Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

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Sensei Nakazono

Sensei Nakazono

NATURAL HEALING PRACTITIONER

Honored July, 1984

Sensei Nakazono

One of Santa Fe's and the country's first practitioners of non-Western medicine, Sensei Nakazono had a seemingly miraculous power to banish pain. He studied and taught acupuncture all his life. He studied macrobiotics with its originator, George Ohsawa, and encouraged his students to open natural food stores, now a local fixture. His therapies were grounded in a deep philosophy of life and human possibilities.

He came from a farm family in Southern Japan. His mother was a midwife who knew nutrition, herbs and massage and guided her son's early interest in healing arts. Coming of age in pre-World War II Japan, Sensei Nakazono was a rebel, in trouble with teachers for asking hard questions, like What is the meaning of one plus one equals two? "Unconsciously, I was asking for my freedom," he explained.