February 23, 2026

TNP309 {Dispatch: Feb 23, 2026} Lessons from the Barefoot Doctors

41 minutes

This episode is actually only 24 minutes long if you subtract all the parts with me managing the fact that the horses broke the fence and got stuck in a pasture they're not supposed to be in. Skip forward to minutes 9:30 - 35:00 to hear about what we can learn from 1970s China about navigating dictatorship and collapse and orienting to a more collectivist world.

Note: I record dispatch episodes while doing my horse chores in the morning so there's lots of background noise that folks with certain sensory processing issues may not appreciate. In this episode you'll hear rain, my laboured breathing, the metal bin opening and closing, scooping and pouring out feed (beet pellets), plastic bags rustling, horses chewing...I also speak with some pretty stern vocal prosody when the horses try to push me or get too assertive mouthing me. This may be slightly startling since you have no visual cues to anticipate I might do that and you might be used to me having a more soothing speaking voice – you're not the one trying to bite me, though, so it's all good! Please check your podcast player for a transcript option if this doesn't work for you.

In this episode I reference:

Barefoot Doctors and Western Medicine in China, by Xioping Fang

my Facilitation Training (next Level 1 intake will be Fall 2026)

...more