06-02-20 Erica M. Elliott, M.D., Shares Her Incredible Journey ‘Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert’
Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert: My Life Among the Navajo People is a “food-for-the-soul” story about a young Anglo woman whose life is forever changed after she bravely takes a dive into an unfamiliar world and discovers deep, earth-centered wisdom and mystical knowledge.
SANTA FE, N.M. — Author, Adventurer, Speaker, Dr. Erica Elliott, M.D. has released a first book that recounts the early years of her extraordinary life living among the Navajo people. As a young woman in the early 1970s, Erica arrives at a Navajo boarding school to teach, and then becomes a student herself of a mystical, earth-centered wisdom that has been lost to most in today’s modern world. As Erica reaches across a wide cultural divide to learn the Navajo language, the people begin to trust her and invite her into their homes, their ceremonies, and into their hearts.
Years later, Erica returns to serve the Navajo people as a medical doctor in an underserved clinic, performing emergency procedures and delivering babies. When a medicine man offers to thank her with a ceremony, more miracles unfold. This true story of personal risk and high adventure paints a rare, contemporary picture of Navajo life that at once elicits inspiration, deep sadness and respect for the Native American people.
In Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert, Dr. Elliott not only reveals to the reader a world that is foreign to many, but also brings to light the continued prejudice experienced by Native Americans. “This book is about bridging the cultural divide through efforts to understand and see the world through the eyes of other people — the people who were here first,” she explains.
—Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters
—Rev. Joan Jiko Halifax, Abbot of Upaya Zen Center and author of Standing at the Edge
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A true adventurer, Dr. Elliott is a former rock climber and mountaineer. She led an all-woman’s expedition to the top of Denali in Alaska, the highest peak in North America, where nearly half of all attempts fail. She also was the first American woman to reach the summit of Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest mountain in the western hemisphere at 23,000 ft. She has lived and worked around the world, serving as a teacher for Native children on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and for Quechua-speaking indigenous people in the mountains of Ecuador. She has taught rock climbing and mountaineering for Outward Bound. In 1993, Erica helped found The Commons, a co-housing community in Santa Fe from which she runs a busy private medical practice. Known as the “Health Detective,” she treats mysterious and difficult-to-diagnose illnesses. Erica is also a captivating public speaker and has given workshops at various venues, including the Esalen and Omega Institutes. She blogs about medical insights and stories from her life at www.musingsmemoirandmedicine.com
Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert: My Life Among the Navajo People Available at Balboa Press Online Bookstore and Amazon
For more information, listen to interviews, and/or check for upcoming appearances please visit www.medicineandmiraclesinthehighdesert.com
Learn more about Deborah here: www.lovebyintuition.com
