• Details the author’s time living with the Navajo people as a teacher, sheepherder, and doctor and her profound experiences with the people, animals, and spirits • Shows how she learned the Navajo language to bridge the cultural divide • Reveals the miracles she witnessed, including her own miracle when the elders prayed for healing of a tumor on her neck • Shares her fearsome encounters with a mountain lion and a shape-shifting “skin walker” and how she fulfilled a prophecy by returning as a doctor In 1971, Erica Elliott arrived on the Navajo Reservation as a newly minted schoolteacher, knowing nothing about her students or their culture. After a discouraging first week, she almost leaves in despair, unable to communicate with the children or understand cultural cues. But once she starts learning the language, the people begin to trust her, welcoming her into their homes and their hearts. As she is drawn into the mystical world of Navajo life, she has a series of profound experiences with the people, animals, and spirits of Canyon de Chelly that change her life forever. In this compelling memoir, the author details her time living with the Navajo, the Diné people, and her experiences with their enchanting land, healing ceremonies, and rich traditions. She shares how her love for her students transformed her life as well as the lives of the children. She reveals the miracles she witnessed during this time, including her own miracle when the elders prayed for healing of a tumor on her neck. She survives fearsome encounters with a mountain lion and a shape-shifting “skin walker.” She learns how to herd sheep, make fry bread, and weave traditional rugs, experiencing for herself the life of a traditional Navajo woman. Fulfilling a Navajo grandmother’s prophecy, the author returns years later to serve the Navajo people as a medical doctor in an underfunded clinic, delivering numerous babies and treating sick people day and night. She also reveals how, when a medicine man offers to thank her with a ceremony, more miracles unfold. Sharing her life-changing deep dive into Navajo culture, Erica Elliott’s inspiring story reveals the transformation possible from immersion in a spiritually rich culture as well as the power of reaching out to others with joy, respect, and an open heart.

After her first week teaching at a boarding school on the Navajo Reservation near Canyon de Chelly, young Erica Elliott almost leaves in despair, unable to communicate with the children or understand cultural cues. But once she starts learning the Navajo language, the people begin to trust her, taking her into their homes and ceremonies. As she is drawn deeper into Navajo life, Erica has a series of profound experiences with the people, animals, and spirits of Canyon de Chelly. Fulfilling a Navajo grandmother's prophecy, she returns years later as a medical doctor to offer her services to Navajo patients. Endorsements "Dr. Erica Elliott's account of her life among the Navajo people is a story of high adventure that surpasses the wildest fiction. Elliott's willingness to transcend her cultural conditioning and enter another complex society is an act of great courage, and reveals her boundless empathy and compassion. This book is sorely needed at this moment in America, when divisive voices incessantly warn us of the other, the foreigner, those who 'are not like us.' Mystery and Medicine in the High Desert: My Life Among the Navajo People reveals how diversity, inclusiveness, and tolerance can enrich our own society, which is a lesson on which our future may depend" -Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters. "What a wonderful book! Elliott's voice mesmerized me. For weeks after, I thought about her time with the Navajos. Such an inspiring, life-affirming, yet tough tale, woven through with a strong drive to realize one's life path. Beautifully written. Elliott is an exciting new voice" -Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones and Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home. "Erica Elliott writes fearlessly with an original voice that grabbed me from the first page. Her true adventures on the Navajo Nation as a teacher, a shepherd, an emergency room doctor, and best of all, an open-hearted student immersed in a spiritually rich culture, make a great story. She leaves the reader with something to ponder: The abiding importance of reaching out to others with joy and respect. I love this book" -Anne Hillerman, NY Times bestselling author of the Leaphorn/Chee/Manuelito mystery series. "This is a powerful and personal book that is about courage and compassion. Reading it, one is drawn into the web of Dr. Elliott's extraordinary life of service and learning with the Navajo of the American Southwest. We are fortunate to be able to accompany her on her remarkable journey" -Rev. Joan Jiko Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico, www.upaya.org.

Changing the world--or at least your corner of it--is easier than you think. With so much suffering in our communities and in the world, it can feel impossible to make an impact. "What good can I possibly do?" we ask. Amy Wolff, a busy mom and small business owner, often felt this way--and didn't feel qualified to connect and uplift others. But one day, after hearing about several suicides and suicide attempts in her community, she printed 20 yard signs with hopeful messages and anonymously placed them throughout her city. This small action sparked a global movement of encouragement, hope, and love, which spread to 50 states and 27 countries in just 18 months. Signs of Hope is an intimate collection of stories from Amy's personal life, as well as people impacted by the movement, about the power of hope and love in the midst of suffering. This book discusses: The drain of compassion fatigue Why we should show up imperfectly to help others How to claim hope for ourselves Practical ideas of how to respond to suffering Strategies of how to love people who are "different" Resilience when love-spreading efforts backfire How to raise a compassionate generation The science of hope Signs of Hope is your catalyst for doing something today . . . because there's no perfect time to help others. The time is now.

The Digital Age was expected to usher in an era of clean production, an alternative to smokestack industries and their pollutants. But as environmental journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals in this penetrating analysis of high tech manufacture and disposal, digital may be sleek, but it's anything but clean. Deep within every electronic device lie toxic materials that make up the bits and bytes, a complex thicket of lead, mercury, cadmium, plastics, and a host of other often harmful ingredients. High Tech Trash is a wake-up call to the importance of the e-waste issue and the health hazards involved. Americans alone own more than two billion pieces of high tech electronics and discard five to seven million tons each year. As a result, electronic waste already makes up more than two-thirds of the heavy metals and 40 percent of the lead found in our landfills. But the problem goes far beyond American shores, most tragically to the cities in China and India where shiploads of discarded electronics arrive daily. There, they are "recycled"-picked apart by hand, exposing thousands of workers and community residents to toxics. As Grossman notes, "This is a story in which we all play a part, whether we know it or not. If you sit at a desk in an office, talk to friends on your cell phone, watch television, listen to music on headphones, are a child in Guangdong, or a native of the Arctic, you are part of this story." The answers lie in changing how we design, manufacture, and dispose of high tech electronics. Europe has led the way in regulating materials used in electronic devices and in e-waste recycling. But in the United States many have yet to recognize the persistent human health and environmental effects of the toxics in high tech devices. If Silent Spring brought national attention to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides, High Tech Trash could do the same for a new generation of technology's products.

• Details the author’s time living with the Navajo people as a teacher, sheepherder, and doctor and her profound experiences with the people, animals, and spirits • Shows how she learned the Navajo language to bridge the cultural divide • Reveals the miracles she witnessed, including her own miracle when the elders prayed for healing of a tumor on her neck • Shares her fearsome encounters with a mountain lion and a shape-shifting “skinwalker” and how she fulfilled a prophecy by returning as a doctor In 1971, Erica Elliott arrived on the Navajo reservation as a newly minted schoolteacher, knowing nothing about her students or their culture. After a discouraging first week, she almost leaves in despair, unable to communicate with the children or understand cultural cues. But once she starts learning the language, the people begin to trust her, welcoming her into their homes and their hearts. As she is drawn into the mystical world of Navajo life, she has a series of profound experiences with the people, animals, and spirits of Canyon de Chelly that change her life forever. In this compelling memoir, the author details her time living with the Navajo, the Diné people, and her experiences with their enchanting land, healing ceremonies, and rich traditions. She shares how her love for her students transformed her life as well as the lives of the children. She reveals the miracles she witnessed during this time, including her own miracle when the elders prayed for healing of a tumor on her neck. She survives fearsome encounters with a mountain lion and a shape-shifting “skinwalker.” She learns how to herd sheep, make fry bread, and weave traditional rugs, experiencing for herself the life of a traditional Navajo woman. Fulfilling a Navajo grandmother’s prophecy, the author returns years later to serve the Navajo people as a medical doctor in an underfunded clinic, delivering numerous babies and treating sick people day and night. She also reveals how, when a medicine man offers to thank her with a ceremony, more miracles unfold. Sharing her life-changing deep dive into Navajo culture, Erica Elliott’s inspiring story reveals the transformation possible from immersion in a spiritually rich culture as well as the power of reaching out to others with joy, respect, and an open heart.

This is the true story of Charles Langley, an Englishman from London, who became apprentice to a powerful Navajo Indian medicine man in the remote desert of the American Southwest. His early experiences of Navajo witchcraft, divination and healing, and of the visions induced by the peyote cactus, proved so remarkable and so other-worldly, he quickly realized that others would have difficulty believing them. Encouraged by the medicine man Blue Horse, and using skills honed as a top British journalist, Langley began to keep a detailed diary of the extraordinary events he witnessed in the company of this powerful American Indian medicine man. It is from these diaries, nearly half a million words in length-- much of which must remain secret--that this compelling first person account has been crafted. Readers will learn of the daily fight against witches and witchcraft. Of skin walkers, who are human shape shifters the Navajo believe can turn themselves into animals and birds; of visions, and of extraordinary feats of divination and healing, as well as fascinating insights into the unique culture of the Navajo tribe. As Blue Horse's apprentice, Langley finds himself inhabiting a parallel world filled with exactly the kind of ancient mysticism and beliefs that his western upbringing and education have taught him to scoff at. But which increasingly become the everyday reality of his life. Eventually, he must choose either to continue his big city existence, with its comfortable lifestyle and preconceptions, or accept that the terrifying world of Navajo witchcraft is real and that, despite the risks, he must explore it to the end.

An exploration of one of the most universal human obsessions charts the rise of longevity science from its alchemical beginnings to modern-day genetic interventions and enters the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality.