Taos has attracted hundreds of Alternative Wellness Practitioners and Healers over the years, but few as learned, or as accomplished as Dr. Angelika Maria Koch.

Angelika is that exquisite combination of beauty and brains – in her late fifties, this stunning and very chic grandmother looks better than most women half her age. No doubt a testament to her life long practice of conscious living, including a healthy vegetarian diet. Angelika has never eaten meat. She rejected it as a small child and consequently, growing up in Germany, a country devoted to meat, potatoes and kraut, she felt like a fish out of water.

Her lack of adequate nutrition (in utero – meat acted like a toxin or poison on her system) led to ill-health and her own journey to wellness that she’s documented brilliantly in her ground breaking and award winning book, The Dance Of Your Core Healing.

Angelika’s book is the culmination of a lifetime spent exploring the deeper meaning of dis-ease and illness. This is an author who has walked her talk, using her intuition, knowledge, incredible courage and wisdom to heal herself first. She is in fact a classic example of a wounded healer.

Angelika says the healing journey is “a dance between your Self and your self.”

“The Art of Healing is like a journey of birthing, it’s a creative process that deeply addresses the mental, emotional, physical, as well as the spiritual influences in our lives.” She explains.

“We have to be willing to participate in such a life-changing and transformative process that involves every part of us – every cell and every act of courage in the face of change.”

“And fear.” She adds quietly.

Angelika’s trajectory into the Healing Arts was unusual to say the least. She left Germany in her late teens and for seven years was a devotee of Rajneesh, living and working in his Ashram in India. After India she returned to Germany where she enrolled in a Dance Academy hoping to follow her dream of becoming a modern dancer.

Fate intervened when she met her husband to be and within a year the couple headed for London where she first studied Colour Therapy and Reflexology before delving into Homeopathy.

Three decades later, Angelika Koch D.N.M., RSHom, H.N.Hlr., considers herself a health practitioner of “Integrated Medicine”. She is a Doctor of Natural Medicine (University of Natural Medicine, N.M., a registered Homeopath, Certified Iridologist, Certified Sclerologist, Certified Herbalist, Reflexologist, Life-System Practitioner, Systemic Formula Practitioner as well as a Certified Colour Therapist.

She studied Colour Therapy with Theo Gimbell who was a close associate of Rudolf Steiner’s. Her training in Homeopathy is extensive – four years training as a Licensed Homeopath, at the College of Homeopathy, in London followed by three years at the Children’s Homeopathic Clinic for Underprivileged Parents and Children, also in London.

In 1995, Dr. Angelika Maria Koch became a Member of the College of Homeopathy and acquired the status of Registration by the Society of Homeopathy in England, followed by another two-year certified post-graduate training as a Practitioner of Classical Homeopathy at the School For Advanced Homeopathic Studies in London, with her mentor Jeremy Sher, an internationally known teacher. Many people may wonder to themselves about how What homeopaths do can help an individual to feel better. And the answer to this is that it can help with a lot of conditions such as ear infections, headaches and women’s health issues (hormonal imbalances). It may be worth giving it a go if you think that your health and wellbeing may be suffering. Before making any further decisions, make sure that it is the right decision for you first.

Knowing that during this time of intensive study, she also had two children and for many years after she and her husband divorced, was a single mother, simply makes the mind boggle.

We met up in town a couple of weeks ago and talked about life, kids and grandkids, hair and shoes (she was wearing a pair of leopard – stamped, calf skin beauties) – all the things women of a certain age find most important, but we did eventually get around to talking about Angelika and her work and specifically, about how she wound up in Taos.

During the early nineties she had a deeply spiritual, personal experience that drew her to the South West. She came and stayed. From 1997-1999, she did extensive research and study of the Native American Medicinal Plants of the Upper Region of Northern New Mexico, particularly around the Taos area. This ten volume-work has not been published but serves as teaching references in her courses.

Since implementing this knowledge, several teaching seminars in Basic Anatomy, Herbalism and Earth Medicine, either organised by Dr. Angelika Maria Koch, or employed by schools or public conferences, have followed this new protocol. Also during this time, a journey to the Peruvian Amazon, enabled her to study medicinal plants from that region in relation to “Incurable Diseases”.

In 2002, Angelika founded the non-profit organization, Terra Nova Children’s Foundation, the first holistic treatment center for sexually and violently abused children in Northern New Mexico.

Angelika teaches courses at UNM-Taos .and other accredited Institutions of Natural Medicine, in between flying often across the Pond to visit her children and grandchildren, and to see the clients and colleagues she has over there.

Healing is her life work, but life is in constant flux and when one reaches the age we are, one begins to prioritize and to redefine and reinvent who we are becoming. Angelika mentioned to me that she was seriously considering down-sizing her life.

“I need to lighten my load so I can be truly bi-located”, she told me. ” I love Taos but I really want to spend more time with my children and grandchildren.”

Clearly she’s completed a personal journey and her sights are set on the future which remains wide open.

Meanwhile this remarkable woman continues to assist many here and abroad in their own healing process, teaching them a new and fully holistic way of looking at health.Angelika is a living example of a Healer as opposed to a Doctor.

A Doctor will look at the symptoms and find a way to arrest them. A Healer looks at the whole. She/He sees the connection between emotions, mind, body and soul and assists in discovering and eradicating the cause. The core wound.

That said, Angelika does not outright reject traditional Western Medicine. She values certain aspects of its (more linear) approach, while at the same time encouraging us to take more responsibility for our own healing.

“Look, we are living in a new time”, she says, ” our perception of a shifting global paradigm is still new, but we are slowly but surely coming to a different understanding about both allopathic and alternative medicine.”

“We are at a point in our evolution where we need to establish an entirely new approach to, and relationship with, medicine itself.”

Dr. Angelika Maria Koch makes a great point about the changing ways of medicine and how there are others we can now look at for ourselves, research is our friend, and to see what they can do for you checking out websites like wccannabis.ca can benefit your knowledge on the subject. Some people have already recognized the benefits of alternative medicine which is why marijuana has been legalized in some states. Particularly those suffering from health ailments such as seizures, a marijuana dispensary bellevue among other locations has been a lifeline for many after western medicine has not managed to help.

For much more information about Dr. Angelika Maria Koch, please visit her website linked below and do pick up a copy of her book. Not only is it informative and concise, it’s beautifully written and a joy to read, I’ve included the Amazon link as well.

Medica Nova

The Dance Of Your Core Healing

Photographs of Angelika Maria Koch by Bill Curry

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