January 2023 Dear Colleagues and Friends, As I move into this New Year of 2023 as well as this new chapter in my life, I feel counterbalanced with optimism for the future but weighed down by the frustrating worldwide controversies, upheavals and often corruption. While many prayed for hope, peace, joy, love and prosperity throughout the holiday and year-end festivities, we are still surrounded by reports of the disastrous events of 2022 that have changed the face of politics, economics and healthcare for far into the future. As I [...]

28 November 2022 Dear Colleagues and Friends, By now you’ve seen the “new” email format. I have been chastised and so all my extra and extended words will now fill up digital space on this website, rather than the somewhat irregular monthly emails of the past. Partly this has arisen as my IT Guru Chad told me about his impressions of the email “newsletters”. Additionally, he is also helping me prepare and download nearly five decades of data as we build the new OIRF website. So many changes in [...]

Passages, Links and Points of Interest October 2022 Catharine Isabell Winsor April 8, 1921* - Sept. 28, 2022† Since closing OIRF in June 2018, my employment status and work has been described as “supposed-to-be-retired” and I have happily continued regular – if shortened – working hours in my tiny home office as Praxis2Practice. Those of you who had met and knew my Mom Catharine can appreciate the deep bond that we shared on many levels (roommates for the last 18 years, mentor, proof [...]

Some Quotes and Links Summer 2022 Since closing OIRF in June 2018, my employment status and work has been described as “supposed-to-be-retired” and I have happily continued regular – if shortened – working hours in my tiny home office. For now, I offer my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to your recent emails and phone calls. My 101 year old mother is approaching the end of her life and although she is now in a care home I remain her primary care giver. [...]

May 2022 These have been dramatic times. The pandemic seems to be easing until the next scare-tactic takes over the media narrative, the war in the Ukraine, the terrible loss of life to senseless shootings in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX along with out of control politics and economics leaves each of us wondering how we can regain control of the craziness. Every day I remember that comment overheard at one of my online conferences that the only difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy is usually only [...]

Birthdays, Philosophy & Exit Strategies With the culmination of the 101st Birthday celebrations and activities for my beloved Mom Catharine, I’ve once again found myself wandering through the newsletters and ever changing information about the virus, the vaccines and the possible resolutions for the health of our families and patients. I’ve stated it before that without a doubt, this is a unique time in history – for conventional medicine, so-called alternative medicine, politics, economics and society as a whole. I am not so prideful and [...]

March 2022 There was a night recently where thoughts whirled and sleep escaped me. Rather than stew in frustration, I did a “Carolyn” and just sat at my computer in the early hours of a new day and wrote – just notes and thoughts and an attempt to make sense of recent events. It is certainly a turbulent and highly charged time in history. As I’ve mentioned before, I believe this is the time of millennial transition that many expected in those first few years of this 21st century. [...]

Rhetoric, Politics, History and Points to Ponder 09 February 2022 These are interesting and maddening times, are they not? But times of change – those moments of Kairos – are certainly never easy to participate in. In recent weeks I’ve had several reminders of the past and of the history that have once again compelled me to put my fingers to the keyboard and “spit it out” as the old saying goes. On the day I began writing, I was filled with optimism. In spite of the promise that [...]

January 2022 In a way, so much of the year 2021 was depressing and frustrating, and represented a time when as a people and as practitioners we simply had no control over the events and consequences of the pandemic narrative. I closed my 2021 messages on what I hope was a strong note of optimism. I have come to the understanding that this is the way of our “new reality”. We have come through the transition from pre-pandemic life and have arrived into the present situation that we must [...]

December 2021 During these final days of 2021 it is difficult to believe and understand the ongoing challenges of the p(l)andemic that have now extended into two years. My interest and curiosity about the history and background of our field has bored many during my lectures, but I still believe Sir Winston Churchill’s words: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Today, most people hear the news on TV and whether they like our current political leaders or not, are beginning to wonder “what [...]