More than 2200 years ago, Chinese physician-Emperor Huang Di drew distinctions among health care practitioners that is as valid today as it was then. In one of Earth’s oldest known medical texts, Huang Di said that inferior physicians treat disease, mediocre physicians prevent disease, and superior physicians foster wellness and vitality.
As a group of practitioners, we at Sacred Tree shares Huang Di’s vision. We see it as a necessity, given the challenges we face both as a society and a species.
While we treat our clients to heal sprained ankles, or to enhance digestion or fertility, the most fundamental motivating force of our work is to create in our clients a deep interest and momentum towards deep health, vitality, resilience, peace, and joy.
The most important aspect of creating wellness and vitality is to impress upon our clients the need to create positive lifestyle change—impeccable diet, appropriate exercise habits, emotional presence and vulnerability, getting good sleep, and being deeply rooted in the present moment. Teaching these ideas becomes quite a challenge, which is why Huang Di placed the ‘wellness’ practitioners at the top of the heap more than 20 centuries ago. Even back then, more than two millennia before pharmacological drugs took hold in the marketplace, it was easier to get patients to pop some herbal pills, rather than to look deeply within and make positive changes.
Several Sacred Tree practitioners have made an interesting observation while providing treatments and teaching workshops and yoga classes for our wintertime tourists and visitors. We have observed that people who are outside their normal, day-to-day environment and routine are more likely to absorb and implement lifestyle practices that create a strong health reserve. Being on vacation opens people up because they are processing novel stimuli in a new environment, and are separated from old habitual anchors their home and work environment.
Living in a destination mountain town, this flexibility and openness, the feeling of being on vacation, rubs off on us locals. More than one Breckenridgian has been heard uttering the phrase ‘on permanent vacation’ in describing the local lifestyle. Our local climate also demands flexibility. It may be 60 degrees, calm and sunny, and within hours, it could be 20 degrees, with heavy wind and snow… in June. Our local residents must be prepared to embrace the moment, sun or snow, wind or rain, and enjoy the moment, for the moment is fleeting and is guaranteed to change. This flexibility in mindset and attitude, along with the deep sense of being present fully in the here & now, make for an excellent foundation for creating deep health and well being.
So, capitalizing on our geographic home-field advantage for both locals and visitors, and with nurturing vitality, creativity, and adaptability in mind, Sacred Tree offers bimonthly workshops and retreats, focused on working with the deepest parts of ourselves, facing fears and old patterns, and creating positive lifestyle change.
Attracting nationally recognized speakers is a natural progression growing from Sacred Tree’s dedication to wellness and vitality, as well as its continued success in creating compelling programming.
Our next retreat encourages participants to view the world through Native eyes, draws our attention inward. Using the processes, practices, and metaphors of horsemanship, the Medicine Wheel Model demonstrates that life mirrors our internal environment, and “what you do to others, you do to yourself.” The Medicine Wheel Model will be offered May 9 and 10 at Storm King Ranch in Glenwood Springs, CO, and will be presented by nationally recognized horseman Phillip Whiteman, Jr.

Because the deepest vitality begins prenatally, with a healthy pregnancy and birth, we will be offering a holistic and integrative Art of Birth course. The Art of Birth will be presented in late May. The Art of Birth will be presented by nationally recognized author, midwife, registered nurse, and waterbirthing expert Barbara Harper, and our own Corrie Burr.

For questions, comments, or information on registration, please contact us at Wellness@Sacredtree.com

Tags: Breckenridge, Huang Di, mountain climate, retreats, workshops, Yellow Emperor

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