Phan-Lê - Talking story: one womans quest to preserve ancient spiritual and healing traditions

Praise for Talking Story

Many dismiss traditional healing as being unscientific or superstitious, while others overly romanticize these healing modalities dismissing much that modern medicine has to offer. The value of Marie-Rose Phan-Ls perspective is that her feet are planted in both the modern and traditional worldviews. Talking Story is a wonderful bridge that spans across many cultures presenting an expanded view of healing and wellbeing.

PHIL BORGES, documentary photographer/filmmaker of Enduring Spirit, Tibet: Culture On The Edge and CRAZYWISE

Marie-Rose Phan-L is a gifted writer and storyteller with inimitable style. In Talking Story she brings to life ancient cultures, traditional wisdom, and the healing arts solely to bring awareness in the hearts of all. She shows that beyond the threshold of analytical sciences is a world waiting to be explored and experienced, that we can immensely benefit from. I am sure this book will enrich many a soul seeking truth beyond the veil.

BABA SHUDDHAANANDAA BRAHMACHARI, author of Making Your Mind Your Best

This beautifully written, magical book is an engaging, honest, and often funny recounting of the authors epic journey to document spiritual healing traditions that are in danger of dying out of memory. The story is also an intimate one as author Marie-Rose reluctantly chooses to face her own fears and thus discovers the heart of what it truly means to be a healer, then and now.

ROBIN ROSE BENNETT, herbalist, author of The Gift of Healing Herbs and Healing Magic: A Green Witch Guidebook to Conscious Living

Talking Story

One Womans Quest to Preserve Ancient Spiritual and Healing Traditions

Marie-Rose Phan-L

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Electronic Edition: ISBN 978-1-58394-829-3

Copyright 2014 by Marie-Rose Phan-L. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

From Rumi Daylight: A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance, translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski. Copyright 1994 by Camille and Kabir Helminski. Reprinted by arrangement with The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston, MA. www.shambhala.com.

Published by

North Atlantic Books

P.O. Box 1237

Berkeley, California 94712

Cover and book design by Suzanne Albertson with cover design contribution by Jaylene Carrillo, Tim Carrillo, Scott Slack, and High Impact Inc.

All cover photos by Thomas L. Kelly, www.thomaslkellyphotos.com except Hands photo by Cora E. Edmonds, www.artxchange.org/art/cora-edmonds

Maps designed by: Jaylene Carrillo, Tim Carrillo, and High Impact, Inc.

The author has changed some names and omitted some places or recognizable details to protect the privacy of some friends, family members, and acquaintances mentioned in the book. Otherwise all other elements are based on actual events recalled to the best of the authors ability, recorded on videos, and written in journal entries.

Talking Story: One Womans Quest to Preserve Ancient Spiritual and Healing Traditions is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phan-L, Marie-Rose.

Talking story : one womans quest to preserve ancient spiritual and healing traditions / Marie-Rose Phan-L.

pages cm

Summary: Documents the authors journey through the world of healing, from Hawaii to the HimalayasProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-58394-828-6 (alk. paper)

1. Phan-L, Marie-Rose. 2. Spiritual biography. 3. TravelReligious aspects. 4. HealingReligious aspects. 5. StorytellingReligious aspects. I. Title.

BL73.P49A3 2014

203.1092dc23

[B] 2014010427

To all the healers and teachers who took the time to talk story with me, and in loving memory of those who have now passed on. May their stories live on in your hearts.

Contents

Talking Story

In Hawaii, when an invitation is extended, the host or hostess will say, Come over and lets talk story. Talking story is about taking the time to linger over the details of the mundane, to ponder the realms of the profound, and to surrender any structure of time or agenda. It is practicing the art of listening and of being present.

As I began production of the Talking Story documentary project, traveling from Hawaii to the Himalayas, it wasnt long before I realized that in order for me to access healing traditions and healers in remote areas of the world, I would have to practice talking story. There would be no hit-and-run interviews, no rigid film production schedules, no way to remain an anonymous gleaner of other peoples wisdom and experiences. Talking story is about intimate connectionin order to earn the honor of hearing the stories of another, I had to be willing to reveal my own.

This posed quite a challenge for me, considering my background. I was born in Vietnam and spent some time in France before coming to the United States as a child. As with all well-assimilated immigrants, I was taught that survival depended on my ability to blend in. Its no wonder that the myth of the objective documentarian, a scientist of sorts separated from her subjects by a veil of romance or a lens of scrutiny, was so appealing to me.

My plan to remain unseen didnt last long, for with most healers or spiritual leaders I wished to meet, I first had to walk the gauntlet of the gatekeepers, a series of bridge people who could lead me to the inner sanctum of the healers. Imagine my dismay at realizing that in order to advance in my quest, I would have to reveal who I was, where my family came from, what I was seeking, what I intended to do with the gift of their knowledge, and what I needed to heal within myself. If I made it past the gatekeepers and was judged to be of pure heart and intention, my team and I would be permitted to proceed with the work and I would be allowed to state my case to the master healers.

The more I was willing to shed my self-consciousness, my fear of being exposed, or my presentation of who I thought I should be, the more I learned from the people I got to know. As much as I wanted to be open, however, I truly did not wish to speak of my own healing heritage. And yet this was the one thing that, in the end, opened greater doors to deeper dialogue. I did not want to reveal that my great-grandfather was a blind man who could see the past and the future, and my aunt channeled deities to heal people, nor that this aunt had told me I had the gift of healing and was being tested. My mother funneled her healing abilities in a perfectly acceptable form: she became a registered nurse, and my brother, following in her footsteps, became an anesthesiologist. I had greater confidence in my filmmaking abilities than in my healing abilities. Rather than becoming a healer, I decided I would best serve the greater good by making a documentary about healing and spiritual traditions.