Do you know what your "Original Medicine" is?
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 5:19PM Many cultures believe that each individual is “original medicine” - a creation that nowhere else, never before has been created.
Nor will it be again in the future. Though we share much of our genetic map, anatomy, biology and physiology with other humans and animals, no two people are the same. We may have the same number of chromosomes and bones, similar blood types and skin, eye or hair color. However, our particular genetic expression, voice, fingerprint, gait, and personality are all ours alone.
No one else now, ever before or ever again, carries the same combination of gifts, talents, resources, opportunities and challenges. The unique formulation that we represent is our “original medicine”.
The term “medicine” in this usage connotes not simply a healing balm or potion, but our power. Our medicine feeds our “personal power”. It is our capacity to explore, discover, create, express, grow and heal. Our original medicine is also our “authenticity”. Our authenticity is who we are absent our roles, facades, opinions, and judgments.
Authenticity represents our “true self” without self-deception or self-criticism, but with a fair and an honest assessment of what actually is, free of self-deprecation or inflation.
We are most fully in our personal power when we are expressing our authenticity. It is our destiny (i.e. why we are in a body on the planet), through the skillful use of our personal power, to bring our healing medicine into the world. Our unique original medicine fuels our passion and inner fire, allows us to hear our calling, defines our purpose, provides the vision to imagine our life’s dream(s), and energizes us to manifest in the world. Together these ignite and fuel our work in the world. The expression of our unique gifts and talents serves those around us (our families, friends, teams, communities, etc.) and contributes to the “greater good”.
“Every person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique. It is the duty of every person…to know and consider…that there has never been anyone like him in the world, for if there had…there would have been no need for him in the world. Every single person is a new thing in the world and is called upon to fill his particularity in this world. Every person’s foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, be it even the greatest, has already achieved.
The same idea was expressed by Rabbi Zusya when he said a short while before his death: ‘In the world to come I shall not be asked, Why were you not Moses? I shall be asked, Why were you not Zusya?’ “ Martin Buber (1878 – 1965)
Reference: Angeles Arrien, The Four Fold Way, New York, HarperCollins, 1993.
THE QUESTION: what is your original medicine?