2003-09-30 Not Perfect but Whole

There's no heart as whole as a broken heart", is a Yiddish saying that Dr. Judith Orloff quotes in "Intuitive Medicine". I can't think of a more apt or concise description of healing and growth - which is what the book is about. The groundwork of the process requires that we be in our body, that we give it room and listen to its voice. We are vulnerable, physically, mentally and sexually, but this is by no means the tragic flaw of imperfection, as seen in classical Greek tragedy. For Orloff our very vulnerability is the cue we get to pay attention to our inner body-voice and listen to it with solidarity, compassion and generosity. It is also the starting point for the process of healing and growth, not to become perfect, but to become whole.
The beautiful and deeply meaningful Yiddish saying quoted above,
also reflects Orloff's poetic, metaphorical language. Systematic as it is in its layout, "Intuitive Medicine" reads more like imaginative writing - as we read, we perceive the whole before we understand the reasoning sequence behind it - we become participators. In keeping with the book's title and spirit, we could call this "intuitive reading" as we are guided into the deepest inner sources of our own creativeness.