Customer Reviews

Crossing into Medicine Country: A Journey in Native American Healing

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

David, Thanks for sharing your gift of Storytelling!!

The entire book was incredibly mesmerizing -- couldn't put it down. The experiences Mr. Carson writes about with his teacher Mary Gardener are quite an adventure and very thought provoking. This book helped validate for me that there is so much more beyond this 3-D world we live in and to trust and accept what we see and feel in all of our experiences.

Mr. Carson speaks to bringing back our awareness to living in

harmony with the natural world and in so doing to see and feel the sacredness in all life. Maybe in reading this book more people will be able see the separateness we as a whole have created from nature and how being at One with all of life brings forth healing on all levels-- individually and for our dear Mother Earth.

This book really inspired me and touched my heart on so many levels. Great stuff!!

David Carson has done an excellent job of sharing the life of an apprentice, and the experiences that come with earning the title of "Shaman". This book is a treasure, a deep walk with Spirit. David shares his knowledge and experiences in such a way that I too felt I was on the journey. I highly recommend this book to the serious student, and to the curious beginner. A masterpiece. Couldn't put it down. It will hold a sacred place in my library.

Having read everything I could get my hands on in this genre I bought this book with high expectations. In my professional opinion as a writer, editor and shamanic practitioner, I'm sorry to say that I found David Carson to be a poor writer, a poor storyteller and not the man Mary Gardener deserved to write her story. The only words I found worth keeping were Mary's. I'd suggest reading the book for her alone.

As the book is written, David doesn't seem to know or live what he is talking about. He behaved disrespectfully to Mary the whole time he was with her which was only a few short years. Mary has disappeared from David's life and has not left a trail for him to follow. I say these things based only on David's own words. He may well have left much out. Too bad if he did. I would like to know if he had permission from Mary to write about her.

The stories about Yellow Tobacco Boy/Girl are valid and interesting, although most of them are not explained. Diseases are touched upon briefly, almost in the nature of a short catalogue, with no real way to understand or heal them. The writing style is vague and events opaque.

This book is a tiny fragment of Choctaw medicine ways. As such, it is valuable as a mini-history. As for Mary, she stands at the pinnacle of similar high achieving worthies in mysticism and medicine wisdom. I bow my head.

In this book, Carson, an ex-marine, describes his apprenticeship in Oklahoma's Kiamchis mountains with an old Choctaw "conjure" (medicine woman) named Mary Gardener. The process included a prolonged purification (diet, smudges, tobacco, fasting), ceremonies, vision quests, all of which are fairly typical of NDN medicine practices. Towards the end, he helped Mary treat people afflicted with some of the many diseases encountered by the conjure: spirit -of-war disease, tiny-animals-frolicking-about-in-the-water disease,cloud, feather, little-gray-men-who run-the-world, birdsnake diseases, television sickness and many others. Carson provides a taxonomy of these diseases and their treatments, which i found very interesting. He also learns that each animal can cause its own specific disease which is illustrated by its own specific myth, usually featuring the Choctaw culture hero, Yellow Tobacco Boy. And not only animals: the elements, elementals, plants, stones, spirits - the number of sentient entities and their ability to do harm to an unaware human is, to the conjure, inexhaustible.

Carson was not alone in his studies - Mary had apprentices from all over the continent, including New Orleans and Mexico; apparently, in the universe of North American medicine people information flows copiously, if not freely. Apprentices learn about proper protocols for asking help from animals (either in the individual form or from the collective animal spirit) and about behaving impeccably in the face of the unknown. A central theme in the book revolves around the all-important knowledge of the human energy body, or "shilip". Choctaws recognize 22 gradations within the shilip, the viewing and manipulation of which have a central role in the healing process. Shilip is tightly integrated into a complicated cosmology, and this connection in turn is an integral part of the healing process. Once cannot be healed apart from the interconnectedness with the cosmos. The patient/client is seen holistically; a disease, or misfortune, is reflection of a wrong energetic turn in life which the conjure works to right.

The arduous training proved to be too much and Carson bailed out. Or lived to write about it :)

I found the book interesting and a quick read. The description of healing practices was certainly fascinating, not to mention Carson's sporadic interactions with "paranormal" aspects of conjure's reality. Disconcertingly, however, the book jacket reveals that Carson also authored "medicine cards" through which one can "discover power through the ways of animals". Hmmm... that makes me a bit suspicious. We'll see how it all pans out - i'll definitely be on lookout for more info about Choctaw "conjures."

David Carson is of Choctaw descent and has studied Native American spirituality since growing up in Oklahoma Indian country, but his latest CROSSING INTO MEDICINE COUNTRY is something more than spiritual reflection. Here he pursues initiation as a ceremonial healer with Choctaw medicine woman Mary Gardener, studying plant and animal forces and human energy manipulation for three years. Health and spirituality blend in a survey of Native teachings and health insights which blends a memoir with a set of special reflections.

Diane C. Donovan

California Bookwatch

I've had some extraordinary experiences reading this book. It feels like I'm there on the journey with him and some really amazing synchronicities have popped up again and again. Something like a holographic journey, this tale strikes a chord that goes straight to the heart of the reader. Great work, David Carson!

I love this book. It was so exciting to be reading his journey into Native American Medicine. My sister, Debby Cody, is a reader of the Medicine Cards and I admire David's expertise and his boundaries of what is best for him.

For anybody who has David Carson's Medicine Cards this book is a great addition. Knowing his background and journey through this book deepens the reward that comes from the Medicine Cards.

Great book. Not very much ceremonial information. Seems to be based more on storyline than facts.

I gave this to a friend that is studying to be a shamin, she is enjoying it. I didn't read it, but she is going to let me when she is done. I also have the other book of Medicine Cards.