May 15, 2026
Curing vs. Healing: An Afternoon at an Indigenous Clinic
A field note on the difference between curing disease and healing persons, drawn from an afternoon in an Indigenous clinic.
Stories
Field notes from the road
Medicine, culture, travel, food, healing, and human stories from my archive. Start with a trail, search for a memory, or move by year.
Roads, meals, clinics, and human encounters.Archive into inquiry
These field notes are not only memory. They are the ground from which my new field inquiries begin.
The current inquiry follows one trail through the archive: food culture, metabolic health, Indigenous knowledge, and Suriname.
Jan 15, 2025
Healing and Caring Rather Than Curing Among Indigenous Peoples
A field note on Indigenous care, monthly clinical gatherings, and the difference between service and healing.
May 15, 2024
THINKING MAY HAVE EXTRAORDINARY HEALING POWERS
THINKING MAY HAVE EXTRAORDINARY HEALING POWERS Reminding people constantly about their age , tend to have detrimental effects on their longevity. One group of hotel maids were told that their…
Oct 15, 2021
SYMBOLIC HEALING
In the West (and those developing countries influenced by it), healing systems of their culture is considered absolute and the others given the collective nomenclature: Complementary or alternative. The western…
Oct 15, 2021
WHAT IS INTELLECTUAL STRESS? AND HOW DO YOU TAKE CARE OF IT ? SYMBOLIC HEALING.
Intellectual stress It is very seldom written about. Stress is usually associated with emotional stress , even though the word stress was used to denote physical or structural stress in…
Feb 15, 2020
THERE ARE MANY FORMS OF SPIRITUAL HEALING AND IN JAPAN FOREST HEALING IS POPULAR
The first ever indigenous group that I worked with was a traditional group of American Indians who lived in their own little territory deep inside the USA. I was completely…
Jun 15, 2017
DOCTOR LOOSES HIS BET WITH AN OMAHA INDIAN PATIENT IN A DEMONSTRATION OF SYMBOLIC HEALING
I love being with the Omaha Indians, some of whom are people I counsel about their health but most of them are my friends. I feel that they have a…
Oct 15, 2014
SYMBOLIC HEALING: LEARN FROM THE AMERICAN INDIANS
I wrote this while I was doing my post graduate studies in Medical Anthropology at the Brunel University of London, England photo taken in front of Beth Shalom Synagogue in…
Jan 15, 2014
SYMBOLIC HEALING AMONG RAPA NUI
SYMBOLIC HEALING WHAT CAN WE LEARN IN RAPA NUI One of the pleasures of being trained as a Medical Anthropologist is to absorb with the vision you have been taught…
Jun 15, 2012
HEALING CEREMONY
I have been praying for three consecutive nights and also tomorrow, making it four, for the health of a person close to the two people that I love in Paris,…
Dec 15, 2010
Symbolic Healing among the Kickapoo of Mexico
I have a sister, Menacuatucua. Eventhough I do not belong to her tribe (The Traditional Kickapoo who have homes in Eagle Pass, Texas and Nacimiento de los Negros at the…
Jan 15, 2008
A day of Healing at a Native American Indian Clinic
A Day of Healing at a Clinic for Native Americans Barely thirty, JWE, now sits in front of you, a wasted life, his limbs a metaphor for that waste. Bites…
Apr 15, 2026
A Physician-Anthropologist Among Indigenous Peoples
A reflection on medicine, anthropology, and long relationships with Indigenous communities around the world.
Mar 15, 2026
Pranayama, Vagal Stimulation, and Blood Pressure
A physician-anthropologist’s reflection on breath, physiology, and the clinical meaning of contemplative practice.
Feb 15, 2026
Spiritual Materialism: A Cross-Tradition Comparison
A comparative note on how different spiritual traditions warn against turning practice into ego.
Feb 15, 2026
Spiritual Materialism and the Violence of Certainty
A reflection on spiritual materialism, ego, and the danger of turning belief into justification.
Sep 15, 2025
The Magnet of Alligator Alcatraz
A political and anthropological reflection shaped by Suriname, migration, medicine, and the pull of difficult places.
Aug 15, 2025
Cochin: Harmony Among the Inhabitants of All Faiths
A reflection on Fort Cochin, interdenominational life, and the quiet coexistence of many faiths.