Turtle Farahat – Intern/Special Project
Turtle Farahat is a student of Chinese medicine at the National College of Natural Medicine, and a member of the Wilderness Way Community. She is most recently awed by the miracle of volunteer sunflowers and radishes. Inspired by nature’s myriad generosities and some incredible physicians, Turtle plans to practice Chinese medicine in the gift economy model.
Turtle is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, where she studied sociology with a focus in the sociology of HIV/AIDS. Her professional experience includes teaching environmental science field trips on the Anacostia River, in Washington, D.C., and doing peace education with On Earth Peace, an agency of the Church of the Brethren.
Turtle’s Internship is called: What Moves You? Exploring the “how?” of transitions into new relationships with money/exchange/wealth. Turtle is engaging an informal research project dedicated to answering the questions, “How do healthcare practitioners transition from mainstream capitalism to creative economic alternatives? What resources (spiritual, social, etc.) support this transition? What does that recovery process look like? She will explore these questions through conversations with healthcare practitioners who are use alternative economic models.
Turtle is also reading Sacred Economics, by Charles Eisenstein, in order to ground her informal research in an understanding of the history and future of economics. (The full text of this book is available for free online at http://sacred-economics.com/. Turtle invites you to read along with her!)
To bring the project even closer to home, Turtle will be taking stock of her accumulated “stuff,” and looking for ways to de-consume. Look forward to photos and reflections in future posts!