Ep. 3: SERAPHINA CAPRANOS ~ The Wound Reveals the Cure
In Episode 3, I sit down with Seraphina Capranos, a renowned clinical herbalist, homeopath, and internationally sought-after teacher, to delve into the landscape of health sovereignty, emergent illness, and community care. We discuss my journey with chronic Lyme disease, the “call and response” of invasive species, and the impact of climate change on our health. Seraphina is the founder of the Centre for Sacred Arts, and she offers profound insights into the natural world, the healing power of plants, and the possible symbiosis of herbal and western medicine. "We aren’t just connected to nature,” she reminds us, “we ARE nature. Our modern illnesses reflect what's happening in nature. They are a direct mirror of the earth.”
Seraphina also shares: “The role of the healer is the teacher. It's one who's able to translate, and mediate, the conversation between nature, the human body illness and everything in between. And it's one who sees the whole weaving of it all. Because we don't get sick in a silo. And we don't heal in a silo. It's the interconnection of all things. It's how is your heart? And who is your community? And how are you being fed? And what is your relationship to food and water and nutrition and light, and other beings? This isn't just romantic, this is truly: we heal and we get sick in an ecosystem, whether that ecosystem is healthy or broken down.”
In this episode, we discuss:
· Bridging herbal medicine & western medicine
· The need for health sovereignty and medical justice
· The relationship of Lyme disease to climate change
· The call & response of invasive species in ecosystems
· Ritual, ancestral wisdom, and community care
About Seraphina Capranos:
Seraphina Capranos is a clinical herbalist, homeopath and initiated priestess, with a practice spanning across two decades. Her journey onto the path of healing was inspired by her mother who is a healer herself. Like many cast onto the path of healing and spiritual training, it was pain and suffering that led her into the forest to seek the answers to life's big questions. First, it was an injury that left her bedridden with debilitating pain as a teenager. And just a few years later, the intractable disease, then sudden death of her father that sent her on a spiritual quest at such a young age. Today, as well as being a deeply engaging teacher, and speaker, she has a clinical practice on Salt Spring Island. Her unique blend of gifts straddles the vast worlds of plant medicine, homeopathy, and ritual and ceremonial magic. She is a sought-after international teacher, and the founder of The Center for Sacred Arts
Transcript of Episode 3, SERAPHINA CAPRANOS: The Wound Reveals the Cure
Alessandra Naccarato 0:08
Hello and welcome to Imminent Domains: Conversations at the Crossroads of Art, Ecology and the Body, a companion podcast to Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene, an essay collection by myself, Alessandra Naccarato. Today, my guest is herbalist, ritualist and homeopath Seraphina Capranos. Welcome Seraphina.
Seraphina Capranos 0:36
Thank you so much, Alessandra, for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Alessandra Naccarato 0:41
It is so wonderful to have you here. Such a true honor. And I am so excited for the conversation we're about to have, after years of long conversations and studying with you, at your hearth in your home, fireside, deep in the woods. This is a real pleasure. And I'm going to start just by reading your bio to give people a bit of a sense of who you are, and then we'll dive right in Seraphina Capranos is a clinical herbalist, homeopath and initiated priestess, with a practice spanning across two decades. Her journey onto the path of healing was inspired by her mother who is a healer herself. Like many cast onto the path of healing and spiritual training, it was pain and suffering that led her into the forest to seek the answers to life's big questions. First, it was an injury that left her bedridden with debilitating pain as a teenager. And just a few years later, the intractable disease, then sudden death of her father that sent her on a spiritual quest at such a young age. Today, as well as being a deeply engaging teacher, and speaker, she has a clinical practice on Salt Spring Island. Her unique blend of gifts straddle the vast worlds of plant medicine, homeopathy, and ritual and ceremonial magic. She is a sought after international teacher, and the founder of the Center for Sacred arts. She's also my teacher, my mentor, and my friend, someone who has transformed my way of knowing and understanding the world around me. And you're someone who really came into my life at a moment of transformation, initiation, really a crisis of illness. And I would say, who helped me navigate those waters, those dark forests, in a way that brought me to a place of deep meaningfulness and relationship and wellness within with myself, really, and with lineage and so I am so grateful for your presence in my life. I'm so grateful for the work you do in the world. And I am really just so glad to be here in this moment with you.
Seraphina Capranos 3:36
Thank you so much, Alessandra. It's mutual. I love how our lives have woven together for many, many years.
Alessandra Naccarato 3:44
I would love if you could introduce us a bit to your work, in your own words, and to what brought you onto this journey, this path that you're walking and bringing other people on to as well.
Seraphina Capranos 4:03
Sure. So while my title is herbalist, homeopath, teacher, ritualist, I'd say my deep commitment to the earth and my mission in life is to help people remember what it means to be human on the earth today, and I really believe that so much of our purpose as a human being is to be of service to the land and each other. I think, by our very nature, human beings are helpers. I think we've gone way, way off that course. But I think at our very heart and soul, I think human beings, and you see this in children, where there's a natural proclivity, there's a natural desire to help and to help the wounded bee, I watch this in my baby nieces, right? They want to help the hurt cricket and they want to help the little sunflower that bent too strongly in the wind. So I think part of our human nature is truly to be of service and and being of service, this is what I've seen in my clinical work, it brings meaning to people's lives. So, my work, my passion, my mission is to help us remember our way home. And to help people feel their sense of meaning and have it be in service to others and not others being human beings, but non human beings as well. So how I got here, much like you spoke to in the introduction, like many people's through hardship, so the blessing of my family was I was born in a family that immigrated to Canada when my mom was small, and they brought with them their tradition of healing, which is herbal medicine using plants. My grandparents, my maternal grandparents, grew up in a village that didn't have a doctor, so much like many of our ancestors. That meant you had to learn how to take care of a lot of things on your own in your own home. And if things got really bad, you could travel by a day or maybe even longer to get to the nearest doctor. So things were very different 80, 90, 100 years ago, and so I grew up in a home where we didn't go to the doctor. And it wasn't because my family was anti-establishment, it was just merely not what they knew. So I was raised by a mother, I think I saw Doctor once in my whole childhood. And it was because I was bitten by a squirrel. I was feeding a pregnant squirrel peanuts every single day. And one day, I was a little too enthusiastic. And she ended up biting me. And I still have that scar today. So that was my one adventure to the hospital when I was I guess, six or seven years old. And I would, I would spend a lot of time in this maple tree, I would bring my books up to the maple tree and I'd sit in the maple tree, I'd bring snacks up to the maple tree, and I'd sit quite high up. And that's where me and my friend the squirrel would hang out. So that was my one trip to the hospital. I wanted to help I wanted to make sure she was getting all the food she needed. Her belly was so huge, I still remember it vividly. She did bring me her babies and introduce me to her babies later. So we kept up a good friendship. So I grew up with herbs, I grew up with cammomile for our conjunctivitis, and lindin for our fevers and sage for indigestion and drinking cod liver oil to keep our immune systems up and herbal plasters and poultices and all the rest, fresh garlic for sore throats. So I grew up with a lot of home remedies that are in many families. This is not unique to me, this is how humans have been doing it since the beginning of time. And so I grew up in steeped in this tradition. And then when I experienced my own health crisis as a teen, my mother did bring me to doctors and they all said surgery was the only option and I'd never be able to ride a bike. And I'd never be able to do all these things that I now do have and have since in my 40s now, but it did set me on a path of being really curious of two things. Number one, like many I wanted to rebel against my family and go to medical school, and I ended up going to University of Toronto and pursuing sciences. But on the other hand, it was the herbs and then seeing a homeopath from India, that took away the pain. It was incredible how it happened. And not only did I ride a bike and get to do all the things I lived without chronic pain. After a couple of years of treatment, I was able to find my way out of chronic pain and so I wanted to help other people. I wanted to know what this was like I knew herbs for cough and colds and flus. But could herbs really help for more serious complicated conditions? And if so, how? And same with homeopathy, which was elusive and these little white pills that you dissolve into your tongue that are made from these dilutions. How did that work? And this homeopath from India had, you know, long waitlists and people around the block getting to wanting to see him, and I was intrigued. I was intrigued that we barely spoke the same language, and yet he completely knew what to give me. And it helped, and it helped. So as a teen I was straddling going to university, applying, getting into sciences, but also being drawn to the path of my what my family introduced me too, which was natural medicine, and fascinated that the earth could heal and fascinated that the Earth held not only remedies but a legacy have medicines that have helped people throughout the arc of time. And this pull that me it was like this thread that just coaxed me and courted me, as I was trying to be the studious university student, which gave me a lot of information. I'm very grateful for my university studies. But it was the lure back home, I would say to the earth, and then of course, coupled with my father's tragic sudden death, he was dying a very horrible disease and, and the only thing that brought him relief in the evenings was when I would press acupuncture points on his feet, acupressure points on his feet. And then he would take certain herbs and he that he was able to pass urine and he was able to be comfortable. And once again, I had a foot in my university education and saw this literally at home where medications weren't helping him in the way that we all hoped and thought. I want to clarify something here that I am not at all anti-medicine and pharmaceuticals and good hospital medical care, I think it can save lives, and it does save lives. But my my goal, my mission, my love is seeing the two rivers together, right is to see these traditions weaving. And over the years, as a clinician, I've seen that, and I think that's the ultimate healthcare is the the technological medicine of today and the traditions of this timeless practices. It's the integration of the two that I think will help us move forward.
