Australasian Dentist Magazine Nov Dec 2021

Category AustrAlAsiAn Dentist 127 Jade Richardson By Jade Richardson reality BiteS Speaking tooth i f the body can be said to have a language of its own, then could it also be that there’s more to the biographical lives of teeth than we have dared to dream? Yes, it’s true – and for more reasons than most of us want to get into these days – things have changed on Planet earthling. And they are continuing to get more ‘changey’ as the weeks and months tick by. Here at reality Bites, where i have been reporting for over a decade on the weird, the wonderful, the kooky and mysterious aspects of life-related-to- dentistry, we have together, those of you who may have been paying attention, mapped out a sort of atlas of the strange and wonderful alternative realities that sit right next to so-called ‘normal life’ on these very pages. it has been my way of warning and perhaps preparing you all. A sort of sneaky, last pages of the journal, peek behind the veil that separates the world you know as true and reasonable, from a world that seems impossible, irrational, unlikely or foreign, and which is actually going on right beside ‘reality’ and every now and again breaks through the shell of ordinary life, and changes our normal forever. We’ve had a year like that. let’s not get into the twists and turns of it all. it’s been bothersome and exhausting. Just as it must have been in previous eras when the Great Monopoly Board of normal has been knocked off the table, all its bits and pieces skitter-scattering everywhere in a commotion of property, banking, leaseholds, community trust, luck and empire building. While the bricks, pillars, struts and myths of ordinary life have come in for something of a robust battering of late, there are other areas of reality too, which have been, shall we say, ‘under review’, and are causing a far more intriguing and exciting quiver through the collective imagination. in his new York times Best selling book, The Body Keeps the Score , Dr Bessel van der Kolk, medical director of the trauma Centre in Brookline, Massachusetts, has blown apart the conventional borders between physical and mental health, biography and biology, health and meaning, in an absolutely fascinating scientific account of his career in discovering that there’s more going in medicine than mechanics. this might be inconvenient for doctors. it certainly makes the job more complex. it’s unlikely that any truly curious (and therefore scientific) GP who reads der Kolk will ever again be able to look at the bodies of their patients as separate to the life stories they have lived; just as no dentist can really look into the mouth without seeing there the signatures and hieroglyphics of the whole of the life of the person to whom it belongs. You see it every day: evidence of sleepless nights, frustration, unhappiness, addiction, depression, stress and trauma. there is evidence too, it’s clear to see, of vitality, self-esteem, pride, confidence and enthusiasm. it’s all written there, on the gums, in the enamel, through the architecture of jaw, the mood of the tongue, the fluids, the textures and colours … the way time and habits and events and feelings shape, wear and wire the mouth and all its forms. the Body Keeps the Score is an invitation to see the whole physical structure as a sort of living, speaking library, telling stories through mental, physical, chemical, hormonal, immune and illness literacies. it’s only a matter of time, focus and possibly financial motivation by the publishing industry that a similar book might break though for dentists – just imagine the wonderful chaos that it will cause! Over in new Zealand at least one enthusiastic entrepreneur has already hung her shingle in the emerging market around the peculiar idea that dental health is more, very much more, than aches, cavities, root canals, infection, and all the wonderful mechanics and fine engineering that modern dentistry can offer. unlikely to cause much of a ruffle in the industrywithher present branding, the Holistic tooth Fairy, who appears online as a cheerful soul in an artificial flowery tiara with turquoise butterfly wings, is making a living offering counselling on how to “listen to your teeth” and discover the “energetic messages”, “metaphysical meanings” and underlying causes of oral health issues. You can take her free live Masterclass online at www.holistictoothfairy.com You can book “bespoke personal coaching” to solve cavities, recover gum health, understand and treat jaw issues, and learn to understand the spiritual messages of the mouth in just three to 12 months with Meliors simms, aka the Mystic tooth Fairy, for only $1,300, in instalments, if that helps. there are private, online emergency intervention sessions for uncovering the spiritual causes of dental emergencies for only $340 an hour. the tooth Fairy also offers energy Floss – a spiritual way to floss the teeth, and all the body’s meridians and metaphysical pathways and labyrinths that you can learn online via a video and special prompt cards and booklet for only $48. You can see her being profiled in magazines, interviewed on podcasts and appearing as a special guest on a growing number of online and international media platforms too. Yes, what might seem surreal, unreasonable or kooky is out there already, it’s starting to catch on, it’s coming ever closer to the borders of normal where all our citizenship in the predictable and possible is not quite as snug and certain and secure as it might have seemed just last year. it’s pushing the borders, the strange other world, that yesterday seemed bizarre or unlikely. it seems, at first, like a passing weirdness, it might in the beginning, be touted by the strange, the deranged, or the peculiar genius, but the truth that none of us can deny in this time of new normals and resets and just wow! is that life will forever continue to amaze, bewilder, defy and inspire us, and i am predicting a best seller on the Metaphysical Mysteries of the Mouth and its Wonders in the not too very distant future. You read it here first. u