From the Editor
It’s Spring here in the deep South, and CCNH has just finished hosting its sixth annual natural health conference. Every year it grows in new ways — we welcome new speakers, new sessions, and new attendees. For each staff member who attends, the conference is both hard work and a lot of fun. We come back with increased knowledge and with increased enthusiasm for the college’s mission. The conference is the perfect cure for those lingering winter-time “blues.”
It’s inspiring to see a year’s worth of planning and team work come to fruition during the conference weekend. It’s one of my job responsibilities with tangible gratification and rewards. Although I have been to several of our conferences and I know many repeat attendees — not to mention the phone and e-mail relationships I have developed with students and graduates who I am just meeting for the first time at the conference — I am still full of nervous anticipation about meeting new people, potentially forgetting someone’s name, or tripping and falling when I am trying to be poised and professional. Fortunately, the conference environment is one that puts everyone at ease within moments of arriving and encourages lots of interaction between attendees and staff, so those nerves are squashed almost immediately.
The conference is intoxicating — people leave feeling excited about learning, exhilarated by life, riding on the energy that is formed when people start sharing and really getting to know one another. Inevitably, the post-conference glitter does fade away and, just as we do with our new year’s resolutions, we must put some effort into keeping the healthy and healing promises we make to ourselves whilst in the midst of the conference “buzz.”
If only there was a way to collect that conference energy and turn it into an elixir I could drink each morning, a tonic that allowed me to carry the post-conference motivation and euphoria with me everyday. I am not alone in this sentiment either. Stewart Mitchell, CCNH’s international adjunct professor for traditional naturopathy, sent a follow up e-mail congratulating us on another great conference and suggesting that we need to find a way to “bottle” the magic that happens when students, graduates, presenters, faculty, and staff get together to form the conference community.
So, while I am off determining how to bottle and conserve the “high” we all have from the annual natural health conference, I invite you to enjoy the summer newsletter. You’ll find conference coverage (of course), all the usual news and updates, and an article about Ph.D. faculty advisor Avie Overbach’s vacation in Peru.
Have a safe, happy summer, and remember to stay hydrated!
Tara N. Brown • Editor
