Dr Daniele Behn Smith's
spiritual journey helped her connect with the land
and her patients
Photo courtesy VisionTV
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Nothing and yet everything has
changed for two Canadian women who travelled the world
to meet shamans, herbalists and mystics practising the
ancient art of natural medicine. One is a Cree filmmaker
from Manitoulin Island, ON, the other a young First
Nations doctor who trained in emergency medicine in
Sudbury.
Both consider themselves blessed
to be involved in a 13-part documentary series called
Medicine Woman that premiered on VisionTV September
3. The series, directed by Shirley Cheechoo of M'Chigeeng
(West Bay), follows Dr Daniele Behn Smith on her quest
to find the age-old secrets of healing.
Born in Fort Nelson, BC, Dr Behn
Smith was raised in Winnipeg and attended medical school
at McMaster University. In a telephone interview from
Dawson City, Yukon, where she works, Dr Behn Smith said
that at age 27 she was saddled with massive debt from
medical school and in a career she didn't find fulfilling.
In early 2006, she took a week and began to pray. "I
just kind of put it out to the universe that I wasn't
quite sure what I was meant to be doing. I was just
looking for a little direction," she said.
That same week, she received an
e-mail from Canadian Aboriginal Leaders in Medicine,
of which she is a member. It outlined the premise of
a series in which a young, native, female doctor travels
around the world learning about shamanic healing and
traditional medicine.
Dr Behn Smith realized it was the
healing aspect that was missing from the locums or temporary
medical jobs she was performing at the time.
"For me, to be able to travel and
do something I thought was really going to help me grow
as an individual and a doctor was a dream come true."
Dr Behn Smith's first stop was
at her ancestral home, the Dene Reservation in Fort
Nelson, BC. There she connected with the family her
father left behind when he was taken away to residential
school at age five. Her voyage of discovery took her
from the Arctic Circle to the lush jungles of South
America, from the rolling hills of Wales to the arid
deserts of southern Africa.
SPIRIT
WORLD
Dr Behn Smith returned with an understanding of what
had been "eating away" at her before she began the series.
"There I was, trying to guide people to wellness, and
I was completely disregarding two elements" — the
mind and spirit, she said.
In Namibia, she spent an afternoon
with a 92-year-old man whose life was devoted to understanding
what his purpose was. She asked him what the difference
was between traditional healers and conventional doctors.
"And without skipping a beat, he said, 'Conventional
doctors heal with the head and traditional doctors heal
with the heart.'"
Back in conventional medical practice
in Dawson City, Dr Behn Smith is trying to bring more
"heart" to her practice, and carving out time to spend
with elders and healers. Interestingly, not one of the
healers Dr Behn Smith met during the series would accept
the title. "If you tried to use that term, they would
shrink away and say: 'Absolutely not. What I do is be
open and let the Creator flow through me.' That was
a tremendous lesson," she said.
She intends to continue studying
the link between traditional and conventional medicine
with Dr Lewis Mehl-Madrona, a family physician, psychiatrist
and geriatrician of Cherokee and Lakota ancestry, who
practises in Saskatchewan.
She plans to take a workshop with
him in the fall for clinical practitioners learning
to become healers "because there is such a disconnect."
That's not the way Dr Behn Smith
practises any longer, although it may look like that
on the outside. "I go in [to my office] and I'm honouring
the Creator and Spirit at the start of my day and at
the end of my day," she said. "And I know that, whether
my patients are with me or not, I'm praying for their
wellness."
For more on the series, visit www.medicinewoman.com.au.
Reprinted by permission of The
Sudbury Star
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