In Braucherei, the traditional healing practiced by the Pennsylvania Germans, there is an inherent belief in the need for balance. This need is seen in the way that the Holy Trinity is balanced by the Three Sisters. It is seen in the cross-gender transmission of the practice: man to woman, woman to man. The herbal healing traditions rely on this main tenet, striving to bring the body into a balanced state, keeping all four humors in check. Traditional agriculture recognizes this truth as well, by maintaining awareness of the surrounding environment, the movements of the stars, and the messages found in nature.

In this era, all God s creatures face challenges that none before could have dreamed of - as human population continues to grow, as the climate is changing around us, we now walk the thinnest line between life and death for our species and for our earth. The imbalance we ve caused has become self-evident as severe storms and droughts intensify with each passing year, taking many lives in their fury.

We have heard the solutions, so simple yet so difficult: Change our way of life. Many have heeded this warning, and many more have ignored it, or worse scoffed at it, and fueled false media that combat this very evident truth. As I learn about global warming, and the vast imbalance our society has created on the earth, my mind immediately turns to the resourceful and balanced traditions of the Pennsylvania Germans.

Traditional wisdom has proven its worth for centuries, teaching balance, awareness, and resourcefulness in all things. The Braucherei tradition has survived millennia of persecution, a most precious heirloom to be carefully passed on, polished, cherished, and passed on again. There is nothing like an heirloom - to see the edges worn soft by the care of so many hands, to know the promise that each generation passes to the next. “This will serve you well,” they whisper down through time.

Tradition has served us well, but what of innovation? The Pennsylvania Germans are nothing if not tremendous innovators. In medicine, spirituality, architecture, agriculture, in commerce and trade, here is a culture that embraces both worlds: that of those who ve gone before, and that of those who ve yet to come.

Pa. German innovation has given us the beloved Pennsylvania barn, banked into the hill for warmth, arranged to perform its tasks with the most efficiency. It has given us the crop rotation and contour farming that have become so much a part of modern agriculture - allowing farmers to conserve soil while also maximizing their yield. These transplanted Europeans have learned herbal and spiritual medicine traditions from native people in order to be in harmony in their new home. Blending these traditions with indigenous European arts has created a practice that is unique to this place and people. Innovation has served us well.

Now is the time for both tradition and innovation. Now is the time to claim our cultural inheritance, understand the wisdom of our elders, embrace it, and move past it as well. Now we must take the wisdom of the bank barn and incorporate it into living structures, to insulate, to design appropriately. Now is the time to transform agriculture into a system of production as well as healing for the ecosystem around us. Now we must transcend differences in medicine and allow science and tradition to walk hand in hand. Now is the time to find peace among ourselves, and allow our many faiths to unite us instead of dividing us from each other.

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