A Letter from the Pharmacist

Kampo can seem like something difficult, something far away. But in truth it lives much closer to us than that.

“Something feels off today.” “My body is heavy, and I can't find my drive.” Small shifts, hardly worth naming aloud, yet unmistakably felt — the quiet fluctuations that so many women know. In those moments, what gently stayed beside me was the way of thinking we call Kampo.

There was a time when the changes in my own body, and the rush of work and raising my second child, wore me down until I felt close to breaking. In those days, simply learning that Kampo was there as an option — as if someone were saying, “you are enough, just as you are” — let me feel I didn't have to carry it all alone, and my shoulders eased a little. I still remember that.

Kampo is a body of wisdom passed down over a long history. Some of its formulas are approved as regulated medicines in Japan today. That is why, to you who live each day with all your heart, I hope you might lend a little more of an ear to what your body is telling you.

May this Kampo Compass be a small compass of its own: helping you get to know your constitution type, and find your way toward gentler days.

— Natsuko Shibata, Pharmacist (licensed in Japan)