You’re wondering why a health care company has a lion as a logo, right? Or what on earth we’re doing openly specializing in ethnomedicine and where that came from, perhaps? There’s the long story and the short story. We’ll go somewhere in the middle as best we can.
You can’t really understand the story of Embody Healing, LLC without having a little bit of information about our founder David. All four of David’s grandparents came from a different culture and contributed to the folk traditions David grew up with when it came to health care and medicine. David also had serious injuries inflicted by medical professionals, which resulted in multiple disabilities that led to many hours with medical professionals. The “hyphenated” immigrant cultures in the family, so focused on being as “American” (meaning “Anglo-white”) as possible, led to a great tension in the family. David is also intersex and experiences the spirit world a bit more directly than most people. This led to conflict between family members as well as between the family and community organizations that the family needed to survive. David, like many people in their family, first went into mainstream medicine and health care, but as they worked in the field they saw many cases where the cultural medicine from their youth could help when “English medicine” could not.
During this time David moved to Pittsburgh, the nearest big city, and wasn’t able to find a job that suited their unique skill sets as most spas and health care places we now have simply didn’t exist back then. They wanted to offer everything they had, but between struggling with a significant injury from an aggressive patient at their mental health care job and the lack of development of the field at the time, in order to offer all they had, David had to start a company. The company started was “Embody Healing, LLC,” it’s very name a directive to people who interact with it to embody their best selves in the world as the medicine they are, as this very act is healing to all. As a company, we still believe people can live in a way that makes their existence an ongoing act of healing. We hope to help you live, breathe, and step healing into the world with each movement. Of course, that requires that you’re in a good place yourself, which we can also help with.
At this time, we branded Embody Healing, LLC in blue and white partly because it complimented the medical field we were working within and alongside. As time went on, the different people working in Embody Healing, LLC grew increasingly agitated with the lack of inclusion and thus the lower quality of care being provided by the Anglo medical system in America, especially to racially and/or ethnically diverse families. During the covid pandemic, throughout which we have provided free herbal care to anyone with a diagnosis, we saw many medical field-induced injuries based on things claiming to be science but that were really racism. Our company responded to the pandemic internationally before medical institutions in the United States, and we provided consistent care rather than disquieting the public with confusion. What we saw as practitioners during this time was disturbing to our consciences, and we made the decision to break from working within the medical system in America to focus on the unique needs of people who didn’t fit in that system. We still provide side-by-side, complementary care for clients when requested, working alongside their doctors when appropriate, but we are no longer functioning within the medical system as a company. As a company, we hold no grudge against medical practitioners who often enter the medical field looking to help people. We simply recognize that our role as a company seems to be outside of the medical field.
Alongside all of this, what was becoming abundantly clear to our then two primary practitioners was that David’s family traditions, which they had developed beyond what they were taught as a young person, were powerful in helping people not just alleviate symptoms but truly heal in a way that lasted and changed entire groups. Many found pieces of wisdom in it that enabled them to live better in the world. Some of these things can not be shared outside the bloodlines they are connected to, but some can be passed through spiritual family. Once David embraced the true power of the ancestors of Embody Healing, LLC, we also embraced the possibilities of providing a place where ethnically friendly, earth-based care could take us as a company.
Our rebranding and relaunching in 2022 was all about embracing the truth of our possibility as a company. The lion, the colors, the clover, all of these things come from the ancestors the company inherited from David, and they all have special meaning for us and how we do things. The colors of the company, red, green, and gold, all come from the crests of the two primary lineages in David’s family that they teach from. The lion rampant has been altered so that the lion is not seeking and waiting to fight, but turns his attention to the shamrock. This is the ability to fight when needed, the resurrection power of truth, the big open lion’s heart, and the capacity to embody and use the voice properly all coming together but keeping it’s eyes on the divine instruction given to us by the whole force of creator which we can observe through creation. Some of our practitioners call this “G/god” but we use that term very loosely because we as individuals in the company have many ideas of what “the g word” means. The point is that we can only go so far on our own, and we must see physical manifestation of harmony and balance to enable us to act rightly in the world. We consider this the very essence of healing- the process of being in right alignment with all of creation and the creative force itself. You will often hear our practitioners referencing their spiritual path and/or personal culture in decision making, and you will rapidly see that we put a fair amount of effort into bringing people from different paths together into a functional whole as a company. This is the very bedrock of our ability to be as radically inclusive as we are while still holding a standard that prevents abuse and enables progress. It’s not a fast way to massive profits, but it is the very essence of the lion-hearted.
If it sounds complicated, that’s because it often is. We believe a harmonious world is worth the effort.
We hope you feel welcome here, like finding a bed of moss to rest and restore on, or a family fireside to contemplate by.