MY CONTRARIAN (non-allopathic) ATTITUDE REGARDING HEALTH: includes probiotic, dental

April 20, 2026

WOW: I see that I forgot to post this draft on April 9th!

So I will post it now, and update afterwards.

 

Forgot to mention one crucial addition to yesterday’s post: I make sure I include a probiotic with every meal. My favorites? Kombucha, kimchi, yogurt.

Meanwhile, rather than going through my recently instituted twice-daily dental routine (three months now), a five-step process, I refer you to videos by Dr. Ellie Phillips, a dentist herself with decades of experience.  Amazing, and at first, seems counterintuitive, since she argues against flossing and her protocol includes products with fluoride.

I’m trying out her protocol, and will see my dentist later this month. Not to get my teeth cleaned (I’m done with that, thanks to Dr. Ellie), but to assess my situation from the dentist’s point of view compared to my last appointment, four months ago.

The point is, as an 83-year-old, of course, my gums have receded. And I’ve had more and more dental work done in the last few years: three teeth pulled, one cavity filled, one root canal. Want to arrest this process of likely losing my teeth. Hopefully, I have found the solution. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I don’t think I mentioned recently that I do not engage with the allopathic medical system. Have not done so for many years. The last time was when I broke my wrist stumbling over a hidden root on a forest trail. That was what, ten years ago? So I do engage with orthopedics if needed, and would, if necessary, rely on emergency medicine. Basically, I left allopathic medicine behind when I was about 30. And BTW: my father was an old-fashioned doctor who made house calls and my mother a nurse: I have a feeling they would agree with my contrarian attitude.

It bugs the hell out of me that I still need medical insurance and dental insurance, because, who knows?

But meanwhile, I think I’ve already said that what got me going first on taking care of my own health was the fact that, as a young woman, I couldn’t afford health insurance, given my chosen life-style, which has always included living below-money as far as possible.

I view money as a human-engineered scrim upon the living, breathing skin of the natural world. Unnatural. Unnecessary.

I know that’s a contrarian view. But it has served me well, so far. Meanwhile, at 83, the situation becomes more and more critical; the overton window (of personally allowed health practices) reduces to a narrowing tunnel.

The inevitable question, rearing up more and more urgently as I grow older: how to die well, and consciously?

I view a conscious dying process as the crowning achievement of a life well lived.

Hope I can live up to it!

 

Monday April 20, Addendum:

On Saturday morning, I discovered I would be hosting, not two people, but four people over the weekend, a couple in their 70s, with two others in their 20s tagging along. (Three of them I had never met before; one I’ve known for decades). They drove in around 3 PM, so I took them on my 1 to1.5 mile evening walk, and noticed I had to slow way down. Which is very hard for me . . .

Told them on Sunday that I would do my regular 3.5-4.00 mile morning walk at my regular pace. Three of the four joined me and did well, though the older one was obviously exhausted at the end.

Then, when they left, at about 2 PM, I was so energized I walked another 1.5 miles.

Then, when my neighbor told me she could resume evening walks with me (after knee surgery, many weeks later, she is now able to bend her knee), we walked yet another 1.5 miles.

When I got home from that walk yesterday evening I noticed that I still had energy. Could have walked further, much further!

Weird. How my energy, at 83, seems to be actually increasing, as long as I maintain my daily protocols.

P.S. Haven’t seen the dentist yet.

 

 

What Is Your Epistemology?

April 16, 2026

Or maybe I should say, “What is YOUR epistemology?”

I.e., how do you manage? control? integrate? interface the connection? division? between what’s inside you and what’s outside you?

And when I say “you,” I mean your “mind.” Your conscious mind, the I that you think you are, and as Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” (Corollary: “therefore only my thinking is me.”)

And yes, the question assumes a division between inside and outside, something that (we are indoctrinated to think?) newborns have to learn!

This is me, that is not me. Epistemology 101. Or maybe, proto-epistemology, that which is necessary before anything else is possible.

For Descartes, epistemology and metaphysics? ontology? psychology? were separate, divided, not recognized as two different realms?

Or maybe, for Descartes, the body was simply another object in the room.

 

As a doctorate candidate in Philosophy at Boston University, back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, my focus was decidedly epistemic.

I had undergone a crisis that broke my mental world wide open. And yes, it occurred with my first dose of LSD. For me, psychedelics were a teaching tool, not instruments of pleasure or escape.

That first dose suddenly catapulted me into “another world.”

WHAT?

My strongly held, dogmatic Roman Catholic world-view had just been relativized, to become one among many.

For if there is more than one world, than there are many worlds.

That instantaneous INTUITIVE conclusion opened, indeed electrified my right brain/heart.

Thank you, LSD (which I took only once more and also for what it could teach me.)

 

So there I was, suddenly broken open into awareness of many worlds. My former Cartesian epistemology shattered into an infinity of dimensionless points, any combination of which could be used to “frame up” a space to be filled with ideas.

Aside: For an astrological treatment of epistemological relativity, you might want to check out my e-book:

Saturn/Uranus in Sagittarius

 

In other words, what I wanted to “believe,” was up to me!

In other words, my LSD experience in my mid-20s anticipated the current, ongoing, and dynamically escalating crisis that has thrown both humans, and our history and institutions into an epistemic morass.

What is real? What is not? By what measure? Whose reality? What’s reality? And how does AI figure into all this?

 

Yes, here we are, over 60 years later, approaching the singularity, thanks to AI which not only mimics/duplicates the function of the left brain but is now exploding exponentially into infinity.

But the right brain/heart connection? Ignored. Sacrosanct. It’s the one Descartes epistemology doesn’t mention, except to say that “God (since God is “perfect”) guarantees that what I think I know is true.”

Okay, fast forward to NOW. Where in hell, or in heaven, or on earth, or in my body, or in my consciousness, increasingly sensed as paradoxically both alone and all-one ARE WE???

Time to balance the left and right brains, folks. Time to allow our intuition its own escape velocity.

Which reminds me: back when I was beginning to question everything, I asked my teacher, Joseph Agassi — a Popperian, and ultimately positivistic philosopher who however, sensed that positivism was a dead end — about “intuition.”

“Intuition?” Agassi sniffed dismissively: “There’s no way to prove it!”

Yep,  intuition has to be stuffed back where it belongs, lest it upset  the left brain dominance that still infects our scientistic society.

BORING!