Changes

My fortune cookie from Panda Express said: "If you have Hope, you have Everything"

In the last 39 days since my return from my Berkeley experience I have made a decision, the consequences of which will unfold my life quite differently over the next decade or two.

I've decided to leave the island and pursue a degree in Five Element acupuncture at the Institute for Taoist Education and Acupuncture in Boulder, Colorado. Simultaneously, I've negotiated continued study with my Sensei here in Hawaii after I depart these shores in August. My school schedule will allow me to travel back to Hawaii to study with her while I attend school in Colorado.

The finances of this undertaking will work themselves out with work, dedication, and faith. Traveling from Colorado to Hawaii once a month starting in June will no doubt be expensive - but in my opinion, the education I will get will be unsurpassed.

My Sensei gave me her blessing and told me that I must follow this path if this is where my heart is. In the days that have passed, she has accelerated my education knowing that I will be skipping the fall trimester of education as I settle into my new home in Boulder. I was allowed to do a full lower back deep needle (3" needle) treatment on one of the graduate students in clinic on Thursday. This student, according to my Sensei's has attained the highest level of mastership in needling technique than any of her prior graduate students of her lineage. After needling her and applying moxibustion, I was given the complement by this graduate that my needling is very good and at the level of a 4th year, and that my moxa is also excellent. This complement was given in front of my Sensei. She smiled, nodded, and said - Yes, Michael very good. I felt very encouraged by this, and also humbled. I've been needling myself for the past 2 years and I suppose this experience, and 'seeing'/feeling the tip of the needle as it goes through each layer of the body and acquires Qi really payed off. My Sensei's opinion is that unless you treat yourself regularly, you can never know how the treatment works and cannot attain the insight and clarity of intention needed to reach excellence. I've only needled in this style twice.

My possessions have been packed two weeks ago, and with the exception of the stacks of clothes which I will have to put in boxes, I'm ready to move. I have yet to be accepted at the school, yet I'm packed this early because my roommates are leaving the house on July 15th for a new home on the warmer side of the island and I'm moving with them until the end of the trimester.

I concluded my two phone interviews today and all prerequisites are in. Hopefully I will hear their decision next week. I believe my interviews went very well, despite my knowing I was coming over as overeager.

It takes about a year to get established in a community, and as the year of being on this island comes to a close, I feel that the ties I've made will last in some shape and form beyond my departure. Contemplating leaving the island has been a mixed bag of emotions. Singing in the concert of my choral group was very rewarding and simultaneously sad. These people had very much become part of my community. The notion of leaving this house prior to my actual leave date and staying on a futon for the remainder of the trimester is also not a desirable thought as it will be a temporary displacement.

The most difficult piece of leaving the island will be the stop in my clinical education, and the giving up of opportunities to study in Japan and China with one of my teachers, as well as several other elective classes. Should I stay I would have been needling patients in clinic as early as January. With this school switch - the clinical experience will be suspended for two years while I resume pure didactic training in my modality of choice in Boulder. My clinical experience will be solely limited to the time I spend in my Sensei's clinic upon my regular return trips. The pause in my education and the lengthening of my studies does not occur as a problem to me because I'm not in a hurry to graduate. My concern is the quality, depth, and breadth of my education, time to integrate and digest, and not simply attaining a degree that has no weight underneath it. It is with this same impetus that my Sensei's best student still returns each week to observe Sensei at work over 2 years after graduating.

What I loose in breadth by leaving my current school, I gain in depth with the Five Element modality which I wish to practice. Traveling to Japan, and China for brief expeditions of study, and taking a few elective courses here and there would be satisfying diversions and fun experiences, as well as tremendous money pits. I'm tempted to be a 'collector of experiences', but in the long term, these experiences do not breed depth.

Yes, there are many things to learn in this field including cosmetic acupuncture for facial rejuvination, as well as breast enlargement! I think I can get away with not learning about it ;) Its so funny that a narcissistic culture can harness any technology and corrupt it in pursuit of power, beauty, and money.

Perhaps I will visit Japan and China when the time is right and my knowledge is of sufficient depth to where I can appreciate what I find there. One other elective program I will miss out on is the Africa Project where yearly trips are made to refugee camps in Uganda to train refugees and lay people techniques for emergency first aid acupuncture techniques for malaria, post traumatic stress, drug and alcohol abuse, etc and several other diseases both mental and physical that plague the war torn regions of Africa. This is being pioneered only out of my current school, along with one other acupuncturist from the mainland. There exist other Africa programs but they are more polished, and take place in the large cleaned up cities and not down in the refugee camps, and tent villages in the country side as this program does. The inspiring stories of how acupuncture has changed the lives of people in these war torn regions repeatedly brought tears to my eyes. During the two week trip, the interns and supervisor teaches people how to use only 4 points on the ear, in one of two combinations only, in addition to clean needle technique, and a very brief intake. The results this has on cultures who feel energy so deeply, because their culture lives their emotional life on the surface is so profound that reports of people stopping beating their wives, and once again becoming contributing members of the community have been reported after only one treatment. Severe food poisoning, diarrhea, and incontinence in children has been successfully treated with as little as 1-3 treatments, improviding overall sanitation in a village or a camp. The impact of training only 12 people in one camp had an impact of over 18,000 treatments in a 6 month period. These people adopted it and it has become a part of the community so much that they write and present plays about how acupuncture has saved their community.

I hope to be able to do this program regardless of whether I am attending the school or not, and join the Real Medicine Foundation on a trip to Africa at some point in the future. Paying for the privilege is of course around $2,500.

Financially I will have to support myself for another 4 years without a full time job making the total time of my program 5 years for my Masters, and an additional year or two with my Sensei thereafter, until she releases me, or until her death.

If I get starved for electives, I'm sure I will be able to take some elective classes at the larger TCM acupuncture school in Boulder, as well as Naropa University - a Buddhist university.

As opportunities show up, it is difficult to select and know what to take on and what to pass by. I'm seeing abundance and blessing and opportunities all around. My heart is tempted to be pulled in many of these directions at once. Peace, patience, and assurance in my heart that all is unfolding in the right way, at the right time, and in the right place is what I have to put faith and trust in.