Sentinel Tree

Inspirational Memoir Set in the High Andes

Revisado: 10-25-24 El oyente recibió este título gratis

The audiobook From Mountains to Medicine, narrated by the author Erica M Elliott MD, tells the story of a bold and adventurous young woman searching for her calling.

The book opens with a glimpse of Erica’s experience climbing Cotopaxi in Andes of Ecuador, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world, an accomplishment of will, overcoming exhaustion, hypoxia, and the fear of falling to an icy death. Erica asks herself the question: “Why in the world do I want to climb these mountains?” The answer emerges in her life story.

Her story leads from her experience as a student at Antioch College in the 1960s; a young marriage, a crisis of depression, soul searching through psychotherapy, and a breakthrough of being able to express her love to her mother; time spent with Uncle Ernst in Switzerland, Herr Doktor Ernst Bauer renowned for curing the incurable with fasting and lifestyle; a Peace Corps assignment living with Quechua-speaking people in the high Andes; falling in love, a broken heart, and falling in love again; becoming an accomplished mountaineer; a risky backroom abortion; publishing a book of local stories in Quechua and Spanish; witnessing brutal killings in a revolution; climbing the highest peaks in South America; teaching mountaineering with Outward Bound; and finding her true calling in medicine.

Epic storytelling! This is the second of a series of memoirs by Dr Erica Elliot. Her first memoir, Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert: My Life Among the Navajo People, tells of her life as a teacher, shepherd, and physician with the Diné (the ancestral name for the Navajo people). In her own words “The climbing helped me to become strong in mind and body to withstand what might await me on my path... I will share with you the final episode of the search for purpose in my next memoir.” I greatly appreciate hearing the story in the author’s own voice. I encourage a screenplay. The story will make a spectacular movie. Truly inspiring!

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Inspirational Memoir Set in the Navajo Nation

Revisado: 10-25-24

The audiobook Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert, narrated by the author Erica Elliott, tells the story of living with the Navajo people, first as a young teacher, then as a shepherd, and later as a medical doctor. This is full of adventure and insight – heart-warming, personal, surprising, thoroughly engaging.

The book opens with a glimpse of Dr Erica’s first day working as a physician, in 1986 at the understaffed Cuba Health Center, unexpectedly on call handling emergencies all night – the gruesome death of a medicine man, a pregnant Navajo woman undergoing seizures, a Hispanic woman giving birth... and then seeing patients all day. The question arose: how did she know how to speak Navajo? Dr Erica explained that years before she had been a school teacher at Canyon de Chelly. From there, the story goes back to Fall 1971, when Erica started teaching, learning about the language and culture, gaining trust and respect of her students and their parents, surviving an encounter with a mountain lion, interpreted as visit by a spirit animals, being invited into homes and ceremonies, including traditional peyote and puberty ceremonies, being witness to a brutal rape, learning to weave, and growing to love the Diné (the ancestral name for the Navajo people). After two years as a teacher, during the summer of 1973 Erica chose to live the life of a shepherd, tending a large herd of sheep on horseback, accepted by the Tome family, living the Diné way.

After some time back with her family New England, Erica spent two and a half years, 1974-76, in South America, in the Peace Corps, living with Quechua people in Ecuador, compiling a book of Quechua stories, starting a Quechua dictionary, learning to climb mountains, falling in love, and then traveling throughout South America. Back in the States, Erica taught Mountaineering for Outward Bound, entered a Masters program in education, and then went on to complete medical school. Dr Erica returned to the Navajo reservation as a physician In a “medically underserved area” in exchange for forgiveness of her student loan. The story of her life enters a new phase of life back with the Diné, and a parting healing ceremony for peace and happiness, after which she became pregnant, purchased land outside of Santa Fe, began building a home, and got married.

I listened to the book in a single sitting, while on a road trip from New Mexico to California, glad for this story of connection to land, culture, and life meaning. Captivating! This is the first of a series of memoirs by Dr Erica Elliot. In her own words "The grandmother of one of my Navajo friends told me that the mountain lion was my spirit guide and had come to give me 'his courage, strength, and intense focus,' because I would need those for what lay ahead. She said that I would face many obstacles, some big and life-threatening, and if I lived through them, I would have 'a strong heart and powerful medicine to give to the people.'” I especially appreciate the personal touch of hearing the story in the author’s own voice. I await the screenplay. Highly recommended!

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