Back to nature
Dr. Michael Finkelstein greets one of his llamas.
Go outside. Get into the sun. Look at the flowers. Listen to the birds calling.
It”™s not just a way to pass time; it”™s an effective way to stay healthy, according to Dr. Michael Finkelstein, a Bedford holistic physician who believes people can approach their lives as a skill to develop.
“Native Americans were very much rooted in the cycles of nature,” Finkelstein said. “It was only when Western civilization encroached on this continent that those things started to shift. Of course we”™re seeing in the West and all over the world an implosion, not just in terms of health but in terms of the economy and concern about the environment. People are re-thinking the voracity of that approach as the single dominating theory for living.”
Five years ago, Finkelstein bought a 10-acre property as an investment and named it SunRaven. The name SunRaven is also a Native American totem about a raven that restored sunlight to the world after it was shrouded in darkness.
“I lived next door, and the thought of somebody buying this historic property and knocking down this very charming house was not a pleasant thought,” he said. “I didn”™t need the space for anything at the time, but I was looking for a new space, to move my work into an environment that offered nature as part of the healing effect.”
Up until that point, Finkelstein had been practicing medicine in “a very conservative, conventional way” as an internist and medical director of Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco.
“I had pursued a career that was very typical in many ways, but realized early on in my career that medicine as I learned it was very limited, and I also thought it was very limiting,” Finkelstein said. “Over the course of my career I became more and more aware of this limitation and sought education and experience in my own life to try to understand healing from a different perspective.”
He educated himself about integrated medicine to learn about other systems and practices of health and healing so he could incorporate them into one approach for a patient.
“I got to that point in my career where I wanted very much to develop that type of practice,”™ he said. “What was also important to me was that beyond speaking to people and giving information, I also wanted to lead by example.”
Finkelstein regards SunRaven as a center for “skillful living,” which is also the title of a book he wrote that is being reviewed by an agent. He offers personal consultations, for which he charges on a case-by-case basis, but considers himself a holistic healer and does not prescribe medications.
A large garden behind the property has been tended by a group of about 25 families for the past four years. They divide the work themselves and average about two hours a week each.
“They start in March and they”™re done in November, and in addition to all the great vegetables that they”™ll harvest, even before the first salad green is edible, they”™re getting something very beneficial out of it,” Finkelstein said.
Over the past several years, Finkelstein has invited people to join him in a weeklong vegetable-juice fast. Twice a year, the fasters meet at SunRaven daily throughout the seven days for discussions and support.
“I wouldn”™t call it deprivation or denial; you”™re just making a decision to not do the normal things, like eat, so that you can allow your body and your mind to exercise other parts of its apparatus for effect,” he said. “In this case, it”™s to detox and to cleanse and to let go of things on (an) emotional level that you carry around that really ultimately don”™t serve you.”
SunRaven is not zoned as a commercial property, but as an agricultural property.
“It”™s about building community and having a space for people to gather where they feel very comfortable in their own skin, and they don”™t have to put on airs or be particularly concerned about what other people think about them,” Finkelstein said.
Influenced by Eastern and Native American philosophy, he uses this approach to guide visitors to SunRaven, where they can visit chickens, llamas and horses.
“To me, a healer should offer more than just a physical healing,” Finkelstein said.