Schlagbytes - Mind Body Spirit and Wellness

A Walrus Moon in Kodiak

2008-10-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

Through the generosity of a dear friend, I was included in a foursome on a recent fishing trip to Kodiak Island Alaska, during the height of the Silver Salmon run.

Kodiak Island is the home of the Brown Bear, the continent’s largest land-dwelling mammal. The waters are teeming with fish, whales, dolphins, seals, and birds by the millions. The indigenous people here are called Alutiiq (not Aleuts as I learned), and the village of Old Harbor where we stayed is the oldest Russian community in North America. Russian fishermen and hunters arrived 300 years ago, and after successive attempts, finally conquered the natives. Those who stayed married local women and today’s Alutiiq people all bear the surnames of their Russian and Scandinavian forbearers, while still retaining their tribal roots.

The Old Harbor Alutiiq are a small, successful band of commercial fisherman, subsistence hunters, entrepreneurs, and corporate investors. They have revived the language, which is now being taught in the elementary school along with traditional songs, dances and crafts. I watched the kids dance in costumes they made themselves.

The 250 people who live here get along, despite the ordinary small town squabbles. People here wave to each other — if you’re walking anywhere they’ll stop to ask if you want a ride — they tease, play and love to laugh. You learn quickly that laughing is a great survival quality here — it helps you deal with rain 330 days a year.

The fishing was spectacular, it didn’t matter whether I trolled from a boat, or waded in a lagoon; the action was explosive and I giggled and screamed with delight. On Sunday morning the boats didn’t go out because of gale-force winds and rain. After breakfast, I heard the call to prayer and decided to go to church. The sanctuary is a 20’ x 40’ wooden building, topped by 3 onion-domed steeples; it is the oldest Russian Orthodox Church in Americas. You enter into an anteroom where you hang your rain gear and then proceed into the sanctuary. The walls inside are covered with iconography, and chandeliers hang from the ceiling, each filled with dozens of burning candles. It felt holy.

A lay reader conducted the service for the nine of us in attendance. The reader and three women in the choir stood at a table near the front, and the rest of us sat on wooden benches that surrounded the perimeter. The service was conducted in English, Alutiiq, and Russian. I joined in the simple Gregorian chants, but was the only man to do so, and after the service when we greeted one another, I was invited to join the choir the next time I came.

The storm continued into that afternoon, and I indulged in one of my favorite things, reading a good book, in an easy chair overlooking the natural wonders. Outside, the wind-driven rain splattered on the roof and windowpanes in a musical symphony.

Leaning against a wall of the lodge’s great room where I was sitting was the skull and tusks of a huge walrus. When I first came into the room I stared at the skull and imagined the enormity of the creature. After reading a while I looked up, and now directly in front of me, the magnificent tusked creature seemed to be “mooning” me.

I laughed out loud, which brought in several of my friends. I told them to stop where they were and tell me what they saw when they looked at the skull. Each of them saw the tusks and could imagine what the creature looked like when it was alive, even to its whiskered details. Then I asked them to close their eyes, take a few steps closer, and then open their eyes. “What does it look like now” I asked? Each one laughed immediately as they saw the anus appear.

Listening to a Symphony in A Minor, looking at the sea and mountains, and gazing upon that looming moon, I recognized that the distance between your head and ass is only a couple of feet. This is why it’s so easy to find our heads up it so often. The best way to get your head out is to get away to your wondrous place and to laugh in the pouring rain, because it is in those moments that we are truly live. A good life is just a succession of such wonders.

Don’t Buy the Lipstick They’re Selling

2008-09-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to avoid writing about the upcoming presidential election. Who needs another blog among the millions already circulating, when the choices seem pretty clear? The Republicans with John McCain will continue to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, encourage fear and domestic paranoia with perpetual Code Orange alerts, and drill offshore (even though it would have a minimal impact at best which would not be realized for 10 years). I’ve had enough of that, and I sensed the American people had as well.

My smug certainty was rudely awakened after the Republican National Convention, when Sarah Palin was nominated as the vice- presidential candidate. McCain is 72 years old and picks a 44-year-old governor of a sparsely populated state, the mother of five, a born-again evangelical Christian with strident anti-choice and pro-gun views, and zero foreign policy experience. My initial cheer came from thinking her nomination was a death knell for the Republican ticket. Sarah Palin is not a pragmatic voice of tolerance and restraint. She is a sound bite and nobody in their right mind would put her a heartbeat away from the presidency. But Palin became an overnight sensation, tilted the polls, and what I thought was a shoo-in election has become anybody’s race. In the process, we have become so captivated by the lipstick chronicles that the substantive issues aren’t being addressed.

I finally succumbed to writing this Schlagbyte after last week’s Wall Street collapse. We are facing the greatest financial crisis this country has seen since the Great Depression. McCain’s response was that “our economy is basically sound” and I can’t take it anymore.

McCain is my senator; he has to know that Arizona is already in recession, that the fundamentals of our economy are not strong, and that we are in a scary, white-knuckle financial dive. How have we gotten here? The Republicans opposed regulations for the financial markets. McCain’s former adviser, ex-Texas Senator Phil Gramm, slipped an amendment into an appropriations bill that forbade federal agencies from regulating financial derivatives. The result is today’s Wall Street collapse and the government bailout that will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars to ensure that investors stay financially healthy.

But who is keeping the taxpayers healthy? Healthcare is the biggest sector of the economy, and Americans are struggling to repay medical debt. In 2007, 41% of working age Americans (72 million people) were paying back medical bills. People are being pushed over the edge, scrimping on food and home heating, accumulating credit card debt, and taking loans (if they can qualify), in order to make ends meet.

In our “basically sound economy” McCain is going to address the healthcare crisis by pushing the individual insurance market. This is a sure-fire program to increase the number of uninsured, because that industry is founded on the principle of maximizing profits by screening out the sick and minimizing claim payments. The US ranks highest in preventable deaths among 19 developed nations because of the uninsured and the many exclusions for chronic or pre-existing conditions. The for-profit health insurance industry has outlived its usefulness. As someone who speaks to thousands of people in all levels of healthcare each year, I can tell you we need to move to a single-payer national health insurance program.

While Obama’s healthcare plan does not yet get us to a single-payer system, he has promised in his first hundred days to require insurance companies to accept anybody who applies for coverage, expand the children’s health insurance program (SCHIP), and look at the damage done to Medicare by privatizers. This would be a much needed and welcome move in the right direction.

I want a president who can see the economy is unhealthy, that we are drowning in debt, and that much of it is healthcare related. I want a president and vice-president who will change healthcare delivery to make it more fair and equitable. I want a president who saves the lives of all Americans, not just the investors, and I don’t care if the lipstick is on a pit bull or a pig, as long as it’s Obama dancing at the Inaugural Ball.

Frowns, Clowns, and Castanets

2008-09-15T12:20:00.001-07:00

On the last day of my recent clown trip to Peru, teams from Gesundheit! Institute (Patch Adams organization) and Bola Roja (the Peruvian hospital clowning and child advocacy organization) met with officials of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) who have supported the Belen Project. In PAHO’s flag-draped conference room in Lima, with TV cameras rolling, its Director, Dr. Manuel Pena, introduced all the panelists, and then showed a short documentary on the Project.

Afterwards, he asked Patch to talk about the clowning work we do. Patch told them a bit about his own story that included adolescent despair and hospitalization. After that experience, Patch vowed he would come to every day from a place of loving-kindness and that he would never again have a bad day. He became a medical doctor whose specialty is treating the most vulnerable in society — those ravaged by war, orphaned, diseased and scarred. His treatment protocol is to touch them as a clown and remind them they are loved and not alone.

Patch told them that Bola Roja is a national treasure and needs support to continue its seminal work. In his inimitable, passionate way, he also spoke of the work still to be done in Belen, and how their clowning connections also includes forming partnerships with local healthcare providers who continue the ongoing work (Municipalidad Belen, Selva Amazonica, La Restinga, and Amazon Promise).

When he finished, a reporter pointedly asked him whether clowning made any difference in helping suffering people heal. She said the recent Peruvian earthquake left tens of thousands of survivors to rebuild their lives. “How does a clown visit change that reality?” she asked. Patch responded by saying if you can connect for even a moment with unconditional love, then you can inspire hope. A clown can relieve another’s isolation by making a one-to-one connection that moves the sufferer beyond their loneliness, even if only for a moment.

The whole panel responded to her question about how clowning can heal. I said that the greatest injuries following the recent quake were not the physical wounds and acute trauma, but rather the emotional ones. A disaster of such proportion, with the loss of families and villages, threatens to steal one’s spirit. The human spirit that propels us forward in the hard times becomes so depleted that it leaves us unable to see beyond the suffering. If a clown can bring a moment’s smile, it sends an instantaneous message from the heart to the brain that we are still human.

I told them of my visit to an AIDS shelter in Iquitos the week before where I saw an emaciated, virtually immobilized, 25-year-old woman in the final stage of the disease. She was lying in a hammock and, as I approached her, she took one look at me in my clown persona and smiled. What she saw was a 6’6” ballerina in a pink tutu and flamingo hat playing castanets and dancing the Flamenco. One really can’t help but smile at the visage, and as I got closer the smile became a giggle. I bent over, picked up her hands and placed them on the Flamingos legs that dangled from the hat and danced in front of her. Now the giggles became a laugh and, in that moment, we felt each other’s heart beating.

You don’t have to speak another’s language to touch their spirit; it is in these moments that the heart swells and you feel a loving kindness and compassion that is bigger than yourself. It is in those moments, when souls meet, that we know we are complete. It is in those moments that clowns heal others and themselves.

Ayahuasca Vision

2008-09-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

During my recent Peru trip I had the opportunity to do something that’s been on my bucket list — to explore the Amazon beyond the river towns into the real jungle — to hear it, feel it, see the wildlife, and to participate in an ayahuasca ceremony with an authentic shaman.

I arranged for a two-day trip up into the headwaters of the Amazon in a dugout canoe. I went with five friends, all fellow clowns, up the Yarapa River into Cocama Indian country. On the way, we saw egrets, herons, kingfisher, fish eagles, toucans, a million butterflies and huge flying insects. We watched the famed pink river dolphins and saw turtles and fishermen netting Piranhas.

We got to the lodge (an elevated wooden shack) where the ceremony would be held and met the ayahuascero, the shaman (whose name really is Don Juan), a 67-year-old Cocama Indian, descendant of generations of shamans. No more than 5’6” tall, vigorous, smiling and engaging, Don Juan invited us to his farm. He wanted to show us how the sacred ayahuasca vine grew and was prepared. We piled back into the dugout canoe to meet his family and walk the fields. He showed us many therapeutic plants, lots of bugs, and frogs; at the sacred vine he lit a cigarette to bless it and us. Don Juan asked if any of us had ever taken ayahuasca before (one of us had), and he summarized what the experience might be like. He said we might get sick to our stomachs, but to sit up and let it out, only then could we see something new.

Ayahuasca (which means devil vine in Quechua) cleanses the body by unleashing a parasympathetic cascade that induces vomiting and can cause diarrhea; you sweat profusely and can become immobilized. Don Juan said you first have to let go of the stuff that’s trapped inside in order to make room to see things more clearly.

It is the plant “chakruna” that is added to the ayahuasca mixture that induces the visions. I hoped I might see deeper into the mind’s mystery. It was completely dark when we began; a half-hour before I could hear the shaman vomiting outside. Don Juan took it before we did to prepare himself, and that was the first time I felt a queasiness that maybe it might be a little more than feeling sick to my stomach.
We gathered in a 10’ x 20’ shack which contained six mosquito- netted beds, one toilet and sink. We sat in a small circle on the floor, in its center a candle burned. Don Juan lit a cigarette and blew the smoke over a large jar that contained the ayahuasca/ chakruna mixture. He filled a juice glass (a little less for the women) and passed it to each of us in succession. When we were done drinking it he picked up a fan (shakapa) made of branches with tiny leaves and waved out the flame. Don Juan began to whistle a tune; mixed with the sounds of the jungle night, it was an entrancing lullaby and made me think about my mother around the Sabbath lights.

Within 30 minutes I was feeling a bit woozy and the sounds got a little blurry, and in another 10 minutes the first round of nausea seized me. I got real sick (no orifice remained inactive) and my legs trembled so that I could hardly stand. I was sweating profusely, quite thirsty, and asked for water. A helper brought me a glass but Don Juan told me not to drink it so I dutifully put it down next to me. But after another 20 minutes of continued fluid loss, I was even more lightheaded, so I asked for water again. Don Juan told me not to drink because it would only make me sicker.

I’m thinking . . . I’m a doctor, he’s a jungle shaman. I’m fluid depleted, my circulating volume is down, heart, lungs and brain stressing out, I need water. It’s pitch black, he can’t see me, I’ll just pick up the glass. So I reach over to where I put down the glass but it’s not there. The glass is gone, and it’s finally clear to me that I’m in the jungle and maybe he knows something I don’t.

As soon as I saw that, it wasn’t 15 minutes before the vomiting stopped, and then I lay down. Animals came walking by. I could speak to them all, but I can’t recall a single conversation. There were no celestial lights surrounding a heavenly throne welcoming me to the Promised Land; my great vision was how hard it was for me to let go and trust that somebody other than me could get me through the night.

I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to get this through my head, especially since I thought I’d already learned this over the last years with my recent encounters with disease and loss. But the truth is that whenever I face personal crises, I prefer to have the paddle to my canoe in my own hands. To tame my ego I have to be wrenchingly sick and prostrate before I let myself trust that something or someone other than myself will get me through the night.
It shouldn’t be this hard to understand that the only way we ever get control is when we give it up.

Jungle Clowning

2008-08-18T08:40:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a two-week clown trip to Peru with my “holy brother” Patch Adams who, since the movie bearing his name, may be the world’s most recognized humanitarian clown. He is a physician by training, whose specialty I call public health epidemiology. Patch travels to the world’s most troubled spots where war, famine, extreme poverty, and disease etch away at the human spirit. Along with his clowns from the Gesundheit! Institute he provides a moment’s respite from the omnipresence of despair, and develops partnerships with local community action health programs.

We have been close friends for 20 years and I love his prophetic soul, but I have never accompanied him on an international clown trip. This year I decided to go with him to Iquitos, Peru at the headwaters of the Amazon. Exploring this jungle and its indigenous people has been on my “bucket list” for years. Iquitos is the world’s largest city (pop. 325,000) accessible only by air or by river. At the edge of town is the Belen slum which lies in the floodplain, so from February through July every year, it is under water when the Amazon floods during the spring runoff. The ramshackle wooden shacks are built to float or sit on 10’ stilts. 65,000 people live here in extreme poverty, without electricity or clean water. Sanitation consists of open trenches carrying sewage and human waste. The population suffers from all of the attendant diseases of malnutrition, waterborne illnesses, respiratory diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, and a host of social problems.

For the last four years, Patch and Gesundheit!, along with Bola Roja (a Peruvian hospital clowning and child advocacy organization), the Municipalidad Belen, and the Pan American Health Organization, have worked together to bring color, joy, laughter, arts, music and healthcare to the community. This year it was done at a level of historic magnitude with over 90 clowns, from 12 countries, aged 16-69 (my granddaughter and I representing both extremes).

We were artists, teachers, actors, students, physicians, dentists, social workers, psychotherapists, filmmakers, and a business executive, all of whom came at our own expense. We conducted workshops on health prevention, art, music, dance, percussion, theater, puppetry and juggling. We also sponsored clinics, painted houses and clowned.

I participated in it all, worked and played 14 hours a day, and wasn’t tired at day’s end. Being surrounded by such loving energy filled me with participatory joy. I clowned in AIDS shelters, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the developmentally disabled, crowded marketplaces, and paraded through the streets. Dressed as a ridiculous giant ballerina (in pink tights, tutu, and a Flamingo headpiece), I held castanets in my hand and danced Flamenco, waltzed with the elderly, and laid balloon eggs for the kids.

I received much more than I gave. Reminded of the healing power of love, I was rejuvenated by the energy of young people who want to make a difference. It gave me renewed hope for the world.

To see the video, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?video/video.php&v=21333137269

I’m Going to Eat Some Worms

2008-08-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

The prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in North America, the main forms of which are Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, has increased markedly over the last half-century. Two generations ago the incidence of IBD was 1 in 10,000, and now it’s 1 in 250. Nobody is quite sure what causes IBD; it seems to fall into that diffuse category of autoimmune disorders which are characterized by the body’s defenses attacking some aspect of itself. Researchers suggest environment, diet and genetics may all be involved.

Joel V. Weinstock M.D., a Professor of Medicine at Tufts, is a gastroenterologist whose special expertise is in parasitic worm infestations. Dr Weinstock looked at the epidemic and thought it unlikely that genetics were the reason for the enormous increase, because it occurred so quickly. He also knew that over the last 50 years, big changes have occurred in the environment of the bowel. We have virtually eliminated parasitic worms from the GI tract through improved hygiene, de-worming efforts, and lots of new drugs that sterilize the bowel.

Parasitic intestinal worms do not induce bowel inflammation (which is the typical response to any invasion); instead, they seem to bolster the host’s anti-inflammatory response and create a peaceful environment that doesn’t reject them. Dr. Weinstock theorized that when the worms were evicted from our bodies the immune system went out of kilter. Hygiene may have made our lives better; however, in the process of eliminating exposure to the things that can make us sick, we’ve also eliminated exposure to things that keep us well. If, after long co-evolution, the human immune system came to depend on the worms for proper functioning, then perhaps reintroducing benign worms to patients with IBD might bolster their immune response.

Pig farmers are chronically exposed to Tricuris suis, the pig whip worm which causes no problems in humans. So Dr. Weinstock gave T. suis eggs to 29 patients with Crohn’s disease at three-week intervals for 24 weeks; 23 of them went into complete remission. He repeated the study with chronic ulcerative colitis patients, and half of them improved significantly.

Now researchers all over the world are using T. suis eggs on patients with a host of autoimmune diseases including Multiple Sclerosis, hay fever, asthma, and food allergies, all of which have also exploded over the last 50 years.

This is a metaphor for life: we are part of our environment and not separate from it. We participate in an interactive community that includes bacteria, fungi, viruses, and even a few parasites — all important participants in keeping us healthy. When we change our ecosystem and disturb any of its key players our systems can get out of whack. The relentless pursuit of hygiene and drugs for every symptom are actually weakening us.

I’m going to eat some worms.

Psychiatric Payola

2008-07-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

A Congressional investigation examining violations of federal and university research rules revealed that world renowned scientists failed to report the millions they received in consulting fees from drug companies (NYT, 6/8/08).

Dr. Joseph Biederman, a preeminent Harvard child psychiatrist (along with 2 other colleagues), never disclosed the $1.6 million he collected, and his research fueled an explosion in the use of powerful medications for kids. He reported that millions of children had massively under-diagnosed serious psychiatric illnesses that could be effectively treated with potent medications having serious side effects. There are an estimated 4-5 million children with ADD now taking these drugs, and over the last 15 years we have seen a 40-fold increase in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder (manic-depressive psychosis).

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM IV) is the psychiatric bible for disease diagnosis, psychiatric treatments including drugs, as well as legitimizing insurance company reimbursements. One hundred seven medical experts write the DSM, and over the last 20 years, 56% of them had one or more financial ties with the pharmaceutical industry (Schlagbyte, 5/8/06).

So the secret’s now public: the world’s psychiatric experts are financially compensated to support drug use for what they define as psychopathology, and their work brings multi-millions in research grants to their universities. Harvard says it can’t be expected to monitor and verify their staff’s voluntary disclosures. The researchers all predictably say that receipt of this kind of money does not influence their results.

It’s clear drug manufacturers support researchers whose results will encourage drug sales. Together, they have convinced the public that “unacceptable” behaviors are actually diseases that can be cured by drugs. This is why 25% of all Americans are diagnosed with a DSM psychiatric disorder, making us #1 in the world for mental illness (Schlagbyte, 9/24/07).

As consumers, we are buying into these definitions and recommendations. Here’s a revolutionary idea that will stop the inflated epidemic of mental illness in this country: stop direct-to- consumer advertising by drug companies; and no more financial incentives to researchers.

Three Singing Loons

2008-07-06T23:18:00.000-07:00

With the economy weakening, gas prices soaring, home values sinking, earth warming, rivers rising and levies bursting, I had been feeling a bit down and powerless. When I get this way, I think about my mother’s admonition for staying healthy, “when in doubt, party!”

I regularly do community health consultation in Red Wing, Minnesota. A couple of weeks ago, I took some extra time to go fishing. In the middle of an isolated lake, paddling a canoe, I came upon a family of loons. These are gorgeous black-and-white, water birds, with penetrating red eyes, and a long, low-pitched plaintive call that sounds like a wailing prayer. It’s what I imagine Aretha Franklin would sound like singing a Gregorian chant.

The loons were a mated pair, and swimming between them was a dark gray fluffy chick. The chick sometimes took a break and climbed on its mother’s back to rest; sometimes both adults disappeared into the waters, and the chick swam around unconcerned. The parents always resurfaced and soon they’d start that prayerful wailing, and I was moved to wail with them. In the majestic splendor of a Northwood’s lake, three loons were wailing, and somehow all my despairing preoccupations seemed to float away with the sounds and the scene.

When I returned, my wife and I went to a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert. CSN have been singing their incomparable harmonies together for 40 years; they are the world’s longest running super group. Talk about an exercise in nostalgia, we were surrounded by thousands of aging hippies singing together down memory lane. Standing together, we sang about the madness of war, the wonders in my house of love, and how to teach our children well. In the midst of all that is coming down around us, that night in the Dodge Theater you could feel the love.

Partying may not change the external events, but it will help you take back control of the only power we really have: choosing to party surrounded by whom and what you love. Remembering my mother this way makes me smile; this is the 4th anniversary of her death . . . I feel you Ma, in concert halls and wooded lakes, singing with the loons.

A Woman Called Horse

2008-06-22T23:09:00.001-07:00

Several weeks ago, along with colleagues from the Turtle Island Project, I conducted a retreat entitled “The Last Mask of the Authentic Healer.” It’s an experiential workshop for people interested in expanding their therapeutic repertoire and effectiveness. Participants are generally a broad spectrum of health professionals, but it’s open to others interested in healing.

We utilize lots of ritual and ceremony, because we’ve found they provide a structure that allows people to get in touch with feelings. From trance induction, visualization, drumming, body movement, and the creation of sacred objects, we awaken the right side of our brains. The right brain is home to the unencumbered, intuitive, and spiritual parts of us. It is the place of imagination and dreams, where we are opened to a world beyond our physical boundaries.

One of the participants was a psychiatric colleague who has a hospital-based practice. Mary has had a life-long love of horses and has developed a capacity to communicate with them. Now if you’re a veterinarian and say you can talk to horses that’s one thing, but a psychiatrist who can channel animals arouses a different response. Mary wants to use horses as therapeutic allies in her work with patients and has taken some steps to make that happen. However, her community’s resistance to her unorthodox approaches to therapy concerns her.

During the workshop we do a mask-making ceremony, which is often an intense confrontation with one’s healing spirit. Participants are asked to decorate their masks with objects that they have gathered during a silent, meditative walk. People are asked to pick only those things that “speak” to them, and Mary found three stones that represented her mind, body and spirit. She would incorporate them into her mask to remind her to stay in balance and live her truth.

She glued the two smaller stones representing her mind and body onto the forehead and between the eyes. The last stone, which was quite large, she picked because she saw the silhouette of a horse in it that represented her spirit. She was trying to glue it over the mouth as I walked by. It was obvious the glue would not hold it in place so I said, “Maybe that big stone would hold if you opened up the mouth and wedged it in.”

Mary understood immediately, that unless she opened her mouth to say clearly the way she truly wanted to practice, she would never own her spirit and move beyond her ambivalences.

We made an opening in the mouth and as she stuck the stone in Mary said, “I’ve been waiting a long time to open my horse-woman mouth.” Change happens like a bolt of lightening when the mind is opened and the lips can speak the truth of your soul.

Stroked into Bliss

2008-06-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Jill Bolte Taylor was a 37-year-old neuroscientist working at Harvard when she suffered a stroke. I heard about her through an e-mail attachment and listened to her tell the story of her eight-year recovery. The story was so moving that I went out and got her book My Stroke of Insight (Viking, 2008). Dr. Taylor’s book is a poetic elegy on bliss, as well as an anatomically detailed description of brain function, and it moved me deeply.

At 7:00 a.m. on Dec. 10, 1996, Jill Taylor felt a piercing pain behind her left eye from a blood vessel that had just burst. A Ph.D. in Neuroanatomy, she was uniquely qualified to describe what happened within minutes after her left-brain injury. After the intense pain, she could feel her body disconnecting from her mind, and blending with the space around her. “My perception of physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air. I was enfolded in a blanket of tranquil euphoria….at one with the world and all its creatures, part of a magnificent field of shimmering energy....I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle”.

This euphoric nirvana was accompanied by a deterioration of her ability to walk, talk, read and write, and recall much of her life. Jill describes the impact of the damage to the left side of her brain—the rational, grounded, organized, analytic part, and what happens when the right side picks up the slack—that’s the artistic, unencumbered, spiritual side.

My Stroke of Insight is a great short read, written honestly like a prayer from the heart; it’s a healing journey that will inspire you. But let me also make clear that not all left-sided brain injuries lead to such blissful insightfulness. Some people sink into difficult moody states and can act out in problematic ways. For Jill Taylor, her stroke recovery meant choosing to live a more spiritual life. She makes clear that by saying spiritual life she doesn’t mean religion. Religion, she says, is a story that the left brain tells the right brain. The right brain feels that awesome awareness without having the need to define it.

Now fully recovered, she says she can get into her right brain self whenever she wants to. If she feels anger rising, Jill thinks about somebody, something, or some activity that brings her pleasure. She doesn’t need to meditate to prepare herself; she says you just have to believe that you can tame the left-brain mind. She now makes the time for her physical and visual passions (waterskiing, guitar playing, and stained glass making), believing that by exercising the right brain she promotes a consciousness that leads to a more peaceful, spiritual life.

There are areas of the brain that are hardwired for spiritual experience which allows us to move beyond our physical boundaries, time and space. But we tend to subordinate that part to our dominant, controlling mind. Here is a distinguished neuroscientist telling us we can feel greater peace in our lives, if we spend more time exercising our right brain.

I love this story! Feeling bliss is not just a drug-induced, altered state of consciousness, it is something we can create for ourselves anywhere. If we can get stroked into bliss, and maybe do it without blowing a blood vessel, then maybe we can even do it together as a planet…now that’s bliss.

Be Where You Are

2008-05-25T22:03:00.001-07:00

I have often quoted the following statement as the best prescription for health that I have ever heard. It’s Gandhi’s line, “If you’re going to be somewhere, be there.” As much as I believe that truth, it’s always been easier to talk about it than to do it.

Today’s byte is my public statement that I’m going to take this healthful step and practice truly being where I am. I find it almost unfathomable that I’m getting close to 70 and increasingly being reminded of my mortality. I tire more easily and take longer to heal; I’m slowing down by every parameter. Slow is not stop mind you — I swim regularly, have a daily yoga practice, work and write. I want to relax more and do what I really want to be doing like teaching, traveling, fishing, and telling stories to my grandkids while they’re still listening to me.

It’s been hard for me to slow down; at first the justification was funding my retirement plan. Then it was those old tapes playing in my brain: slow is just a step away from stop; slow down and you‘ll loses the competitive edge, become less competent, yada, yada, yada. It’s time to get over it, tame the ego, acknowledge my truth in every moment and truly be where I am.

I will be gone for most of the summer. I’ll be working and fishing in Minnesota, showing my grandson New York City, playing at Oregon Country Fair, and taking my granddaughter to Peru with Patch Adams. What this means is that my Schlagbytes will appear less frequently. Having not missed a Monday morning byline in 12 years, this is a big step toward liberation. I’m going to focus on personal stories and include more pictures so that you can see what I’m doing and with whom.

I’m feeling good about this and I hope that you will too. Stacey (my editorial muse) reminds me that you may look forward to hearing from me even more. This is where I am and I’m sticking to it.

Ultimate Fighting

2008-05-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

There is a rapidly growing sport called “Ultimate Fighting” (Rage in a Cage); it is like human cockfighting. Muscular men beat each other bloody with bare fists, feet, elbows and knees. This gladiatorial combat used to be available on pay-per-view only, until Spike TV presented the Ultimate Fighting Championships to a national audience. Now, CBS has just closed a deal to broadcast these fights on prime-time TV.

In an attempt to make this gore more palatable to the public, some states have passed legislation governing these contests. In Arizona, House Bill 2834 is getting final approval, and you can be sure soon Phoenix will become a regular stop for televised events. The Bill requires the State’s Boxing Commission to adopt mixed martial art rules. For example, you can no longer knee or elbow your opponent in the face, strike a grounded opponent with your closed fist, make throat strikes or groin attacks. Since there is still plenty of bloodletting, the State will require onsite ambulances, physicians and emergency medical personnel.

I learned there is even one state that allows kids as young as six to participate in these events. In Missouri, elementary school boys and girls can join fight teams like the “Garage Boys Fight Crew.” These teams are organized by parents who are hoping it expands into some bare-knuckled Little League. It’s generated some controversy, which these parents say they don’t quite understand. They’re not training their children for dog fighting; they are just teaching them discipline and self-defense.

What are these kids defending themselves against? We have become a culture that accepts the contemporary myth that we are under threat of perpetual attack. We allow ourselves to be virtually undressed every time we go to an airport, as a patriotic duty in defense our nation. This preoccupation with security and defense has created an atmosphere that stimulates paranoia, intensifies our fears, and perpetuates the idea that the only way we will survive into the future, is if we get them before they get us.

Wake up America! In the name of defense we are now training our children to become ultimate fighters. And what we are seeing in our culture is a tolerance of escalating violence in the young. Even if your kids aren’t joining an ultimate fighting crew, they are probably playing relentlessly violent video games. From “Grand Theft Auto” to a new one called “Bully.” It is set at Bullworth Academy, a fictional boarding school that accepts a new 15-year- old student who is the ultimate fighting machine. The players decide how this new student deals with teachers, administrators, and cliques at the school. It is a program of such unrelenting violence that it has been banned in Brazil.

Teaching hand-to-hand combat, to become ultimate fighters is not how we will survive in today’s world — it will destroy us. Rather, we need to be teaching our kids how to read and think critically about what they read and hear. A secure future rests on training kids to become ultimate learners, not fighters.

P.S. Early registration discount for The Last Mask of the Authentic Healer workshop June 6-8 ends this week, see homepage to sign up for this extraordinary event.

I Dream of Genie

2008-05-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

I am on a flight home from Minneapolis in the aisle seat just behind the bulkhead. Next to me in the middle seat is an elderly woman reading a John Grisham novel. In the window seat next to her, is a friend of mine from Phoenix, Larry Colbert, who happens to be blind. At Larry’s feet lies Banner, his seeing-eye dog. The Sunday New York Times is in my lap and I proceed to stick in my earplugs. This maneuver doesn’t invite a lot of casual conversation; plane trips are my fun-reading time.

The Captain approaches, accompanied by a maintenance man — it’s a bad sign. I take out the ear plugs, and the Captain asks me if they can look at the cover of the seat divider between us. It seems the cover was completely off and had been reported. From the conversation, it becomes clear that if the maintenance supervisor calls somebody in to fix it, it would take at least an hour. The part is not critical for flight; I piped in that my neighbor and I would find a way to tolerate the loose cover for the two-hour flight home. She smiled in agreement and they agreed it could be fixed in Phoenix where they had a longer layover.

I smiled at her and thanked her for her agreement; then added that if she needed a tray-table for her drink that I would be happy to hold it in my lap. Without a millisecond’s delay she said, “Thank you but I’d rather use it as a seat.” I giggled and said, “Maybe we don’t have to wait until the drinks come.” This was one of those rare trips when I kept my earplugs out for a long time and got to know someone. Like my wife, Gene was a surgical nurse. Married to a distinguished neurosurgeon for 63 years, she was widowed four years ago. I ask her what it was like to live alone after a lifetime together with someone. Gene said the hardest part was the nights, when she climbed into their queen-size bed; she could hear him, smell him, and feel his touch. His memory lingered everywhere; she couldn’t sleep, and after four months she bought two twin beds. I looked at her with raised eyebrows, and Gene said with a twinkle, “For my granddaughters who sometimes sleepover.”

At that moment, the flight attendant brought our drinks. Holding the teacup in one hand, and shakily squeezing a lemon with the other, it squirted out of my hand and landed in Gene’s lap. She looked at me and started laughing hysterically. “What’s so funny,” I asked? Gene said between gasps, “The dog is a licking my toes.”

She said, “This has been an unforgettable trip . . . one man in my lap, another licking my feet; I don’t think the girls are going to believe this at the dinner table tonight.”

I didn’t read much of the Sunday Times that day; I was inspired by Gene’s vibrant, quick and flirtatious smile. Filled with admiration, wonder and love, I can only hope that, even at 90, I can still rub my lamp and dream of Genie.

P.S. Only 4 weeks left until The Last Mask of the Authentic Healer workshop, the only time I will do it this year here in the States. For those of you interested in expanding your power to heal yourself and others, there is still space available.

Rev. Williams’ Love Story

2008-05-04T19:47:00.000-07:00

One of the recipients at the recent National Caring Awards ceremony was the Reverend Cecil Williams who was honored for his nearly half-century’s work at Glide Memorial Church in downtown San Francisco. I have admired the Rev. Williams since those radical 60’s when you could hear the beat of the Glide Ensemble on the sidewalks of Market Street on Sunday mornings.

After his ordination as a Methodist minister, Cecil Williams was assigned to Glide, which was in the middle of the Tenderloin district and a gathering place for druggies, hookers, the homeless, and the chronically mentally ill. Glide was losing members as more and more people fled the inner city. It became clear to Rev. Williams that these poor people, many on the edge of society and in grave need, desperately needed something to lift them up. So he told them the good news: they could be loved, wanted to be loved, and that his church was founded on the basis of love for all.

In the late 60’s, Rev. Cecil Williams’ talk of love and brotherhood created a following of thousands. Crowds for Sunday services flowed into the street where people danced to great blues, soul, rock and jazz by renowned musicians. He invited internationally known figures like Billy Graham and Bill Cosby, and controversial speakers like Angela Davis and the Black Panthers. But it was the music that made Glide famous. One hundred singers, often accompanied by well-known musicians, would rock the place. Glide’s energy was so intense that lines of people holding hands would emerge from the sanctuary and snake into the street singing Start a Love Train.

Several years ago when the Rev. Williams reached mandatory retirement age for Methodist ministers, he told them he wasn’t leaving. He said his work wasn’t finished and that he was having too much fun. He still sponsors youth programs, healthcare programs, meals for the hungry and frail.

When he accepted his Caring Award, Rev. Williams summed up his work by saying if you take the risk to love fully, it will lift you up and turn you around. But first, you have to risk loving who you are in spite of your shortcomings, and only then can you reach out and love others. He said loving is what it is all about, and that it isn’t an original thought, it is an old story.

Years ago he told that story wearing a Dashiki and sporting an afro, but on awards night he was equally inspiring telling it in a tuxedo. At the end I walked up to the Rev. Williams and his lovely wife, introduced myself and told him he had been an inspiration to me since my youth. He looked up and down at my tuxedo with a Concho belt and bolo tie and said, “I knew there would be some old hippies in this crowd.” He patted me on the shoulder and said, “Love is still the answer.”

Another Secret of Life

2008-04-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

This is the second time I’ve been in a Washington D.C. taxi on my way to the airport and learned a “secret of life.” Maybe it’s the quality of the cabbies here; most are foreign-born (lots from Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Indian subcontinent) and quite educated.

Mohammad is a smiling 41-year-old Pakistani man who recently became an American citizen. A college graduate, he came to the States to get a masters degree. He drove a cab at night to support himself and earn enough money to send for his wife. The financial demands were such that he worked more and studied less until he had to drop out of school.

We got to know each other when I asked him about the Native American medicine wheel hanging from his rear-view mirror. Mohammad said he got it from an American Indian friend who told him it was a good blessing. He liked it because it reminded him that in this country everybody could pray freely. He was Muslim but he didn’t care what a person’s religion was as long as their religion didn’t interfere with their humanity. When I asked him what he meant by that he said. “If I pray five times a day but I wouldn’t stop on my way to the mosque to help a wounded neighbor, then my religion would get in the way of my humanity.”

Raised in a traditional Moslem home, his marriage was arranged by his parents. Since he came from an educated family, they did not seal the deal with the prospective girl’s parents; instead, they gave him a choice of four potential wives. He met them all, and during their initial chaperoned meeting, after introductory conversations, Mohammad asked them all the same hypothetical question, which for him was the crucial deciding factor. What would she do in if she were driving home after work and saw an accident on the road — people were crowded around the injured person whom she could not see, nor could she see the vehicle. This was also about the same time her husband usually came home. Mohammad wanted to know if she would stop. (A religious Muslim woman is prohibited from looking at another man, especially one who might be exposed.)

Only one said she would stop, and that’s the one Mohammad chose to marry. He said if she did not let her religion get in the way of her humanity, then they could work out any potential problems in their marriage.

They have been married for eight years and have two children. Both of them work six days a week; he drives the cab during the day, and his wife cares for the children and works nights when he is with them.

I asked Mohammad if he had any regrets about leaving school and being a cab driver. He said, “No, I don’t compare myself to rich people. I don’t get jealous or angry; I don’t have any room for that. I embrace my life and welcome what comes. I look at what God has given me and have found riches more valuable than anything money can buy.”

As I listened to him I thought, whatever religion he’s got is the one I want to have. Here is another secret of life: it doesn’t matter how you pray or how often, a person of faith is one whose humanity comes before their religion.

P.S. To all of you interested in expanding your power to heal yourself and others, check out the upcoming Last Mask of the Authentic Healer worshop in Phoenix June 6-8, 2008 @ www.healingdoc.com

Fairyland for Dreamers

2008-04-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

As many times as I have visited Washington D.C. I’ve never been there during the season of flowering cherry blossoms, but this years National Caring Awards were held 2 weeks ago at the height of its glory. The bureaucratic grayness of Washington was transformed into a pink fairyland; trees, streets, statues, your hair, everything covered in pink petals.

I always try to attend this ceremony because the honorees restore my faith in humanity; especially the young people, the kids 10-18 years old who remind me that the American dream still lives. We are a people who; pursue life, liberty, opportunity, identify with underdogs and believe in upsets.

Among this years Young Award Winners was Ashlee Kephart, a 16-year-old girl from Minneapolis who founded Kids for a Better World” which donates books, clothes, toys, household items to orphanages and disaster victims in the U.S. and Africa. She is setting up an African chapter of Kids for a Better World, and partnering with charities in Liberia to build solar-ovens.

What impressed me most about this smiling, blond, energetic bundle of joy was her preternatural wisdom. Her father died before she was born so she only knows him through stories. Her mother and grandmother have inspired in her a meaningful connection with him. She would celebrate her birthday by stuffing notes into balloons telling her father what she was doing, learning, her hopes and even fears. When she released them and watched them drift away she felt his presence.

Ashlee just wrote a children’s book A Special Way of Remembering (www. kidsforabetterworld.com), which speaks to kids who’ve lost a parent. She tells this simple story; don’t forget the important people in your life. Think about them when you’re doing the things you love to do. When you let people know they are not forgotten, and you care about them, then even grief can be used to heal.

Here I am in the administrative center of a current war, a tightening economy, environmental disasters, other assorted crises, and I’m humming Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White doing a cha-cha on the path around the Tidal Basin. No gray buildings, cynicism or despair today, only a pink-petaled fairyland for dreamers.

P.S. Remember the upcoming June 6-8, 2008 workshop “Last Mask of the Authentic Healer” which combines the science and spirit of healing. It is for people interested in expanding their healing abilities. Early registration discount @ www.healingdoc.com.a

The Warrior Club

2008-04-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend my grandson, Ace, celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. The day before he was called to the Torah to be initiated into Jewish tribal manhood, I sponsored a Native American sweat lodge ceremony. My Akimel Authum brother Dallas, conducted this warrior initiation sweat for 17 men who sat cheek-to-cheek in the small canvas-covered, willow-framed hut.

This prayerful purification ritual is an intense confrontation with one’s self. In the take-your-breath-away heat, inconsequential preoccupations seem to melt away, and you focus on more significant issues (like breathing).

Scrunched tightly together, we spoke to each other about what we thought important about being a man; sharing a story, an experience, a teaching, that profoundly impacted our lives.
I told him a story about a young Masai warrior I’d met in Kenya a couple of years ago. Joseph was the first-born son of the village chief who would inherit his father’s position and cattle. He was also the first in his family allowed to continue his schooling beyond the first three years of compulsory education. He learned to speak English fluently and was also able to hold a conversation in French and Japanese. Joseph was working as the cultural liaison at our tent camp during our safari.

My wife actually met Joseph first when she listened to him give an evening campfire lecture while I went out on a night’s safari. After the program they spent time together and Joseph shared his uncertainties about the future. He told her he wanted to choose his own wife (not the one that his father had picked for him) and to build a substantial house (not a dung hut that periodically washed away in the rainy season). He told her would not circumcise a daughter if he had one and that his attitudes were estranging him from his father and family.

Elaine felt his suffering and mentioned to him that I was a doctor who worked with American Indians and had experience with such conflicts. The following day was New Year’s Eve, and after dinner Joseph and I had a deep soulful conversation about how people survive in rapidly changing times. We talked about what happens to those first people that I call bridge people, who cross into a world of new experience. It brings combination of discovery and liberation, as well as the potential for conflicts when one sees the world from a completely different perspective.

Joseph did not want to abandon his Masai traditions, but he also didn’t want to live like his father. At the end of our conversation he asked me what I thought his future would be? I said it was possible for him to be a good Masai warrior and also enjoy hot showers.

In the morning before we departed, Joseph came to our tent. I had to look at him twice because I didn’t recognize him in his shorts and buzz haircut. Joseph said he came because he wanted to thank me for helping him welcome this New Year in a new way. He was going home today to greet his father in this new dress and reached into his back pocket and took out the war club he himself carved. Joseph handed it to me, saying this wasn’t the only thing that made him a real Masai warrior; he could tell his story in any costume he chose.

I gave it to my grandson in the lodge and told him it was a reminder that a good man will honor the teachings of his elders, but a warrior will look at the old landscape with new eyes and make his own decisions.

P.S. If you’re interested in expanding your power to heal, join me in an exciting, unique workshop “The Last Mask of the Authentic Healer” June 6-8, 2008 in Phoenix, AZ. Check my website (www. healingdoc.com) for details.

Why Spitzer Got His Money’s Worth

2008-04-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Was I the only one who wondered what Eliot Spitzer, New York’s former Governor, got from a prostitute for a $1,000/hour that he couldn’t have gotten for $100? The answer came in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It turns out it’s not what “Kristen” did to “client # 9” that made her worth the money, but rather it was what Spitzer anticipated.

Doctors Baba Shiv, a Stanford University behavioral economist, and Antonio Rangel, a Cal Tech neuroeconomist, published a study in which they demonstrated how the brain changes when you anticipate that something great is going to happen. Lots of studies have shown that people’s judgments about quality are powerfully influenced by price; the general assumption is that expensive things have higher quality. It turns out that it’s not just a placebo effect: using neuro-imaging studies, the researchers discovered that the brain actually experienced pleasure more intensely. The medial orbitofrontal cortex, which makes judgments about pleasure, lights up more if you pay a premium for something.

The researchers didn’t use hookers (but the principle is the same); they used two bottles of wine, one priced at ten dollars, the other at ninety dollars. The experimental subjects didn’t know that the wine in the bottles was exactly the same, and the people who thought they were drinking the more expensive wine had a significantly greater activation in their medial orbitofrontal cortex.

When you’re paying a premium price for something, your investment actually increases the motivation to be satisfied. Did Spitzer get ripped-off? No, he actually got a better deal because buying at bargain prices sets you up to derive less satisfaction. No more discounted fees for me.

Brain Doping for Success

2008-03-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

Soon it won’t only be athletes who are tested for performance enhancing drugs before any medals are awarded — Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners might also be tested.

The era of doping has entered the academic world; the journal Nature recently reported a finding by Cambridge University professors that a dozen of their colleagues admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderal and Provigil which stimulate the brain. The report elicited a flood of responses, so the journal conducted its own survey, and so far the number of professors and students using brain stimulants has multiplied significantly. The academic culture is becoming “pop pills or perish.”

Four years ago, Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed the rising use of these brain stimulating drugs not to treat illnesses, but solely to improve performance. This was leading to a new specialty he called “cosmetic neurology.” He predicted that cosmetic neurology would mirror the growth of cosmetic surgery which once was scorned as vain and unnatural, but now has become mainstream. Dr. Chatterjee concluded:

“We worship at the altar of progress, and to the demigod of choice; both are very strong undercurrents in the culture. The way this will likely be framed is: Look, we want smart people to be productive as possible to make everybody’s lives better. We want people performing at the max, and if that means using these medicines, then great. We should be free to chose what we want to as long as we’re not harming someone.”

The original purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not to turn people into gods. But in our winner-take-all society, anything that helps you perform at your max gives you an advantage in the competition. Is chemically tweaking the brain to improve performance the same as tweaking your musculature and endurance to win the Tour de France? No it’s not! It’s worse, because brain doping will have a much more profound impact on society. Those with access to medications will elevate themselves intellectually, financially, technologically, and politically, so that the gap between the haves and the have-nots will widen even more.

Medication is for treating illnesses, not for gaining advantage. If cosmetic neurology becomes mainstream there will be long-term consequences on the body, mind, and spirit. Let’s stick with the old- fashioned way of becoming a success, through hard work and struggle, because they also build character.

Dying to Become a Punk Rocker

2008-03-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

At most of my presentations, I talk about making connections to something or someone other than yourself to build a community of shared spirit, because it’s those connections that get you through the hard times. In the Q and A that follows, I’m often asked whether this is a plea for God and religiosity in one’s life. I say it doesn’t matter what you connect to — it can be whales, old-growth forests, Greenpeace, your ancestral homeland — they may all be names for God. It could even be a gang of pierced, tattooed punk rockers.

I read about Andrea Collins Smith, a 37-year-old punk rocker. She is a mother of six and a college graduate who a year ago was diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of breast cancer. She had a bilateral mastectomy which was followed by chemotherapy and radiation. Four months later, the cancer had spread to her spine, and the bills mounted.

The whole Philadelphia punk, grunge, self-styled outcasts, rockers, and tattoo artists came together in community. They cook, clean, run errands and drive to Andrea to doctors appointments. They sponsor fund-raisers from auctions to bake sales; the School of Rock in Philadelphia put on a concert, and a burlesque group called the Bawdy Girls peeled down to pasties and G-strings in a benefit striptease.

Several months ago, Andrea and began a personal blog (www.punkmommy.org) as a way of keeping family and friends informed. What happened, however, is that it has become the online version of Tuesdays with Morrie. Sometimes her postings are painful, sometimes they make me laugh, and they always make me think and connect lovingly to her. Andrea says, “I’ve come to understand that life is very short. None of us knows how long we have. That’s part of the plan I don’t have any information about. You can sit around and wonder why me? But do you ever ask yourself that when good things happen?”

Last week Andrea discovered the swollen lymph nodes in her neck were cancerous. She will undergo repeated chemotherapy. Her community continues to rally, and Andrea tells us every time she writes that she loves us and gives thanks for the support.

I’m no punk rocker, but I am connected to this community because I love the love that surrounds her. I love Andrea’s courage in inviting us to share this most personal journey; her truth helps us make sense of the process of our lives. Communities of shared spirit break down old boundaries, and I say thank you to all my new relations.

Mi Takuye Oyacin. We are all together.

The Prayer Box

2008-03-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last week I spoke to physicians at the American Medical Directors Association. They are gerontologists, and palliative care specialists who run long-term health care facilities for the aging and chronically ill.

This may be the last place in clinical medicine where doctors still take time to talk to patients. These doctors spend less time prescribing drugs and procedures, and more time with patients and families helping them come together and heal.

I reminded them there is a difference between curing and healing. They know their frail patients will not be cured of their debilities, but they need to be touched, loved, and reminded that they are not alone. This is the sacred work of medicine: to inspire hope and to walk the healing journey together.

Afterwards I was signing books, and a colleague, Dr. Brenda Williams from Sumter, South Carolina, introduced herself. Brenda thanked me for my compassion and the reminder of the loving soul of medicine. “God bless you and your entire family,” she said, “I want to give you something.” She took a bracelet from her wrist and put it on mine. She said it was a prayer bracelet and showed me the small, latched silver box hanging from it. Inside were tiny circles of paper that had the initials of people she loved, those who were sick, and others needing help.

Brenda said she wore the bracelet every day so the people she loved knew she was thinking about them, letting them know they were not alone. Listening to her talk, I was awed by her compassionate presence. Brenda Williams is a doctor and also a healer. In addition to making diagnoses and treating patients (what doctors do), she connects with patients in ways that inspire them to become participants in their health — that’s a healer.

I took the bracelet and said that in Indian country when you gave someone a gift of your soul, it meant that you made a new relative, and I wanted to take her as my sister. We hugged enthusiastically and planned to talk later.

When I got home I incorporated the prayer box into my prayer shawl. The first name I put into it was my new niece, Jamila Williams, Brenda’s oldest daughter who is serving her second tour of duty in Iraq. With the shawl draped over my shoulders, I lit some cedar and holding an eagle feather asked for blessings for family old and new, and a special one for my niece Jamila.

Math, Miracles, and Medicine

2008-03-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to present at a medical symposium with some legendary giants in the field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). Drs. Andrew Weil, the world-recognized face of Integrative Medicine; Candace Pert, the research pharmacologist who discovered the brains opiate receptor sites, and launching the discovery of a host of neurotransmitters and their mechanisms of action; and Antonio Damasio, the distinguished neurologist whose book Descartes Error is the best description of the strengths and limits of scientific inquiry.

From their unique perspectives, each spoke about the links between mind and body. They showed pictures of the brain that pinpointed the areas responsible for virtually every emotional state. They explained how chronic stress would wear down the bodies defense mechanisms and make you vulnerable to disease.

I spoke last, about the spirit of healing and how doctors can tap into it to magnify their own healing power and that of their patients’. Since ancient times, we have known there is a link between mind and body, and that priests and healers had the power to cure afflictions for which no organic causes could be found.

Over the last hundred years ago Mesmer, Charcot and Freud all identified the non-physical causes for patients symptoms. The mind could manipulate the body, and the body could manipulate the mind. Emotions are transmitted at the cellular level and the vibrational level; this is not New Agey, it is science!

Pharmaceutical companies, interested in the development of medicines that alter the brain, have funded most current bran research. . $50 billion a year is spent on drugs for brain and psychiatric diseases, even though those medications are only moderately effective and come with serious side effects.

I believe in evidence-based medicine, but I also recognize its limitations. Some things can’t be explained, important questions like; Why me? Why now? And what’s next? Science answers those questions in terms of statistics and probabilities. Those explanations almost invariably hold no meaning for patients. People need to make personal sense of their illness and suffering.

All cultures have ways of telling stories that help people make sense of their suffering and how to get rid of it. In a panel discussion at the end, we all agreed that abundant wisdom has been gathered over the ages about how to make sense of our lives. Life is not simply a story of mathematical probabilities, but of inexplicable tragedy and miraculous happenings. If you kindle the spirit you awaken the mind-body to healing.

Love and the Honey Bird

2008-03-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

I see a patient who, after a two-year relationship of exquisite intimacy, decides to get engaged. As soon as the date is set, commitment panic grips the sweetheart. Everybody has either heard a story like this or experienced it personally; it’s the stuff of movies and newsreels. Boy meets girl, (or vice-versa) and they revel in love’s wonder until the attachment deepens, and then something happens to make her or him reconsider the commitment.

This panic often coincides with an event. It could be something as simple as a vacation or celebrating a holiday together, or more complicated, like purchasing a home together. The initial panic magnifies one’s ambivalences, fans resentment, and triggers faultfinding. Then comes the need to put some distance in the relationship. Slowly, they withdraw from the honey of love.

What do you say to someone whose sweetheart can’t make a long-term commitment to sharing the honey of love? I told my patient this story….

The Hadza tribesmen in Tanzania tell of a small, green and rust- colored bird called the “honey guide.” About the size of a robin, it is the beloved friend of the people because it points the way to life’s sweetness. When the honey guide calls to them, the Hadza whistle back to let the bird know they are listening. Then the bird leads them to the honey-laden beehive.

Before the Hadza eat the honey, they first break off a piece of the honeycomb and leave it for the honey guide to say thank you for showing them the way. If they didn’t do this, the honey guide would not come to them again.

Love is the honey bird: it’s available to us all, if we can hear its call and choose to follow it. You can’t run away from it, and you have to give it back if you want to keep getting it. That’s how you find your honey for life.

Poppies, People, and Plastic

2008-02-25T09:13:00.000-08:00

I was twenty miles north of Phoenix hiking along Cave Creek in the springtime glory of the Sonoran desert. Alone by the flowing stream, I sat awestruck by the magnificent display of Mexican gold poppies, purple lupine, and assorted orange and red flowers. I was so entranced by the breathtaking palette, the symphony of gurgling water, that I imagined myself floating away on a magic carpet of blooms.

The only distraction was a discarded plastic water bottle in front of me. With everything in the world becoming commodified and disposable, I think we will destroy this natural wonder. Looking at the plastic bottle I think about a segment on TV’s 20/20 that I watched the night before, about plasticizing people. This patented process, discovered by the German anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens, is called plastination. Von Hagens found a way to vacuum out a corpse’s fat and body fluids, and then to forcibly impregnate it with liquid plastic. His work was done entirely with volunteers who gave him permission to display them after their death. Von Hagens became famous through his globe-trotting human body exhibition, called “Body Worlds,” which displayed skinless corpses in flexible poses, exposing their musculature and internal organs.

Von Hagens plastination process has been duplicated and now there is a demand for plastic people. The 20/20 program reported that businesses are using the corpses in advertising campaigns, and production companies rent them to be filmed in commercials. These bodies by the way are not all volunteers, they are executed Chinese prisoners, bought and shipped to plastination processors.

When all living things become commodities preserved in plastic, it reduces our appreciation of the sanctity of life. Awe is the mechanism by which we open ourselves to our souls; don’t wait to buy poppies in plastic . . . go out into the desert, woods, mountains, streams and be awed by the aliveness of what’s real.

Getting Naked For My Country

2008-02-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport was the site of field tests for the new “backscatter” X-ray machine. The machine, the size of a doublewide freezer, bounces low-radiation X-rays off you to produce a photo-quality image of you as if you were undressed.

You stand in front of the machine, putting your feet inside the outlines, and hold your arms up. You do the front first and then you turn around for the backside view. This machine makes its unnecessary for security people to have to pat you down, and it better scrutinizes every nook and cranny in your body. This machine can pick up things non-metallic: it can recognize explosives, a ceramic knife, even your plastic IUD.

The TSA officer directing you doesn’t see your near naked image; it’s transmitted to a security person in some remote room. I jiggled a bit hoping the dance would animate my privy parts and provoke a smile to my unseen examiner, but I was told to stand still.

I didn’t like the experience, and it’s not because I consider nakedness scandalous; as a matter of fact, I quite like getting naked. Last year, when more than 18,000 people stripped off their clothes and posed nude for the photographer Spencer Tunick in Mexico City’s famous Zocalo square, I wanted to participate in the record-setting event.

I didn’t like being strip-searched by a machine as an act of patriotic duty in the fight against terrorism. If I get naked for my country, I’d like to do it with 100,000 Americans in front of the White House, promoting peace instead of escalating paranoia (and I’d like Spencer Tunick to immortalize the performance).