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Title: COYOTE MEDICINE: LESSONS FROM NATIVE AMERICAN HEALING by Lewis Mehl-Madrona ISBN: 0-684-83997-0 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 26 August, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.79 (14 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Is there a doctor in the house?
Comment: Let's not get too mushy about this book. I agree that it has its message about spiritual aspects to healing, and that modern medicine ain't the godsend that seems to justify all the faith people put in it. But I want to point out a couple of things: First of all Mehl-Madrona's spirituality is not pure native american by any stretch of the imagination. I would be generous if I said it was a combination of native american and christian beliefs. Second, and more important, the "healing" that he claims occured was never proven medically. There's no official results shown before or after the "treatment" that indicates there was indeed a sick person that became well. You're just taking Lewis's word for it, and the truth of the matter is that I doubt it - I read it and I doubt it.
I'm all in favor of getting in touch with our spiritual nature, and I do believe that good medicine requires strong direction from the patient as to the course of the cure. The kidney patients in the beginning of the book are a prime example of how "medicine" can go bad when it takes it's own unmanaged course. I applaud Mehl-Madrona for writing about that. But oddly, he exudes powerlessness throughout the entire book. There are many such inconsistencies here, so be forewarned.
I think that in summary I have to say that the Coyote he claims to know is not the one I am familiar with. Nevertheless, for what it's worth, I liked it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Essential Reading on Holistic Medicine
Comment: This book blew me away. I have reread much of it so many times and bought multiple copies for friends. I have filled the margins of my copy with notes and filled notebooks with essays and thoughts inspired by Dr. Mehl-Madrona's book. It is nothing short of miraculous itself, in addition to describing medical miracles and how they are brought about by spiritual intervention and Native American healing.
A child prodigy, Lewis Mehl-Madrona hitchhiked to a local college while still in high school, read philosophy science voraciously and was the youngest peacetime graduate of Stanford Medical School. The more impressive since his childhood was at times difficult.
At medical school, Dr. Mehl-Madrona became interested in shamanic traditions and attended some sweat lodge and tipi ceremonies. Here he encountered otherwordly phenomena such as blue light, sparks, sensorial stimulation and miracle cures in cases that were deemed too far gone by western doctors. Most importantly, Dr. Mehl-Madrona learned how shamans talked to patients, asked questions about their families and lives and spent long periods of time with them. The author learned that shamans tap into the inner healer of the patient, and consider themselves only partially responsible for any cure.
At the same time, Dr. Mehl-Madrona was encountering negligent and dehumanizing healing practices in his western medical pursuits. A few spine-chilling tales display the callousness and arrogance that exists in some hospitals and clinics. One example: two obstetricians made a bet concerning the fastest C-Section birth and the winner, very triumphant at seventeen minutes, accidentally tied something shut in the woman's internal organs. It was fixed and the woman even wrote a letter of thanks to the hospital! Such is the blind and sometimes unjustified trust the public has in the medical establishment.
The book is wonderfully woven with many colorful strands of storytelling. On one level, it is a memoir of Dr. Mehl-Madrona's journey to reconcile his western medical training with holistic and in particular Native American healing. He is part Native American, so this pursuit poignantly reflects his mixed heritage. Poignant because Dr. Mehl-Madrona often felt like an outsider in all areas of his life, as a Native American man, as an American man, as a western doctor and as an aspiring and ultimately successful shaman.
Another strand of his story is the Native American tradition of healing itself, which we discover in almost the same timeframe that he does. We are introduced to the traditional practice of storytelling as a healing technique at the same time that he is. Early in the book, when the doctor is a resident, he is tending a man whose medical condition is exacerbated (and perhaps caused) by his intensely critical nature. A wonderful passage in recounts Dr. Mehl-Madrona's tentative attempt at telling a story to the cynical patient, himself a psychologist, who groans with sarcasm as the story begins. As it continued, he was intrigued, however, and even hazards a guess at the meaning, to which guess the doctor gives an ambiguous confirmation. The great part of this passage is how Dr. Mehl-Madrona successfully enacts the role of enigmatic shaman even though he himself is still unsure of the story's meaning.
Coyote Medicine also discusses the role of the supernatural in shamanic healing, and the perception of magic and nature. For anyone who ever sat in the woods or even on his aparment steps late at night and felt a mystical connection to something unseen and bigger than himself, Coyote Medicine is a kindred spirit.
At one point the author goes on his vision quest and meets his power animals and is given shamanic healing tools. We as readers are present at many important moments in his life, including personal and family struggles (his first wife, according to the book, seemed to wrestle his children away from him and resented his shamanic efforts), professional travails (Dr. Mehl-Madrona's questioning intelligence, sense of dignity for the patient and also his holistic beliefs created friction with several different western medical institutions). When, at the end of the book, the author finds an accepting partner and on a professional level, a venue where he could combine holistic healing with Western, we feel as thought a close friend has triumphed in the face of great odds.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in healing, either for herself or others, and also about finding one's own individual path, as difficult as and untraveled as it might be, but that is true to the traveler.
Many blessings on this book and thank you Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona.
Robert Murray Diefendorf, Author of Release the Butterfly
Rating: 5
Summary: Take the risk and make the leap
Comment: Coyote has always been a special animal to me, so the title jumped out at me. The two feathers and physician's symbol on the cover present a beautiful balance. The physician's symbol has the twin serpents and the two wings of the one. In the background is the four, the Mystery.
Lewis' experiences are related in an interwoven manner. He rushes through life in the quest for medical expertise and validation. In doing so, he trips himself into bouts with infinity as his beautiful plans fall through, day-by-day, year-by-year. However, his rapidly depleted physical/mental being is slowly but surely filling from the inside out. The book is a wonderful, candid sharing of one human's journey to clarify his purpose, his vocation, and to realize such.
He seems like a powerless pawn at times. Have you felt that way? I have. It takes courage to choose the walk toward balance with a fellow being. Lewis had to learn the way of the warrior to survive his path as a healer.
The sweat lodge accounts are beautifully done. I felt it better than any other accounts I have read. Although I have not participated in a lodge, I have experienced years of "spirit stuff". He is talking from experience. Lewis tells us without violating the trust of his friends, manifested or otherwise.
The visions he describes are direct accounts, rather than attempts to relay deep knowings into a form the reader may understand. Visions come in dreams, in rituals, in waking, everyday consciousness, you name it. If we need it and are open to input, we will receive guidance. A vision is experiential, so there is no way to relay the richness and life of such an experience.
Ya gotta walk the walk--it's the only way.
I laughed pretty good at his experience learning to talk with the desert. I too learned this while out alone walking in the desert. At first I thought my spirit friends were nuts--and said so--but I did it and learned a lot. You'll have to read the book to find out.
There were tears of joy and tears of sorrow while reading this book, and a lot of laughter. Thank-you for making the great leap and taking the risk of sharing, Lewis!
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Title: Coyote Healing: Miracles in Native Medicine by Lewis, Md. Mehl-Madrona, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Larry Dossey ISBN: 1591430100 Publisher: Inner Traditions Intl Ltd Pub. Date: 30 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Dancing Healers : A Doctor's Journey of Healing with Native Americans by Carl A. Hammerschlag ISBN: 0062503952 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 13 September, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Honoring the Medicine : The Essential Guide to Native American Healing by Ken Cohen ISBN: 0345395301 Publisher: One World/Ballantine Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Medicine of the Cherokee: The Way of Right Relationship by J. T. Garrett, Michael Tlanusta Garrett ISBN: 1879181371 Publisher: Bear & Co Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Scalpel and the Silver Bear : The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing by Elizbeth Cohen Van Pelt, Lori Alvord ISBN: 0553378007 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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