lots of money! Imagine trying to consciously control the swing at this speed and at these fine tolerances. In fact due to the time that the signals from our senses actually take to reach our awareness, the club and our body are no longer where we think they are – the club may be up to 6 feet away from where we think it is.
As I write this article, I think back to this week to illustrate how I use NLP to coach golf. I was coaching a client on the PGA tour at the LA Open. He was having some putting problems. There were a number of possible interventions at different levels that I could have made to assist him in putting better. In order to be precise and to make the largest change with the smallest intervention, I listened to his story. He had a number of problems:

1. His wrist was breaking down (leading to off line putts).
2. This would normally occur when he would “freeze” over the ball.
3. Freezing would occur when he was not confident that he had made a good decision prior to putting his ball.
I could have chosen to fix his wrist movement, but as any good doctor knows, this would be fixing the symptom. Remembering that we are cats and dogs, not billiard balls, choosing the line of the putt is best done with the help of the subconscious rather than by more conscious interventions. The cause in the case he presented was “lack of confidence.” If we could fix that then he would be confident, would not freeze and his wrist would not break down.
The system that I use is known in New Code NLP as the Chain of Excellence. It presupposes that the mind and body are linked (sorry, Descartes).

The Chain of Excellence looks like this:

Breathing (shallow upper chest breathing)
Physiology (freezing/stiff)
State (lack of confidence)
Performance (missed putts through wrist breakdown)

Performance (in this case putting) is affected by the state of the client; the state is affected by the physiology of the client, and the physiology is affected by his breathing.
As a coach I use exercises which enable a client to optimize his or her breathing, physiology, and state in order to affect performance. I can then associate and anchor this state back into his or her context (in this case my client’s putting) so that he can perform more effectively. In this client’s case, this exercise normalized his breathing pattern, freed up his physiology, which improved his confidence and his swing.
In order to make these changes quickly and effectively, the games are best performed with a coach. However, the principle behind this change is that we can use optimum states to make changes in problem contexts. For example, if you are a runner, then think about your challenges while running to maximize the personal resources available to you. If you are not a runner, taking a walk or doing something in your life that makes you feel great prior to resolving a problem is an easy way to make a positive change.
Here is a drill that you can do to change a problem state associated with a context in your life.

Breath of Life

1. Imagine two circles on the ground, Circle 1 and Circle 2

2. Step into Circle 1 and imagine a context where you would like to improve your performance. See what you see in that situation, hear what you hear, and feel the sensations attached to that context.

3. Step out of Circle 1 and shake off any sensations attached to that context (small hops or spinning around will help here).

4. Step into Circle 2 and do the following breathing cycle for about 10 cycles.
Breathe in for 5 seconds duration
Hold for 5 seconds
Breathe out for 5 seconds
Hold for 5 seconds
Repeat 10 times

5. Without hesitation, step back into Circle 1 and into the original imagined context, then take a moment to sense how the pictures, sounds and internal sensations have changed. Imagining this context in this state will have an effect of “bridging” or connecting your optimized physiology to the future context.
Terry Rowles is a holistic golf coach and NLP Master Practitioner who adopts an integrated approach to golf improvement to make minimal change for maximum results. At his indoor golf studio in San Francisco’s financial district, he offers programs to all levels of golfers. Contact him at info@terryrowles.com.

References:
Chain of Excellence excerpted from Whisp ering in the Wind by Dr. John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair. The Breath of Life drill was developed by John Grinder.

New and Ancient Wisdom – Fourfold Healing Conference

On the weekend of January 30, 2009, more than 200 mothers, fathers, educators, health care practitioners and students gathered at the beautiful Westford Regency Hotel and Conference Center in the small New England town of Westford, MA for the 5th Annual Fourfold Healing Conference sponsored by New Trends, the publisher of The Fourfold Path to Healing and Nourishing Traditions.
Tom Cowan, principal author, and co-authors Sally Fallon and Jaimen McMillan are each stellar educators and practitioners, but when they come together, the synergy invites us to embrace an understanding of health and wellness as individuals and as a community of fellow beings that transcends what each does alone and goes beyond what we could have imagined. This is the Fourfold Path: nutrition, therapeutics, movement and meditation.
Tom offers us a way of understanding the physical body and hence the natural remedies that will help us re-member when we experience dis-ease. Sally with her incredible power point presentation teaches the brilliant work of Dr. Weston A. Price, helping us to understand how to feed ourselves and our families in the way that nourishes and satisfies the physical, mental and emotional body, allowing for manifestation of the true potential of the human being. Jaimen introduces us to his work, Spacial Dynamics, the interplay of the human being in space, the medium we live in like a fish lives in water. Through working with the space we inhabit, we can heal our physical and emotional bodies and learn to interact with fellow human beings in a harmonious way. Meditation follows and is the “space” we are invited to embrace and engage in as we continue on the path to healing so skillfully and compassionately revealed to us by this dynamic trio.
The weekend began Friday at 6pm with registration expertly carried out by Paul Frank, who also organizes the Wise Traditions Conferences. An opening reception welcomed us and gave us an opportunity to meet and mingle with old and new friends. This reception featured Nourishing Traditions appetizers: shrimp, salmon ceviche, Braunsweiger atop sourdough bread with crème fraiche and traditional pickles, roasted vegetables, local raw milk cheeses, delicious locally made ginger devotion Kombucha, and a special cheese cake offered by Chef Jim Glen. Introduction and presentations by Tom, Sally and Jaimen followed, giving us a glimpse into what the next two days would be bringing. Jaimen’s leaping down the aisle and onto the stage truly set the tone for this uplifting weekend.
While we were gathering, the generous sponsors Grainfi elds Australia, U.S. Wellness Meats, Green Pastures, New Trends Publishing and Radiant Life, along with exhibitors Weston A. Price Foundation, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, Gut and Psychology Syndrome, Holistic Dynamics, Dr. Rodd Stockwell’s Holistic Medical Practice, Miller’s Organic Farm, Pure Indian Foods, Groton Wellness, Zukay Live Foods and Katalyst Kombucha/Real Pickles were setting up their tables in the hall. The information and products these remarkable businesses and farms bring make it easier for us to embrace the practices introduced to us. Plus, the samples and good nature of all the exhibitors created a very festive atmosphere.
Saturday and Sunday both began with a gathering before group and individual sessions. The first session on Saturday was the group session with Jaimen introducing us to Spacial Dynamics. All 200 of us filled the room which made moving about in the “library”, the “workshop” and especially in the “bedroom” interesting and helped us awaken to the concept that we are both our physical bodies as well as the space around us. The next session had us choosing lectures with Tom or Sally or continuing with Jaimen’s movement exercises. After the delicious beef stew and apple crisp lunch (if you didn’t feel the need to take a long nap!), we gathered for the group session with Tom who, as only Tom does, presented a fantastic talk about something new to us, “the Devil in the Milk”. The last session of the day once again allowed us to follow our interest in diet, therapeutics or movement.
Sunday began with the group session featuring Sally’s amazing introduction of Dr. Price and her in- depth research and knowledge of the food industry. One can never go “back” after this! The remaining two sessions on either side of the incredible salmon and pumpkin pie lunch allowed us to be with Jaimen, Sally or Tom, either to follow one track the entire time or to experience each of them. Seems that one needs to attend Fourfold at least three times to begin to be satisfied!

The closing hour found us gathered together once again as Tom invited us to share personal stories of how we have been touched by this information while he, Sally and Jaimen respectfully listened. Tears flowed from many who shared how their lives and the lives of their loved ones have been enriched and healed.
One of the truly wonderful aspects of the weekend was the food. From the first meeting with Chef Jim Glen and the hotel’s program director, Mia Green, we were welcomed to help them understand our dietary requests. Sally laid out a delicious menu and sent the chef a copy of Nourishing Traditions. He started reading it and shared that the information was certainly different but that he was very open to trying it.

U.S. Wellness Meats generously donated the Braunsweiger and beef stew meat and Vital Choice Seafoods offered the salmon for both the ceviche and Sunday’s lunch. We received many outside donations of cheese, breads, vegetables, Kombucha, sauerkraut, butter, cream and fruit. Chef Jim was happy to use these contributions, and he even researched and obtained products from his distributors that met our needs. He began emailing questions: “Is cornstarch okay?” or “I couldn’t find coconut oil from the distributor. Can you get me some?” He was pleased to use arrowroot powder and Groton Wellness sent over a bottle of Radiant Life’s Coconut oil! He was especially interested in Real Pickles’ sauerkraut which didn’t need to be heated. And when the Kombucha arrived, he took a few bottles to the kitchen to share with his staff as they were really curious about it! He also was open to preparing soaked oatmeal, Nourishing Traditions pancakes, using organic eggs, and serving real maple syrup, cultured butter and sourdough breads at the regular hotel breakfast buffet. He was in awe at the oatmeal consumption!
Because of both his interest and his skills, Chef Jim and his wonderful staff created some of the most delicious and satisfying meals ever enjoyed at a conference. And, most amazingly, after the conference, we received a thank you from him sharing that in all his years as a chef, he had never written a thank you to a guest. He said he was “enlightened and educated by the experience” and that he found “staff and guests to be some of the nicest down to earth people I have dealt with.” Perhaps this says it all.

The Fourfold Healing Conference is unique and reaches out to not only those who attend it but to all who come in touch with this invitation to examine and embrace our lives with what may initially seem like new information but is really ancient wisdom.

Next year’s conference will be in southern New Hampshire. Hope to see you there!
Beth Ingham is an organic farmer, Whole Health Educator and Certified Nutritionist who lives in northern Massachusetts. She has been learning from Tom Cowan since 1993 and embracing Nourishing Traditions since 1997.

email: newsletter@fourfoldhealing.com
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