ANCIENT WAYS Services Page

HEALING OASIS & HOLISTIC SERVICES

519-364-0506

275 - Suite # 2 10th Street

Hanover, Ontario, Canada N4N 1P1

This big blue marble...

...is our planet earth!

Holism (from holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave.

The general principle of holism was concisely summarized by Aristotle in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".

Anthropology is holistic in two ways: First, it is concerned with all human beings across times and places, and with all dimensions of humanity (evolutionary, biophysical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, psychological, etc.). Further, many academic programs following this approach take a "four-field" approach to anthropology that encompasses physical anthropology, archeology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology or social anthropology.

The term "holism" is used within social and cultural anthropology to refer to an analysis of a society as a whole which refuses to break society into component parts. One definition says: "as a methodological ideal, holism implies ... that one does not permit oneself to believe that our own established institutional boundaries (e.g. between politics, sexuality, religion, economics) necessarily may be found also in foreign societies."

So it is for "them" as it is for "us" - there is no "other"!

Thus when you heal another, you heal yourself.

In Lake’ch:

Mayan for “I am another yourself” exemplifying the principle of universal love.