My first impression of the Barefoot Doctor was how surprisingly irreverent he is. Having seen ‘Doc’ on the telly (his real name is Steve but only his mum calls him that), I always imagined him to be a relaxed, tree-hugging type. However he exudes a personality that seems both anarchic and vain. But in a good way.
Working as a healer in Chinese medicine and as a psychotherapist, the Barefoot Doctor takes his name from the wandering healers of China. These healers would wander from town to town curing people and entertaining them, as traditionally they would also have a performing arts based skill. To denote their humble nature, they would go barefoot. The Doctor also goes barefoot but “if I don’t like a place, I’ll keep my shoes on”. He is also an adherent to the performing arts element of his tradition. He is due to have an album out in April, which he describes as being in the vein of Massive Attack.
Strange events
At “48 and a half”, he has experienced a number of strange things in his life. One incident occurred when he went looking for the Keeper of the Hopi Prophecy back in 1979. “I didn’t quite realise that you can’t just pitch up and ask to meet the Keeper of the Hopi Indian Prophecy, you know there’s no reception desk! So there I was in the middle of the Arizona desert and I had to book into a motel. I went onto the roof of the motel to do some Tai Chi and, as I was doing this, I saw a car wind its way up the road to the motel. Pretty soon this guy from New York called Jeff comes up on the roof to do Tai Chi with me.
“He says he was really surprised to see anyone up there doing Tai Chi when he was driving up the road and it made him stop. I explained why I was there and he, a Hopi art dealer, says that he’s good friends with the Keeper of the Prophecy and would I like to come to dinner with him that night!” The time he spent with the Keeper (Thomas Benyaka) was, by his own admission, very instrumental in the formulation of his world outlook. “I went to live with the Indians for a while and the ancient wisdom they imparted to me is one I can see around me in the world now. It’s all about transits from one world to next, as one old paradigm dies, a new one builds up; war and peace. “
The Doctor recently did a talk at Alternatives on ‘The Tao of the Urban Warrior”. I asked him what this actually means. “It’s a metaphor - ‘urban’ is about the electric womb we all live in. Apart from a few tribes, we’re all connected by a network of electricity, water, oil, TV, internet, radio and this urban environment now stretches to the furthest reaches of the jungle. A ‘warrior’ is an Oriental metaphor for someone who takes responsibility for their own self-determining adventure. You know, someone who’s the hero in their own adventure story. To be that you have to have courage, confidence, clarity, compassion and virtue.”
I wondered if he himself was an urban warrior? “Yeah. I write autobiographically but that resonates with people’s own self-descriptions. Sometimes though I’m an urbane worrier,” he smirks, cleverly.
women
When asked about his fears, a telling aspect of his character is revealed. “I suppose my biggest fear is getting involved with a woman who’s obsessive and I’m hooked on her too and so I feel like I can’t get out of the relationship. Turbulence on planes and huge bills also sometimes cause fear in me but nowadays fear is only there for a split second, a flicker, as I’ve learnt to accomodate it.”
Women crop up again when he speaks of his bad habits. “I don’t spend enough time doing damage limitation with women I’ve had relationships with. If I’m too busy to call, I assume they’ll know that so I suppose I’m not careful enough with people’s emotions. I suppose it’s pretty remiss for a communicator.” He describes how his astrological chart makes him “compelling” to women but that he can often be ambiguous about whether or not to pursue a relationship with them. He refreshingly blames this on “Venus in Scorpio conjunct with a Scorpio ascendent”. Neil Spencer, the Observer’s astrologer, is a close friend and often gives him accurate indications of what’s going to happen in his life.
His humour never seems to miss a beat, even when talking about painful subjects. “The best piece of advice I ever received was to ‘breathe’. It was from my best friend Frank who’s dead now. He killed himself by putting a bag over his head to suffocate himself. He had a bit of a warped sense of humour.”
As an alternative healer, I wondered if he could explain why so many people are so disillusioned with conventional medicine. “Because in any profession you’re only going to get a certain percentage who are any good, the rest are average or sh*t. When you’re not dealt with by good doctors but with monkeys who don’t know what they’re doing and barely look up from their desks before prescribing something to you, you’re not going to have much confidence. People respect surgery much more as an important tool. Surgeons do a good job, without them we’d be in a right old mess. The problem with doctors is that they are dynamic, authority figures and you go and put responsibility for your health in their hands. We’re now getting to an age where people are empowering themselves to look after their own health.”
I gingerly ask about how his spirituality sits with his range of products and his emergence as a high street brand.
“It’s not one or the other but a balance of the two. Spirituality leads to an awareness that there is spirit in everything. When I’m buying something I don’t need to make me feel better, there’s spirituality in that too. Money is a manifestation of spirit in material form. Over time you learn you don’t need to feed yourself more and more. However a little retail therapy does you the world of good and it keeps you spiritually awake to enjoy those random acts of consumerist indulgence.
“As to my own ‘brand’, what happens with me is that I feel a higher force driving me to express it and giving me information in as accessible a form as possible so that as many people as possible get the message, even in a diluted form. I get these ideas and one of them was ‘how about turning oil into a beautiful smell’. I didn’t know about marketing or branding and after the event, these marketing guys turn up and call it clever branding. I thought ‘was that what I was doing’? The whole process was totally organic and not preconceived at all.”
So who cures the Barefoot Doctor himself when he falls ill? “Generally me. I have an army of alternative healers at my disposal and whoever phones me when I’m sick gets the job. I sometimes turn to my mentors - the Great Ribaldo and the old woman with a three legged cat in Norfolk. That’s how she likes people to refer to her. “ |
