Image of the Week: The Scientific Tradition
© D. Yael Bernhard
This illustration is titled after the chapter of the book for which it was commissioned. Healing Wise, published in 1989, was one of the first books I illustrated – not a children's book, but a unique guide to herbal healing and nutrition that outlines the basic principles of earth-based medicine, and dedicates whole chapters to specific plants. The author, master herbalist Susun Weed, coined the term "Wise Woman Tradition" to refer to this school of thought. I contributed over thirty interior illustrations to the book.
In Part One, Susun defines three traditions of healing: the Scientific Tradition, the Heroic Tradition, and the Wise Woman Tradition. Although modern, industrial or "allopathic" medicine is commonly referred to as "traditional medicine," it is only one tradition among many, and by far not the oldest or most traditional. Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and Western earth-based medicine all stretch back over millennia, while modern medicine is still in its adolescence, complete with the presumptuous arrogance that goes along with immaturity. What we are told is solid "science" today is apt to be overturned tomorrow – with many an outcome gone awry along the way.
Susun calls modern medicine the Scientific Tradition, and describes it as "ways to fix the measurable machine body." "The Scientific Tradition sees healing as fixing," she writes. "The line is its symbol: linear thought, linear time. Truth is fixed and measurable. Truth is that which repeats. Newton's universal laws and the mechanization of nature are the foundation of the Scientific Tradition. Bodies are understood to be like machines." In this tradition, healing plants are treated like chemical factories: active ingredients are isolated, concentrated, and administered as drugs, with a narrow lens on separate body parts with separate problems. Processes are delineated. This approach can be brilliant when fixing is needed, such as in the case of trauma – but when healing is needed, such as for deeply rooted chronic conditions, the Scientific Tradition can create as many problems as it solves. In the Wise Woman tradition, by contrast, the connection among body systems is a fluid one, and line between nutrition and healing blurs.
With all this in mind, my illustration of the Scientific Tradition shows man as machine and medicine as a series of calculations. Black and white was used throughout the book, but it's especially appropriate here – for this is black and white, hard-edged thinking, driven by profit and standardized into one-size-fits-all protocols.
Back then, I was using a rapidograph for b&w work – a precision inking pen with a tiny metal nib that had to be hand-filled and cleaned. These days, more and more publishing is onscreen, where color is rarely restricted, thus decreasing the demand for b&w art. Now if I get a b&w assignment, I resort to the disposable marker version of a rapidograph, which is every bit as good for reproduction purposes and much less expensive. Still, I miss my old precision rapidograph . . . I bought my first one with money I earned babysitting as a teenager.
Looking back, I wish I had understood more about machines when I did this illustration – something I learned to appreciate years later when I started doing technical illustrations for patent applications. Perhaps I could have created a machine more directly symbolic of Susun's concept, such as a stuck valve or stripped threads. The sad truth is that many people take better care of their cars and lawnmowers than they do of their own bodies. And our minds, craving neat resolutions and feeling comfortable with the authority of "experts," cling to a formulaic approach. The Wise Woman Tradition, by contrast, is messy, open-ended, individual, spiraling around in organic growth and discovery. Those are my words, as I've come to understand herbal healing in the 30+ years I've practiced it since illustrating this book.
As for the Heroic Tradition, Susun defines this as a dualistic view of the body as a "dirty temple" that must constantly be purged and cleansed. Heroic healers may use either herbs or drugs as tools in striving for this ideal state – one which Susun contends is unattainable, for it's at odds with nature. The religious undertones are obvious.
Illustrators must often learn about the subjects they're assigned to illustrate. In this case, I took the subject to heart. I've practiced herbal medicine ever since, with extracts, infusions and poultices I make myself, many from plants and mushrooms foraged in the fields and forests around my home. I'm deeply grateful to Susun Weed for introducing me to herbal nutrition and healing. How lucky am I, to create art for a cause that enriched my life?
Three years ago I was once again commissioned to illustrate Susun's latest book: Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines. This time, I was also invited to give editorial input on the manuscript. I was most honored to contribute.
A good week to all!