conversations about medicine and life
We publish a range of perspectives on health and wellbeing, especially reflective work which fleshes out the biomedical version of illness and disability.
Emily Duncan
By a curious irony of fate, the places to which we are sent when health deserts us are often singularly beautiful – Robert Louis Stevenson.
My recently completed playscript, Waipiata, is a dramatic treatment of the site of a tuberculosis sanatorium, “Orangapai”. Located in the Maniototo (Otago, New Zealand) on the northern slopes of the Rock and Pillar Ranges, Orangapai served as a sanatorium from 1914 until 1960.
[Read more…] about Sounding a Sanatorium: The Waipiata Playscript
Dr Anna Holmes
Many people assume that religion is necessary for spirituality. In fact it is the other way round. Religion is a way of ordering spirituality. Spirituality is derived from the Latin spiritus meaning breath. Spirit is as essential to human beings as breath, connecting them to the transcendent. Breath connects them to the world from birth and a failure of breath disconnects them at death.
Sue Wootton
Juggling—it’s what many people feel they’re doing every day. Round and round go those balls: Job, Family, Cat-to-the-vet, Clean-the-house, Make-a-meal, Get-the-car-a-WOF, Finish-an-assignment, Cut-the-lawn, Grandma’s birthday, Christmas. So many people spend all day juggling, most with a gnawing sense of impending disaster. It’s so difficult to keep those balls in the air. No wonder people get tired; no wonder people occasionally drop the lot.
But see the busker at the Farmer’s Market standing serene and smiling in the crowd, juggling plastic ducks, a toilet plunger balanced on his chin. He doesn’t look tired at all. In fact, he’s smiling. He’s actually enjoying himself. When, inevitably, he occasionally drops a duck, he only laughs. He picks it up and starts again. He’s having fun. Remember fun? Jay the Juggler does.
Julie Woods
Oh Helen Keller, where were you when I needed you and your wise words? Why didn’t I know of your observations of the world when I went blind? You too have walked with people whose eyes are full of light, but who see nothing. But why do their voices loom so large in our minds? If only I knew that sight was of the soul then perhaps my light may have come sooner.
Lorraine Ritchie
Calling all creative nurses! I am currently compiling a New Zealand anthology of poetry by nurses, which is due to be published on International Nurses’ Day, 12 May 2017. Details of eligibility and how to submit your work can be found below.
“What does nursing have to do with poetry?” it might be asked. Do nurses write poetry? Do they read it? Most lovers of poetry are familiar with doctor poets and writers such as Dannie Abse, William Carlos Williams, and Glenn Colqhoun (to cite a local example). But how many nurse poets do you know of?
[Read more…] about Nurses and poetry
Greg Dawes
There’s a lot of talk these days about ‘spirituality’ and health. But as a student of religions I am deeply allergic to this use of the word spirituality. An invitation to contribute to this blog seemed a good chance to explain why.
Let me begin with the way the term is used. A widely cited definition is that given by Christina Pulchalski. ‘Spirituality’, she says,
is a dynamic and intrinsic aspect of humanity through which persons seek ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence, and experience relationship to self, family, others, community, society, nature, and the significant or sacred. Spirituality is expressed through beliefs, values, traditions, and practices.”
