Medicine Dance

Marsha Scarbrough finds herself divorced, middle-aged, living in Los Angeles with a downhill career in film production, and then is given a bad mammogram. After fruitless visits to doctors she hears of a Native American visionary and teacher in town doing private healings, one Joseph Rael, also known as Beautiful Painted Arrow, and goes to him for treatment. When her doctors finally schedule an ultrasound, they find.nothing. This is just the beginning of an apprenticeship with Beautiful Painted Arrow to learn more about these ancient ways of healing. Marsha endures a range of treatments including sweatlodges, marathon walking meditations, and a three-day dance-fast. In this fast-paced memoir she shares the wisdom gained from her experiential participation in Native American shamanism and illustrates the relevance of this ancient tradition to contemporary life.