A message from Dr. Kate Brooks:

The beginning of healing in my life started with my ancestors. On my mother's side, I come from a line of healers and negotiators of the Abenaki people, "the people of the rising sun" (or dawn). On my father's, there is a tradition of healers and seers of the Celtic, druidic and gypsy welsh. These ancient ones have brought their wisdom and knowledge to me through dreaming since childhood, and through their continuous guidance in my work.

My great grandmother, in my "raising family", was also a healer and caregiver well into her eighties. Her daughter, my grandmother, also had her doctor's bag full of herbs, plasters, and salves, which she used for the care of family and neighbors. These women had a profound effect on how I viewed my possible contributions as a female and as one human being to another. I was very proud of their efforts. Where I grew up, in the rural areas of the north-east kingdom on the Canadian border, the "doc" might make a home visit on occasion, but folks cared for each other in "traditional" manner, ate from the wild or from home gardens, and worked outside everyday. People were generally quite healthy and lived long. Everyone I grew up around was working in saw mills, logging, hunting, chopping wood, gardening and farming into there eighties and nineties. That stayed the norm until the nineteen seventies when modern life intruded. Then I observed that people started aging and getting sick in their fifties, and dying in their sixties.

At fifteen, I began my journey, working in one of the country's first health food stores. This was well before there were supplements available. Learning the names and uses of two hundred and fifty herbs and helping people with their health problems was so exciting. I knew I had been blessed - with this opportunity to learn so much.

I also dealt with my own healing crisis with herbs and hot and cold treatments after a well-meaning friend took me to an allopathic practitioner who asked me to please leave his office before I died there. I had a very serious case of walking pneumonia. Another friend asked if he could care for me, and under his natural healing treatment, I was up and well in thirty-six hours. Now I was really sure that natural health care was the way to go!

The following year brought me to Europe where the medical care was mostly natural pharmaceuticals and where dietary traditions were still recognized as life giving. In my ignorance, I partook of the water and stopped digesting well. The pharmacist gave food enzymes, advised a fast, and "clearing foods" thereafter. I followed that regime and happily was cured with no reoccurrences. How simple yet profoundly perfect!

The subsequent year brought family. I was the first "rooming in", natural birth, nursing mother any of the hospitals in our area had ever seen. Because I could find no midwife to assist me, I decided that there must be many women who wanted such care. I embarked on the study of midwifery and became certified with a group from the famed "Santa Cruz" midwives. Mine was the first practice of midwifery in that region since the nineteen forties. I practiced for another ten years in the States. That time of sharing in the sanctity of new life and growing families was the greatest gift.

There came a time when I felt it was best for my children to gain broader horizons. I wanted them to know and understand the world. I felt it was especially important to confirm in their minds that all people, no matter what origin, color, or culture, are essentially the same. I had, at eighteen, taken compassion as a quality of spirit that I wished to know and understand well. Naturally, I wanted to both expand my "knowing" of this quality and to assist my children to view others with empathy and "see" with their hearts into the hearts of others.

Moving my family to South America gave us all the opportunity to learn and grow past the traditions of our homeland. Amazingly, I saw "traditional" healers there using the same techniques as the true "traditional" healers employed at home. The markets were full of herb ladies and we exchanged knowledge weekly. Out in the "campo" it was often the case that care and government agencies convinced the people to forget their traditional healing methods and to go to the visiting doctors clinics. As modern life crept in, the health of the people deteriorated. When the doctors of modern methods moved on, the people then had no faith in their traditional means and no way to implement modern means for themselves. My work then became finding the traditional healers and learning from them. I also taught to them methods of natural care that I used. The old ways, complimented by "new" methods that they could practice for themselves, worked extremely well and it was reported that many lives were saved. This type of action brought people together to discuss the community well being, as in the traditional manner of handling life. In this way of life, when the elders decide that a plan is good, they then ask all the people to comment. I saw often that the youth got excited about handling their own affairs again, and were inspired to stay in their villages rather than try the city life. The people were very proud of who they were and felt appreciated when that was honored. In reality, it was I who had the honor.

During my time in South America, I was commissioned to write a book on moral education through the ministry of education. That compilation was used throughout South America as a means of inspiring discussion amongst children and youth about how they would respond to life situations with forethought and compassion. I was also able to develop the first program for learning disabilities and new methods of teaching languages and sciences. My approach is always to do what ever I can that needs to be done, do it with the best intention, and then it will all work out well. Following that path has offered me many opportunities for which I am always happy and grateful.

After seven years there, I moved my family of now eleven children, to Africa. This is a continent that is awe inspiring in it's complexity. The land, animals, and a truly wonderful diversity of people added so much to all that I had learned with the people of South America, whether gypsy, indigenous, Mestizo, or European. Much the same mix exists in Africa and it is always amazing to see tradition and language change in a heartbeat as one moves from one tribal area, city or village to another. Whereever I traveled, there was the same desire for modern but natural methods and openness to learn and give of their knowledge. I am ever grateful to have been allowed entry into the homes, villages and lives of the peoples of these two continents.

Upon returning to the states, I embarked on a naturopathic degree, graduating from Trinity College of Natural Health. Adding to the core curriculum were many seminar-based programs that gave me a highly creative view of the practice of orthomolecular medicine. Biochemistry is the core of orthomolecular medicine. Analyzing the chemical factors within the body gives an accurate overview of what is working well and what needs augmenting in order for optimal functioning.

Opportunities to study with the founders of catalyst energy work and holistic iridology have been revealing and have added new dimensions to my concept of holistic healing. These tools are critical to bridging the gap between purely physical care and care of the whole person; the spirit, mind, and emotional character, as well as the temple that we live within.

At the Living Well Center, all aspects of the individual are equally important to the regaining and maintaining of true health for the whole person. This is the most exiting work I've had the privilege to be a part of.