| Since the time you stood in line for your eye test at | | | | eye(s). The healing process requires the patient to be |
| school, you've thought that your eyes are either | | | | an active participant, asking him/her to look at his/her |
| good or bad. If you "failed" the school eye test, you | | | | involvement in the eye condition. This approach goes |
| were told to see an eye doctor. The doctor probably | | | | beyond simply treating the symptom or even clearing |
| told you that your eyes were weak, long, short, | | | | up the physical condition. |
| cloudy, or had too much pressure. Blurriness, double | | | | Drawing on this metaphor, you can begin to think of |
| vision, eyestrain, cataracts, glaucoma, iritis, | | | | your eye condition as an indication of what is |
| nearsightedness, and other eye conditions may have | | | | happening in your mind's eye. It's a combination of |
| been involved in the diagnosis. | | | | your thoughts, beliefs, fears, and angers. It also |
| Your mother, father, or other family members | | | | includes perceptions picked up from your parents, |
| probably comforted you by saying that you inherited | | | | siblings, teachers, and others. This is why people don't |
| their "weak" eyes. You solidified the perception that | | | | all develop the same eye conditions. Each of you |
| you had a problem. For most of you, each visit to | | | | carries your own unique imprint of past patterns of |
| the eye doctor meant further bad news. Your eyes | | | | perception. You visit your traditional eye doctor with |
| needed a stronger lens prescription, surgery, or | | | | a symptom perhaps blurriness, eyestrain, "floaters," |
| medication. The belief that your eyes were bad | | | | or pain. Your eye doctor examines the eyes and |
| became further ingrained. Could it be that this thinking | | | | takes various measurements. She then makes a |
| contributed to the decreased capability of your eyes | | | | comparison to some norm and informs you whether |
| to do their job? | | | | or not you fit into that norm. If you don't, some |
| Let's think about our aboriginal counterpart again. In | | | | remedial measures may be suggested. These are not |
| the middle of the jungle there are no optometrists or | | | | substantially different from the African ritual, and |
| ophthalmologists. If and when the jungle-dweller | | | | they usually take the form of eyeglasses, contact |
| experiences a problem with his eyes, such as a sore, | | | | lenses, laser eye surgery, or medication. |
| puffiness, redness, or blurred or impaired vision, he | | | | Contrast this familiar approach with that of the |
| visits the local medicine man or shaman, where, in | | | | modern preventive eye doctor, usually a functional |
| addition to obtaining a cure, he is encouraged to | | | | optometrist. Like the shaman, he or she views the |
| explore why the gods or spirits are making his eyes | | | | physical eye as a mirror of the mind's eye. In effect, |
| the way they are. In a sense, the shaman acts as a | | | | your eyes reveal something about your inner |
| teacher by helping the person to determine the | | | | perceptions, either past or current. The obvious and |
| cause of the condition. | | | | ideal situation is to combine Western and traditional |
| For example, redness with swelling may be | | | | shamanistic approaches, use the technology of a |
| metaphorically associated with inner anger or upset. A | | | | vision-fitness lens prescription, and enlist your eye |
| ritual might follow. Perhaps a natural concoction from | | | | doctor or a suitably trained professional to help you |
| vegetation, animal juices, and soil (we would call it a | | | | examine the types of perceptions you have in your |
| poultice) is given to the person to place on the | | | | mind's eye. |