Jungle Medicine [Paperback]

Connie Grauds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2004

"Jungle Medicine" is a story of medicine and magic. The author, Connie Grauds, is a pharmacist and a shamana. She stands with her feet firmly planted in two very different worlds...the world of the rational and the world of the irrational. "Jungle Medicine" is a memoir of the author's decade of shamanic apprenticeship in the jungles of Peru. This book takes the reader on a vivid personal journey into deep jungle medicine and magic.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Grauds has dared to explore a world in which spirit and matter meld and in which genuine healing is commonplace. --Larry Dossey, MD. cover quote

An epic of self-discovery and healing, as the author explores the luminous, magical, and mythic realms of shamanic reality. --Dennis McKenna, PhD. cover quote

"Jungle Medicine" is a wonderful book, filled with true magic..a truly inspiring tale of transformation. --Ralph Metzner, PhD. cover quote

About the Author

Connie Grauds is a pharmacist and shamana, and author of the book "Jungle Medicine." She is President of the Association of Natural Medicine Pharmacists; Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco; and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Minnesota, Center for Spirituality and Healing. Grauds is also Director of the Center for Spirited Medicine; Executive Director for the Spirited Medicine Alliance, a nonprofit; and also author of "The Energy Prescription" due out August 1st 2005 by Bantam.

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: The Center for Spirited Medicine (January 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974730300
• ISBN-13: 978-0974730301
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #737,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magic, mystery, and medicine, August 1, 2005

By 

Julie Cade (Onomea, Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jungle Medicine (Paperback)

In this classic tale of the dark night of the soul, a mainstream, mid-Western woman, trained as a pharmacist, travels to Amazonia to further her medical education. There she meets indigenous shamans, keepers of the secrets of the medicinal plants of the rainforest, and discovers that the key to healing is more than the pharmacological properties of the plants. Profoundly stirred by the spiritual energies awakened in her by the shamans she encounters, her science background fails to explain her emotional, physical and spiritual crises, nor does it offer her total healing.

Readers will relate to the author's life situations; who among us hasn't had a health challenge (in the author's case, cancer), a marriage gone awry, a job that doesn't fit, or a life that feels parched and devoid of inspiration? Not everyone will seek healing in the same way as the author, but her pursuit of clarity, purpose, and health is a universal human story, told with honesty, insight, and humor.

Jungle Medicine isn't an academic treatise on indigenous tribes, ethnobotany, shamanism, or ayahuasca, (the spiritual plant medicine used by South American shamans), although all of those topics flow throughout the story. Instead, the author's lush, sensual descriptions of the daily life-and-death dramas of the jungle, her ability to write of plant medicine pharmacology in a way a layperson can understand, and the information she provides about the natural medicinal riches of the rainforest, (increasingly endangered due to slash-and-burn agriculture and petroleum exploration), takes the reader on an exciting, tactile journey to the heart and lungs of the planet, the Amazonian jungle. More than a memoir of spiritual emergence and physical healing, Jungle Medicine is a call to action to all of us, to walk in tempo with the song of our life's purpose, to respect Nature's bounty, to make spiritual healing equally as important as our Western medical technology, and to act now to save the irreplaceable pharmacy that is the Amazonian rainforest.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful book on shamanism and healing, March 27, 2006

By 

Daniel J. Benor "Wholistic Healing Publications" (Medford, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jungle Medicine (Paperback)

Connie Grauds is an unusual person. She has apprenticed herself to a Peruvian shaman, Don Antonio and learned shamanic herbal treatments - in addition to being a conventionally trained western pharmacist.

Grauds points out that herbal remedies contribute significantly to our western pharmacopoeia.

"120 clinically useful prescription drugs worldwide are derived from plants, around 39% of which are used in the U.S. And 47 of these 120 drugs are derived from plants native to the tropical rainforests." (p. 17).

Grauds describes one of the remedies that Don Antonio uses.

" "Sangre de grado... Dragon's blood..." Don Antonio wiped some of the red sap from the tree and rubbed it vigorously on the back of his hand till it formed a white paste. He told us that he used sangre de grado orally to treat diarrhea, and topically to heal wounds, that it both stops bleeding and disinfects the wound. "It's the rainforest's mercurochrome," said Charles, adding that scientific research on sangre de grado had shown it to be effective in treating a variety of ailments." (p. 48).

While Grauds spontaneously developed strong intuitive awarenesses of plants prior to studying with Don Antonio, she had no idea what to make of these. It was only as she observed her teacher communicating with the plants in order to identify which of them would be appropriate for treating various problems that she came to understand her gift.

Even more important, she came to understand the spiritual component of healing that markedly augments the effects of herbal remedies.

As she advanced in her knowledge of plant lore and treatments, she learned to work with the remedies more deeply.

This is a delightful, insightful, healing book, warmly recommended to anyone interested in shamanism and particularly in shamanic herbal remedies.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars touched my soul..., July 23, 2005

By 

William Prescott (Kailua, Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jungle Medicine (Paperback)

Jungle Medicine is a marvelous story of radical personal transformation and luminous jungle magic. If you've ever wondered what learning from a genuine shaman is like, or what it's like to give up everything you thought was real and then finally understand true healing, then you will love this book. It touched my soul.