Some voices, or perspectives, are rarely heard, such as the voices of indigenous peoples, social renegades, and the voices of wildlife, animals and nature. They lie beyond the mainstream.

Voices at the Crossroads runs projects that research, document, explore and work with these voices, reflecting upon their influence and the role they play in a globalized world.

Throwing the Bones

A non-fiction book

Project Director, Tara Lumpkin, PhD, a medical and cultural anthropologist, is researching and writing Throwing the Bones, a first person account of her experiences with illness and healing.

The book opens in the year 2000 when the author returns to Namibia, Africa, where she conducted fieldwork for the Ministry of Health and the United Nations Children's Fund six years earlier. There, Tara meets with a friend and traditional healer of the sangoma tradition. Performing a divination ritual called throwing the bones, the healer predicts that Tara's mother is ill, although there are no outward signs of illness. Nevertheless, Tara finds the divination troubling and hard to dismiss. Nine months later, Tara's mother is diagnosed with cancer.

Thus begins a journey into the world of healing, including such modalities as: biomedicine, alternative treatment clinics in Mexico, New Age energy work, shamanism, massage, and pets and nature as healing agents.

The healing process reaches beyond Tara's mother-as-patient to the author herself as she cares for her mother and is forced to dig into her own past to discover the origins of her personal beliefs surrounding illness and well-being. Throughout this process the many voices of healing emerge.

This is a story about how perception and belief affect all our choices, particularly those centered around the crisis of illness and the efforts we make to heal.