The Naqual in the Jungle

Twenty-five years ago, in a small clearing deep in the Peruvian Amazon, I met a man who would change my life as a doctor forever. He didn’t speak English or even Spanish. He was an Aquarauna hechiccero-curandero (witch/healer/shaman) to whom I had been brought by a young man I had met in a small town in the north.

Jesus at the Burger King

Interstate Highway 89 crosses New Hampshire and leads to ski country in Vermont. During the winter it’s very crowded, but not nearly so much as the rare rest stops that seem to be mandatory for families and their children in frantic search for food, a place to pee or both. Hordes of parents and an endless stream of children pour from SUVs packed and strapped with all of the proper ski paraphernalia.

The children are crazed with excitement, hunger, and full bladders. In various states of undress from layers of ski clothes, they scatter towards fulfillment of whatever bodily need is the most pressing. Eventually, however, they all end up where I was standing – in line at the Burger King counter.

Except it wasn’t a line. It was a swarm of seething parents and kids.

Emapthy and Attunement

It was a potato farmer who first taught me about empathy, and how it is connected to this idea of Attunement.

Attunement

There is a particular type of grin an infant gives that adults literally cannot resist. The grin is contagious – before long, the adult is smiling back and then making funny faces at the child, who smiles even more broadly and gurgles out that particular set of sounds we all recognize as the laughter of a baby. This laughter has such an impact on any remotely conscious adult that even their slightest smile turns into an open laugh, until finally the adult breaks into a full blown set of sing-song sounds, which invariably evokes squeals of joy from the infant watching and listening intently while never moving his eyes from the fascinating creature in front of him.

What is remarkable here is the delight, the universality and uncontrived nature of this simple scene. But something miraculous occurs while we laugh and play with an infant.

Starting With The Small

It is when you are confused by the different (and sometimes conflicting) messages you get from your heart and mind that it is most difficult to observe the difference between your thoughts and feelings. In learning to clearly recognize what your heart and mind are saying, you must also be able to differentiate them from the mental content or thoughts with which they become confused – especially in a mitote.

Family Tradition

Donna had been married for four years and now that she had a real home and a 3-year-old daughter, in an unspoken yet predictable rite of passage, this set of circumstances conveyed upon her sufficient gravitas to host the yearly family dinner at Easter time. But it wasn’t until she was actually in the kitchen with her mother and Grandmamma that she learned to question the origins of the family holiday traditions she held so dear.

Rosie’s Halloween

It was Halloween, and all the weather forecasts said to expect rain. Parents everywhere were scrambling to find raincoats or other means by which to keep their children dry on their special night.

Joan’s Envy

Joan is an attractive, educated teacher of third graders. Happy and content, she loves her husband, enjoys her work, and has great plans for herself. However, Joan suffered terribly from a delusion so common that we all can learn from her pain.