A Free Lotus!
First of all, let's start with the AWESOME news. We've freed the LOTUS! This means that you can earn this alternative health token by using it on any alternative health content - from meditation to tai chi, yoga to plant based, herbalism to keto, if you have LOTUS staked and you vote on #lotus tagged content, you can earn this token.
And if you'd like to get in touch with some great ideas for use of this token, get in touch! The @holos-lotus, @theherbalhive, @abundancetribe and @plantpoweronhive all vote with this token. If you're an alternative health community and you'd like to curate with LOTUS, let @riverflows know!
A Good Bye - or a Brand New Beginning?
They say that all good things must come to an end.
As sad as this may be, the good things are ending here at Natural Medicine as we say goodbye to this beautiful, heartfelt, compassionate and caring collective. Started in 2018, we feel proud that we’ve been a source of abundance for many. Through curation, challenges and people just generally being awesome, we’ve worked hard to support as many people as we can. Our curators have worked tirelessly to fight plagiarism, help newbies, find support for undervalued posts, and bring excellent editorials on natural health to the HIVE ecosystem. So many people have given us the warm fuzzies for what we’ve done, and hand on hearts, we feel we’ve made a difference. But now, we arrive at our end - or perhaps just a new beginning.
A few months back, @riverflows found herself in circumstances which meant she could no longer continue to be leader of Natural Medicine. All the curators worked many, many hours to find ways to keep the community going, working out how it might be possible to keep the green lotus vibe going and spread the workload. We decided a big powerdown was needed to reimburse the hundreds and hundreds of hours that the main crew had put into the community, and the thousands of HIVE we’d put into the token and the front end. From there, we planned to redelegate to the community to keep it alive and kicking and certainly use the HIVE to reinvest into the HIVE ecosystem itself. Whilst this has been controversial, our nearest and dearest have been absolutely supportive of this, recognising how much work we have put into HIVE over the years. All of the curators who were busting a gut to reinvent Natural Medicine were also given HIVE to reinvest. Of course, there’s many ways of seeing HIVE - we can’t please everyone, though goodness knows we’ve tried.
Whilst we tried our best to find a ‘new’ Natural Medicine take hold, the pandemic has taken its toll on many of us, restructuring our lives both on and off chain in ways we couldn’t have anticipated. No one could possibly commit to what this community demands, and in some ways, we’ve been a victim of our own success. We came to realise that the amount of man hours needed to fight plagiarism, engage with people, and make sure the content was of an excellent standard and maintain community through challenges as well as upvotes, reblogs, tweets and the tokenomics was way beyond what any of us could possibly commit to. This has not been without trying our best, and our fair share of grief and heartache, and painstaking efforts to balance HIVE time and real life time with family, jobs, friends and keeping our mental health in check.
Thus, in the last fortnight, we’ve all begun the process of letting go of Natural Medicine in it's current form. The remaining funds will be powered down (save a little to keep the account voting on alternative health content for delegators) and distributed to the communities who we feel are important personally, due to our shared love of alternative content, gardening, plant medicine and so on. All the LOTUS tokens the account has earnt will be sent to @null and will be in the future, although there will be a small amount kept for curation purposes to continue distributing the token and keeping it blooming!
Whilst this might seem drastic, in all good ethics, we can’t just let the community limp on in a semi ghost mode. Many of us feel a great deal of responsibility for it and for HIVE itself, and we’d rather come out honestly and say: we’re sorry, we’ve done our best, but now it’s time for a change. Many of us are still committed to HIVE and it’s communities and feel our attention is much better directed into particular areas rather than spreading ourselves as thin as we have.
We hope that our efforts to be transparent are heard. We recognise that those who have invested in our token might be disappointed, but in the face of insurmountable difficulties and the human and financial resources needed to progress it, we simply could not find a way to make it reach its potential. We all feel a twinge of heartache that our dreams were not to be, or are at least postponed until someone comes along to make LOTUS reach the potential we were dreaming about.
However, there’s not one person in the LOTUS team that is totally disappearing on HIVE - we are around in various communities and in various roles, and we hope that in our various ways, we are still very much helping HIVE to reach it's potential, and keeping alternative health alive here as much as we can.
We're not really going, just changing.
FAQ
Q: What happens with the token?
A: Nothing! It's still going! But you'll use the tag #lotus instead to earn it.
Q: Where can I delegate now?
A: Oh goodness, we're glad you asked! There's two new #Lotus communities on HIVE - Plant Power (Vegan) and The Herbal Hive. We suggest you delegate to them! They've got support from The Abundance Tribe and are guaranteed to support #herbalism #lotus #vegan #fungimedicine #plantmedicine #herbalmedicine #plantbased content. See the links below! BUT if you want to keep your delegation to Natural Medicine, this is also a great idea - we set it up on HIVE.vote to autovote on anything that @holos-lotus, @plantpoweronhive and @theherbalhive votes on, so your vote will STILL be distributed to great alternative health content on HIVE! In fact, we'd suggest this is an awesome way to do that! And the monthly curation rewards will simply be sent to alternative health communities to power up and keep on voting!
The Herbal Hive community and curation account is @theherbalhive
Plant Power Vegan Community and curation account is @plantpoweronhive
We suggest @abundancetribe for meditation/esoteric content and @gardenhive (community is HIVE Garden) for your homesteading and gardening posts! You'll notice the #gardenjournal has already moved there.
Q: What about the Discord?
A: If you're in the Discord, hang around! We're just renaming it 'Lotus Tribes' - you'll find both Plant Power and The Herbal Hive there, but many of us are keen to chat about alternative health, so feel free to pop in!
Q: I still love the community and I can't find a 'natural medicine' community that fits my content as well. Can I still post there?
A: Absolutely. And if you subscribe to that community, you can still vote on the great content that appears there. Curators will still notice you. Don't forget to use the #lotus tag too!
Cheers to new beginnings! You can never make everyone happy, but ultimately all you awesome peeps keeping this show going need to do what is best for your own health and Blockchain/life balance. 😜
I think it's great for everyone to be able to focus on what brings them joy. Now if only I could find more time to post to the Plant Power community. 😂
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Thanks you lovely thing you! It is so nice to feel supported in our decision. Choosing to focus on the good things that come next!!
In the short time I have been with Hive I have found the Natural Medicine Community to be an incredible environment, the whole team is fabulous, with a lot of dedication and effort. I honor and appreciate everything you did to maintain this community for everyone, and although I am a little sad to say goodbye, I feel it will be a great start, I think it is a great idea to concentrate efforts and direct the content of each community as you are doing.
My full support and thanks for all the opportunities you have given me. Blessings ✨
💙💙💙🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
We all have needs and wants in life. It saddened me because I've known you guys for a long in natural medicine but I respect your decision. We have a personal life and it needs to focus on it. It's about someone's happiness after all.
Although not totally sad because you're still here and you can still support herbalists with different accounts.
Be happy guys.
This is so emotional as I was going through the news, but I comported myself seeing that this is just a new beginning. Change is constant and could be said to be natural.
Wishing you guys all the best. Let’s Hive on, let’s stay healthy through natural ways as possible.
A healthy HIVE is a better HIVE! 💜
Thank you very much for all the support you are giving us as a Community, you have been a great guide and reference point to raise Holos-Lotus, we hope to be at the height of this great commitment that involves maintaining a Community and we appreciate all your efforts and support. Our best wishes in these new projects and we will continue working together for natural medicine in each of our Communities.
Blessings ✨
I believe, Natural Medicine has another front end that people used to post ? What happens to that and it's maintenance ?
Hey @sanjeevm! Sadly, there were not many users and so we decided to stop payment to keep it going. But you can now earn #lotus by using that tag instead. Xx
A goodbye and a welcome at the same time. Its really been an awesome experience with the community. Thanks for being sincere and decisive instead of just keeping everyone in limbo. Some might not be pleased but that's fine. You really can't please everyone but everyone will know that you came out clean.
Thank you! So appreciate your curation and great content, and kind words. Ghosting did not feel right! It was important to be open and not leave people wondering.
Sad to know that... I'm still in shock! But, we will continue!!!
Sure will! The #gardenjournal simply has a new home but the vibe is the same!
Basic principle energy is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transformed. and this is what happens to the community. It honestly surprised me, I have been away due to a temporary change of city and I do not have internet, and this news surprised me a lot, because I have always felt at home. I think this is an extension of natural medicine. The tree leaves its seeds for new children. I will follow all the communities and I will try to contribute a little to each one to continue growing. A warm hug and you are a wonderful team
Thanks @kyleana - that makes so much sense and I totally love what you say about transformed energy. That's exactly what I think has happened. Thanks so much for your contributions and support - we'll do our best to support you back xx
Really, from the bottom of my heart thank you for all the hard work, really respect! 👊
Listen, I totally understand, I was in charge of the curation for @artzone in 2018 and 2019 and it's just so much work! It never ends! There were a moment when I told myself "I can't just keep on doing this", and boom, I stopped!
And after that, a weight was lifted off my shoulder, and I could finally focus on things that were very important to me.
I am sure it's all the same for you guys, we are all human, not machines (yet 😄) and it doesn't mean we can't still hang out on hive.
I never knew that you were a curator for @artzone - perhaps I didn't know you then. You truly understand what it takes then, and then some. I feel it's taken a very long time for me to let go, but it was so necessary for my sanity, and the mental health of everyone involved. I'm not sure many release what's invovled and how heavy it becomes! Thanks so much for understanding - it really means a lot.
Alright so not to "toot my own horn" 😁 but I was "head of curation", in charge of all the curators, which was particularly stressful and in retrospect a little bit of a waste of my time. We all learn from these moments, it was also enjoyable, but the fun parts, we tend to remember them later on, once the dust has settle.
Anyway, just rumbling, moving on cheers!
Thank you very much for all the work you've done. It was a hard choice for sure. Yet, as you said, the right one.
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 26/86) Liquid rewards.
Thanks so much @ervin-lemark xx
I think it's a new beginning, but I am always trying to find the positive side of things. I am glad to know our (former) team members will all still be around on various places throughout the Hive-o-sphere and the #lotus token can live on. Cheers to the future!
@NaturalMedicine has been a wonderful community and great efforts by the team, but true sometimes good things do come to end, anyways change is the only constant thing in life and we need to move ahead with the currents. Gratitude to the community to all the hard work, I have some very wonderful high moments memories with the community. While lot of people have been instrumental in building this community, but special thanks to @riverflows for holding the fort for such a long time.
Wishing @theherbalhive all the very best and I am sure it will move ahead with the same energy and zeal.
Lots of Love 💖
I am looking forward to the new beginning! I can understand @riverflows decision to let go, everyone has priorities in life and one should give more importance to family life and one´s health. I am wishing @riverflows all the best, go fort and come back when you have all the power in this blockchain. To the "old" Natural Medicine Team.... THANK YOU!.... CHEERS to the new beginning!
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
(It's 2022-June-23 as I make this comment.)
Although my interests didn't align enough with those of the Natural Medicine community to post content here, I was glad to know that the community existed for the time when I would have something I could post about. When I wanted to take a break from LeoFinance to see what was happenig elsewhere, I wanted to visit the community at the domain
naturalmedicine.io; needless to say, I was saddened to see that the front-end for the domain was no longer available.I'm glad to see that the community remains alive regardless of the form it has taken sine then. It looks a bit more decentralized, but that's OK given that this is Hive.
As a blogger or content provider, my interests still don't align enough to make any posts to the relevant communities under the Natural Medicine umbrella. All that means is that whatever postings I make would be rare. However, I may be of more use as a promoter of the Natural Medicine umbrella (a post in a different community, a comment in yet another community) just to get the word out.
For anyone who asks where to make posts on natural medicine topics, I can at least point them to the specific community or to this specific post which I reblogged for that purpose.
The content the team has provided over the years remains valuable, and people still have a need for it. If I can help people find this content, that's a win for me and for you.
Thanks for all you've done between Day One and the day this post was originally published. Thanks again for all you've done between the day you published this post and tomorrow as you keep moving forward.
It's too late for me to upvote this post, and sending a slice of PIZZA seems out of place here. As a show of appreciation, I will send 1.000 HIVE to @naturalmedicine.
Hey guys, I haven't been active in your communities for a while but I still got some Lotus coins on Hive Engine, some staked, some coming as rewards but I can't collect them. I tried to claim the reward numerous times but I just can't. This rewards seems like stuck or blocked. Is there anything we can do about it?
Hii🤸🏾♀️✨️. I'm new in Hive but I'm sorry that things didn't go as expected with Natural Medicine🫂. It is seen that the dedication and effort invested in it are admirable. I wish you the best in your future projects within Hive ❤️.