Dissident Mama, episode 76 – Mariana Millary

Mariana Millary is an Eastern Orthodox mom-to-be and wife of Thomas Millary from Psyop Cinema. Recently departed from academia, she has a master’s in religion and the history of medicine and her background is in Latin American history, religious studies, and anthropology. Nowadays, besides tending to her home, husband, cat, and growing baby, Mariana spends her time as an independent health researcher focused on critiquing our seemingly untouchable medical-industrial complex and identifying better healing modalities that are also compatible with her faith.

Millary and I discuss her paper, “Keeping the Soul Warm: An Introduction to Humoral Medicine and Its Value For the Orthodox Christian,” which was presented at the Society of Orthodox Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) conference earlier this year, women’s health and contraception, the theology of medicine, alternative conceptions of health and bodies, the deteriorating state of American public health, and the Western epidemic of chronic illness. A “passionate advocate for traditional ways of living,” Millary also defines some pertinent terms, such as biomedicine, allopathic, naturopathic, homeopathic, holistic, and humoralism, giving us a peek into her long-term project of finding “practical and edifying ways to meld holistic medicine with Orthodox Christian understandings of health, healing, and the salvific value of suffering.”