In the Northwest corner of Montana, where the high grassy plains give way to the heartbreaking and humbling eruption of white -capped mountains, there is an area called Two Medicine. My introduction to the region came in 1992 as I navigated a rental car through the exposed road that cut through miles of small hills until, in a town called St. Mary’s, (clearly not the Native American name originally given to the place) the cathedrals came into view and forever changed my opinion about the rest of the Rockies and the idea of reconciling to live anywhere else.
Of all of Mother Earth’s body parts, this is the expanse of her endlessly undulating pale green breasts, hips and thighs that stretch as far as one can see, dipping into deep dark coulees and emerging into brazenly buzz-cut hilltops.
I cannot recall the exact origin of the name “Two Medicine” given to me by the Native-American Cowboy-ing family I met there that Summer, nor is it clear from my impatient Internet search because, after all, searching for something on the Internet is pretty much the exact opposite of galloping a horse over these rising and rolling prairies, framed by these mountains, in the company of these people who seemed larger than life, yet were dwarfed by the expansive wilderness in which they lived.
The central mountain in Two Medicine is named after this family’s great-great-grandmother, Sinopah (pronounced cinn’-o-paw), the daughter of the 1800’s Blackfeet Chief, and the adjoining mountain is named after their great-great grandfather Rising Wolf, a Canadian Trapper who won Sinopah’s heart and his way into the tribe.
I vowed that I would not leave Montana until I rode a horse in this place that I had dreamed about since childhood, and it was this gracious cattle-ranching family who briefly took me in. A vegetarian, I gratefully ate the ground beef and Indian fry bread they fed me. I slept alone in their small cluttered bunkhouse, waking to the sound of mice skittering over my boots. I rarely bathed. I was delirious with joy. They shared some of their family and local history. “Two Medicine” had to do with the good energy emanating from two distinct medicine lodges on opposite sides of a river at the base of the waterfall-dotted shrines of this holy place.
Today’s medicine can also be divided into two “lodges”. One is the traditional allopathic type that has evolved over the past 150 years, from the discovery of penicillin to the development of super-advanced technology and the genetic prediction and manipulation of disease states. The people in these fields are brilliant, compassionate, innovative, life saving, but that advancement in technology has been accompanied by a certain taboo to identify with the lodge on the other side of the river.
The other lodge is the one connected to Spirit, to the notion of healing energy. It is willing to use whatever material means can help, but recognizes that the source of healing is not material.
In the allopathic world, we have between 15 and 45 minutes if we are lucky, to attend to the physical, emotional and spiritual issues that cause disease. The burdens on the provider are enormous; we wrestle with the beast that is the electronic medical record, dig out daily from mountains of lab results, manage overhead, legal liability, the pressure to use harmful pharmaceuticals, and navigate insurance companies that restrict care at every turn. For the patients who bring their vulnerability, pain and fear, their job is to squeeze everything into this tiny capsule, and in a conventional medical practice, they must fit into one of the “boxes” of traditional diagnosis and treatment or they may be out of luck. A seasoned doctor that I know labeled his experience, “soul-crushing.”
I was surprised to learn this week (thanks to the PBS documentary) that the world- famous Mayo clinic, originally called St. Mary’s Hospital, was founded by the Franciscan nun Mother Alfred Moes, who had a vision that if she built a hospital people would come from all over the world and receive healing.
W.W. Mayo, who had been practicing medicine and surgery down the road, was suspect of the plan but reluctantly agreed to attend to the sick at her new hospital if she was able to come up with the 40 grand required to build it. He thought she’d never raise the money, but the resourceful Sisters needed only five years of hard work and frugal living, and the rest is history.
The documentary gives many quotes by Doctor Mayo but none by Mother Alfred, leaving me wondering if her vision came to her while she was in prayer, or teaching one of her pupils, or in her sleep, or milking a cow, or while spending time in the Franciscan convent equivalent of a medicine lodge.
The Mayo Clinic is heralded because they devote funds to the most advanced technology available and their doctors, who are all on salary, work in highly effective cross-specialty collaborations, giving many patients a leg up that they might not get in the fractured world of sub-specialty health care.
But always, there is the presence of the Franciscan nuns, devoted to service and caring for the sick, and communicating with the Source of healing.
It is comforting to know that the world’s most renowned hospital center was birthed from the spiritual vision of a holy woman, and was originally named after a Jewish woman (Mary of Nazareth) who gave birth to a fellow who became pretty good at spiritual healing. It makes me wonder what stops us from incorporating these roots into our medical practices and channeling that healing energy in a disciplined and predictable manner.
