In ancient times, Hippocrates said "Art is long, life is short." The art he referred to was that of healing, so the saying means that it takes more than a lifetime to learn the physician's art.

In modern times, our knowledge has only expanded. For instance, a single herbal book can run to a thousand pages.

However, in practical terms, there are only so many situations that we need to deal with, and there are patterns that make order out of the chaos. Ultimately, most healing modalities fall into one of three basic principles:

• Nutrition
• Detoxification
• Energy