So I got several hundred words into this evenings post when I realized that it wasn’t a blog post, it was a PAPER. Like, the kind of thing you get published in the Journal of Chinese Medicine. I’m going to blame this on time spent reading “Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies” lately.

Anyway, I would like to make a few points here in, well, significantly less stultified tone, and I might as well borrow from the aforementioned work to do so. I’ve been asked to talk about the emotions in Chinese medicine this week, so I’ll do that.

In my opinion, you absolutely cannot get anywhere with the modern patient (at least here in America) without addressing their psychological “physique”  in some way. Now unfortunately the brand of standardized professional Chinese medicine that is currently in vogue in this country really doesn’t get much further along than stress, nebulous concepts of depression, and “shen disturbance”. The truth of the matter is that modern patients are so screwed up that they don’t even realize how bad they’re screwed up. To top that off, even when their problems aren’t due to the Five Emotions being completely out of control, their relatively minor physical complaints are obstructed by the lack of communication outward from the Heart so that if you go directly at their shoulder pain, nothing happens, no matter how correct your treatment would otherwise have been.

The oft-quoted here Heiner Fruehauf has stated numerous times that in the very ancient Chinese medical writings the Heart was considered to be an Earth organ in the Five Phase model, and that it contained the Fire of the Shen,the Shen being  the Thing that must not be disturbed, the Imperial Fire, the Emperor of the entire being. Daoist traditions (everything from scholarly to medical to martial) harp on the need to empty the Heart of all desires so that the Shen may reside there undisturbed. The  primary role of the emperor in ancient China (apart from being seen to be on the throne and in control) was, as a sort of high priest for the entire Earth, to enter the Temple of Heaven at the prescribed times and perform the appropriate rituals and offer the correct sacrifices in order to keep Earth in harmony with the will of Heaven. Some medical intuitive traditions teach that your best source of information will not be relying upon the chakra of the third Eye but rather the Heart and Wisdom chakras in the solar plexus and stomach. In our society we uses phrases like “getting to the heart of the matter” and knowing something in your “heart of hearts” or getting a feeling “in your gut”.

Our society in its very existence seems to go out of its way to espouse behaviors that disturb the Shen from its necessary perch in the Heart. When, really, are we ever calm, quiet, and stable? Despite being someone who supposedly knows better, as I type this I’m listening to music, clicking back and forth between web pages and applications to keep up on sports news and what my friends are doing, thinking about my patient schedule for tomorrow and who needs what, contemplating potential tactics for my strategy game of the moment, and so on. Throughout my life my state has been to be going in several directions at once, something that is far from the natural or preferred state of being. We are ALL like this and so are our patients. So many of our patients are afflicted with this need to be doing more than they did yesterday, to achieve more, to accomplish more or…what, exactly? Everyone has their own demons, I suppose. Our patients overwork to keep up with their bills then overexercise to keep up with the current standard of appearance and to offset the stagnation of the previously mentioned overwork. We overplan, overconsume,overindulge, overspend, and generally multitask ourselves into insanity. Insanity is the word here. If you were to talk to 25 people today, how many of them would seem to you to be calm, contented, healthy, of sound mind and sound body? Not many.

We need to remember that the Five Emotions (or seven, depending on your source) when excessive or deficient (meaning not exactly right) become known as the Internal Pathogens, and since not as many of us have our life-forces frittered away because of exposure to a harsh outdoor environment we can look at them (along with environmental toxicity) as the primary cause of disease in our age. Our minor emotional difficulties are forever getting in our way, causing minor illnesses in the short term and adding up to much worse things in the long term. Our major emotional difficulties (meaning traumas) set us up for extremely difficult lives emotionally and physically and make us vulnerable to all the worst sorts of diseases, from mental instabilities all the way up to autoimmune disease and cancer. We also have the difficulty of past emotional trauma blocking the Heart from receiving the Shen properly, or from expressing the mandate of the Shen so that things become almost impossible for us to treat until these traumas are dealt with. All too frequently our patients have no idea what the real trouble is. As I tell my students, any time someone comes in with shoulder pain (especially if it centers at LI-15) I immediately have them turn around so that I can find the massive knot at UB-14 or 15, the Back Shu points of the Heart and Pericardium, which is always there.

I have honestly reached the point where almost all of my acupuncture efforts are aimed at dealing with psychological and emotional issues and leaving any denser and more material issues to an accompanying herbal formula (which is not to say that I don’t use those for psychological treatment too).

Our job increasingly involves creating awareness in the patient of their particular plight and encouraging them to take an active interest in achieving proper balance in their lives. As one first century text puts it, “emotion is that which is meant to be kept quiet while nature is that which is meant to be active and to unfold.” A kingdom in which the Emperor is out of control has no chance whatsoever of peace and instead finds itself in civil war. The bulk of our job currently is getting the Emperor back on the throne. Until that happens, there’s really not a great deal of use obsessing over crop prices or tinkering with delivery of goods to outlying provinces.

Internal Dragons

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This is my first weekly YODA update.

It was a tumultuous week, there’s no doubt about it.  I’ll be talking about the details on my personal blog and the Deepest Health forums, so won’t prattle on here.  However, I will provide a summary and the most important insights that have come from my work during this initial phase of the project.  Remember – the whole point of this thing is to see whether devoting myself to a rigorous program of study and self cultivation will result in my becoming a more effective practitioner of Chinese medicine.

There’s no doubt that my clinical practice changed for the better this week.  The reality is that the process was a long and winding road.  What I’ve noticed is that as I focus on really living up to the oath I took as a graduating Chinese medicine practitioner, I am aware of the many ways in which I have FAILED to live up to that oath.

Now, let’s be clear, I’m not berating myself for being a bad person.  I’m a good practitioner, my patients improve, I work hard.  I think that I just became aware of the degree of dedication, focus and commitment that is embedded in the oath, as well as most of the classical discussions of what it means to be a great physician.  I realized that if I can slide, I let myself slide.  I don’t find myself wholly engaged in the process of learning more about the human body, the planet, this medicine.

Becoming aware of that sent me on a bit of a voyage of discovery.  As I investigated, I fell in love with the medicine all over again. I became excited and moved to study, to work.  I ended up looking into some things I hadn’t looked into before.  This had a variety of consequences, but again, I won’t go into details here.  However, there is one important point that I wanted to bring up.  I know that the way that I will word it, as well as the content itself, will cause all kinds of problems.  That’s ok with me.

I found myself investigating a lot of more contemporary takes on self-cultivation and personal development philosophy.  I looked into more modern exercise programs, things like Integral theory and Evolutionary Enlightenment, contemporary philosophical works concerning the relative importance of physical, mental and spiritual work and so on.  All of these things have roots in ancient wisdom traditions, but are working to reinterpret those traditions and, in some way, combine them with more modern ways of looking at things.

I want to emphasize that, in principle, I have no problem with this. I think that a sort of dogmatic religious fervor settles over people like me sometimes.  By “people like me,” I mean people who consider themselves to be “Classically minded” in some way and who are studying a tradition deeply.  This fervor drives us to reject any modern retelling of our cherished stories and to have a hard time questioning any of the principles or conclusions of the tradition in question.  I can’t think of anything more damaging in my quest to be a great practitioner of this medicine.  So – attempts to look at the traditions I love from a new angle, to question their assumptions and outcomes – these are welcome.

But the questioning and retelling will be rejected if it doesn’t work any better than the original tradition.  As far as medicine is concerned, I need to see that a contemporary (or even just post Han dynasty) reworking actually helps patients get better, and more importantly, live more vital and engaged lives.  *I* need to see that in my own patients.  As far as self-cultivation is concerned, well that’s a little trickier.  The reality is that some things pass muster and some don’t.  It’s a gut-check kind of thing, I suppose.

For me, the self-cultivational theories and practices I was investigating just… didn’t work out.  They felt unnecessarily distancing, intellectual and sometimes self-gratifying.   They demanded that I embrace a  way of looking at the world that is actually something I spent a lot of time investigating and ultimately rejecting.  I was left thinking that sometimes progress for progress’ sake is regress.

Ultimately, I went back to the stable center where I have been living and thriving for years.  Rooted deeply in my practice of Qigong and basic meditation, reading closely classical Chinese texts like the Yijing and the Dao De Jing, and working closely on learning medicine.  Again, more about the details on those other sites I mentioned above.  However, I wanted to put this out there just to see if anyone resonates with what I’m saying.

Have you done a similar investigation?  Where did it leave you?  Disagree with what I’m saying here?  Let me know about it!

Tension between the modern and the ancient in self cultivation

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Today, I would like to present the first part of a three-part series about flavor combinations in Chinese herbal medicine. You may remember that the issue of flavors is one of the things I’ve been discussing with my students at NCNM. The question of what the symbol of flavor actually means and how it can best be used by practitioners is one of considerable importance, in my opinion. I tend to become suspicious of any piece of information that is said over and over again, yet never described in much detail. Flavor fits that description, in my experience.

In my class, I ask students to conceive and complete a project on a topic of interest in the realm of herbal medicine. Most students decide to dive deeply into exploring a single herb, using research, art, poetry, dance, horticulture, cooking and a variety of other means to understand the herb more completely. It’s been wonderful to see them open to the experience of really knowing herbs. Some students choose to move in another direction, working with a particular topic.

One of my students, Mitesh Master, opted for the latter. He has decided to spend two terms exploring aspects of the herb flavor conversation. I asked his permission and he said it was alright if I shared his work with Deepest Health readers. Because the paper is long, I’ll split it up. Please feel free to comment – he does read the blog and is eager to engage in conversation about the topic. Enjoy!

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Quick note: If you haven’t filled out the Deepest Health reader survey, yet – please do so! Click here to take the survey. If you enter your valid email address, you’ll be entered in a contest to win a set of Living Meridian acupuncture charts. The feedback you provide in the survey will help guide Deepest Health’s development. It only takes a few minutes! Thank you!

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An exploration of Flavor Combinations, by Mitesh Master

Purpose of Experiment

This experiment was designed out of an understanding that single herbs operate differently is conjunction with another single herb. Herb pairs help manifest particular qualities of the the herbs in a synergistic fashion which can then serve in the process of healing. This particular exploration is around combinations of flavors.

Do two herbs with different flavors have a synergistic effect?

The herbs used for flavors come from the Tang Ye Jing.

Table 1: Tang Ye Jing Primary and Secondary Flavors

The Tang Ye Jing assigns organs to flavors differently than the NeiJing. The Tang Ye Jing assigns flavors based upon shared gesture. The NeiJing assigns flavors based upon contrary gestures. For example, the Lung has a natural gesture of contraction, that akin to Metal and Fall. Therefore then NeiJing would assign Pungent to the Lung because its gesture is dispersive. Therefore, it would counteract the over-contractive pathology of the Lung. However, the Tang Ye Jing would assign the flavor of Sour to the Lung because they share the same gesture.

Table 2: Flavors and Organs according to Tang Ye Jing and NeiJing SuWen

The crux of this experiment comes from the Neijing SuWen Chapter 5: 陰陽應象大論 (Yīnyáng yìng xiàng dà lùn – Great Treatise on Yin and Yang’s Application to Appearances) states the following:

Along with another held true statement regarding flavors that I was unable to find in the Neijing was “Sweet and sour generate fluids.” Unknown to me at the time of the conception of the experiment, the next line in Chapter Five states:

An exploration of Chinese herb flavors : A student project (Part 1 of 3)

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Today, on a walk I was taught an important lesson by some late migrating geese. In the late summer and autumn, we get a whole lot of geese flying overhead in my neighborhood. We live pretty close to a couple of wildlife refuges, one being specifically devoted to waterfowl. In general, in Portland, the autumn is always accompanied by the resonant, melodic sound of Canadian geese fleeing Canada. It’s one of those things that is commonplace, yet never seems to lose its magic. I’ve noticed a lot of things in Autumn are like that – the leaves turning, the miracle of the harvest, the start of formal schooling and so on.

Anyway, today I had one of those magic moments – fog bank just rolled in, walking on a hill in clear view of the setting full moon and the rising sun reflecting pink and crimson off of morning clouds. Mushrooms bursting from beneath damp fallen leaves. People out, coffee in hand, walking overly excited dogs. That nestled place between Lung and Large Intestine time – things cracking forth, but the calm and presence of the early morning still laying on its soothing balm. Very nice.

Then there were the geese. There were seven or eight of them, so just a paltry flock. There was some confusion (not uncommon) where they seemed to be trying to figure out which way to go. Now, I know enough about geese to know that just because they seem to be flying North doesn’t mean they’re lost – often they’re just heading to a feeding or resting ground. It’s the larger direction that matters, not my little snapshot views. But, that doesn’t matter for my story. There was some confusion in the sky, and about half started heading clearly North, the other half clearly South. One goose was caught – she flew North, she flew South, she started calling loudly – she seemed pretty distressed by the whole thing.

Finally, she broke South – doing double time to catch up with her chosen group and they continued off into the distance. As I watched them cruise, I got a series of images as I faced South – the direction that all Sages must face, the direction that helps us make sense of so much Chinese medicine physiology and pathology. Mostly, I just got a sense of great peace, of openness, of newness and warmth and a bright future. I thought – good choice, little goose.

Now, I’ve been particularly prone to reading signs in everything these last few weeks, so pardon me. But, the whole drama (!) seemed curiously familiar. I think it might seem familiar to some of you, as well.

At NCNM, I was introduced to a wide variety of schools of thought regarding medicine – herbalism in particular. Without getting too much into it, let’s just say that people can get a little spirited about what they see as the “truth” of the matter. I certainly have been guilty of this. As students, I think we were looking for something to hold on to. Something to call our own – or rather – something to say, “This is right, this is true and I know it, I subscribe to it.” Some way to make sense of the seemingly insurmountable task of learning a medicine that is thousands of years old and must be translated into what we have available in contemporary times.***

I’ve sometimes felt torn because of my particular proclivities and the wrinkles and folds of my personal situation. I had moments when I didn’t want to practice medicine at all. It seemed too impossible to figure out what was right – the clinical stage didn’t clarify things any better than the classroom and I just felt totally overwhelmed. I had moments where I wanted to have a time travel machine and visit Han dynasty and ask Zhang Zhongjing what the whole deal was really about. There were also times when I felt pretty confident, pretty sure, and even a little fanatical about what I was learning. Those times were always followed by a lesson (pride precedes a fall, afterall).

In the last month, things have settled out. I felt very much like that goose for the last year or so, and I’ve started flying in a particular direction. It hasn’t been without its consequences. Moving towards one thing almost always means leaving another behind. Some good goose friends had to be parted from, on some level. I only have so much time and attention. I have had to repeatedly remind myself that the direction I’m turning away from is not WRONG, just different. Demonizing people who think differently from we do only serves to make us demons in the eyes of others. It never serves the quest for knowledge and healing.

You know? Darnit if I don’t feel just like I felt on that hilltop watching those geese disappear. Warmth, openness, a surge of energy, signs from all over God and Creation. It’s not that the other way is wrong, it’s just that this way is right. It leads to more, not less. It opens me into an endless realm of possibility and sweetness. I have already seen the results in my acupuncture, in my herbal prescriptions, in my presence with my patients, and in my bank account.

So, to any of you who are feeling this – particularly you students – take heart. You will find your way. Sit quietly with yourself, go on walks, get treatment, sing songs, talk to animals and go through your rebirth. Getting born is rarely pain-free, but it always opens into a whole universe of experience that was previously unavailable to you. I promise.

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***Note : I’m not saying that ancient medicine isn’t directly relevant to contemporary times and people. Please. I’m just saying that some of the things they had available, we don’t have available – or very nearly (Fulonggan, for one – Sheng Fuzi for another – there are legal implications for some acupuncture techniques). Further, while there is truly nothing new under the sun – people do have a different way of living, eating, and even dying today and we would be idiots not to at least consider that fact sometimes, even if we are just “treating what we see,” and even if we are (correctly) not taking into account Western disease names and categories, etc…

The sages of Chinese antiquity stood facing South

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You know how it’s sometimes quite a pain to input Chinese on your computer? Well, I do. I use a program called QIM that works pretty well, but I’ve always longed for a better solution. Well, my friends, Apple has done it again. Without buying a tablet PC, without installing any weird software, for $29 bucks (my upgrade fee) sometime this September, I’ve got the solution. But it’s cooler than I could have imagined.

(Click the image to “embiggen”)

That’s right – by using the already completely awesome multi-trackpad on the Macbook I already love more than is entirely necessary I will now be able to (at least TRY) to draw characters.

I can see this really opening up my character writing ability. Only time will tell how great it truly is. For instance, how close will one have to be to the character for the computer to pick up on it? How quickly will the computer train to understand your particular script? Will it integrate with most applications? What about Wenlin support? Will Rosetta Stone (the innovative language learning software) include support for this kind of character writing?

I can’t wait to find out.

If you want to read more about this exciting new feature and see a little video demonstration of the language input in action, check out this Cnet article.

Chinese character input using the Macbook’s multi-touch trackpad : a boon for Classical Chinese language learners?

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I have been working hard lately to find ways to make Deepest Health a significant income producer for my family. I love blogging, and I’ll never stop – because the intangible benefits are so awesome. However, making income using this blog has always been a keen desire of mine. I should note that DH pays for itself (hosting costs and so on), and then some, but is a long way from providing me with the 5-6 figure income I had hoped for when I began. There are doubtless many reasons for this. However, there is one extremely vexing problem that sits at the center of all the difficulty. Before I reveal that difficulty and ask for your help with brainstorming through it, I’ll give a very brief lay-of-the-land for those who are unfamiliar with making money online.

How do blogs make money? There are many ways to make money online, but I have learned the most about the methods I discuss below. I’m doubtless leaving a lot out!

Indirect methods

1. Advertising : Here you are promoting the products, services and/or websites of other people. The producers or website owners pay you to have a text-link, banner or other type of ad in the sidebar of your site. There are clearinghouses that hook together advertisers and people who want to provide ads, like the popular Google Adsense service. You can see Google Adsense links in my sidebar to the right. If you scroll down a little bit farther, you will see a less popular service – Performancing Ads – that does something similar. One can also solicit advertisers directly, selling banners and other types of advertising with only a moderate amount of effort. This is very similar to the way that magazines and newspapers keep the price of their products affordable – advertising helps to defray their costs. This method suffers greatly from the difficulty I’ve alluded to in the introduction to this article – we’ll get to that in just a minute.

2. Affiliate promotion : This is somewhat similar to providing advertising as in #1. You are still providing an interface through which your site visitors are going to head over to someone else’s website to buy products or services. However, in this case, the advertiser only pays you when they make a sale. You can see examples of this type of advertising in my sidebar as well, right next to the Google Adsense links. As with direct advertising, affiliate marketing suffers from a major problem if you are a natural healthcare practitioner looking to make money online with integrity.

Direct methods

1. Selling products the blogger makes : This is, most agree, the best way to make money online. Any time you can create a product and sell it directly to interested people, you are going to both maximize your profits and be able to have an active hand in helping people in an area you care about. Unfortunately, creating products requires that you actually have something to offer, have the ability to create the product, and have the time to engage in the product creation process! This is an investment that doesn’t have to be made when you are selling other people’s stuff. Common products sold on websites include books, audio products and handmade crafts.

2. Soliciting donations : This tends to be only a trickle of any given website’s income. I suppose it could be leveraged to become a significant producer, but it would depend on one’s ability to really mobilize their reader base. It also requires that your readers connect with you and your site’s mission deeply enough that they take the time to make the donation.

3. Creating membership sections of the website (this is a variation on #1) : This is really product creation, and even more time consuming than creating something like an e-book or instructional CD/mp3. In this situation, a person has enough content that they can run a course on some topic of interest to their readers. There are several software solutions for delivering content in this format, and one needs to learn how to leverage the software to be successful. Regardless, this is probably the most expertise and time intensive method for generating income online – but it is also probably the most successful in terms of real income generation.

Why make money online?

Wait, you might be thinking, why even bother making money online? Well, in my case, I am hoping to make online income a significant enough part of my total cashflow that I am able to reduce the prices of my Chinese medicine consultations and, generally, be a more stable presence in the Portland Chinese Medicine scene. Seeing money flow in from the significant work I do to keep this blog running also helps to keep me motivated. Fortunately, I’m also motivated by the fantastic connections I’ve made with practitioners and students all over the world… one of those intangible benefits that’s important not to ignore. :)

So, what’s the problem?

Well, if one does not have the expertise or time to create a product, if one is not successful in soliciting donations then one will naturally gravitate towards the indirect methods of moneymaking online. The major problem with both of the indirect methods is simple : there are so few products worth promoting that have active affiliate programs or money for advertising. I have approached a number of providers of my favorite Chinese medicine products, but precious few of them are willing to purchase advertising on a website and even fewer have enough money to actually do so! However, I am approached every day by product and service providers asking for advertising rates. The problem is that I would never recommend their products!

Integrity can be quite a burden at times, yes? :D

The same goes for affiliate programs. A quick search of the most popular affiliate program databases uncovers hundreds of health and wellness products. However, practically zero are related to natural MEDICINE, and nearly all are actually detrimental wastes of money. There is simply not enough great merchandise out there to promote! Or, rather, there aren’t enough of those fantastic manufacturers that have caught on to the power of online advertising.

What is to be done?

I’m going to be working over the next couple of weeks to prove myself wrong. I would love to hear from you if you know of any products with great affiliate programs. If you are a producer of something that you do sell online – why don’t you use website and blog advertising and/or why don’t you have an affiliate program? If you are a website or blog owner – do you do advertising? Why or why not? What obstacles have you run into?

I’ll be very interested to hear peoples’ thoughts in the comments!

How can you make income online as a natural health practitioner with integrity?

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I want to try something new. Many of my readers have asked me to do more discussion of the Classical texts. I have been hesitant because my command of Chinese is not great and the available translations are mostly disappointing (if my teachers are to be believed). However, my need to dive into them continuously and do whatever I am able to with them is becoming more important.

My thought is that the web of readers (some of you being accomplished translators) will catch any egregious errors… hopefully…

Actually, therein lies the articulation of a problem. I have been taught about Classical texts using two main methods. The first method is more rigorously scholarly and does demand an ever developing Chinese language ability. This method is very useful for getting practical information that can be reasoned through and communicated to others. It forms the basis of the science of Chinese medicine and it is very important that it be done with respect, humility and precision. From this method comes the various conversations about terminology, the importance of historical understanding and so on. To be clear – this method of working with Classical texts leads very clearly to directly applicable information in a very obvious way. So, if I read the first line of the Shanghan Lun:

“Tai yang zhi wei bing, mai fu, tou xiang jaing tong er wu han.”

(Wiseman/Ye/Mitchell translation) In disease of the greater yang, the pulse is floating, the head and nape are stiff and painful, and there is aversion to cold.

I can take any translations available and my own (growing) command of Chinese language, a battery of dictionaries and a grounded historical understanding of the text and apply these tools rigorously to the line in order to comprehend its meaning. In my case, I will combine this with the oral transmission I have received, mostly from Arnaud Versluys and his teachers, to obtain immediately practically relevant tools that I can use immediately in clinic. The Shanghan Lun lends itself especially well to this kind of grounded perspective, but I believe any of our canonical texts are capable of this type of rendering.

This kind of perspective might lead me to consider the meaning of the stiff nape : I can think about the Bladder channel (Taiyang) and its passing through the neck and the influence of cold on tissues. I can consider the meaning of the “pulse is floating,” does this mean the entire pulse? Just one position? What if I see these symptoms and a pulse that is deep? I can consider the full meaning of “aversion to cold.” I might compare it to “fear of cold” and consider the changing use of those terms through time. I may ask my teachers questions about how literally I should take these terms, and whether a slight aversion is sufficient. I could look at the Taiyang formulas as a family and consider how they all, in some way, answer these conditions. All of this information will be DIRECTLY applicable in the clinic.

I have also learned a more symbolic, more spiritual (if you will allow me the luxury of the word) method of working with Classical texts. This method demands that I relax my grip on the reins a little bit and let my mind and spirit wander. Here, lots of potentially irrelevant material is allowed to come through including anything I’ve ever learned in my life, everything I’ve seen and heard, in whatever topic – Chinese medicine related or not. I am encouraged to dwell in this non-logical space and allow connections to be made. I may draw in historical perspective, especially as that history includes analysis of myth, religion and everyday spirituality of ancient people. I do not worry much about the historical record. I am more interested here in the text as a devotional medium, to some extent. The Yijing lends itself especially well to this kind of contemplative reading, but I have done it as well with the Neijing and even the Shanghan Lun.

However, I do not then use these fanciful translations to treat patients in a direct way. I do not take my more personal and spiritual reading of the text and use my insights there directly to treat patients. I also do not attempt to pass off these readings as scholarly material. I am using the text as a medium for those parts of my consciousness that are more subtle and less accepted in the daily work world. All of that being said, these insights certainly do inform me as a practitioner. First of all, they get me into a meditative space that impacts me positively throughout the day (much like other spiritual practice). There is another aspect as well – one I was reminded of while listening to public radio the other day.

On a program called Radiolab, they were doing a story about sleep. Here they discussed recent scientific research into the function of dreaming in animals, including human beings. There was a lot to enjoy about the program, but I was struck by one point in particular. One researcher posited that we dream, in part, to make connections between things that we would not have seen had our more analytical consciousness been active as it is, normally, when we are awake. In other words, we sleep to solve problems by coming up with novel solutions that may have seemed impossible to the waking brain. There are many stories (true or not) of dramatic discoveries being made through dreaming when a symbol catalyzed a reaction in the brain that helped bridge a gap that existed for the person working on the problem – for instance the discovery of benzene’s ring structure coming from the researcher’s dream of a snake biting its own tail.

I see this second type of Classical text reading in this way. It engages my more-than consciousness, my synthetic awareness. While I will not be able to publish my meditations in a scholarly journal, they are still potentially helpful when I am problem solving as well as having the other benefits I have described above. Sometimes, this kind of consciousness may allow me to engage with the texts from the other perspective in a new and interesting way. It may help my brain to make connections that were much more difficult otherwise. I believe as long as I maintain the distinction for myself, and keep aware of the different utility of each method, I will be of more help to my patients. I know that there will be those among you who will disagree with me on a number of points, but looking at things this way really helps me to take advantage of the gifts I have received in my education.

Over time, I will share both types of readings with you, my readers, and encourage any interested parties to do so as well (*cough* Brandt *cough*). The most important rule I want to maintain is for any commenters to be aware of these different modes of reading. I think a recent, uh… discussion in the Deepest Health comments may have been helped by such a distinction in the minds of ALL parties. Both types of reading are valuable, but we must give each its due.

I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts in the comments.

A very long Chinese medicine engagement

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Since the arrival of my friend Brandt Stickley, I have been unfortunately unable to devote the amount of time I would like to living out our wild Portland-area Awareness Project dreams.  We had so many late night chat and Skype conversations, whipping one another into a sleepless frenzy about the power and possibility in symbolism. The symbolism of the Classical texts of Chinese medicine, the symbolism of the body, of acupuncture points and herbal formulas, of ancient poetry and contemporary culture – but most of all – the symbolism living all around us in lived experience.

Well, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.  I can TASTE the completion of this degree.  I can FEEL the reality of my impending licensure.  Our clinic is already running.  We have meetings every week.  I’m totally ready to see patients – and already have several ready to go.  This deal is sealed, God willing things are now operating on the gravity created by hard work and not a little bit of Grace.  Running a business takes time, lots of it.  But, the fact is, I’ve been working hard on that all along.  I set myself up precisely so I would actually experience some ease and freedom after graduation.

So, I thought I would make a list of the five things I’m most looking forward to doing after I graduate. This does not include the usual suspects : getting more sleep, spending more time with family and friends, taking fewer tests, etc…  It also doesn’t include the very exciting new developments of running a business full-time, getting back into (and developing my skills within) blogging and – of course – developing as a clinician and scholar in Chinese medicine.  All five of these things I see as being major contributors to the invigoration, development and eventual worldwide flourishing of the Awareness Project.

- City Safari - : Portland is, I think, one of the most wonderful cities in the world.  It is easily the greatest city I have ever visited.  There is simply no end to the nooks and crannies to be explored.  From the urban mettle of the Eastside Industrial district (spitting distance to our clinic) to the gilded streets of the Pearl, the well-worn sidewalks of the Belmont and Hawthorne neighborhoods and all the other incredible districts and ‘hoods. Add to that the abundant Hill Walk opportunities, countless little pockets of Wildness all over the city, endless cultural events, used bookstores galore, junk sales, free boxes, chickens running wild, food carts, curiosities around every corner.  It’s too much to think about, much too much to write.  It is a place that draws together many interesting things.  I love to walk, I love to bike, and one of my favorite things is to just go where the wind blows me.  These blown about moments are ripe for deepening awareness, pregnant with the possibility of seeing more deeply into reality – informing my practice and my purpose.

- Getting to know the Watershed – : Beyond the city limits, a smorgasboard of outdoor space awaits.  From NCNM, I can see two mountains – absolutely surrounded with verdant forest, sublime foothills, rushing rivers and not a few glorious swimming holes.  Both up and down the valley we have hotsprings, old growth, wine country, waterfalls and a hundred underused hiking trails and tent camping spots.  This is to say nothing for the miles of undeveloped beaches, the endless expanses of highland desert, dunes, caves and lakes from outerspace.  It’s not hard to understand why so many people love this state.  Just as the city safari, the kind of surprises and encounters that come about while wandering the wildness of the world is an awareness building experience.

- Reading (and experiencing) Widely – : I have a reading list a mile long.  There is a lot I want to read within the field, but even more outside of it.  There is just so much to learn, so much to imagine, so many people writing down so many incredible things.  Finally, finally – I may have some time to take it all in. The reality is that I will probably stay more or less in the range of Chinese medicine related materials – but for me – that field is pretty broad.  I also have a whole lot of Continental Philosophy to burrow into.  Also, Rorty.  Oh, and I started playing roleplaying games again, so there’s plenty to read there.  All of this helps build a richness of worldview that can only help me as a practitioner.  Like some guy once told me.

- Learning and Using Chinese language – : The most important new project I’m taking on over the next decade is to deeply learn Chinese language.  I’ve got a lot of materials for homestudy, as I won’t be able to afford (or stomach) formal education for at least a year or two.  I’m hoping between that and the resources of my peers and friends, I’ll be able to make a go at it.  I’m going to be doing the arduous task learned in Classical Texts classes at NCNM – going through texts character by character, and trying to drink them in.  I believe that a mastery of this language is a crucial key in unlocking my potential in the field.  I don’t intend to put that off, if I can help it.  The deeper I fall into the symbols of the language, the deeper my awareness, the more profound my connection, the more effective the medicine.  Or so some other guy told me.

- Redoubling my efforts in Self Cultivation - : I have experienced first-hand the difference between the treatments of practitioners who attend closely to their self-cultivation and those who do not.  I don’t expect to be a saint, and I don’t expect any other practitioner to be.  However, the degree to which we learn to become still, to connect deeply (both inward and outward) and care for our health on every level is the degree to which we will become not just technicians, but deeply skilled care providers.  I have been working on this throughout my four years at NCNM, but I must admit that the rigors of my life have sometimes made me less than totally devoted to practice.  I’m looking forward to a chance to change that.

Onward!

Eric

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