Woman, doctor, bear: when her own baby was in danger, this surgeon turned to the healing traditions of her Navajo heritage - Native Intelligence

When Lori Arviso Alvord, M.D., was eight months pregnant with her first child, her blood pressure went through the roof. Her doctors ordered her to go home, get in bed and stay there. Alarmed by the risk of seizures that could be sparked by her condition, Alvord, a surgeon at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in New Mexico, planned to dutifully obey. But first she would make a 239-mile road trip to Tuba City, Ariz., in 100-plus-degree heat. She wanted to have a hataalii, a Navajo medicine man, perform a "sing" for her and her unborn child.

Alvord is a member of the Tsi'naajinii (black-streaked wood) and Ashiihi (salt) clans of the Navajo, or Dine, tribe. Her father was Navajo; her mother's Caucasian. She grew up in a dusty New Mexico town called Crownpoint (population 2,108), on the eastern border of the Navajo reservation. And on that stifling August day in 1995, Alvord was hoping that her culture's methods of healing could bring her life--thrown off-kilter, perhaps, by the ongoing trauma she witnessed in the operating room--back into harmony.

"The Navajo theme of illness as being life out of balance has a lot of truth," says Alvord, 44, now the associate dean of student and multicultural affairs at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H.

Cropped brown hair frames her high, wide cheekbones, reflecting both her European and Native ancestries. The duality shows in her choice of adornments: a funky enamel bracelet sporting pastel images of summer (sunglasses, a beach umbrella) and a small, silver bear fetish that she's been wearing around her neck for more than 20 years. The bear is the animal-spirit guardian of the Tsi'naajinii clan.

"There's a central Navajo concept expressed as Sa'a naghai bik'e hozho," she says. "It translates as 'Living your life in balance and harmony with all things along your entire life path.' Hozho, which translates roughly as 'walking in beauty; expresses the idea of peace, of serenity, of harmonious interactions. Following this principle leads to healthy, whole lives. It derives from the idea that there is an energy-like force, also named Sa'a naghai bik'e hozho, that created the universe. We say that it is in all things, and it connects all things."

song and the sacred wind

According to Navajo philosophy, every part of a person's environment, whether internal (body, mind, spirit) or external (family, community, animals, plants, planet, universe), influences every other part. Illness results when an event or an action throws the system out of whack. While Western medicine zeros in on a distinct object of disease, be it a gallbladder, a germ or even a gene, Navajo medicine concentrates on restoring harmony among all the parts of a person's world.

"These modalities can work in concert with each other," says Alvord. "Wisdom comes from all peoples."

At the heart of Navajo healing lie nearly 100 ceremonies known as "sings," "chantways" or ji. An entire community gathers amid crackling bonfires and thumping drums to help a sick person get well. Each chantway serves a particular type of illness and has its own songs. The ceremonies may include dancers masked as holy people, known as the yei, who are believed to become one with the patient, conjuring up mental images of renewal.

"We say that there are sacred winds, or nilch'i, that move things around in the universe and connect everything--and that our breath, moving in and out, is part of the wind," says Alvord. "So you can imagine how song is the expression of the sacred wind."

In her clinical practice, Alvord encourages patients to bring music with them to the hospital, and to draw on whatever familial or community resources they have. That kind of support can ease a person's mind to the point where the body is permitted to heal. One of many studies to support this contention took place at Stanford University Medical School, where researchers found that women with breast cancer who participated in support groups lived twice as long as those who didn't.

"Navajos have been using [the power of the mind to restore health] for a very long time," Alvord points out in her lectures. "They are among the oldest positive thinkers." The tribe's tools include guided imagery, avoiding negative thoughts (Navajos believe that words have extraordinary power), and limiting their exposure to violence and aggression.

Distress and depression, Alvord notes, have been shown to inhibit internal repair of damaged DNA. "The medicine men tell me that the mind is the foremost energy that we have, and if our minds are in the right place, our bodies will be healthy," she says. "Much of ceremony is about purifying the mind, and the rest will follow. Western medicine is just catching up to the concept."

courage and clarity

Alvord brings her confidence in the restorative power of ceremony into the operating rooms at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She establishes open lines of communication and an atmosphere of mutual respect among all members of her surgical team. Before scrubbing, she may touch her silver bear fetish to gather courage and strength for the job ahead. It's a personal ritual, based on an ancient Navajo story of a woman who climbed inside a bear. "I envisioned myself walking in the bear's body, breathing his warm breath, and I began to feel his strength," she writes in her autobiography, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear, co-authored with Elizabeth Cohen Van Pelt. "It is an image I use often to clear my mind."