We live through stories. We share them, learn from them and pass them on to others.

Health and medicine are just the same as any other area and the stories we tell can kill or cure. Once humans were recognisably human, and language had formed, the stories began. This plant hurts, this plant makes you feel better. Don’t eat that without preparing it this way.

Relationships within the stories developed, changed. If you have this complaint, this plant will help, these symptoms can often be caused by that berry. With that knoweldge came specialisation, the selection of people to carry the story on, to learn and use its power. The medicine man, the hedgewitch.

The very messy practicalities of medicine called for many different people to carry out other roles, barber surgeons becoming surgeons, village grandmothers to midwives, story tellers and escorts in and out of life.

Now, we still have those stories but the specialisation has become even finer. If a person comes to you with low temperature, risk of infection, a high pulse and high breathing rate, they might have sepsis. If another person comes to you with a cough that makes them gasp, but only comes on with exercise, they might have asthma. We trust the knowledge held in these stories to doctors, to people who dedicate their working lives to learning and passing on the stories.

Therefore look around you at what you do, how you share with the people you connect with. Could you tell better stories, share your knowledge in better ways?

Find the key to the story and watch it spread better. Don’t be scared of losing it, it’s never been yours anyway.