The Elderly Indian Nurse shuffled her small frame into the consulting room of a health clinic of a traditional group of Indians in the middle of nowhere (as the europeans would say)
My name is ....Brown, but you can call me, Dr Brown as I would be the one who will be teaching you.
Thus began my education with the Indigenous people of this continent which they call the turtle Island. Before a patient came into the room, she would give a genealogical and historical account of the person, to place him in my world and give me an entry to the worldview of the patient.
From there I went on to be educated by the HoCank, UmonHon, Lakota, Kickapoo people and never lost my connection with the Indigenous peoples of this world..I visited the Orang Asli in Malaysian rain forest, Ticuna in the Amazon, Rapa Nui, Tuvalu, Tokelau people of the Pacific and on and on and on . They all taught me something.
Two american nurses that I worked with for years come to my mind. Colleen P who worked with the Dakota people of South Dakota and the incomparable Michele S who worked with HoCank and Umonhon among many others. Their imprint on my continuing work with the indigenous people is indelible and permanent
At one of our many meetings Michele S said
when a patient goes to see a doctor in the western system of curing (whether they were educated in Puerto Rico, Peru or Pennsylvania), they think with the mind and , and come to terms with numbers and medications, forgetting the person who lives in that body
With the Indigenous people, you take care of them, thinking from the heart and not from the mind
Lovers of the Little Prince would recognize something similar what St Exupery said
In English, we say Follow Your Heart
Heart of the Matter
But in this money crazed world where people have forgotten human values, they follow the mind and tell each other the price of goods in the supermarket rather than look at the sunsets.
or get up early enough to watch the sunrise .. (photo sent to me by a friend in Brasil).
A close friend of mine who is a devout Buddhist sent me an article this morning she thought I might like.
https://humansandnature.org/out-of-the-head-into-the-heart-the-way-of-the-human-being/
It was by Ilarion Merculieff, an Unangan (aleut) who grew up in Pribilof, Aleutian Islands.
AWARENESS WITHOUT THINKING , he says:
I understood how Unangan people received their spiritual instructions for living, principles that had helped them sustain their communities for thousands of years: reciprocity with all living things, humility, respect for all life, honoring Elder wisdom, giving without expectation of a return to self, thinking of others first, and many more.
Such spiritual principles for living did not come from logic or thought but from a much deeper source of wisdom, which our Unangan culture referred to as the “heart.” When Unangan Elders speak of the “heart,” they do not mean mere feelings, even positive and compassionate ones. “Heart” refers to a deeper portal of profound interconnectedness and awareness that exists between humans and all living things. Centering oneself there results in humble, wise, connected ways of being and acting in the world. Indigenous peoples have cultivated access to this source as part of a deep experience and awareness of the profound interdependency between the natural and human worlds. To access it, you must drop out of the relentless thinking that typically occupies the Western mind.
Our good friend, the philosopher, Renee Descartes, kick started the dormant mind of the westerner at Renaissance with
I think, therefore I am !
Thinking and not Feeling became prominent. Religion was allotted to the Priests, soul was assigned to the Pineal gland and the MIND was given free reign as the Supreme.
We suffer to this day .. merci Descartes.. and sorry for the millions of Indians and South East Asians and North Asians so eager to copy this shallowness, so so eagerly
It reminded of the Haiku of the American beat poet, Richard Brautigan
Xerox Candy Bar
you're just a copy
of all the candy bars
I've ever eaten.
