Professionals offering a variety of alternative approaches to health and well-being are banding together at the local level --in communities scattered nationwide-- to promote an awareness of options to Western allopathic medicine.
Sitting in an Internet cafe on Willamette Falls Drive in historic West Linn, a suburb south of Portland, Oregon, I am being educated about one such wellness community by a local resident, my old friend Donald Altman, author of Meal By Meal, The Art of the Inner Meal and many other books on healing, spirituality and food. He is co-founder of West Linn Counseling and conducts workshops on mindful eating throughout the nation.
This particular organization is composed of 25 business owners in West Linn, all located in a five-block area of Willamette Falls Drive, who have signed on to "promote health and wellness" in their community. Members include chiropractic clinics, counseling centers, massage therapists and bodyworkers, acupuncturists, an organic bodycare store, and a natural health products store.
"We have become a place that attracts people who have been unable to find healing elsewhere," Donald tells me. "This community is dedicated to a spirit of optimism about the future of health and healing. As an organization it has only been around for two years, but we are already known in the region as a wellness village and have drawn many more wellness practitioners."
Periodically I will be profiling wellness communities to spotlight a trend worth watching and encouraging, as our culture continues to institutionalize integrative medicine into our daily lives.
