Mar 15, 2026
What Did the Medicine Man Say?
A field reflection on humility, Indigenous wisdom, and the difference between knowledge and presence.
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.
Mar 15, 2026
Pranayama, Vagal Stimulation, and Blood Pressure
A physician-anthropologist’s reflection on breath, physiology, and the clinical meaning of contemplative practice.
Mar 15, 2026
Goodbye, Ricky Café
A farewell to a Miami café that held fragments of friendship, memory, and ordinary ritual.
Mar 15, 2026
Pinecrest, Edgar Watson, and the moral edge of the Everglades
“To travel is to feel.” - Fernando Pessoa I went to Pinecrest today, though it no longer exists. Not in the way that towns exist-with a centre, a rhythm, a…
Feb 15, 2026
Spiritual Materialism and the Violence of Certainty
A reflection on spiritual materialism, ego, and the danger of turning belief into justification.
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
Life Is Full of Unexpected Pleasures
A short field note on compassion, ordinary encounters, and the unexpected pleasures of a working day.
Feb 15, 2026
A Wonderful Diverse World in Miami
A Miami evening of friendship, language, and human warmth beyond ordinary categories of nationality or identity.
Jan 15, 2026
Travels in 2025, Hopes for More Travels in 2026
A year-end travel reflection on movement, memory, and the places that shaped the year.
Jan 15, 2026
When Empathy Erodes: An Anthropological Warning
An anthropological warning about the quiet social decline that begins when empathy weakens.
Jan 15, 2026
Dark Night, Whirlpools, and the Limits of Consolation
A meditation after Hafez on grief, uncertainty, and the limits of easy consolation.
Jan 15, 2026
France and My Introduction to Champagne
A personal note on France, Champagne, taste, and the cultural education of pleasure.
Jan 15, 2026
Anthropological Reflection: Medicine Without Walls
A reflection on medicine as relationship: food, listening, care, and presence beyond the clinic.
Jan 15, 2026
Empathy, Compassion, and Respect for the Other
Empathy, Compassion, and Respect for the Other In the span of a single week, events have unfolded with such density that one has the uneasy feeling that the political architecture…
Jan 15, 2026
Thinking of My Friends and Lovers in the Land of Fars
A note on Iran, friendship, meditation, and the discipline of holding one’s mind steady in difficult days.
Jan 15, 2026
Iran, Silence, and Waiting
A reflection on internet silence, distance, and the anxious waiting that follows when friends disappear from contact.
Jan 15, 2026
Colours Before Dawn: Notes on the Metaphor of Our Lives
A reflection on Japanese colour names, transition, and the brief emotional weather of human life.
Dec 15, 2025
Babies Without Diapers: What the Amazon Teaches Us About Care
Along the vast arteries of the Amazon River, Indigenous societies have raised infants for millennia without what the modern world considers indispensable: diapers. This is not an absence born of…