It’s been a very chaotic month. The continuation of my fourth year of schooling in Classical Chinese Medicine has been profoundly destabilizing in a number of ways. I haven’t been able to get my feet under me. This feeling has been further accentuated by the political and social climate, as well as particular personal situations I find myself embroiled in. But, it’s really been the academic side of things that has been the most difficult to take.
The details are largely unimportant. I do think there’s something important in all of it. As a person who is absolutely committed to being a lifelong scholar and practitioner of Classical Chinese Medicine, as a person who has taken the better part of four years to even begin to understand what that means, as a person who has had the unique and wonderful opportunity to work with a variety of folks who have done what I want to do, I have come to seen the difficulty of this task before me.
The difficulty has something to do with the nature of the medicine itself – it is variegated, multi-layered, mysterious, divine. It is the product of thousands of years of histories in more than one country, in more than one political climate, touched and shaped by hundreds of thousands, even millions, of practitioners. The difficulty also has something to do with the particular place and time where I find myself. The way I was raised as a 20th century American kid, the rocky adjustment to the 21st century we’re all making, the political climate of the United States today along with its interpenetration by the world’s political climate, the way that Chinese medicine is practiced in the US… all of this and so much more. The difficulty also, of course, has something to do with just me. Just me as a human being, flawed and persistently stubborn. I imagine I’m not the only person who has had some difficulty figuring out how to be an excellent and integral practitioner of this medicine in the 21st century West.
Over the last four or five weeks, I’ve been challenged on multiple fronts. I’ve had my confidence rocked in clinic. I’ve wondered about my focus. I’ve worried about my ability to integrate all the material before me. I’ve struggled to make things fit, time-wise. I’ve panicked about boards, about business planning and about various administrative problems. I’ve felt thoroughly dispersed.
Then came the steely cold rains of another Pacific Northwest autumn. And with all the agitated heat of late summer, washed away were the bulk of my worries and strivings. Through the clear Fall air I could see my problems perfectly, I could see solutions in the distance against the backdrop of Mount Hood. With each purifying breath, I felt my energy renewed. The gifts of the metal energy of Autumn. I ready myself for intensive consolidation, for the pulling inward of the winter – for warm fires safe under the roof being pounded by rain, for squash soup and roasted potatoes, for Moxa on Zu San Li (Stomach-36) every morning with my tea. Most of all, I welcome the descent into the certainty of my future, for the birth of my scholarhood, for the resting in the calmness of the deep watery ocean of my destiny.
Every year, the five elements and their associations become even more potent as my teachers. I hope to share some of this with my patient readers. As things consolidate enough to be grasped, I will be happy to show you what I’ve found. :)
Eric
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What is it about those first couple of Autumn rains? I don’t think I could live without them.
This post has an elemental-awareness that is refreshing– like the cool autumn air. Self-awareness is here too. I appreciate your privacy and I agree that the details are not important.
As for your confidence being rocked in clinic–that’s not because you’re new at this, it’s because you’re getting a glimpse of a deeper thread within the medicine. What matters is our ability to stay present despite the distracting paradox of our learning/scholarship/knowing and our deep, existential, endless, not-knowing. When I’m at work I’ve come to love the feeling that I don’t know what the hell is going on. That’s when I do my best work.
I had a friend once who spent a year in China. When I asked him for advice on how to live there he told me that to do it well one must give up all preconceived notions of life and self and throw oneself into the culture–there is no other way. When I began learning about Chinese medicine it was the same way–I had to stop thinking linearly and just accept the cyclical and dynamic way of thinking and not try to understand it so much as immerse myself in it…I commend your consciousness and willingness, especially moving into a NW winter–I’ve been there as well…
jh
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Julie,
I just had this very conversation with Dr. Hammer. Let us embrace the not-knowing, but hold fast to the rope of learning. Leon described the crux of the therapeutic relationship as simply “not running away.” Sure there is a descent into hell in every deep healing, and pain is necessary to growth, but it need not be faced alone, and must never be denigrated or dismissed. Or, for that matter, suppressed through treatment externally or through denial inwardly.
Abdallah
On a related note, I spent last year in the Pacific Northwest and am now in the Midwest. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to fire up my Qi out there! It’s such a beautiful region, but soooo damp and cold during winter. I find the sun is a natural source of Qi. Anyone have any tips for living in the Pacific Northwest during winter AND not letting it get to you, energy-wise? I may move back some day…
Christy,
Thanks for your comment. Do come back to the PNW, it’s quite easy to get used to – you just have to allow your system time to adjust. I also spend plenty of time in the outdoors all year, do lots of breathing exercises, dive deep into my spiritual practice, daily moxa at ST 36 for 3-5 minutes and a course of Gui Zhi Tang every season. Works for me! :)
Eric
Nice read. At he beginning of the post, the words were telling me that you are becoming a bit worried about everything. But the end says you are renewed, and thats great to hear. You are one of those who has been introducing chinese medicine to the world, and number of people who are inspired everyday through your writing must be very large. You should always feel energetic.
There are times when I feel the same way. I just feel like going off track, and quite frequently I go too. It takes a lot of mental strength to regain energy. Yoga helps in my case. You are doing a ice job. I am glad that you are in the business. Take care friend.
My experience is exactly the opposite. In summer I feel confident that I am capable of grocking the essence of this medicine, and enter the new term full of excitement and hope. But with the arrival of autumn my enthusiasm sinks and my confidence shatters. I feel I will never understand the medicine, and I become apathetic. Actually, I get really sick of myself!
I have lots of fire, lots of earth, and no metal in my chart, and my illnesses are all in metal organs, so I spose my response to autumn is in my stars to some degree…sigh. I hope, at the very least, by the end of school I will have developed a better relationship with autumn, on all levels.
Thanks everyone for all your great comments!
Karin – that’s really interesting. Where do you live? I wonder if it’s a seasonal Qi kind of thing. Autumn here is so classic – full of beautiful colors and scents and the descent into Winter is really quite gentle, since the winter is so gentle…
Anyway, good luck changing your relationship with this lovely season. :)
Eric
Eric -
I’m having the same troubles currently that you are. I just can’t seem to get grounded and focused, I feel like I’m getting pulled every which way with little direction. I’ve decided over the past weekend that it’s time to reground, and then pick up focus on the correct things that I should be filtering my energy to. It’s time to make a transition in my life for the better. Sometimes its the little things that make us rekindle or focus.
Franklin
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