Images of Zen

Best Present Ever...

2011-08-12T09:13:00.001-10:00

The Dao of Life

2011-08-11T07:39:00.000-10:00

"Those who know others are intelligent; those who know themselves are enlightened. Those who overcome others have force; those who master themselves have integrity. Those who know what is enough are wealthy. Those who persevere have direction. Those who maintain their center endure. Those who die yet do not perish, live on." - Dao De Jing, Ch. 33

1/29/11 – Night at the Museum

2011-03-13T13:01:00.003-10:00

Aaron and I went to the Denver Museum of Art. To examine how human beings preserve and honor the past is to experience a fascinating aspect of the Metal element. The building itself is a geometric set of wings of peculiarity, architectural refinement and unusual unique quality. The physical structure evokes in me feelings of austerity, over-the-top form, and gray sterility. The structure itself is lifeless, and imposing, yet beautiful in its shapes, lines, and unusual energetic qualities. If a person were like this structure, they would pride themselves on how different, unique, and special they are. How polished, refined, and simple they were in their self-created complexity. This person would be hollow and empty inside – a void – either filled with garbage or the highest quality treasures – yet on the outside the edifice would be imposing and oddly attractive.

Once inside, the scent of cleanliness and the energy of respectful silence and sterility hit me. Each exhibit hall provides slightly different scents of dust, age, chemicals, spiciness, and decay that would occur in the upper nostril. Some exhibits would add rancid notes of paint, framing chemicals and floor wax. High geometry and form composed each room. The museum showed its treasures against the empty gray walls of nothingness – showing once again that you must first have a void in order to contrast the essential. The walls were lifeless neutral tones, evoking nothing. This created the necessary contrast to highlight the true treasure.

Each exhibit hall had an individual patrolling the halls, enforcing correct behavior and decorum. Respect, stiffness, and importance were upheld by their very presence. The windows to the outside world were small and mostly artificial light filled these places. This place was protected, withdrawn and taken out of the outside world. It reminded me of a hermit who takes themselves out of the day to day world to worship at whatever alter they deem important.

When I entered into the room of Indian, Tibetan and Nepalese art I was overwhelmed with the spiritual energy of the pieces. The high quality of spiritual qi and meaning that was imbued into certain spiritual objects created in me an awe that brought tears to my eyes, stopped my mind and made me refine my thinking, purify it and lift it towards the ideal. This was the energy of Middle Palace, LU 1.

I stared one particular piece for quite some time. It was an ornate temple doorway. It was red, green, and gold. Inscribed with intricate designs it evoked in me imagination. How many souls had passed through those gates over the ages carrying with them ritual, intention, and the Ling spirit – spirit of spiritual potentiality. I was transported in their presence to another world. I felt how it is to be in the presence of a great preacher, or wise elder who’s words and story weaving transport you from day to day reality into the transcendent experience of the world.

I’m reminded of how it must feel to be breathless and what it feels like when you cannot use language to describe an emotion or state of being. Like the finger pointing at the moon, the Museum was otherworldly.

Lastly I stepped into the East Asian room showing Japanese art. I felt myself saying wow over and over again as I became present to the highest sense of refinement that the human hand can create. Each object and scroll contained within it such aesthetic perfection and flawlessness that being in the very presence of such high quality of qi made me feel energized with wonder and spirit. Each object was imbued with the qi and love of its maker. The higher the quality and refinement, the higher the qi the object contained. When our qi is brought in resonance with such objects, we cannot help but resonate and be moved by their power.

When I left the museum, I felt more alive, more purposeful, more loving and respectful of the beauty of people and their work. At the same time I was mournful for how unique my experience had been and how unfocused and uninspired the hardened faces of the people walking the streets seemed. Unfocused, uninspired, flat, and consumed with their thoughts, plans and to do lists. All my need for worldly things other than food and sleep were dissolved.

1/25/11 – Skiing

2011-03-13T13:01:00.001-10:00

I couldn’t sleep the night before my ski lesson. The anticipation of the day to come and the fear of falling and hurting myself had me awake. I watched the hours tick by as I finally caught two hours of sleep between 5 and 7. In the day to come I fell over and over again. I tried to listen to the instructor who kept saying to ‘relax’, ‘lean into the mountain’ and ‘less is more’. I struggled hard against the impulse to be in control of every muscle, every movement, and every emotion and feeling that arose. He said that in skiing we have to unlearn everything that seems natural. We want to brace against impact. When faced with gravity we want to fall backwards and push against it. Skiing is all about going into, giving into, and going through the fear and anxiety and leaning down into the mountain on each turn. Keep your head up, and never look down – in other words, face life with courage. I can feel the energetic difference between looking down in dread, or up with determination.

I felt dread looking down the mountain slope, my mind predicting scenarios of my impeding doom - crashing into a tree, or falling off the edge – or worse, getting onto a Black Diamond by mistake and rolling down the mountain, breaking every bone in my body. Despite these fears I felt courage rise up in me to get up after each fall and try, try again. I ignored the predictions of doom and simply focused my intention on the present. I was the slowest student in the bunch. I felt ok with that – I somehow knew I would be before we even got there. At one point, the ski instructor told me, that the more of a perfectionist, or control freak I am, the harder the learning will me for me. He said I must simply give into the mountain, and move in only subtle small ways – the mountain will amplify my movements. The sharper the action the greater the consequence. If I try to be perfect without reacting fluidly and organically to each circumstance, the mountain will teach me the lesson.

There was a passage that I would always accelerate at and had little control in stopping. I would be weary of it each time I would approach it. To me it was my KD 21, The Dark Gate. Instead of relaxing into it, my body would stiffen and become more aware, calculating and aware of the circumstances. My eyes would dart to and fro as my whole body would poise for a crash – fearing the absolute worst.

I spoke with my friend Judith later that day. She said that Skiing had helped her incredibly with her music career. By giving into the mountain and learning to let go of control and perfectionism, her music became more beautiful, more natural, free flowing, and heartfelt. I knew that I would instantly love this sport and I do. I am addicted. By the end of the second day I skied two 20-minute runs perfectly. I felt the movement of the mountain and the skis under me. As I gained speed, instead of panicking, I simply leaned into the curves and let the skis and snow do the rest. The snow is an incredible teacher and I am in awe of how much I have to learn about the free flow of qi and to play in the dance.

I went together to learn with my friend Aaron. He got it much quicker than me. We had five people in our group, and two had skied a little before. Aaron wanted to go on harder slopes to push himself. I was fully aware of my own limits and I didn’t want to graduate to a harder green slope until I had confidence with the ones I was on. I was aware of my limits and knew I would not be convinced otherwise. This was a rigidity and stubbornness born out of self-awareness. Perhaps I can call that a moment of personal wisdom.

The two students who skied before encouraged him and gave him peer pressure to join them. He decided to do it. He tried to get me to go. I stood my ground firmly, thanked him for the offer and told him I was quite happy where I was. When I met him at the bottom of the mountain after having taken the easy trail I found him shaken, hyperventilating with a dazed and blank look in his eyes as if he were reliving each moment. He said that he was done for the day and couldn’t imagine going up there again. He had several major wipeouts down a hill that tested him beyond his limits. I was reminded of KD 20, Through the Valley and then him sitting on the bench, experiencing Walking on the Verandah (KD 22).

Next time I go, I will once again resume on the bunny hills and test various turns, stops and techniques on a safe and slower slope. Once I amass enough skill, confidence and courage I will accelerate, move through and push myself to harder greens. As my Water adapts to new circumstances and new challenges, I will continue to learn the lessons of flowing with the Universe.

The people at Winter Park had a fascinating energy. Interacting with the snowboarders, skiers, and shopkeepers and waitresses there was an energy of self-confidence, ease and flow. It was clear to me that these people’s spirits and lives had been altered by snow sports and by the mountain in profound ways. Their very energy was reassuring and self-confident.

When asked about their lives and experience, they’d get a self-reflective inward look – not one of excitement over their lives as much as deep self-knowledge amassed through their experience. When they asked us about our experience they didn’t laugh, joke, or make light of our novice experience. They emanated an aura of reassuring respect. They’d share their knowledge and wisdom. We’d overhead people sharing their stories of the mountain – spectacular wipeouts, most dangerous encounters, and feats of incredible ability and skill that either amazed them, or seemed like old hat.

The words of the instructor struck me “Once you ski one slope with confidence, it will no longer be enough. You will want harder and harder hills. Before you know it, you’ll be paying $350 for a helicopter to take you and drop you on the peaks of a mountain because regular ski lifts just won’t be enough”.

To know oneself is to head into and through our fears. Are we self-aware of our potential, of our limits, of our capabilities? What personal mountains are we climbing in life? Where are we stopped? What fear blocks our progress? What are we practicing? All these questions about Mastery arose in me about Acupuncture, T’ai Chi, or anything else for that matter. I have a feeling that skiing will be a gateway to self-discovery like none other…

1/21/11 – Berthoud Pass

2011-03-13T13:00:00.004-10:00

The road to Winter Park revealed the majestic snowy peaks of the mountains. The high winds were blowing the powder off the peaks and valleys into huge morphing castles of snow. These huge eddies created awesome sky monsters that traversed the highest parts of the world with their play. These vast elemental forces had me feel small and tiny in the presence of their awesome power. Their ease of movement showed me the play of the gods of this place – communing directly with the raw qi of the heavens. As I felt my car rocked by the blasts of winds and snows I felt so out of place in this cauldron of matter forming and dissolving - shapeless, powerful, dangerous, pure alchemy, pure magic. Only the pine forests stood as sentinels watching over the play of the gods – an army of witnesses.

When we’re overwhelmed by the forces of the world around us that seem to move in chaos and control we can seem powerless and awestruck by life in such a way that we feel insecure even being in the presence of people who move with such ferociousness in life. This gave me the feeling of being intimidated by a power greater than us. If we do not trust Heaven and Earth and are flung into life with an outlook of cowering before it, we truly can occur as powerless. These feelings remind me of BL 67, Extremity of Yin. Even in the most extreme of circumstances in life, we can reach for the depths of our reserves and connect with the mother element, Metal – to give us a connection with Heaven and a renewed trust in the Universe.

1/13/10 – Ice Shelves of Idaho Springs

2011-03-13T13:00:00.003-10:00

We’re passing by a creek and seeing the ice shelves formed over the riverbed. The ice rubble and breaks into thick spikes of crystals. Thick layers of frozen melt have hardened into over a foot of ice layers over the stream. The freeze has pushed the water higher – expanding it into structure. As the ice shelves move across the top they create various shapes like blocks of lava. This shows to me the complete illusive nature of the water element, its malleability, the ability to take on any form whatsoever when necessary – an endless sea of potential for any kind of being one can be. They shall remain this way if the circumstances (temperature) do not change. This speaks to me of the energy required to accommodate to any circumstance – to be the chameleon and adapt oneself to life’s circumstances rather than resisting it. This is yet another example of how water can flow freely in between states as needed. When the melt comes, the water will adapt itself again and again.

Another example of hanging on for dear life came when we rounded the bend and saw a crystalline ice sculpture waterfall – like a giant chandelier of layers upon layers of icicles which turned a running stream into a vertical sculpture. I can imagine each drop of water hanging on for dear life and becoming frozen in fear rather than dropping into the depths of the unknown river below.

If change comes to our lives and we’re frozen in our old skills, abilities, strong suits and fixed ways of being – we many never be able to adapt to the needs of the circumstances. If the ice never melted with changing circumstances, we would be stuck with the past, which would prevent us from progressing into the future. This evokes in me a feeling of stubbornness and fixity. The fear of change can prevent us from adaptation – it takes courage to change our shapes and to adapt but when we need to, we find that the strength of the human spirit is always accessible in the depths. This reminds me of KD 25, Spirit Storehouse – a sea of spiritual courage to enter life under any circumstance, and when we’re frozen in fear, points such as KD 7, Released Stream can release the grip we have on our reality and learn to once again go with the flow with confidence and courage.

1/6/11 - Flagstaff Mountain Boy Scout Trail

2011-03-13T13:00:00.001-10:00

The ponderosa pines smell like a warm gingerbread rotten rancid sawdust smell and the winds are howling around us in all directions. It doesn’t sound so much like a shout as a weeping wail. The wind has uncovered a fascinating ice formation. The frequent thaw and freeze that takes place atop this mountain created these crispy shelves of icy snow that crunch under foot. The powder has been blown off to reveal crevices and hardness to the water – some of its unknown revealed. No longer powdery and flaky but seemingly solid and therefore treacherous. You never know when it will crack. This snow has an energy of water that has repeatedly been frozen, and then melted enough to move just a bit before being stopped and frozen again. This stop and go quality reminds me of what uncertainty caused by anxiety over movement and flow in life might look like. With such uncertain progress, you cannot rely on any solidity or flow. It is flaky and unreliable. If life occurred to me this way, I’d be afraid to move forward in life and would be exhausted, or resigned.

The bark splinters and crackles as I peel it off the tree. It flakes off like dried layers of skin. Parched, no water, rigid, hard, hollow, lifeless and shallow in sound. As the sun hits the side of the pine tree, the odor is intensified - it is warmed and expands into the nose. The dry dead bark is given some momentary life as the warm acrid oils penetrate the upper nostril.

I saw a long-needled pine tree and I noticed that all of its needles were pointed up towards the heavens. Its linear, directed growth shooting in one direction. The tree creaked at me, laughing like an old crony. The laugh occurred as sarcasm – a pessimistic knowing of the futility of something – as if it is laughing at me judgmentally.

We passed four students walking to the Flatirons amphitheatre. They gave us a brisk and cold “hey” as if we were intruding upon their endeavor by our presence. One girl walked in pajamas and slippers amidst the snow, clutching at her wet and old fur-piped coat. The legs were blue and her feet bright red. She looked like she was freezing, yet she persevered with a hard and set jaw towards her destination – a look of determination and no glance in our direction. I felt dismissed and somewhat feared. After smelling the pot wafting off their jackets, I understood their paranoia.

As the sun sets behind the mountains, the shape of the mountain loomed over Boulder. The gray black shadow covered the plain with its darkness and grayness as the sunlight was consumed by the moving gray. The Yin became ominous and overbearing. The warmth faded from my heart and I began to worry about the impending dark. This feeling was reminiscent of the foreboding coldness that can set in after warmth of an encounter or a party ends. All parties must come to an end.

The sunset behind the mountains created a gradient in the eastern sky – from a rosy peach into a baby powder blue. The gentle meeting of fire and water – of yang being consumed or interchanged into yin. The shades of the sky were reminiscent of facial colors that I have seen. In the middle where the red and blue meet there is a ruddy purplish gray reminiscent of colors I have seen on Water CF clients. As I watched the sun set, the eastern gradient grew in width and the intensity as both colors changed to gray blue – the ash forming in the sky from the burning embers of the day.

12/28/10 – Russet Green

2011-03-13T12:57:00.002-10:00

Back in Washington, DC I stayed with my parents. We went on a brisk walk around the housing development via the trails that wound around it. My mom always walks very briskly and with purpose, while my dad saunters – unless he’s with my mom – at which point he tries to keep up with her pace. On occasion their roles reverse as my father assumes the character of a fox, hunting his pray with his camera, while mom strolls leisurely, basking in the day.

Because I knew this particular walk was going to be more of a march of the troops storming the castle rather than a walk – I decided to concentrate on getting odors. Given my mom and I played by trying to outmaneuver and outrun eachother, by sprinting forward at unexpected times – dad ended up finishing the race as the march hares were tired from the revelry.

The predominant odor I got several times was a very strong putrid mixed with a rot of leaves. It was sharp and hit the nose in the far back and front of the nostrils and made me wince. It came from the stagnant catchment pools of runoff water that are built at various places around the housing development. Though these areas were mostly frozen over, the rotting of leaves and reeds was very present amidst the putridity.

Several other smells included dog manure, sharp metallic smell of snow and electrified air around power transformers. A smell of pumpkin pies in the distance. A wood fired stove, gasoline fumes, sharp oils of pine trees, dry warm oil and rancid smell of Christmas trees, burning plastic, and putrid smell of a skunk. A few others were a hard dark heavy smell of wet concrete and rotting leaves, old pine chips mixed with rotten fertilizer, and rotten bananas coming from a trashcan.

12/22/10 – Church of Sounds

2011-03-13T12:55:00.001-10:00

I went to Church with my grandparents. My grandmother and I do not speak German, and though my Grandfather does – he doesn’t have sufficient mastery to translate it as a sufficient speed to make the experience intelligible.

Instead, I was awash with sound. I closed my eyes and felt my ears punched with phrase after phrase of German beating against my ear drums. A distinct shout to the language itself made my experience of picking up actual sound that much more challenging. In the same way how it’s harder to pick out the 5 sounds in a dialect that is predominantly sing-songy (Southern Drawl) - the German language made it interesting to distinguish things other than Shout, which is associated with Wood.

I found it quite useful to have an absence of meaning. Since I didn't know the words, all I heard was sound. The wounded singing Earth sound of my grandfather’s German (who’s voice is similar to Bill Clinton’s singing moan) was quite distinct from the preacher’s warm joyful sing. These were very distinct from an unemotional droning Water shout, as well as full on punched and articulated consonants of a Wood. Lastly the bereaved and grieved weep of Metal came through quite strongly with many in the congregation.

12/18/10 - Green People

2011-03-13T12:52:00.001-10:00

I wondered if this was projection, an uncanny coincidence, or simply the force of critical mass and energetic convergence. The day I went by myself on the tram I saw the most amount of green on people’s faces than I had seen anywhere else: various shades from conifer green, to grass green, to lemon grass green, to lime, and various intermingling of yellows and whites. All I heard was the shout, directionality, and hardness of the German language spoken everywhere around me. With this sound and color I started perceiving the eyes of the green inhabitants as stern, pointed, direct, and in some cases, visibly angry. Even their smiles could not belie their eyes.

I started seeing the presence of the phrase that Germany is very well known for: “Ordnung” which is the German word for order, arrangement, organization, or system. The rules of this organization and order are generally unwritten but they define the very essence of part of German identity, work ethic and ideals. It is believed that ordnung generates a sense of peace, contentment, equality, and unity and binds people together towards a common purpose.

Everything here operates on time, is maintained on time, and can be relied upon. People perform their prescribed roles and stay in line. There is little time or room for complaining. I found this present in every role I found people doing. The people working in the shops carry the same sense of self-respect or esteem as the janitors, waitresses, tour guides, garbage collectors, train operators, or business men. Everyone has a role that is vital to the system working. I’d hate to see what would happen if someone decided to go against that system. I have a feeling that I already felt that – you’re simply ignored, swept past and shunned.

There is a strong energy of “this is just how things are done” that permeate the place and give you a sense that you have to observe and watch how it’s done, as no one will explain it to you.

I had a conversation with a American from Boston who’d lived in Heidelberg for 12 years. We met at a café and started talking. He clued me into a little about German politics. He said “The Germans have a great sense of organization, and are socialists in many ways. They want to make sure that everyone is taken care of. Because of this they create very complicated legislation. The biggest criticism that the German people have of their government is that they are overly cautious, over think every decision, are completely indecisive and stagnant”.

I found this a fascinating confirmation of the predominance of Wood Color, Sound, Odor, and Emotion (CSOE) I was getting from the City’s residents and the general energetics of this place in contrast to the Metal and Earth CSOE most present in Washington, DC.

12/11/10 – Walking Through Heidelberg

2011-03-13T12:51:00.002-10:00

Yesterday my granddad and I went to Heidelberg to walk the streets of old town. I got reminded again of the beauty of Europe, with its old churches, brick buildings and cobble stone streets. Riding the bus, the train and entering all the stores is an ultramodern and refined aesthetic experience, juxtaposed with ancient architecture and refined social decorum. The old world evokes a sense of class, refinement and old world values amidst the commercialism of Christmas and adverts for iPads and the latest fashions. Italian, German, French, and British tastes and fashions adorn the storefronts, and a very Bavarian scent of gingerbread cookies and pastries powdered to perfection delight all senses. The music is mostly in English and shopkeepers are heard conversing with tourists in German, French, and Italian as well as English around every corner.

There is a great sense of order and organization here. Everyone is performing their prescribed roles with a sense of purpose and mutual responsibility. I feel compelled to not tarry too much, but get my business done and move forward to the places where a little more respite is appropriate. There is a strong sense of Wood energy compelling forward motion and proper prescribed behavior. I felt like I was looked at with cold frustrated confusion as I walked on the wrong side of the pedestrian promenade against the orderly flow of traffic. If I were shopping at a stall, people beside or behind me had no problem pushing me slightly out of the way without a request, statement or apology in order to get what they wanted and I heard several exacerbated sighs while I was searching through my change. At one point one person simply stuck their arm past me and put their change on the table ahead of the me to pay for their object and walked off because he could not wait for me to get done. I felt pushed, shoved, and ignored – and yet nothing was personal and if I stopped anyone to engage in conversation I found them extremely helpful, warm, and welcoming.

The creativity of the German people is quite inspiring. Christmas kiosks popped up like mushrooms after the rain. Many offered a splendid array of pastries, cookies, cakes, and candy. Others offered hot spiced wine, while others grilled bratwurst and other unidentified meats. The smells of scorched flesh, and grilled buns filled the air. The sweetness of the gingerbread mixed with the cigarette smoke. Some shopkeepers sold intricate Christmas ornaments made out of needlework, wood, straw, glass, metal, paper and various other media – and everything only of the highest quality. Various stands with hand made sweaters and scarves followed stands with fine leather goods and stands with cheeses and wines. Opulence and refinement. I felt I wanted to delight in all the wares and behave with grace and decorum while doing so.

12/7/11 – Sounds of Water…

2011-03-13T12:51:00.001-10:00

The trails above Heidelberg, Germany are covered with over 4 inches of snow. The sun is shining. There’s a light breeze at about 2-3 miles an hour – blowing tufts of snow from the trees. The birds are squawking and the ravens are groaning in disapproval. As I walk and tread the snow, the groan of the snow beneath my feet crunches, and smushes down. It creates a heaviness to the sound. A persistence. A creaking. Water is as one with gravity - the great leveler. As the snow tufts plummet down, they reach the most yin place. Through the path of least resistance, and courage to leap, they keep falling. I feel like the energy is rushed – things are melting too quickly and there is trepidation. The stillness, calmness of Winter changes when suddenly there is so much movement. It’s slightly disconcerting.

There’s a smell of snow – a lightness, a coldness, a metallic quality. It pierces through the nose. The trees and the vineyards on these slopes rest under the blanket as the snow contemplates its changing nature and the flow that is in its near future. I hear the sound of snow melt running down the side of the road and falling into a chasm - a small little gurgle as if chattering into the depths as it drones on and on.

There is something wise to the brilliance of the crystals that hang everywhere. There is something very direct and brutal to the water element in its pointed icicles. The ground looks soft but you have no idea what lurks beneath. Icicles above, the unknown below – it evokes the feeling of impending treachery and the suspicion that comes with it.

The water reflects all of the colors of light as crystalline drops hang on all of the vines as far as the eye can see. The vines stand in rows, covered with white, brilliant crystals. I feel inspired as the sea of jewels sparkles in the sun highlighting the brilliance of water’s clarity. I see the smoke rising from a chimney as it dissipates into formlessness. The scent of bonfire permeates the air. It’s about 1oC. I’m walking along side the deer tracks. The quality of the size of the snow melt stream has changed, and so has its sound. It’s become light, frothy and playful. Really high pitched and joyful – like a small water fountain – but in its context here, it reveals its lack of depth, a shallowness and an impatience in its babbling conversation. Energetically it occurs childish, brash, immature, and naïve – completely unconcerned with anything.

The hue of the snow is graying blackish blue. In areas where it is white it reflects a light tone of the blue sky, and the areas where it is dark are shadowed by leaves and trees. It is blue and black – a deep color and highly contrasted. I see in winter the contrast, the clarity between the frosting of the trees and the darkness of their bark. In the strip of snow that runs on the west-facing side of the tree that runs right from the bottom to the top – only the west-facing side is covered. The remaining part of the tree is black. And the silhouettes of the trees create this beautiful contrast.

Water falling from the mountain amidst the rocks into the depths – sounds like many chattering voices, each with their own story. Can’t grasp or provide a definition to it – who’s voice is it? How many voices are there? Once again I’m reminded of Water’s mutable personality. Energetically I feel a confusion over which voice is speaking, who to listen to, who to trust and whether there is any identity to it at all.

I walk down the snowy path where only a deer walked before me many hours ago, perhaps before the snow stopped falling. The tracks are somewhat covered. I’m the only one that’s been here today. Today I must forge my own path and be a pioneer. This requires I stay alert to where the path may go and be careful in my step. Watchfulness is a quality of the Water element, which gives me new knowledge and skill at detecting how to navigate through this landscape. I’m reminded of KD 6, Illuminated Sea which illuminates our path in life and gives us confidence to know and take on what is before us if we lack clarify in our life.

12/1/10 – The City of Washington, DC

2011-03-13T12:50:00.001-10:00

I’m walking to a café through a residential area of DC. The air is cool, and moist. It’s in the low 60s. This city has a certain unique scent to it that no other city has. I’m not quite sure what the specific combination is, but I know I’m in DC by this familiar odor: diesel fumes, moistness, rotting of leaves, motor oil, and the smell of the subway system, heated by pumped air and electrical energy of the railway cars. It carries with it an acrid watery sharpness. The breeze is blowing, and it’s slightly warm outside.

Puddles of water surround me. They splash up from the wheels of the cars and trucks which splatter their watery grime into the air and onto the sidewalks. The decaying leaves flurry up into the air in an eddy of an in breath, and settle back down as DC breathes back out.

The city is alive with rumbling sounds of car engines, and the screeching of metro trains on their tracks. There’s a familiar sound and scent of escalators. The scent of black motor grease carries its rich hydrocarbon scents of oils throughout the underground, and streets above. Energetically this place has a feeling of a higher purpose, and constant striving and hard work. The houses stand empty as their residents are busying themselves about government and corporate work as I walk on the fairly empty streets of a weekday morning in the district.

The guards around the Mall and Capitol stand wearing stern faces, concerned with their important duties. As I contrast the energy and the peoples of the District with the peoples of other places I have lived in the US, there is a sense of seriousness here that is not present in other places. The city itself is rather cold in its architecture, well organized, and sterile. Its streets are poorly looked after with potholes and trash rolling here and there. Its residents are either poor, resigned to their situation and angry about social injustice – or they are well paid, well dressed, perfectly quaffed, carrying brief cases and fighting for some form of justice. Then there’s the students and everyone in between. I feel a need to stiffen up here, put on airs of importance and seriousness and be ready to have a well-prepared, politically correct, non-incisive and well-articulated opinion. There is little time for frivolity – the stakes are too high. If you’re not doing something important, you need to get out of here. The city carries an air of arrogance, self-importance, determination, and disparagement of anyone who’s not doing something valuable and note-worthy. Cold, stern, polished, austere, good-intentioned, filled with fake promises, and rabid survivalist self-interest. It's the restaurant owners and bar keeps that keep the mood of this place somewhat regulated – they are almost a separate breed of individuals somehow uninvolved in the dirty work of solving the world’s problems but nourish and enable those that are concerned with such things to eat a meal and enjoy their 1 hour lunch breaks.

I stopped into a French café/restaurant. After sitting down I wanted to check to see if there were any classical concerns during the Christmas season I could go to. I asked the waitress if they had WiFi. I was given a resigned, judgmental and smug look and told “We do not. We like to think of ourselves as a place where you come in to relax and take a moment rather than continuing to do work”. Considering what I was intending to look up, I found the judgment and prohibition of the fun I wanted to find, rather ironic. Somewhat shocked, and feeling scolded, I simply thanked her and ordered a cup of soup.

When the residents party here, they drink hard and lose their stern masks to reveal repressed grief and anger as well as a joy and lightness that they could not express otherwise. The people that walk here walk fast and with a purpose – their shoulders like battering rams ready to break through the crowd.

The metro cars are stuffed like sardine cans and smell of a sharp rancid oil, fishy rotting fruit mixed with body odor, perfumes and a light smell of urine – in contrast to the New York subway which carries its own particular perfume. Bodies curl into themselves as people stand apart from each other in a “don’t touch me” and “don’t talk to me” stance – “I’ve had to deal with assholes all day, leave me alone”.

It’s hard to know what this place needs most - perhaps a mass unburial of the Spirit, or a touch of warmth to break down the seriousness. Mostly it could do well with a moment of silence, being brought into the present moment, and people authentically acknowledging each other’s thirsty spirits with loving and compassionate eyes.

11/21/11 – The White Knight of Dream Canyon

2011-03-13T12:49:00.002-10:00

Here in dream canyon, even the pine trees – the most metallic of trees that grow in the heights of the world shed their refuse. Their long straight pine needles litter the floor. The beautifully structured pine cones litter the forest in various shades of brown – some washed out and bleached out by the sun over time – a dead gray. The scents are warm like the weather. Slightly humid with a lovely bouquet of pine oil and dried grasses. It is really lovely and warming. The pine trees don’t need much. Their growth is very straightforward, dark and filled with minerals. They can exist up here while others cannot. Life can be a little more austere for the pine trees and they put up quite well. Energetically they leave me feeling hardened, self-reflective, imposing, rigid and unconcerned with what occurs around them, and not particularly friendly.

I came across a stone as I was walking along the path that shone brightly at me, reflecting the sun. I picked it up and examined it. No wonder the Lungs (Metal) are likened to the highest Minister and Chancellor to the Emperor. What became apparent to me is that metal reflects the sun – the heat of the Emperor. It reflects the very spirit of the sunlight – of goodness, joy and love back to the world – so that all are reminded to look to Heaven for the essence. For the Lungs to absorb the essence, they must be empty first and imbue no imprint of their own on what they take in. In the same way, this quartz rock doesn’t reflect its own light or brilliance. It is only in its selfless reflection of the emperor does it serve its purpose. Energetically this feels like pure love, brilliance, and selflessness – the complete giving of the self to a higher and most noble purpose. It’s beautiful, inspiring, touching and enlivening. The light casts the truth into every shadow, revealing its true essence. I’m reminded of the point LU 4, Valiant White, which reawakes in the spirit the essence of valor, purity, and radiance - the very riches of Heaven. The White Knight is impeccable to the core, carries a bright sharp blade that cuts through any veils of illusion and shines truth and light into the darkness. This point gives us the energy to carry on fighting the good fight for the highest good, selflessly and on behalf of the Emperor.

11/13/11 – Longing

2011-03-13T12:49:00.001-10:00

In stark contrast to the refuse, this is also the most beautiful and amazing time of year for me. I love it in the fall. Ah the magnificence of the leaves and the preciousness, and the glory of them just warms my soul and makes me inspired in awe of the gorgeousness of colorful explosions - and in me develops this great longing, this great appreciation for the wonder around me. Because I know this is going to fade away, I want to hold onto it even more, and so I pine for it, long for it, seek it out.

This time of year I make my whole life, and orient myself around being in the fall. Every time I go out I wonder – is this going to be gone tomorrow? Can I soak in everything, can I take in everything, can I be inspired enough and hold onto it and live off of that inspiration, of off the wonder for a whole year till I see it again? If I were seeking this feeling my whole life I would surely always feel empty – living from one spiritual high to the next – never feeling fully connected to spirit and the world would always look heavy, uninspiring and gray. This reminds me of the point LU 2, Cloud Gate which makes an opening in the clouds that hover over and obscure our experience of Heavenly inspiration so that we can once again be inspired by the wonder and mystery of life.

Because it is so precious, this taking away of life, this final end, this final shout and hurrah of the spirit captivates my imagination and makes me crave more. Longing. It's a fascinating emotion. It is this pining, this drawing forth. Energetically, the whole body wants to move forward and up and quest to be filled. This time of year I want to take in deep breaths and feel the cold air in my lungs filled with the crackling, scortchy rot that is present. The scent here carries the dryness of the leaves, which show their scorchiness and acrid spiciness – and when wet, show their rotten moldiness.

At the same time as I take in the beauty I have disdain, pain, and rejection for what is left. The structures. The shells of former life of trees that just stand there – dead. There is a certain lack of any worth in them any more. They're dry and brittle kindling, brown and gray and lifeless. And when that is what surrounds our lives – when we perceive things to be dry and brittle and worthless all the time, we may have this form of disdain and sadness, and longing for what they once were, or what they could have been. I’m reminded of the point LU 8, Meridian Gutter which allows us to flush out preoccupation with the past, the lack of value of what’s present around us in order to make room for receiving inspiration and spirit back into our lives – or simply perceiving life as it truly is in the present.

I remember when I had to put down my cat of 18 years. I felt so connected to him and so in thanks and awe of his life while he lay there on the doctor’s table. I was in tears and disbelief that his life was coming to an end. Once the injection was given I felt his spirit moving slowly and more calmly through his body and suddenly he left, floated for a brief second or two in the room, and left. With his spirit leaving his body my tears stopped and there was nothing left to connect to or cry about – his spirit has been liberated. The body that lay on the table was no longer my cat and when I looked at his body I felt nothing at all for it. I found it odd – an object, worthless, growing cold.

11/7/10 – Boulder Creek Refuse

2011-03-13T12:48:00.000-10:00

The season of Autumn looks absolutely shoddy. The dead brown leaves look dirty, disorganized, and messy. Disheveled, unkempt, mottled - everything looks just a little bit unpolished and filled with refuse. It’s as if nature doesn’t give a crap about how it looks to the everybody else. Who is there to look good for? It has no need for external adornment and will look shoddy and disheveled because the whole refinement process is going on internally. There’s a feeling of preoccupation with something hidden and mysterious that surrounds this season. There’s a something internal going on that has me feeling like its hard to connect to the energy through the external shell to actually get to the essence as the shell looks and feels so inert.

The trees and plants show no need to polish up for everybody else around them. In a way I’m left feeling like they don’t care about anything but their self-absorbed process. It shows a lack of respect for self-images and how they treat their body – the vehicle for the spirit. It’s as if the shell, the very vehicle is so marginalized that they stop caring about it. Their elevated inner self-worth allows them to neglect their appearance and interaction with others. This is perfectly appropriate in nature for an appropriately long fall – but if autumn never let go of its inner process to move into winter – this self-absorption would become pathological.

What nature indicates is that is doesn’t matter for nature what the exterior looks like, its just the structure, its just the shell, and yes it was the body that was inhabited by spirit and created life throughout the whole yearly cycle, but there comes a time when the body must be shed, and the spirit returns to its origin.

In the spring the body becomes full of life and invigorated – enjoying all of manifestation because it's the body that’s required in order to live in the world, to function in the world, to interact with the world and form new meaning and memories. It is more than just the vehicle. It is the spirit incarnate – spirit moving out into the world, rather than moving within. But if we lived constantly in autumn, constantly in death, in decay – so that our houses decay, our relationships decay, our thoughts are self-absorbed or focused on the past – we create no opening for something new to be created. When I look at how disheveled this place is – I get an internal feeling of disgust with the clutter and dirtiness. If that is what I saw around me all the time, I’d never find anything to delight in, in life. This reminds me of the point LI 20, Welcome Fragrance, which allows me to see the essential beauty and once again recognize and take in essence rather than seeing only the worthlessness or lack of value around me.

"Family Garden" by Hank Hudepohl

2011-01-17T10:47:00.000-10:00

Tell me again about your garden
Tell me how you planted, in the small
flat of mountain land, corn seed

and bean seed, how your finger poked the soil
then you dropped in three dark bean seeds
for every yellow seed of corn.

Trees and mountains collared your land,
but the fenced garden opened freely
to sun and warm summer rains.

Your potato rows bulged in July. You ached
from digging them up, your hands down in dirt,
the cool lump of a tuber, brown-spotted,

just recovered, a greeting, like shaking hands.
Baskets full of bumpy brown potatoes filled
your basement until fall, until you gave

away what you could, throwing out the rest.
You gave away honey from the white hive too,
that box of bees beside the garden,

honey stored in Mason jars, a clearest honey
nectar from lin tree blossoms and wild flowers.
The bright taste of honey on the tongue

spoke of the place, if a place can be known
by the activity of bees and a flavor in the mouth,
if a person can be known by small acts

such as these, such as the way you rocked
summer evenings from a chair on the porch
tending your inner garden, eyes closed.

"Family Garden" by Hank Hudepohl from The Journey of Hands. © Word Press, 2007.

10/23/2010 – Crunch, Crackle and Pop!

2010-10-29T12:04:00.001-10:00

I took a walk last night past the park behind the school, and down by the river. It was 9:30pm, the sky was dark granite save for the bright light of the moon through wispy, fast-moving clouds. The light wind sweeps the streets in gentle curls, like the released lock of hair from a curling wand unwinds and bounces slowly before it settles into shape.

It was the first time I’d been out for a night-time walk in many months. The air was chilly and crisp. The scent of distant fireplaces wafted through the air and the chatter of dry leaves could be heard occasionally as the wind would bring some news of coming change, providing a new subject for the trees to chat about. As I walked past the creek the cool, humid air wafted from the river-bank bringing with it a decay of leaves and twigs.

I was anxious walking down this wooded alley – a cotton tail would zoom out of the bushes, sending a scurry of activity ahead of me, awakening my senses. Walking through the mausoleum of trees, with millions of small unburried bodies rotting in the night while the ghosts and groundsmen of this graveyard, the sentinels of the night kept watch over my journey. The scents of various trees gave away their personalities through scent as the night blindfolded me, and made me present to their formlessness. The essential smells of death surrounded me - A nutty oily burnt crackle, a mossy moist wet cigarette tobacco, a lemon-bright and crispy peat, a smoky mushroom-like rotten log. Richness, subtlety, spiciness, and essentiality.

As I crunched through the leaves I heard the sound of coyotes’ wailing in the distance, crying out towards the moon. The Halloween lights of the houses brought a warm orange glow, scattering the darkness. My throat, lips and mouth were getting dry, and my nose cold and battered by the crispness of autumn air. I put the hood over my head, becoming a shade with the rest of the night.

The spent structures of life lay all around in refuse heaps under the trees. As the essence is withdrawn, only the fiber and minerals remain to be moved by the waters to come into the depths to become possibility again in the spring.

Since the Metal element, and the balance between dryness and moisture determine what essences we absorb from the food, the air, out experiences, and facilitate the shedding of the inessentials through drying out the mass of content, and extracting the finest minerals – spiritual and mental constipation cause an excess of dryness, or a lack of dryness in the case of diarrhea, where we grasp for value everywhere we go, or cannot extract any value in our lives at all.

If people shed even the essential and only leave the structures of their lives in place, their lives would be as dry, mournful and barren as the autumn winds. Such people, lacking inspiration would become brittle, breakable, or hardened against life like the dry leaves and branches that lose the essences that give them life. Like dry bones, lacking essential miners to give them strength, these people would be as breakable, boring, and lifeless as an autumn branch. With complete dryness, their logic would lack space for emotion, whimsy, mystery and the imperceptible, and would instead define the world by ways of unemotional, cold, incisive logic born from analytical clarity. When the air is dry, we can see forever and can make out the small cracks and crevices of all life we behold. When we’ve dried out all the inspiration, emotion, and spirit from life, we can see all the structures that make life possible. To see the world so dryly our logic is impeccable, yet spirit and love are not logical. Through too much dryness we fail to see the things that make life worth living. Once a person has lost all inspiration for life, what would be left but to mourn existence itself.

The fall in some places brings mists and fog that cover the earth – obscuring the world in fantasy, the unknown. The fogs offer space for the imagination. The Metal element would thus live either in a space of wonder and awe at the meaning of the meanderings of life’s obscurations, or would live in an infinite state of anxious searching, longing to reach through the mist and grasp something solid, something firm, substantial – a point of reference for their lives. The dryness in the air can bring clarity to one’s life where one is bogged down by impurity that mists and confuses the mind. It is due to dryness that we can see the heavens and the earth clearly and without obstruction – but when dryness is all there is, the glaring reality of life ceases to inspire, and instead causes us to mourn the lack of mystery that gave us reason to quest in our lives for the essential in the first place.

The dichotomies of mysterious and ordinary, inspired and dry, beautiful and ugly bring into focus the duality of life, and within it, the oneness of the process of taking life in, and letting it go. No other element intercesses between the gates of life and death like the Metal element and no other season provides such poignancy.

I’m reminded of the Metal point of the Kidney (Water) meridian - “Returning Current” – the lightning bold of inspiration, the return of the waters of life from the gate of death, through and out of the gate of life as the Sheng cycle completes and life returns to the void of possibility. The point itself occurs to me as the high priest, perhaps the demiurge that presides over the process of reincarnation itself. Metal returns us to the father – the void. Inspiration and spirit are beckoned to come through the gate of death to arrive and flow into the sea of possibility itself as a thunderous surge announces “Spirit has returned to incarnate as you!”

10/20/2010 – A Lesson in Superficiality

2010-10-29T12:03:00.002-10:00

In Autumn, the trees adorn themselves with the most splendid coats of bronze, gold, silver, copper, and gradients of opulent color. One tree outside my condo window adorns itself with deep royal red on the inside, and bright sunny gold on the inside. The gradient unfolds smoothly through gold and oranges from the molten core of color to the cool, bright and royal purple exterior. With each passing day I see the gradient shift and change as the gold brilliance radiates from the inside of the tree out to its outstretched branches. The aspen trees that surround it rattle their perfectly round leaves like a rain of coins glistening and sparkling in the sun.

The wind shakes and agitates them and they soar throat the air – look at me, look at me – before sinking slowly, or plummeting to the ground to lay dead, motionless, and ultimately lifeless – their last sputtering flight a summation of the result of temporary stardom. You’re dead, boring, and you will be forgotten when the next wave of bright stars glistens through the sky.

While the tree visibly displays its splendor to the world, the lesson of what is essential and of true value is hidden in plain view. The splendor the tree displays on the outside, in the firmity of its year is only superficial and is destined to fall away, die, and turn into nothingness. The true treasure, the sap is widthdrawn from the leaves and traverses down through the vast network of branches into the trunk, finally sinking into the deepest part of the root system, where it is treasured and hidden away.

The irony is that the superficial splendor occurs when the deepest splendor is withdrawn and preserved. While the deepest vitality is hidden away, the brightness of royal color flashes like fool gold in a pan, and disappears in a matter of weeks. The tree lets go of its splendid coat because it knows that the true splendor is hidden in the depths. In this way, the tree inspires us by its display, but the display itself is a celebration of the wonder of the year that has gone by, and the readiness to plunge willingly into death. The tree knows how to live, and how to die. It need not be showy throughout its year of accumulating virtue, and just like the old sage at the end of his life inspires all by his celebration of the simple joy of life, he goes willingly to his grave, content in the knowledge that what is really essential is stored in the depths of his spirit.

In a society where beauty and splendor is prized above all else, superficiality and the quest to maintain external beauty belies the emptiness and void inside that indicates the ultimate worthlessness of external displays of splendor. Self-worth and self-esteem is the realization of the preciousness and appreciation of the essential that is within the heart, soul, and mind of the wise. To the wise, the external display of richness is of no importance, and many a sage will dress and keep themselves in such an external state that they look more like a shabby beaten down, gnarly old tree than a brilliantly clad rose or lily - for the sage knows that the rose and lily know that their beauty is oh so temporary. The effort to look brilliant one’s whole life, to look good, to avoid looking bad, to make people like you, adore you, respect you, admire you and appreciate you is ultimately exhausting of the essence of life itself. Admiration is fleeting. When you’ve run out of your showiness and display, people move on to give attention to the next brightest glowing star. When young and filled with external brilliance, the girl will be cast as the daughter, the protagonist – and all watch her in wonder. As she ages, she’s cast as the mother, and eventually the grandmother or the hag, and most lose interest in her – they all look to the next bright star.

The tree knows that it can look ordinary through the whole year, because its cultivating its essence, and it can look ugly and lifeless while it reflects on the wisdom of life in the winter. It knows that there are two appropriate times to expose its splendor to the world at large – in spring, where it demonstrates its creativity, providing a new vision for what is possible, and in autumn when it shares with the world what it has learnt, the wisdom it has gathered, and the essence of life that it has captured from being alive.

When we encounter a Metal client, do we see richness and depth of spirit behind an ordinary exterior, or do we see lavishness and external manifestation of beauty? Do we see a client who loves life deeply and calls themselves and others to be their best, or do we see someone who finds no value in themselves or the friends and family in their life? Do we see someone knowledgeable, filled with valuable experience who attempts to instruct others in what the best way to life is while shunning those who don’t listen or agree with their self-righteous point of view, or do we see someone who quietly exudes wisdom, doesn’t require others to accept, value, or adore them, but teaches through example? Do we see someone who’s spiritually cut off and empty from themselves and their loved ones and gathers money, riches, and awards for recognition, or do we see someone who’s humble, inspired, connected to themselves, and who calls us to the essential? Do we feel down, and heavy in their presence, or are they a breath of fresh air?

Will we savor the essences of life and pass it on to future generations where our contribution will live on in the lives of others, or will we glisten in temporary splendor, and ultimately die, get buried beneath the ground, where our tomb stone will grow moss and over the ages the last engraved words to define who was laid down are long gone, erased by time, and forgotten?

10/13/2010 – Bakersfield & Pismo Beach

2010-10-29T12:03:00.001-10:00

I visited my friends Aaron, Tanja and Jose in Bakersfield. I hadn’t seen Tanja or Jose since I left Bakersfield some 10 years ago. Bakersfield hadn’t changed much climactically since the last time I had been there save for the increase in smog, decrease in visibility, and smell of rotten and burnt meat in the air. The increased methane in the valley due to cattle ranching has also affected the area tremendously. The smell is reminiscent of that of Greeley, CO where the smell of the slaughter houses permeates the area. I drove into the dust bowl of San Joaquin valley in the early afternoon.

Despite the cool foggy winter season, this fertile land gets hardly any water and maintains its dusty barren terrain for most of the year, save for the irrigation systems that give this dusty, polluted valley the infamy of being the bread basket of California.

Bakersfield’s energy is reminiscent of a Kidney point, IV 2, Blazing Valley. This valley does not lack heat – the usual indication of this point, however. Quiet the opposite, the valley is burning through the resources it has. Bakersfield is at once opulent in the richness of the oil reserves which feed the few, but is deficient in wealth of resources which make people work extremely hard to scrape a living. Most people that live here wish to escape in some way or another but cannot overcome the inertia of depression, poverty and hopelessness. Instead they squander their precious resources on drugs and alcohol. Many dream of leaving for greener pastures, and the few who have left look back on their time in Bakersfield with relief that they found it within themselves to overcome inertia once and for all.

As the methamphetamine capitol of California (if not of the US), the drug-production and distribution culture is rich and bustling. Frequent murders and shootings occur across the city. The city is populated by haggard, tweaked out faces who exhaust all of their innate Jing and energy in that which makes the trap of Bakersfield barely palatable. Burning their Kidney essence, the Water element can no longer restrain their Fire. Most engage in hyper-sexuality where their physical valley blazes with uncontrolled sexual and hedonistic urges. A sub-culture develops which lacks self-control, willpower, and money to escape its self-gratifying desires. The result is “lets party our lives away as hard as we can, because we’ll never escape our bondage”. It is for this virtue that Blazing Valley is known to calm sexual, emotional and hedonistic desire by cooling the blazing fires and restoring wisdom, innate willpower and resources back to the parched individual.

Likewise the point’s most familiar use is the warm up a cold, frigid and frozen person who’s emotional anxiety and fear of survival prevents them from enjoying all that life has to offer. This point, coupled with IV 3, Greater Mountain Stream, or IV 7 Returning Current could send down the floods to quell the burning and exhausting fires and cool the valley, once again restoring balance.

Aaron and I took a road trip to Pismo Beach, a town about 3 hours southwest of Bakersfield. I love road trips for the reason that you can see the effects of elevation and water completely transform the landscape and what is possible. Water: pure potentiality manifested through Wood as the child element. Metal: inspiration and heavenly guidance, which directs the highest purpose of growth around the central pivot, the Earth.

The flat lands of the valley housed the cotton fields and almond groves – all land perfectly organized, parceled off and planted in linear rows for expedient harvest. As the hills rose out of the smog, the deadness and barrenness of the landscape truly showed its lifeless belly. The clay and dust lay about – pure potential, unanimated, and unactivated by Water and Wood. The winds blew up eddies and sand devils that danced in the lowlands, evoked by spirits which traverse the mournful and desolate flatlands with the sound of weeping as they passed – crying for the lifeless.

The closer we wound to the ocean, the greener the hills became. Plant-life acclimatized to low water becomes resilient, hard, gnarly, and stubby. Soon the hills change from gray-beige to lush dark green. We have been diving in a cloudless sky and we escaped the smog-covered valley. Approaching the next valley where Pismo beach can be found, we encountered a strange weather phenomenon. The heated ocean air lifted a fog of the water which covered the entire valley and beach front in a thick mist. For a normally sunny California beach, I felt like I could have been in a cloudy, wet and cold New Jersey in winter. The air was frigid, fishy, mixed with seaweed and the metallic smell of seagull droppings. I had exchanged my shorts and t-shirt for a sweater and pants.

9/30/2010 – The Ripeness of Late Summer…

2010-10-29T12:02:00.005-10:00

It is 3:49pm on a cool late summer afternoon in Gregory canyon. It’s been several weeks since I’ve been here last. The rhythms have grown quiet. The colors are in full force exhibiting reds, oranges, greens and browns. Grasshoppers make small distant sounds. It’s no longer loud, but soft and quiet. It’s cool and humid. Here in the coolness of the valley, the water collects into little ponds. It hasn’t rained for a while, but you can smell the putridity mixed with the smell of wet dog fur, mixed with sweetness of the decaying fruit and grasses – offering a bouquet of rotten fragrant putridity. Some of the leaves hang low on the trees, weighing down. The sap withdraws and the leaves begin to wilt, becoming yellow as vitality declines. Now things start to return back to the earth through ripening, rotting, and integrating back into the depths.

Gregory Canyon now looks more ragged, downtrodden, wilted, yet ablaze in color. Things start to hang limp, looking a little shoddy. Fruit are decaying in dark brown masses. All the apples have fallen. The bears have been in here and have left their scat. Only the sound of occasional dropping leaves and quiet munching of something somewhere deep in the ravine can be heard.

Even as the plants die and their big pointy stalks hang laden with food, they give up their life, they give their all to nourish others. Such is with all mothers. The Earth will nourish all, saving the self for last, even if it has to give up its life to do it, it will do it without question. The Earth gives equally to all and does not pick favorites. All the animals can feed at her breast. Even though her children may bicker and flight over food, she will make sure that all are nourished equally.

This reminds me of the Stomach point, XI 9, People Welcome. The Earth constitution takes care of everybody, giving them what they ask for. But because she wishes to avoid conflict at all costs in asserting herself and asking for what she needs in return, she feels compelled to give and give. Over time she becomes resentful of any request that’s asked of her. This starts to manifest as quiet servitude because of lack of communication. This resentment of people in her life, and a lack of harvest derived form a lack of asserting one’s boundaries soon turns into ingratiation. Through people pleasing, manipulation, hoarding, stinginess and secretiveness she retreats from the world. Because she’s not asserting her needs, she begins to hoard onto everything the gets. Soon she’s “had it up to here” and no longer welcomes them into her life, but withdraws into her inner world. People Welcome can open up the Windows to the Heaven and welcome people back in her life through proper communication and assertion of her needs. In so doing, she finds she’s surrounded by an abundance of people who are willing to help.

9/10/2010 – Whispers of the Earth…

2010-10-29T12:02:00.003-10:00

I’m at a lake near my home looking out at the mountains. The time is 6:50 and the sun is starting to set. It will soon crest behind the top of the mountain. There is a lukewarm breeze blowing, and the rays of the sun are warm. The leaves chatter in the tree next to me and the grass hoppers spin out their rhythms – slowly turning thoughts over and over and over. I feel the mildness of the weather – how comfortable it is, as I lay down on the bench. After the heat of the summer – this is pure comfort. It is this comfort that is reminiscent of the Earth element’s all embracing care for all. It provides just whatever you need. I love late summer.

As I dictate this into my phone I notice my voice has grown slower, calmer, contented with a singing quality to it – “there, there small child, I will give you what you need, as it is my nature to give myself to you”.

9/6/2010 – The Colors of Fire…

2010-10-29T12:02:00.001-10:00

A wild fire rages in the foothills above boulder. Spreading from it is a fast plume of smoke. This huge plume of smoke, the color of which is the gray dark ash that is not gray, not blue, but a greenish, brownish, brackish color. This is the color that one sees on Fire constitution’s faces – the color of smoke.

The fire rages out of control. As I drive closer to examine the cloud, the colors now undulate and change to warm browns. There’s this lifelessness, this kind of dark containment of all elements – of all the colors, reds, greens, and blues within the plumes of smoke that originate from it. It’s as if the whole kingdom is burning as the fire consumes all the elements, burning the wood and the minerals therein, lifting them high into the air. This graying mass of undulating colors is what can appear as this deadened corpse-like look of the people who have this element as their constitutional factor - as this fire rages through their anatomy burning up their insides through excessive overheating.

The fire cloud is mushrooming is shades of bluish purple and clear red and rusty orange as the earth element is consumed within in. Driving underneath the great cloud of fire, shadows of red, gold and yellow cover the whole land as the sun is partially obscured. The sun is red through the cloud directly above and the smell is that of brunt grass and tree limb, of bonfire and leaves. It’s sharp and forward in the nose, scratchy in the throat, high, elevated, wiffy.

9/3/2010 – Earth and Metal

2010-10-29T12:01:00.000-10:00

Its 3pm on the Gregory Canyon trail on a sunny afternoon – the apple trees cover the canyon floor and shed their ripening fruit. The insects burrow inside, leaving small holes in the round yellow and red apple bellies. It's a cloudless, gorgeous sky. When I walk along this trail I see so much abundance of fruit, berries and flowers. The bees are circling around, butterflies settle on the flowers and nature is abuzz eating the bounty. The smells are lightly fragrant. The seedpods wither, becoming musty yellow. The Earth is sympathetic to all forms of life. Everything walks, tramples and trashes all over it. It accepts it all, takes it all in, in stride.

Because all of life manifests upon it, it is abundant and constantly overflowing. But because it is slow moving, it churns very slowly to integrate the abundance that is occurring around it. Fire is also needed to purify the earth of all the stuff that happens on its surface. All the unneeded unnecessary growth must be cleared so that all the ideas of Wood don’t overwhelm Earth’s ability to provide results. Too much growth in all directions in life would sap the Earth of all its nutrients and ability to integrate the experience.

Through the power of Wood we have a million ideas a day, and an abundance of growth in all directions feeds the fires of purification. Through purification, the essence of the plans and ideas are given over to the Earth to integrate into itself. Through Fire’s purification the ideas of Wood are turned into fertile soil.

We simply cannot integrate everything that's possible to integrate in life. There are too many ideas, too many possible avenues and plans, and we can become exhausted trying to integrate everything faster than our capacity to chew over it, break it down, and integrate it into our lives.

I’m reminded of the Stomach point XI 23, Great Oneness which can help the Stomach to break down all of life’s experiences into a meaningful and integrated whole. Among other things, this point would be useful for someone who’s life appears or occurs as an accumulation of unrelated, fragmented, and disjointed experiences. This point can help integrate these experiences into the self so that the individual can learn from them and move on in their life.

I just saw the minerals sparking in the ground. The Earth contains the Metal, the Earth contains the Earth, the Earth contains the plants of life, the Earth contains the Water, the Earth contains the purifications of Fire – therefore Earth contains them all and when Earth contains all, it has everything it already needs – because it’s all part of itself. In it’s motherly embrace, all can grow.

I’m reminded of the Spleen point, XII 21, Great Enveloping. This point empowers us to feel surrounded by the unconditional nourishment and love of the mother in our lives as though we’re in the womb. When we feel cut off from sources of nourishment in life, Great Enveloping wraps our whole being in the gentle care of the Earthly mother’s warm blanket.

The temperature here is cool, the hot summer sun has waned and the temperatures are receding and cooling down to a comfortable medium level. The smells are still primarily scorched of the pine and of the yellowed grass heated by the sun. So within its scorchiness there is a sweetness to the grasses, flowers, and definitely a sweetness to the fruit that right now is still not fully ripe. This stability of Late Summer ambience is reminiscent of the stability of a lot of Earth constitutional characteristics – running neither hot nor cold, just occurring at a stable, steady, rhythmic pace, changing slowly and methodically.

I came across a wonderful bee airport. As they’re buzzing, taking off, and coming in for a landing, and taking off again – they all congregate around their nest, bringing nourishment in during the season. As they do so, a hum, a buzz emanates from the hive. The droning hum provides a rhythm, a song for their busy work – signing why their work.

Like the bees, the Earth constitution can become preoccupied with the harvest year round, never ceasing, never resting. Obsessed with acquisition of more experiences, knowledge, information, education and self care, the Earth constitution can open up, like a hungry pit, ready to ingest more, become more, and integrate everything they possibly can. With an insatiable appetite, yearning for that which will nourish them the most, they are never satisfied with what they have attained. Likewise, they can be unsatisfied with the amount of attention, help, care, support and nourishment they have received from others, their relationships or their occupational and educational pursuits. Obsessed with getting, learning, making, harvesting – things are never enough.

I’m reminded of the Stomach point, XI 45, Hard Bargain. This point can be excellent for the individual who feels that their needs are never met. This person may be constantly whining, complaining and demanding sympathy for their self-imposed burdens. Running a million miles an hour and obsessively harvesting, this point can calm the Earth’s need to constantly harvest by instilling the virtues of Metal in the Earth’s constitution. XI 45 can provide the self-recognition of what food brings the highest level of nourishment, and the balanced required to wisely taking in and letting go of what no longer serves. By this the Earth is better able to make clear choices about which sources of nourishment are the best, and discard that which doesn’t nourish it anymore. This point can help a person let go of that for which they no longer have appetite for, but which they continues to chew over out of habit and worry that something tastier will never come along. This can manifest as being stuck in lifeless and unsatisfying routine, job, or profession which the Earth is bound to repeat endlessly but form which it no longer receives any nourishment.

By getting the Earth constitution unstuck from their poor sources of nourishment and obsessive harvesting, XI 45 can restore the Sheng cycle for the stuck Earth Element. Through clarity over what truly nourishes, and what doesn’t, the Earth can let go (Metal), take confidence in their available resources and skills (Water), create ideas, make plans, get into action and execute decisions to pursue what will be most nourishing (Wood), and get back into communication with the community of support (Fire), to once again harvest the most satisfying and nourishing fruit of their labor (Earth).

XI 45 can also mitigate the excess presence of Metal in the Earth constitution where an individual has become cold, rigid and inert, manifesting as a lack of sympathy towards the self and towards others, resulting in ruthlessness in their pursuit of fulfillment. Such a point selection may be coupled with XI 20, Receiving Fullness, to provide satiation to one’s needs, so that one can experience abundance in life without wallowing in feelings of neediness and over production.

…

Now atop the mountain, I’m looking at a big rock and seeing all the lines of structure that compose it. It’s very linear, straight forward, very direct, clear in its demarcation of mineral content. Here’s what’s precious and refined, and here’s what’s not. Metal builds such lofty edifices to its purity. The rocks climb ever higher, creating treacherous terrain, treacherous pinnacles and peaks of the highest discernment, ever reaching towards the perfection of heaven.

We human build ivory towers, belief systems and ways of thinking, and declarations of our ideals. Through our elevation of what is precious, we create that which is hard to get to, and out of reach like the heights of the mountain. The higher we climb in our thinking, the further we can fall. As you stand at the precipices of these lofty places you feel a fear. You feel yourself freezing as danger lurks.

The mountain is the perfect metaphor for our spiritual lives. I climbed one of these edifices of perfection, and though the climb was treacherous, and firm footing hard to find, I made it to the top. And on who’s made it to the top definitely has a loftier perspective and call see all that is below in all directions. The question is what we do once we’ve reached new perspectives? Do we throw stones, judge and condemn all that’s below, or do we commune with the unity of all that we behold?

On this rock I had a 360 panorama for miles around, I surveyed all of Boulder county and the mountains behind me. With this amount of knowledge these places offer, no wonder these lofty places have so much attachment for us as human beings. We quest for these spiritual experiences even though they are dangerous and we can fall very far, the further up we climb. We listen to inspiring preachers from on high. We believe. We listen for the word of the Lord from on high. We believe. We climb mountains of self-knowledge, and deep penetrating insight through meditation, prayer and contemplation. We join religions, cults and groups, have drug-induced spiritual experiences, ecstatic dancing, speaking in tongues, snake charming, etc - all of these pursuits to give us insight. My, what lofty mountains of world-perception and potential self-righteousness we climb, being blissfully unaware that we may fall from our perches at any moment.

The Earth says – it’s safe to stay low to the ground. Don't stir the pot. But Metal stays - reach for the skies so that you can fall in wondrous delight, and can plummet into the depths once you have touched Heaven itself.

9/30/2010 – Flagstaff Mountain

2010-10-26T17:57:00.001-10:00

It's a sunless, balmy Late summer morning, its 10:43am as I survey the mountains atop Boyscout Trail. The hills undulate, rolling, rolling, rolling – like mounds of flesh, like bellies, muscles and ridges of the Earth’s surface. The hills undulate in way that the singing voice of the Earth constitution undulates. It’s the same quality as the echoes that reverberate through the hills - echo, echo, echo echo…

The seeds are starting to turn, becoming yellowed, and darkened. Various shades of orange start to scatter across the mountain. Few leaves change here. It’s hard to notice the full splendor in the trees, yet the cones are getting full and the grasses are yellowing. The air stands motionless here, without churning. Only in the slow movement of the trees roots is the earth being moved through action.

It is the power of the Wood element across the Ko cycle that prevents the Earth element from stagnating and becoming barren and lifeless. When the earth is constantly turned over and over, old growth is integrated to make the soil abundant and productive. Without integrating the activity that occurs superficially on the Earth’s surface back into its depths, the Earth soon becomes barren and cannot support newness.

This reminds me of the Spleen point XII 9, Earth Motivator which takes a shovel to the earth and turns it over, integrating the experiences that have occurred on its surface so that those experiences can be turned into the earth and absorbed. Without movement, and integration, whatever experiences we have do not produce any new knowledge, no lessons are learnt, and we cannot overcome inertia to produce any new and fresh sources of nourishment in our lives. When we can’t integrate our experiences, we do not feel nourished by the work that we do. This point can help an Earth constitution grasp a hold of their desires and create action around manifesting them in their life and absorbing the results into the self. It is only through integrating experiences that we become the product of our endeavors. When an Earth element turns over too slowly, it is unable to absorb all the nourishment it needs from its environment and literally embody those experiences as knowledge, ability, and capacity to nourish others. Earth Motivator helps speed the process along to ensure that taking in of experience and integration occurs appropriately and that once nourished, this abundance of food can be given away to the community.

08/16/2010 – Santa Fe

2010-10-26T17:55:00.000-10:00

I’m traveling through Santa Fe en route to Colorado. Its 1:30pm, and the sun is hot, the air is dry. The people of Santa Fe, the brown-skins, and the ultra pasty whites with their dripping Jewelry adorn this place with their contrast: the haves and the havenots. People with resources, and people without. People with Water, and people without.

Driving through all the Indian reservations, and the towns stricken with poverty, Casinos litter the place. Casinos - places of the promise of money in an area where there is absolutely none. Living on the hopes, dreams and possibilities and false hope. The faces of the people that live here are hard. Hope can quickly change into despair and fear when you have no access to true Water.

When you have no money, you use what skills you have to survive. Skills are always means of acquiring resources. Whether you’re a craftsman, or an officer worker – the means are unimportant, the purpose is to pull on your skills, on your inner Water. It’s always fascinating to see how people make their money. When driving through these towns it certainly isn’t obvious. Yet these people live, and survive. Many are artisans and create amazing art.

If we have no relationship to our deep inner reserves, what other way is there to be in the world but to fear for our lives and our very survival. The power of the Water element is wisdom and courage derived from self-reflection. Why are we so afraid to look within? Will we actually find that we are powerful beyond measure?

…

Now I’m driving through the desert. The roads are straight and merge into a hazy horizon. I stop on the side of the road to survey the expanse before and below me. I can see down into a plateau in the East. I can see for over 50 miles. I see two storms pummeling the desert with their diagonal beams. Like huge jellyfish, these cloud monsters traverse the sky and send down lightning and tendrils of rain, like curtains that touch and caress the land. This area is completely unpopulated, and fully owned by the diety that rules over this place – a place undisturbed by man’s powers. The fields almost seem to reach up and embrace the storms, opening their faces to receive the gift of life, of wisdom, of possibility for a new future itself.

Do we reach out to our community and regard them as resources, or as threats and competition? Do we trust our inner wisdom, or do we feel like we have nothing that others can use or benefit from? Are we afraid to live, or are we courageously following the storms in our lives?

I’m reminded of a Kidney point, IV6, Illuminated Sea which grants us the experience of illuminating the depths of our potential, providing us with reassurance and the illumination of our inner wisdom. As we reflect on the vastness and expansiveness of our reserves we no longer fear the depths but are present to the resources to manifest our potential. When this knowledge is present, we can live at peace even in the desert, knowing that we will not just survive, but thrive.

08/07/2010 – Perspectives

2010-10-26T17:54:00.001-10:00

Boulder creek, sunless, cloudy day: the time is 2pm and I’m standing overlooking the flowing river. The air is cooler and still. There aren't any specific signs that we are in the heat of summer. All nature and insects stand quiet and still. The only movement is the river. All 8 winds are blowing equally in all directions, and the sum of their forces creates a perfect opposition - a complete stillness.

I love looking at the wind from the perspective that it is always present – much in the same way that one can see a fishing net as a new full of holes, or as a bunch of holes tied together with string.

As I move, my perspective moves and change is created in the world. If I stand still and observe this creek, only the creek moves. The trees and rocks stand in absolute stillness and immobility. No change rocks them. But as I move, my perspective changes, and so do all the things become alive and shift in reality before my eyes. With each step the trees behind reveal themselves. The rocks reveal their crevices and personalities.

Without movement in the world, our experience of reality would be quite shallow, one-sided and flat – two dimensional - black and white. The wind in us is the force of the Wood element which allows us to change direction, see multiple perspectives, try out different thoughts about our life and our environment. If the mind is moving, it is also ever changing, evolving and growing. Without the Liver’s planning to provide direction, and the gallbladder’s initiation into action our head wouldn’t move, our neck wouldn’t turn, our torso wouldn’t rotate, and our legs would never permit us to change our location and offer new perspectives.

Likewise, trees cannot grow, cannot be pushed, stretched, or prodded into flexibility without the wind. It is through the wind that the tree learns to be flexible, to be strong and adaptable. It is through the wind that their ideas are spread in the world and root in new soil. If we have no internal wind to motivate our actions, we too would never develop flexibility of mind, body, or spirit and there would be no reason to change our fixed location and way of being. Our lives would stagnate in inaction, and our mental and spiritual gears would grind to a halt.

In this way, change is our friend. It is the promoter of growth and new perspectives. It is always at the incipience of new ideas. Without challenges we wouldn’t grow. Its now clear to me why anger and frustration at change is the bittersweet friend and foe to the Wood constitution. While the Wood element gives us ideas and allows us to move in accordance with change, if our constitution is primarily Wood, we have a skewed relationship towards change and see it as our enemy and the promoter of all our woes.

I wonder if there ever was a time, before the story of the fall where Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Gods for millennia, at peace with creation, the environment and natural laws. What if there was no constitutional imbalance ever present in those early humans until they diverted from natural law so completely and started to control, manipulate, and resist their environment.

When I consider the nature of the suffering of each of the elements, I see a dysfunctional relationship to, and understanding of man’s place in nature by the self.

The Wood element responds to the change in the environment as a threat to its plans and ideations. At the same time, the very thing it lacks to cultivate is inner vision and perspective that change is the nature of God, and by that same token, change is who we are by nature.

The Fire element responds to love in the environment as something that it desperately craves, without which its life is meaningless. At the same time, the very thing it lacks is the recognition that it is already fully loved and that we are the very expression of love incarnate. Once realized, the Fire element would recognize the warm glow of inner love of its own being, the recognition of the beating heart as that of the God itself.

The Earth element responds to nourishment and experiences as insufficient to provide it with safety and security and a feeling of contentedness. The very thing it lacks is an inward recognition of already having everything it needs to live life in absolute contentment, surrounded by abundance.

The Metal element responds to sacredness, preciousness and impermanence in the environment with attachment to, and longing for things to never return to the void. The very thing it lacks is an inward appreciation of the deep void within the self that only the eternal presence of spirit can ever fill.

The Water element responds to the environment as threatening to its survival. The very thing it lacks is the inward knowledge of wisdom and security that it can only obtain through self-introspection.

All the constitutions feel separate from the nature of things and are trapped to constantly reacting to the environment, or resisting the environment as it is – because we fail to recognize our place in nature as part of nature itself. Because we think that we’ve been unfairly put on this rock in order to survive it, we fail to realize that we are as much a fruit of the planet, as an apple is the fruit of the apple tree. The apple tree apples, and the earth peoples.

The few who spend their life accepting, welcoming, choosing and creating the environment as self, live out their life in oneness with the nature of change – the nature of God, and as such are never separated from him.

10/08/2010 – City of Lost Angels

2010-10-25T08:15:00.001-10:00

A sharp sulfurous smell coupled with a rancidity of burnt oils mixed with the rot of garbage and grease oil of an ever-churning machine: Los Angeles in the middle of Late Summer. Its cool, muggy, foggy and filled with a stench. My lungs refuse to inhale, I turn my nose away unwilling to be filled with the molecules of the polluted spirit people breath in and out here, exchanging illusory smoke and blowing hot air at eachother. Ahh Lost Angeles – smoke and mirrors, and hot air. This city combusts the fossil fuels at an alarming rate. Burning the remains of our dead, as their ghosts fill the air with decayed and dead dreams, possessing the city in a gray brown cloud.

Its 4pm and I just got to my strange hotel straight from the airport. The ghosts that manned the hotel lobby looked at me with resigned apathy, as they stared at me with the sallow look of a droopy eyed cow, chew the same cud over and over again. One mooed an apathetic hello at me, cigarette dangling from her mouth, and proceeded to checked me in. When I asked her what she does when she’s not working at the hotel, her face lit up as we meandered into her stories about her joy of teaching kids and wanting to change her profession from a biomed student to education – a sentence that began with: “when I get out of this shithole”. Having helped remind her of some light of a better future, I got rewarded with 5 free ticket vouchers for free champagne, a voucher for free food from the restaurant and instructions to come back to her if I wanted more. I thanked her and donated the drink coupons to the trashcan shortly thereafter.

In the hotel courtyard and pool area, college kids played pool, arcade games, or downed beers and cigarettes while hovering over their laptop screens. Strangely the plant life grew happily and flowered in glorious blooms despite the deadness of the spirit and living graveyard of this LA hotel.

The people of this city of superficiality, materialism, and ‘looking good’ wear plastic smiles while their eyes stare blankly into nothing. They walk around the streets, heads held low in resignation, or held high in determination. If ever a place needed IV24, Spirit Burial Ground, this is it. Heated by temporary joy of the blazing heat of Hollywood starlets, uninspired, and uninspiring, they move along the streets, oppressed by pollution. The air and the morning fog obscure vision and clarity. Living on hope, rather than inspiration, I would imagine that this city would collectively manifest an entry/exit block between the Liver and Lung Official. People hopeful of monetary success, stardom with no true spiritual inspiration. VIII 14, Gate of Hope would open up to IX1, Middle Palace (Some sources refer to this point as Gate of Inspiration). Hope, once inspired causes us to get reconnected to the heavens and a higher purpose of our lives. Hope is pointless if it doesn't lead to breathing life into us in the form of inspiration?

The city lives on superficiality and false hope, as if playing a lottery ticket its whole life, blindly hoping to win. What would this city be like if each Lost Angel could once again see a glimpse of its wings?

09/20/2010 – Abundant Splendor

2010-10-25T07:22:00.000-10:00

We gathered together as a class at the Wildlands Restoration Project to collect seeds from the prairie grasslands afoot the front-range due south of Boulder. We were a group of 15 community volunteers that gathered together to harvest wild grasses. The purpose of our endeavor was the collect a specific plant so that each seed could be turned into thousands more. These seeds in turn would be used to repopulated areas ravaged by landslides and wild fires so as to prevent erosion and repopulate affected area with native species. Many foreign species have moved into Colorado and so part of this project seeks also to preserve the natives species so as to prevent major changes in the fragile ecosystem.

We were shown a sample of the prairie drop seed grass which we were to collect, and we moved out into the prairie in front of us with our bags and sheers in hand. The prairie ahead was hidden in the thick mist that had rolled in while preparations and discussions were under way.

As we moved into the cold mist, I got chilled and put on my sweater. It didn’t take long for me to have a startling realization about this place. What looked like a dry, yellow, boring, barren, flat and unexciting patch of land which I’d drive by without a slightest acknowledgement, became an incredible fantasy land of vegetation and life that was as rich as any rainforest I had seen prior. The more time I spent looking, the more detail and variety I beheld.

Gazing through the mist onto the fields around me I saw more shades of color than I had noticed before. The yellow flat land became a sea stretching out in all directions which undulated in waves of patches and ripples of various shades and hues as certain plants spread more immediately within their surrounding. What looked like a field of one grass became a field of a hundred to two hundred grass varieties each with a different texture, shape, stem, and color gradient which could be seen as undulating patches of brilliant color. The generic color ‘yellow’ had now become gold, crimson, brown, auburn, rust, copper, canary yellow, white, frosted yellow, gray, burgundy, strawberry, brick, mauve, orange, and beige.

The presence of the cool, moist mist that softened my face, opened my pores, enveloping me in its blanket, made me pause, take in, and become present to what was. The gray monotone of the mist revealed all these shades to me, as I was no longer distracted by the mountains to which I normally would raise my gaze. As my face began to feel supple, I saw the plant life around me was supple, bulging, and rich in its seed.

Hunting for the one seed I needed to find made me focus incredibly. While looking for the one thing I needed to find – so small, hard to see, and inconspicuous, I found everything else that wasn’t it, and everything that looked like it, but wasn’t. I honed in within a few minutes on the specific differences that made the plant unique, its specific type of undergrowth, twig pattern, color differences at various stages of maturity, and seed pod organization. Soon its uniqueness stood out.

I started to wonder if there are creatures out there that only eat this type of seed but none other. What I saw around me was the buffet of food available for the hundreds if not thousands of prairie species that feast every day off of this land.

The earth beneath the plant life glistened with mica and other minerals – her beige rocky clay provided the container for all these life forms to be taken into her bosom, nurtured, held, mothered and birthed. Whatever she had, she’d given freely. Whatever water was given to her, she passed on to her children. Whatever folds in her flesh gave way to grooves, mounds, dips, basins, or hollows permitted her to capture and receive more moisture herself, so that she could give it all the more abundantly to the children that dwelled therein.

Whatever life occurred on her surface she folded into herself and integrated over time – she herself becoming the product of all the food the children left behind, trusting that there will always be enough for her. Giving first, and receiving second, with no ‘in order to’.

I’m reminded of the point Abundant Splendor (XI 40) where the self-realized Earth constitution becomes present to all the abundance that is available and already present in her life so that she no longer feels so compelled to overproduce, overharvest and obsessively store and yearn for more sustenance, not realizing she’s already full and straining to capacity.

When we obsessively overharvest, we stuff our faces, spirits, and minds with food of indiscriminate quality for fear that there will never be enough for ourselves. Whatever we can get our hands on will simply be good enough. The irony is that all the effort we put in to harvesting literally leaves us never enjoying the fruit of our labor. We become heavily laden with our harvest and burdened by our commitments, but never have enough time to process, fully absorb and be nourished by our work.

The poor quality and quantity of harvest ends up clouding out minds, our spirits, and manifests as phlegm, fat, or turbidity within the body, mind and spirit. In this way, like a bog or mud pit, we absorb everything around, obsessively collecting, never satisfied and never full. Ultimately, a bottomless pit, we end up accumulate experiences, toys, books, papers, garbage, memories, heavy emotions, physical and emotional fillers and trash – like the gaping yaw of a landfill.

As a junction point between the Stomach and Spleen Official, Abundant Splendor grounds the Stomach’s Yang and curbs the Stomach’s obsessive need for ingesting more and more by connecting its hunger to the deep stores of food that have already been taken into the self, so that the food can be fully absorbed and integrated. When the Yang of the Stomach no longer orients itself to the external acquisition of abundance, its Yang can go to the Spleen to help it in transforming whatever mundane and lesser substances the Stomach acquired in its voracious hunger into food that nourishes the spirit, the soul, and the mind. The stinking bog becomes dried out by the Earth’s transformative power into rich peat and compost which bursts into life like an oasis, once again giving of its abundance rather than constantly absorbing it.

It is in this way that the Yang of XI 40 helps the Spleen process, transform and transport out acquired mundanity such as excess fat, phlegm, fluids and bodily accumulations that were acquired in haste due to poor diet, poor nourishment, and lack of proper processing of food into compost which serves to nourish our lives. The phlegm and turbidity are evaporated and life starts to bloom, over-absorption ceases, and abundance starts to pour forth. The accumulation of experiences, possessions, and a material harvest cease having the same importance they once had, as we integrate them, get nourished by them, and move on to give out what we’ve learned.

Similarly, if the person is empty, having harvested nothing and integrated nothing, like hardened clay, unable to absorb any nutrients, Abundant Splendor can reorient the barren, malnourished, and despondent soul back towards the outside world from where nourishment can once again be absorbed. In this case the Stomach Official has ceased to be interested in the external world and shuts down the function of receiving. When we’ve lost the ability to see the world as full of abundance, and our inner world as malnourished, food which we have rejected and found undesirable begins to get collected, enjoyed, and integrated once again as we start feeding ourselves once more. Needling this point brings a shovel to hard and barren clay, breaks it up, creating space for water and seeds of new possibility to arise.

In this way XI 40, Abundant Splendor is an important point in mitigating both bulimic and anorexic patterns of behavior and restoring balance to process of harvest and integration.

We brought in the harvest at lunch time and sat around sharing our food with eachother. After lunch the sun came out and the prairie took on a bright showy coat of splendid colors as seed pods opened, flowers expanded, and insects buzzed with excitement – resuming their busy harvest to stock up for the long winter to come.

08/02/2010 – Rainy Day

2010-10-25T07:21:00.000-10:00

I feel completely without joy. The gray of the day and the rain falling outside and tearing on my windowsill reflects my melancholy mood. The ashen color of the sky – bluish gray reflects the sad and beaten down energy I am feeling after enduring a sickness and exhaustion that has lasted with me now for two weeks. Even the warmth of light bulbs inside my home isn’t doing enough to warm my fire and bring me comfort.

The winds are blowing and agitating the branches which sway back and forth and the rain stops and the tears on my window start drying. This energy is the opposite of expansion. People withdraw inside. I find myself staying in to conserve my resource. For me this is frustrating as I’ve been closed off indoors from my flu for too many weeks. This rain isn’t refreshing, its oppressing.

No one is outside. A few cars drive by a little slower and encumbered towards their destination. As the rain frustrated my progress of expanding my life – it has me start reflecting on what’s around me. I find this reflection stifling and depressing in this moment.

What is someone’s life constantly occurred as if a cloud throughout their life was following them around? A life without joy, or lightness, but one filled with heaviness, responsibility, thwartations, overwhelm, apathy, and resentment? I’m reminded of the point Cloud Gate which could life this cloud from a person’s life and see the joy in every moment.

08/01/10 – Dream Canyon

2010-10-25T07:18:00.001-10:00

The sky was overcast with a dark blue sheen to the ominous clouds. Rarely a ray of light would make it through, endowing the canyon forest with a cool light. The forest was mostly quiet today save for the few scurrying chipmunks and the occasional chatter of birds – chatter which resembled interested conversation about the hiker in their midst. The bluish tint to the environment hinted of the coming of the waters. I knew I didn’t have that long before the storm would descend.

As I sat atop the canyon overlooking boulder creek, I saw 3 small moving specs. Being 300 feet above the hikers, I saw only their general milling as they and a dog tried to ford the rushing stream over a log they had positioned for said purpose. As one by one, they crossed the log, they waived their arms from side to side to remain in balance while the white-capped river churned below them.

The dog was visibly upset for having been left behind as there was no visible crossing to be had. The hikers moved on, leaving their dog behind. I moved to a different vantage point along the upper cliffs. The shades of shale intermingled with the light green mosses and lichens gave this place a worn appearance. The spectrum of color washed the hills with mostly dark blue green evergreens, and the fluorescent shades of lichens. The air was teetering on the verge of cold, yet it was heavily laden with moisture – ready to congeal into rain.

Looking at the churning of the river I wondered why when water becomes upset that it churns with such madness – becoming white and frothy? Like crazed anxiety is perturbs the surface, revealing nothing of its depths below and hissing with its roiling and churning about. If I were to encounter someone in clinic who exhibits this, I would think that their turmoil in the present was a distraction against the real issues in the depths below and that all I was seeing was the surface superficiality. I’m not quite sure what this symbolizes for me as yet.

As I looked towards the west I heard rolling thunder – as if several large boulders were loosed and rolling down the mountain crushing all in their way. The storm announced itself with a shout throughout the stratosphere and the ground below that the coming of the deluge is nigh. This is why nature has been so quiet. All animals ready themselves and retreat from the tyranny that is to come. In the I Ching, the Chinese saw that the power of Thunder was likened to a vast arousing, an awakening, and taking action in an area of life in which Thunder echoed. It symbolized the thrust of wood energy creating birth between the gates of creation – the mixing of the Water element with the Fire at the Gate of Life. The exact opposite of stillness – it alerts the distant and frightens the near – not necessarily to retreat into hiding, but to take action and move from complacency.

Perhaps we as human beings need this kind of shock to our system every now and again to wake us up from slumber over issues we’ve not been taking care of. When we’ve not been watering our gardens, our minds, our spirits, our friendships, our relationships – a shocking symptom comes along like thunder to shock us into reality and instill some much needed fear that we’re not immortal and cannot do as we please without taking action to ensure our long term survival.

As the thunder rolled in the west, my eyes were drawn to the east. Something so obvious which was unclear to me before, had become clear. While I knew that vision and planning were powers necessary for all plant life to extrapolate a direction for its growth, I wondered how these powers translated from plants into creatures who’s growth is more flexible, self-directed, and not as fixed as plants themselves – for plants don’t have a vision of what is beyond their immediate environment. They grow where they are and don’t move about the place in the form of anything other than seeds – and as seeds, when they find themselves in a location – they make do with what they have available without complaining that the circumstances didn’t bring them into greener pastures.

Plants are ruled more by fate than they are by destiny – for their destiny is to be great – yet fate can deliver them into resources that aren’t necessarily favorable to them fulfilling that destiny. Humans and other animals live as nomads – using their powers of vision, planning, and cunning to locate the most favorable conditions to their self-expression. Again, our destinies are colored by fate – but we have the option to move ourselves, and not become resigned to our circumstances.

As I gazed on the receding landscape I became clearer on the issues of perspective, the future, and issues of clarity over life’s path. As the canyon walls receded away from me, they showed behind them the next canyon valley. Outlined by that mountaintop was the shape of the next mountain, and the next one after that. Each subsequent mountain in the distance became less detailed, more far away, less known, and fuzzier. While I could see across the canyon with great fidelity and was aware of each crevice and surface if I cared to caress it with my eye, the further I looked the less clear the shapes and structures would become. Where I could see individual trees ahead, beyond all I could see were forests on mountains, and beyond that, all I could see were mountains – even the colors receded from clarity to indistinctness – from patches of various greens, blues, and grays to washes of greens, blues, and misty grays off in the distance. The further I looked, detail turned into generality - predictable, to the unpredictable.

Is this not how our plans for our lives, our ideas, hopes, dreams, and destinies are structured? What we see right in front of us can be seen clear – and we can calculate our next step towards maneuvering around a canyon. We can make decisions and choices in light of our existing circumstances – but our visions into the future are general, indistinct, fuzzy, and shapeless. We are no clearer about our future than when we are looking at a receding mountainscape to know that the mountain ahead can be reached, nor what it will look like upon closer inspection. Will there be water? Will there be shelter? All we can say is that round the bend, there will be another mountain – but beyond that we can have no certainty of anything unless we’ve been there before.

As a species we spend so much time gazing into the unknown future, and even more time gazing into the past. The past gives us details, informs us of what to expect, and allows us to make predictions about what is likely to occur round the next bend. This is the key distinction between creatures that live in the hands of the gods, and those who seek to constantly define their own destiny. Those who rely on the past, and predict the future can thrive or be immobilized by it as all decisions for action or inaction are made in the light of them. Those who live in the hands of the gods do not need to know as much about what is round the next bend and all decisions for action or inaction are made in the light of the present moment. To our species, planning is more necessary to our survival than to other species who can rely on food and shelter always being present. The deer can live in the hand of the gods for it knows that the grass will sustain it, and the tree will shelter it from the rain. But us humans, we need to know where the deer will be staying for the night, so we need to map out its routines, and make appropriate plans for it, letting none go to waste, for we don’t know when we’ll be able to hunt the next one.

As hunter-gathers, we learned to make predictions about whether our pray would be round the corner or not, through experience, and following the tracks – but our survival was based on hope that the indistinct vision of our future would bear detail when we walked towards it – and that this detail would contain deer and elk for our survival. We can’t escape from this decision-making system that relies on past and future – but perhaps we can learn from the dear, and from the hunter-gatherer that decisions are based just as much on the present moment than they are on the past and the future.

As a culture we practice the art of prediction from morning to night. Our whole business of invention and science is the institutionalization of prediction. Technology is the art of thwarting the future by predicting it, and coming up with a solution to either make that future happen more frequently, or less frequently. Our educational institutions exist to teach us about the past so as to predict and manipulate the future. We’ve invented mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine all to understand the past and predict the future. Mathematics is our new fortune-teller.

Our need to control the circumstances and the outcomes of every action have us turn the beauty of the unknown mountainscape into maps to represent our territories and our future lands of conquests.

As practitioners of medicine we too are priests of affecting the future, we take a case history, create a prognosis (pre-knowledge), and a treatment plan to arrive at the prognosis. This is taking the work of the Tao out of the hands of the Tao and into our own. No wonder we’re all so exhausted. There must be a balance between planning and decision making and simply being?

The more planning and decision making we do – the more we try to outsmart the gods and take the mysterious mountainscape and paint detail on it – the more we become resigned and cynical to being surprised by life. We micro-manage our environment. We many have a sick planner if he/she is working on overdrive – leaving the person in a perpetual state of anxiety over the future, needing to plan ever-increasing levels of detail – and leaving the person uncomfortable in the present moment being just as it is.

Personally I’m not comfortable sitting at the top of the mountain of my life and seeing vague visions of who I will be, what I will do, where I will live, how will my practice work. If I plan it all out now, I know I will not have as much fun discovering it along the way – but, if I do plan it out more, I can rely on certain things to be there – and for the future to not be as scary. For right now, I’m enjoying sitting on top of a mountain, not knowing what is round the corner of the next bend and leaving it in the hands of the gods – in the hands of mystery.

I can learn a lesson from plants here – and be content in the soil I am growing in, for living in the hands of the gods is a wonderful and bountiful place, and doesn’t require my intervention if I trust that the mysterious mountainscape is mysterious for a reason. And because I’m not a plant – I know that I have a destiny somewhere round the next mountain – but perhaps I won’t be in such a hurry to get there.

As I look down on the hikers – there’s now four of them. The one in the orange shirt is the visible leader. He’s forging ahead, analyzing the territory, making decisions and plans about which direction to go next – back packs on their shoulders – no doubt they’ll need to camp to get out of the storm soon. The other three are meandering their way behind him. One directly on the first’s path. The other two on their own meandering path towards the same destination. Two have an objective and are more concerned with what is round the bend, and two are more concerned with what is present and available in the moment.

Modern day dogma, led by western purveyors of eastern thought, brings to the west the mysteries of the present moment. Books such as “The Power of Now”, self-development workshops of all kinds, meditation classes, etc – all call us to spend time in the present. As a species we have forgotten what comes to all of nature completely naturally – and that is the state of simply being in the here and in the now. But this practice or art of being present is really an art that is natural to plants, and animals, and not to humans evolved into today.

The following is excerpted from Wikipedia: The present is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly, not as a recollection or a speculation (artifacts of the mind). The present can be perceived as the 'eliminator of possibilities' that transfers future into past.

Hmm. I could spend a good many hours contemplating the last statement. But in essence – perhaps the reason we don’t like spending time in the present is that it leaves us feeling robbed of something else that we could be moving towards. The present seems to steal my future! The unspoken cultural conditioning is that I should be doing something about my future in every present moment. Just like now, sitting at the top of the mountain – I should be analyzing the elements, getting brilliant insights, and furthering my education.

I found that when I try, I get nothing useful. Its only when I stop trying and simply stare into space do things start coming up.

7/14/2010 – What a difference a Climate Makes…

2010-08-01T16:38:00.001-10:00

I realized that there was a huge contrast between my last trip to Hawaii and this one. If I had lived down here in Kona, I think I may have actually been happier with living on the island for the year I was here. I know it wouldn’t have ultimately made a difference in my decision to switch schools, but perhaps I would have been less miserable.

The trip before this one I decided that I would stay in Waimea because I would be close to the school and therefore be able to not only obtain lots of pulses, but have a lot of social interaction with my former classmates. I knew I’d benefit from being in a community. I knew the sacrifice would be a 45-minute commute to the Kona Clinic for observation each morning at 6am – and that this would get very tiring very quickly.

What I found was that my former classmates were not really interested in spending much time with me because they were so busy with their own life and school troubles to the point where they had no energy left after the day to hang out. The interactions I had with them were short and while I wanted to exchange ideas and share with them my experiences in school – the space to share was simply not there. When your mouth is full, how can you take another bite?

I realize now that this is a completely climactic condition based on the school’s location. I’ve always known that Feng Shui was a very powerful art that studies energies of places and determines the causes of behaviors, but I’ve never been so present to its full implications until I began studying Five Element theory. Had I known what I know now, I would have been able to predict more about what lay ahead for the year I lived there. The climatic condition completely determines the outcome for the school and had the school been located in Kona, the world would have been quite different.

Waimea lies on the spine of the Big Island. A town situated at the interaction of two roads; one coming from the North of the Kohala spine, and a main road that cuts the island from East to West. As the town on the spine, it's the highest elevated town on the Big Island at about 2,600 ft above sea level. To the north lies the Kohala Mountain (elevation of 4,500 ft), and the huge looming Mauna Kea to the south (13,500 ft). To the east lies the rain forest, to the west lies the dry barren desert land and lava flows. Waimea is the dividing line between the Wet and Dry side of the island. The road that bisects the town from the north acts as the general dividing line but the climate doesn’t change into dry for another mile or so westward. The cold wet trade winds blow their air over the rainforest from the North East and are met by the hot desert winds from the Western slopes. In the middle the temperature variation holds the clouds at bay causing the rain clouds to churn up and back upon themselves as they loose their payload over time causing a climate wetter than Seattle for 6 months out of the year. Despite the rain clouds being kept at bay by this temperature differential above, the town below is blown about by horizontal rain throughout the day. On the days where it doesn’t rain, the winds move like they're running from the law. Temperature at night can drop to as low as freezing in the winter, and as high as 90 in the Summer.

The clouds move through the sky at an alarmingly fast rate, and seem to soar almost within arm right above the citizen’s heads. The town’s energy affects its residents in a peculiar way. Everybody is a little rushed, overwhelmed and all about business. Unlike the warmth and high heat of Kona which warms the smiles of the residents – the people of Waimea rarely smile in a way that indicates “come, rest a while, relax, lets talk story”. Mostly conversations here are about where people are going, what their various projects are, and the goings on between the Eastern and Western sides of the island. This small town also holds the island’s intelligentsia with the home of the corporate offices of two large radio telescope installations atop Mauna Kea, a very expensive prep school, and a Theatre that sees some pretty stellar guests. This is also one of the more affluent parts of the island with multi-million dollar homes scattered along the northern slopes with grand views of Mauna Kea and the coastland to the West. This is the land of Wood, Metal, and Water. Lacking the warm of Kona residents, the residents of Waimea are far more concerned with mutual respect, cooperation, and getting things done.

My classmates’ classroom is oriented to the East with the whiteboard set on the eastern wall. The students look towards the east during the entire day. I felt through the entire year of my attendance like I was standing in front of a blow dryer of information flying at me from the whiteboard. The class always experienced much anger, resentment, frustration, and much resignation with the curriculum. The school piled on 16 different subjects with 14 different text books in the first trimester if that’s any indication of overload. Asked to grow faster than Bamboo this wood energy completely attacked everybody’s Stomachs and Spleens causing major indigestion of information and disgruntled stomachs. Most people subsisted and still subsist on large quantities of sugar.

This energy can be extrapolated to the whole building and the teachers as well as my stay. The house I stayed at on that trip was on the dry side, but my small private cottage was attacked by 50 mph gusts of wind for the first 2 weeks of my stay, and they subsided to 35 mph thereafter. I’d be pelted with sideways rain, and forced to retreat to the beach es on days where I could get some sanity. The energy scattered my homework efforts and I got very little done.

I felt rejected by the whole island experience, lack of connection, lack of warmth and a deep yearning for a speedy return to Colorado to be with people I missed so badly.

This trip I stayed in warm, relaxed Kona. On the slopes of Hualalai the temperature never dipped below 70, there was only a slight breeze throughout my stay and the daytime temperature never rose above 75. I hung out with my friend Nirlepa almost 3-4 times a week which gave me great company. I also had a roommate in the house I was staying who also provided me with company. I stayed only 3 streets down from the clinic so my commute was non-existent and I had almost no desire to drive 45 minutes to Waimea to visit my friends. I went twice. Both times to get pulses and I left soon after as the energy there had not changed much since the last time I was there.

7/4/2010 – The Diamonds of Hualalai

2010-08-01T16:34:00.003-10:00

I am alone with Blondie the dog atop Hualalai. I’m completely enveloped by the clouds. Surrounded by mists all of nature stands in reverence as the mists remain motionless atop the landscape. The wet, moist seeping earth is being filled with water. Only an unseen bleating mountain goat off in the mist makes a noise. All stands still. Patiently receiving. A lonely bird cries in the distance. The panting of Blondie can be heard. The whole place stands in revered silence.

How does metal condense water? I suppose it is through its recognition of preciousness and essence. That despite a volcano’s eruption and fire melting metal and unearthing a whole bunch of it out of the heart and core of the earth’s deep treasure storehouses… it flows until it sets hard. The water that collects upon it is pure mineralized preciousness. It begins a new life cycle for new wood to grow somewhere down the mountain.

This cloudiness, this fogginess evokes a fear and uncomfortable claustrophobia. Its reminiscent of what foggy people, cloudy people must feel. There’s an element of fear involved when you’re being foggy with something – revealing nothing of your true mind. When you’re foggy it’s hard to get through to clear truth.

I don’t know whether this is water or metal kind of cloudiness – searching for the preciousness – searching for the path – but it certainly is cold and white, and you can’t see anything.

Things condense from cloud into drops of dew - from non-clarity into clarity. Murkiness always turns into clarity through stillness. It’s easy to get lost amidst the clouds and to pick the wrong direction and stray off the path home. This reminds me of people who like this fog are unclear in their communication and their presence of being. You don’t know where you stand with them, and therefore you don’t know how to move around in their presence to reach clarity.

The dewdrops of life sparkle on the leaves like precious living diamonds. The dewdrops fall on the earth and the earth literally absorbs the water. Absorbs the nourishment. That's what the earth does. It creates a space for processing, and it absorbs. Absorbing and integrating wisdom. Integrating resource. The earth learns by absorbing trees, burnt spoils and purified derivatives of fire, and preciousness of metal. It becomes what it absorbs.

Earth itself seems to be nothing and is of no value – its value is in it being a container and integrator of all. It is from this place that it can truly nourish, hold, contain, condense. Earth is nothing without movement happening on it and to it. In order to integrate, it must be porous, and not hard as clay. It must be moved by the roots (Wood’s motivating energy) to further deepen and churn the knowledge into itself. In other words, you don’t fully know something until you enflesh it and put it into action. Earth therefore must be about movement and distribution of what it integrates. It cannot serve a purpose unless people stand upon it, feel supported by it, or need it to hold their roots, and resources.

The Earth element will define itself by, or identify with the experiences, accomplishments, and knowledge that it has integrated into itself over time. I have one such friend that for the longest time did not know how to define herself. She did not know who she was for herself because she had constructed her life around being something for others. She would then take on the roles and duties required, and integrate them into her personality so well that it literally was what she was. She was well regarded for who she could become - because once she became it, she would naturally abundantly give of this new becoming. As a self-professed chameleon, she was able to change shape and mold her Earth element to become anyone she wished to be for each person who needed her to be a certain way. This malleability, like clay pottery was an asset to her being able to surround herself by many friends. She could mold herself into a jug for some, a bowl or a plate for others. However, the lack of solidity and self-definition to her Earth made her feel incomplete, a stranger to herself, her needs, her own form. When looking within to find what she needed, what form there was, she found she didn't know. Over the years of integrating many different experiences and making them her own, she discovered a direction for herself – a purpose to which to devote her life – the study of the human condition, and the needs of self and others through the field of counseling psychology. A perpetual student of experience, no doubt her path will take her forward into a PhD program and beyond. At this moment, content only with knowing rather than doing, her Earth is still saturating until this nourishment will go out into the world to feed the hungry.

7/1/2010 – Nature Within, Nature Without

2010-08-01T16:34:00.001-10:00

Nirlepa and I took another hike together on the slopes of Hualalai. We took Blondie with us and walked through this semi-arid mountain forest. The time was 5pm and the yellow gold of the evening sun washed over the landscape, giving it a warm glow. The ground was gray lava, but covered in places with this bright green grass, and in others by an olive green Spanish moss. Crooked, gnarly, dry and stiff gray-barked trees covered the landscape as well walked along the service road. The forest was filled with bushes and trees that could survive only in this harsh climate. We are above the cloud line and while this forest is nearly constantly surrounded by mists, today the skies offer a rare clarity of azure blue. The temperature is crisp, and the smell is of dried and rotten wood. Soft tuffs of lambs ear grow here and there, and a few vines of passion fruit wind their way along the fence post and hill top trees.

A slight breeze made the gray branches creak with displeasure as it rustled and hummed through the sparse green leaves. The predominantly succulent foliage and dark olive green and sage green tones dominated this landscape. The bark of all the trees was gray like sun-bleached timber. At a height of 6000 ft above sea level, this land offered views of the entire coast line, even as far as the neighboring peaks of Maui across the ocean.

As we walked along this undulating hilly landscape I became present to how this whole environment mirrors a personality I knew from our clinic. Her name is J, a 50~ year-old woman who’s temples are awash in white and ash – the color of the bark of the trees. She’s extremely thin, has life long lung conditions, grief and depression. Very sensitive to all treatments her voice is a like a slightly slurred crackling of timber against a wash of weeping gusts of wind, providing a wide inflective range. Her whole body presents like the rigid and stiff trunks of these trees. She holds herself with rigidity and austerity. Her spine is twisted in a zig zag pattern of probable chiropractic accidents which have given her spine a gnarled and knotty look as that of the trees. Working as a food critic, and writer, her opinion is held in high regard by many. She enunciates with precision, and articulates her views with diction that separates and gives each word their own clarity. Her languaging reveals the same unclutteredness of this landscape and its few, but well put together and coordinated species.

The Small Intestine themes of communicative precision and purity intersperse with airs of respect, structure, and refinement color the overall weep and mausoleum-like quality to her presence.

J’s view of life rests as that on top of the mountain and she looks down at those below with an elevated perspective of what is a righteous, appropriate and refined way of living – a way which she knows is not for everybody – but a way in which she knows is a right perspective for her.

Her liveliness is that of this place in the sun – her colors of thoughts are complex and move through shades of perspective and clarity as the sun moves across the sky revealing shades of blue, orange, gray, silver and green. This place has a sacredness and exists in praise of the mountain itself. Worshipful, penitent, tall, upright – a temple awash in silver, gold, gray and green.

Aloft in the heavens, this place is devoid of much water yet filled with precious minerals. It focuses on conservation, reservation, and structured thought, organization and growth. Similarly, J’s incisive thought process cut through the bull and materialistic thought in order to reach the definitive gems of meaning.

J could have been birthed as naturally from this place as if the womb of the land had opened itself up and given birth to her, mothered, and schooled her in the ways of appropriate living.

I feel honored to be standing on its sloping hills.

6/27/2010 – Makalawena Beach

2010-08-01T16:33:00.001-10:00

My friend Nirlepa, her dog Blondie and I decided to go to the legendary Makalawena beach just north of Kona. This beach cannot be driven to without a lifted truck, but one can walk over the rocky black and gray lava road from the main highway which takes about 45 minutes. It was 9am and the heat had began to bake the land. You could feel more heat radiating up from the ground beneath you than from the sky above. I had put on sunscreen (which I thought I had put on allover my body) and we began our hike down.

The terrain was treacherous, filled with discarded branches of thorny keawe (keh-ah-veh) tree/shrubs that provided the only evidence of life along this barren landscape. Here the plant life fights for every drop of water to the degree that it must put up barbed wire on itself to prevent anyone else from stealing the resources it has accumulated. When we starve, we accumulate and guard what we have. The competition for resources becomes such that we begin to fear our neighbors causing us to put up these defenses. We do this by becoming austere, standoffish, spiky, antagonistic – don’t get near me! We can see this in people who feel vulnerable enough to where then create this kind of imposing demeanor.

As we walked we saw the landscape change very little until we got nearer the coast. We saw clear azure pools of water as well as swampy bogs some 200 years from the water’s edge. The sweet water from the underground streams accumulates in these ponds and creates opportunity for the keawe to grow tall as well as a few other varieties of plants such as palm trees, shrubs and bananas to occupy the area – a veritable oasis – a place to replenish, a place to rest, a place to regroup. Grasses, mosses, and all sorts of bog creatures set up families in this little oasis as the rugged landscape is transformed into a lush little micro-climate. People who have near-infinite resources, skills, abilities and contacts like this can become an oasis for others. There are few people like this in the world who don’t hoard, guard, and fear their resources being depleted but who dispense them willingly. For most where the resource is money, they will guard it with barbed wise. Others who’s resource is spiritual tend to share it with complete availability.

I can name one woman whom I recently met in Kona who’s an oasis for others. Her name is Gwen and she is a minister to a local church and spiritual community. The blue/black hue shines around her temples, and her cool, voice reminiscent of a deep and droning Amazonian chant. She wears a gold ring embellished with a large blue and green stone, and she wears a white blue and green mumu. Her laugher is like the peel of crystal bells in an ice cave, and her demeanor is cooling, calming, and refreshing. She is a psychologist by profession and a minister who lives within a spiritual community dedicated to meditation and living out the precepts of their master. Wisdom is her resource. Words flow from her like a fresh spring of cool water, and she waters the parched spirits, minds, and hearts of those who are blessed to be in contact with her deep and clear pool of wisdom.

Walking down past the rocky lava beaches we finally reached the first cove of the 4-cove Makalawena beach. These four beach coves are the most treasured and remote of the beaches on the whole island. Their unspoilt and untouched nature gives their diversity a true magic. Each cove has different set of qualities – each with a different set of people who converge upon it.

The first cove is a shallow 100 yard tide pool on the shores of a white crescent of sand, wrapped by trees which bring the white sand some shade. 40 yards into the water, the tide pool is sheltered from the waves by a natural lava wall. Only at high tide do the waves manage to brim over the lava wall to refresh the pool with new waters. As the waves brim over the edge they perturb the mirrored surface with small ripples that radiate throughout the pool. Otherwise the pool stands clear, motionless, and crystalline. Two families are camped on the southern shore of this tide pool. Their children safely play in the foot and a half of water and observe baby fish that swim in this aquatic nursery. The parents set up tents and hammocks between the trees that border the water and nap the day away.

There’s a single house built 40 years inland from this crescent. This is no man’s land, and one family claiming Hawaiian lands ownership of this spot has built a make shift house off the grid, and relax on their porch surrounded by their two cats and a dozen or so chickens.

The second cove is a small 50 yard crescent cove with mostly lava entry and some yellow sand. The waves crash against its borders giving it a foreboding water entry and a narrow view which detracts people from frequenting it.

The third cove is a 500 yards long and with 100 yards of pure white sand. The cove has beautiful sandy entry in pristine and unspoilt azure blue waters. This is the main beach where the people who have braved the lava have come to spend their day (about 25 people in all). The sand is blinding white, and the water blinding blue. The waves roil and clash on the southern shore while the entry to the north allows people to gently wade. Near the tree line people set up barbecues and umbrellas and share family time together while the kids and adults play in the waters. This beach is so welcoming, open, clear, exposed and refreshing.

The fourth cove is of equal size and depth to the third, but its waters are teaming with rocks that protrude out of the ocean like a half-buried and scattered Stonehenge. The entry is treacherous and only the occasional person may stroll this beach, but no one stays to sunbathe or play in the water. The feel of this beach is eerie, foreboding, lonely, and scary. Its peaceful beauty and tranquility gives it a feel as though the beach is meditating upon itself and notes the passage of time without human or animal interruption. I feel like this beach is representative of my mind – full of sharp rocks half-submerged which represent issues half buried in the unknown, half revealed in the sun – and the sea of thoughts roiling and churning around them. I feel enchanted by this beach – the mix of known and unknown danger.

We played with the dog, throwing sticks into the waves and watching her retrieve them. Blondie was so excited with the play that she wouldn’t stop playing all day. We were afraid of her being exhausted and unable to return up the path to the car when we were done.

As I walked I became present to the drone and hum of constantly crushing waves. Hot, baking, clear air and salty mists thrown up into the air. The earth representing safety – the sea the danger and the unknown. I saw how the Earth contains and embraces the ocean – gives it a shape to express itself within. The sea of potential would overwhelm and swallow all of life if not restrained by the Earth’s integrity – the innate knowing of earth that life can only be maintained if resources are given in fairness to each without overwhelming the whole.

Tired from swimming and being in a full sun, we walked back to the first beach – the tide pool and sat under the shade of a tree. The pool was now more still, more murky – some new water had come in over the lava wall and started stirring up and cooling off the warm still waters. Now no longer in stillness, you couldn’t see to the bottom of the pool – now it was obscured by ripples.

I see now how all of nature requires stillness in order to see clearly. If the mind is a sea of possibility, we need stillness to see the depths of our thoughts, our innate knowing - our wisdom. The mind is like a roiling ocean, and even if one trains it to be a reflecting pool, even the ripples can obscure our ability to see ourselves and our minds clearly. As a culture we spend so little time just sitting and observing life that we never obtain its profound wisdom. Many cultures have a practice of meditation – a practice that we in the west have idealized and made into various forms of fetishes that plaster today’s advertising, popular culture, popular Buddhism, and popular Zen. In the west, these have become hobbies. Everywhere else in the world the exist in one form or another as integral parts of life. In Italy you can find the old men and women of their small village walk out of their houses with a small stool, their walking cane, and sit on the side of the town square – watching the world flow by.

When this pool sits still and calm, its shallow depths are revealed to all who come to survey it. Hence it is known to be completely safe and devoid of sea urchins or other things that small children could step on. Kids and their parents enjoy this pool together as all can play and cool off before returning to the shade. Perhaps we roil our brains with thoughts and always keep ourselves in motion in order to not reveal how shallow we really are, or perhaps to prevent ourselves from feeling the fear of how deep and dark our thoughts can really go.

While my friend surveys the underwater world through her goggles, I survey the above water world. She looks at what’s hidden just beneath, and I try to look for what’s hidden in plain sight. We each see different things from our vantage points and we can never know the other’s experience of stillness.

In my stillness I realize that I’m tired of being at the beach, getting fried by the sun, and that my mood is turning quite ornery. Cooked, over-heated, and sun-burnt (due to my lack of attention). Whereas my friend Nirlepa is warmed, made more compassionate, and fluid by the sun – the fire controlling her metal. Me, I’m overheated by it. Normally regardless of whether I have sunscreen or not, I get done with the beach very quickly.

My enjoyment and contemplation changed into feelings of agitation and bitterness. Too much fun and frivolity - everyone enjoying themselves, drinking, taking pictures of eachother, laughing, frolicking in the water, and I can’t stand looking at them anymore! I need shade, cold, ice and water. Right now I know that I would reject heat in the form of a smile, a joke or embrace and any conversation – I can’t be bothered with engaging anymore – its too uncomfortable, too hot, and clammy. Too much pleasure can leave you burnt.

Nirlepa and I left the beach soon after. I bathed my already bright red skin in her SPF85, and I wore an extra shirt around my head like a scarf to protect my head, neck and shoulders and we proceeded to hike back to the car. Soon after clearing the beaches and the rocky coves to the north we started on the path up the lava road to the car. The high noon sun had baked the hot lava rock into a frenzy of radiant heat. You could see the waves of radiation rising off the road creating perversions and illusions of reality. It’s interesting how when things become too hot, we lose our clarity and ability to distinguish what’s real from what’s fiction. These illusions of fantasy can get us excited by their sparkling beauty but can give us false pictures of reality. When our relationships get too hot and steamy, we can become caught in the illusion of the mind – the illusion of the mate – as they disappear and a fantasy of why they are for us replaces who they really are.

We had neglected to realize that the baked lava road would be too hot for poor Blondie to walk on, and very soon we saw her hopping on it like she was walking on hot coals. Quickly she’s lay down to lick her feet every few paces. Within 20 yards she lay under a tree and refused to move. Our thoughts racing like water to come up with a solution tried to contemplate how we were going to get this exhausted dog up the mile long lava road and back to the car. We tried to hobble her along a bit at a time. After 20 minutes of trying that and getting no more than 100 yard progress we decided that we’d try to carry this 60 lb dog. That didn’t last for more than 20 yards when we both realized that we were both too exhausted and now also being cooked by the hot lava. Nirlepa handed me her car keys and told me to try and drive her Subaru down this road as far as I could and then we could try again, or try to carry Blondie in a tarp she had in the back of the car. I agreed and headed off. Pushing myself harder and faster to hike the mile back to the road while feeling the uncomfortableness of the sunburn beginning to set in under my makeshift parka, I made it back to her car. I drove it carefully back down the way having to constantly get out of the car and make visual calculations for which way would be the safest for the car without getting it stuck. Finally I reached a spot where it was obvious I couldn’t take the car further. Luckily it was not that far from where I had left Nirlepa and Blondie.

We talked Blondie back to the car, making her get up when she’d lay down and finally got her inside. Nirlepa then drove back up the road and a ¼ mile from the end we got all four wheels stuck and unable to push or pull the car. Frazzled, we both tried to determine who we could call to get the car towed and how much water we had left in the car for ourselves and Blondie. Luckily a truck was coming up behind us and stopped to help. After inspecting the situation he said that there’s nothing we can do unless we had a jack. Exhausted and no longer able to come up with clever solutions ourselves, we were so glad to see someone who had the mental resources left to help us. We jacked the car up and built a road of rocks underneath one of the tires and after lowering the car, we successfully were able to drive out. Relieved, we thanked the man for his help and were finally on the highway home.

I spent the next 3 days unable to sleep properly while constantly dousing my skin with aloe. Alas, another lesson learned the hard way, until I forget it again next year.

6/18/2010 – Walking through the Wondrous Wonderland

2010-08-01T16:32:00.000-10:00

All the deliciousness of wonderland lake and the blue flowers and butterflies zooming around has me totally enchanted. Its full summer here. All the grains are hanging in preparation for maturity before they start ripening. The dandelions are completing their growth spurt, finishing their seed, and are ready to be carried away. Flowers everywhere – splendidness, opulence, and yumminess. Oh how dull the world would be without all of this wonder.

Its 4:30pm, the sun is on the hotter side of warm, the air slightly muggy, filled with sparkles of light floral scents. Grasshoppers are buzzing and birds are singing gorgeous songs. The sounds are cheery, playful and fully awake.

All is community, community protection, community wellbeing, work and play. The smells are light and grassy. Sweet flowers are scented with in the highest notes - floating in the breeze, expanding in the warmth of olfactory crispiness. Grasshoppers move from my path as I walk, and the bees circulate everywhere - in full communication with their neighbors as well as the plants. All of nature is about communication right now. Prairie dogs are popping up their head out of the holes in the ground, hanging out, basking in the sun and chitchatting with their neighbors.

The father of Japanese Acupuncture, Sensei Sawada Ken said “Disease is not a special condition, it is merely a condition of blood circulation out of balance. The purpose of treatment is to improve circulation of blood which nourishes the body” recorded by Shiroto Bunshi, Essence of Acupuncture & Moxibustion, 1978, p20.

This makes me think of circulation as communication. When life is flowing and all is circulating, it is in full communication with the whole. No part of nature is out of touch with another, isolated and left to stagnate. What part of ourselves have we dissociated from? What have we disowned and are not in conversation with? Here in the Garden of Eden called Wonderland Lake, nature is in full communication and no one is disenfranchised.

Now the fields and meadows are dry again, ablaze with various greens and golds, reds, purples, and violets, but not that long ago the thunderstorms ravaged through this place. It was as if there was a quick alternation from yang to yin, and yin to yang again. Thunder is an expression of Fire within the Water element raining brimstone upon the land with its foreboding fiery lightning and hail.

Thunder and Lightning is like water that has to assert itself with a grand expression – rather than more muted expression of light rain and drizzle, or the ever-present water of winter that is calm and still. Yet there is nothing quite like the thunderstorms of summer. Not too long ago the waters had dried up and as the plants start to thirst and petition the skies, the gods sent the water element to control the fire in its exuberant display.

What that reflects about human beings is that we must always temper our expression of opulence, lest we burn out. We must have water to balance the fire and to calm it down in the language the fire element will understand - a dramatic display of “You do not have the resources to continue doing what you’re doing! – BAM! Thunder clap! Let me knock you down a little bit, let me cool you off. Let me reset some of your over exuberance lest you kill all of your adoring fans”.

The flowers here are very sexual. One particular flower here expended its midsection, thrusting it up and up! Wanting to copulate with the sun and the bees itself. And as its petals fold down, exposing its center at maximum, it presents itself - unabashedly rompful!

Smell of grasses, smell of wheat, wheat mixed with strawberries – kind of sharp, light, warm – cereal-bar like envelop my nose.

The gorgeous bird I saw earlier is still singing his song, and sitting on the same fence post as he sat on for the past half an hour. He’s looking around and singing in praise of the day, preening and weaving his odes to how glorious it is to be alive today. Its what all life is ultimately about.

Some people say that all this racket of noises, squawks, squeals, tweets, and composition of animals and the glorious blooms and expositions of flowers exist only purpose of attracting a mate for continued reproduction. But isn’t it the very fact that if we do the very thing that is authentic to us and are brimming over with joy for life that we are the most attractive in the first place? We don’t do it in order to get a mate, we do it because it is our authentic self-expression that says this is how I’m celebration being alive and then others may remark – wow, look at that... that's a person who’s being true to themselves – I’m attracted to that – to the lack of pretence, the lack of timidity, the presence of self-value, self-esteem, the presence of love, lack of trying to be somebody else, but truly being uniquely themselves. How more beautiful can they be?

Herein lies the secret of the Fire element and of plants expressing their bloom. If we were lonely we’d be putting on a show for everybody else to make them like us, to woo them, to convince them, manipulate them into loving us, liking us. And so we’d be exhausted from all this effort, but the plants and animals do this effortlessly because it’s just their authentic way of being. So, when you do it for no reason than to please yourself, to do it for your own good, rather then needing to do it for the good of another, then that self-expression becomes what’s attractive and what brings people to you de facto. Therefore, to they own self be true.

I read somewhere that the meaning of the word ‘true’ in the sentence “to thine own self be true” is to be loyal to oneself. What does it mean to be loyal to yourself? Perhaps its to not let yourself down, but be authentically who you would want to be.

Nature is loyal to itself and all of its constituents. The plants express their own nature, and not the nature of another. The animals express who they are and do not try to become anyone else to please others.

5/22/2010 – Fluttering Mobile Possibilities

2010-08-01T16:31:00.002-10:00

It's a late spring morning in Boulder. Its 8:00am, the temperature is pleasantly warm and dry. I’m driving into town. The wind is blowing. Millions of tufts of fluffy cottonwood seeds are being carried on the warm breezes. Instead of a rain of resources, it's a rain of change and possibility. A snow made of pure seeds scatted by the wind. They float at the whimsy of the wind, in a frenzied direction – being swept this way and that. The wind, as if indecisive in evaluating the final destination for its precious gift, is juggling the tufts in playful cartwheels.

The relationship between the wind – the change generator – and the planner and decider is a marriage of mutual interdependence. It’s as if the wind has a directionality and the seeds have the purpose – we need to pollinate the world with ideas, we need the ideas to do things. For ideas to sprout, they must land in fertile soil – into the hearts, minds, and circumstances of people who will help them to flourish. Its for this purpose that the ideas have many copies, and the wind takes them everywhere – for the wind knows that not destinations will be fertile. In the same way, when we wish to spread ideas we have the opportunity to recognize and not be frustrated by the fact that not everyone is ready for our ideas, and their hearts and minds may not be fertile enough for them at a given time.

As I write about this I’m sitting at a café and encountered a strange synchronicity. A game of soccer is playing on TV to the café’s background music which happens to be a strangely fast Eastern European gypsy jig played on accordion. The music evokes the same chaotic playfulness as today’s wind and coupled with the flashing images of the soccer ball being tossed around from player to player – each trying to claim it for themselves in order to propel it in a particular direction - the audio-visual spectacle is entirely comical. The ball is the seed (the plan to win the game of putting it in a destination) and the players are the wind (the motive force behind getting it there), each team arguing amongst themselves, outwitting each other, calculating and stealing the seed in pursuit of their team’s direction. In the larger sense – does it matter which goal the ball goes into? It only matters that it does!

Without a destination, there would be no point of the ball. Without the ball, there would be no point in movement for it own sake either. The player, and the ball. The wind and the seed. The Gallbladder (wind) and the Liver (seed) – each depend on the other. Without one, there is no purpose for the other - the game of “Its better over there than it is over here”.

The pedestrians amidst this chaotic meandering of fluttering mobile possibilities are frustrated and shield their faces while marching in their own previously declared directions - trying to dodge, duck and maneuver through the chaos of fluffy obstacles without becoming caught in the wind’s melee. The people in their cars are enchanted by the vision as if in a spell cast upon them by the Liver Spirit – a dream like trance of fleeting far away images of possibility. Their driving is careful, partly focused, mesmerized and trapped in visions of far away places projected onto the fluff balls passing before their window shields.

We need the plan to have a reason to live - to have a motive behind anything we do. What is action without motive? Is it not chaos? What is motive without action if not despair?

Without that plan, what purpose is there to any activity, to any change we make in the vast universe through our decisions and actions? Without the ball to toss around towards a goal, we would despair of any action we would take. Likewise, if we had a plan but found ourselves without the motivation – the hope would either change into resignation or despair. The very motivate energy of yin and yang would stop interchanging.

The players would stop in the field and look around at each other, and then all would look at the ball in the center of the court – unable to determine how change in the ball’s situation could be accomplished. The gipsy jig would be silenced.

If people have plenty of movement in their sails, but no plan to move by, or to move for – they would exhaust themselves and never generate results. The pedestrians would be caught in pirouettes of wind and would all dance aimlessly into the streets. What a delightful sight that would be – to join the creative dance – each landing in whole new destination after the wind’s subsidence to find themselves with a whole perspective – their own small plans and games given over to the gods.

Alternative those who invent idea and plan one after another without the movement in their sails to pollinate and generate the ideas into the world would end up with a pile of ideas, while manifesting none of them. Both would result in purposelessness and lack of fulfillment.

As all change and movement grinds to a halt, stagnation is the inevitable result. Without this movement in life, it would mean death of life itself.

But where does motivation come from? Where does wind come from? We say that winds come from a direction – a place where they were – and are on their way to a destination – a place they are going. But why do they move at all? What creates the movement? Why move?

Do they run away from something, or go towards something? Do we make decisions and choices as motivated by fear, or as motivated by inspiration? Motivated by something other than pain, or motivated by something more compelling than everything we’ve been able to accomplish so far?

As an aside, it dawns on me that the while the mother element makes the next element possible (resources make planning a compelling vision possible), it's the inspiration of the grandmother element Metal element that gives Wood the imperative to live by. In the same way it seems that the grandparent element informs each grandchild element rules to live by. Metal gives Wood the imperative to manifest ideas which are inspired. Wood gives Earth the imperative to nourish through taking integritous action (empower self-sufficiency in others, and align your desires with action). Fire gives Metal the imperative to create righteousness in the world with compassion. The Earth element gives Water the imperative to expend resources and talents with the wellbeing of all in mind. The Water element gives Fire the imperative to love with wisdom. This topic alone could be one for much further study.

In terms of motivation – fear, or inspiration - what’s the difference? Isn’t the motivation always “Its better over there than it is over here” regardless of whether we’re motivated by the past or the future? So perhaps motivation is in and of itself unemotional, detached, and a servant of the plan.

What motivates us? Desire, or fear? To quote from a website (http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Motivates-You---Desire-or-Fear?&id=33086):

“Fear motivation aims to protect us and focuses on avoiding penalties for failure. It leads to feelings of inhibition (I can't) or compulsion ("I have to."). Desire motivation seeks rewards for success. It leads to volition (e.g., "I can.") and propulsion (e.g., "I want to.")”

Fear is being pulled back into the Water element, so that Wood never fully manifests, whereas Desire is being pushed and compelled forward into Wood which eventually dissolves into and creates Fire – the element of desire, and of the shen itself.

The difference then is hope, and desire to manifest that hope as comes from the idea, the plan, the Liver Spirit, the soccer ball.

Conversely, why do we find ourselves so often in states where we have no motivation at all? We may have lots of plans, but simply cannot initiate any action. The fluff hangs on the branches or all around at the base of the tree – waiting for the wind to sweep it to its destiny – yet the wind never comes.

A soccer ball wants to be kicked by its nature. You give one person a ball, and they will be raptured by it, unable to stop themselves from kicking, throwing, or bouncing it. Give it to another person and they will find it completely uncompelling.

Perhaps its because those who are unmotivated have a lack of desire (no generation of fire), or lack of inspiration (no motivation by Metal).

As for the gods – they must find the plans of the tuffs of dogwood so compelling that they cannot help but call the winds of manifestation to guide them to their destiny.

5/14/2010 – The River

2010-08-01T16:31:00.001-10:00

I stood on a bridge over Boulder Creek and observed the flow of the river. It was 2pm in the afternoon and the air was still crisp at this time of year – the color of vanilla meringue cake but without the warmth. The snows still lingered in the shadows, while the paths and plants glistened with the leftovers from morning dew and the melted snow. The snow melt had accelerated and engorged the river’s flow, and it rushed down towards Boulder with the vigor of the coming spring which has unlocked its waters from slumber.

As I stood on the bridge observing the flow, it felt less natural for me to be looking into the waters below and seeing them coming at me than to look over the side of its downward flow.

How more natural it is for things to pour out of us than to pour in. Money, energy, ideas, emotions, words. How much harder it seems to be filled with things and to hold onto them. Perhaps we are not made to hold onto anything, but like the river simply flow and give ourselves away until we are spent. This seems to particularly appropriate to spring and the generation of new ideas and expenditure of stored resources to accomplish new goals.

The runners, who through the winter months were contained to more indoor, or more hardcore pursuits, were now out on the paths running in their new sports gear and wearing faces of determination. Exchanging a brief nod, short smile, or “hi” of acknowledgment as they passed me, their gaze returned to their destination. Now’s not the time to linger. Now’s the time to get going!

Perhaps one way of assessing the health of a person’s water element is by looking into what a person pours their life into and whether this leaves them exhausted or fulfilled. Are they reserved and held back fearing for not having enough, or do they live on a wing and a prayer, throwing all caution to the wind. Is their wood element aligned with the water’s possibilities and are plans and decisions being made in accordance with the water’s wisdom?

I pour my money into food, housing, books, schooling, and travel and I pour my energy into hiking, creative pursuits, and friendships. I’m not good at pouring energy into myself in any more of a direct way, or in holding onto resources as much as I think would be wise. All I do is I suppose is an investment in something – only I’m not sure whether all the payoffs will come, or stand the test of time.

Perhaps that is all we can do, to pour our Jing and Qi when the time is right with the wild abandon, but being aware to use this flow wisely as the season for wild abandon will soon require moderation by the coming of the element of Summer, the element of Fire.

Building the Pharaoh's Pyramids

2010-05-27T04:30:00.002-10:00

A man comes into the world alone, and leaves this wold alone. I don't remember who said that, but I was reminded of it today as I walked along a ridge close to my home which overlooks the mountains.

For many years I questioned what I wanted to be when I grew up - or rather, what would my life look like in old age. The first image I had many years ago prior to starting studies in Asian philosophy and medicine was that I would be sitting at a cafe in Florence, having a cup of coffee, reading a book, and watching the world go by like one of those old timers sitting on a bench, a whole life reflected in wise eyes. My work life would finally be over, I no longer needed to prove anything to anyone or make a living, I could finally breath a sigh of relief after quitting the high paced work life and give up the ghost of my 50 year career journey, I'd finally 'retire' and just sit there - exhausted - and resting.

The image that replaced it was one of a sage living up in the mountains in a small hut by a lake. I never thought much of these romanticized notions of my elder years, but the images would come to me every so often. What I failed to realize was that both of these romanticized notions had in common was that I was alone in both of them. Finally, the world had left me alone, I didn't need to do anything for anybody else and I could be left to my peace. No more drudgery and getting up to do something I didn't like so that I could get a paycheck and pretend I was happy by spending it on whatever would anesthetize the pain of 50 years of a 9-5 meaningless life - a life carting stones to build the pharaohs' pyramid as a slave to the empire.

What I failed to see until perhaps 6 months to a year ago is that both of these ends would be incredibly solitary, lonely, and fueled by a deep pain of being rejected by the world - a world where everyone's for themselves and doesn't really give a fuck about me. I would selflessly give everything, and the pharaohs would take, take, take, till there was nothing left of me.

Forced to give the best years of my life to the pharaohs I'd finally reject society with a big fuck you and live out the rest of my days in well deserved solitude and peace - of course, after paying my taxes to the pharaoh's for allowing me to live on 'their' land.

Those images of retirement looked serene at first, but upon closer inspection revealed the bile, anger, pain, and loneliness of a life lived without making a difference, nor a life where a difference was really made for me. Noone really contributes to anyone anymore. Noone brings you food or vegetables from their garden, or some extra fish they caught that week.

In the realization I knew that I didn't want to be alone and that this end is not what I want at all. What I want is a belonging, and a purpose to the very end - rather than washing my hands clean of life and being left in peace to have my white picket fence guarding MY land, my only, my precious. But how can one achieve this while still living in a culture that strives to tie you to the yoke for your life only to let you finally die in peace when you've served your best years as a pack animal.

Working till the last day of my life also seemed completely unappealing. And perhaps its because of feeling like I have to work and make a living to not be stoned by society that I have felt trapped and prodded like a caged animal in a circus to perform - as if this is the role that I was born to do and have failed somehow to recognize and quietly resign myself to and be thankful that at least I'm fed for my performance. The fact that I spent over a decade in formal schooling to learn stuff I wouldn't need, and14 years in the work force and accepted this as a totally normal part of life - one that I shouldn't question but simply live out, and collect my meal ticket at the end of work day is mind-boggling. The fact that people spend their whole lives, decade after decade in the work force and accept it as a normal part of life is astonishing. Its so accepted as an unquestioned assumption of life that it never looks astonishing at all, but simply how life is.

The reasons behind why this suffering exists in the world was never made clear by anyone. By no religion Eastern nor Western, and by no philosopher. It was certainly never explained to me by my parents, nor to them by their parents, not to them by their parents. Christians and Jews said it was 'the fall' - a story that never got explained to me to my satisfaction as explaining why we really suffer. Even Buddha didn't know why the suffering existed. His statement was that all life is suffering. This is simply how life is.

You are born, you must be thrown into a box to be given a standard education in stuff you'll forget and never need, and chose something useful to do with your life (hopefully its something you'll like to do, but 90% of us don't end up doing what we like to do), or have something forced upon you and you'll work like the rest of us have to, get your check, and be completely free to live you life with what's left of it. And if you ever think of dropping out of the game, and not working like the rest of us but becoming a bum, we'll stone you! Ok, ok.. we won't stone you.. we'll just give you the evil eye, we're resent you, and maybe feel sorry for you because obviously you want the rest of us to feed you and give you money at the intersection just so you stop looking at us as we're pulled up at the stop light. We'll resent your homelessness, we'll call you names, conclude there's something wrong with you, and perhaps will sigh as the light turns green and we pass you by - "what a waste of a life. He could have been a lawyer, or a doctor, or a plumber, or electrician - something useful. He could have been one of us and spent the best years of his life working for the pharaohs like the rest of us. He must be sick or demented to not want that if he prefers to live on the street". Its ok, we have TV, good wine, hard liquor, the latest Apple products, movies, valium, breast enlargements, designer clothing, SUVs, massages, colonics, healthy diets, acupuncture treatments, past life regression, therapy, aura visualization, inner child work, sex, drugs, and rock'n roll, and religion etc to numb the pain and compensate for the lack of freedom, joy, happiness, and fulfillment. We just need, more, better, or different drugs and distractions to make the pain go away. Perhaps if we just crack the DNA code we'll find out what's wrong with us and fix it, like we fix everything else on the planet.

My whole life in school, college, work life, and till a few months ago had these unanswered uncomfortable resignations about life, and the drudgery of it. With money coming out of the bank, nothing coming in, and people wondering "What do you do for the pharaohs to get your allotment of grain from the guarded granarie? Oh, nothing?! You're a bum?! Go get a job damn it." I'm feeling the pressure from all sides. Noone is supposed to live and actually enjoy it. They must work hard and hate every minute of it and then bitch collectively as to why their job sucks more than their partner's, and plop down in front of the TV to numb the mind for the rest of the day.

No wonder so many people commit suicide than to face the alternative to participation in this culture. I could not realize why I felt so uneasy with the notion of working or not working - of participating, or not participating in the game until I started reading the books by Daniel Quinn which opened my eyes to the world as it truly is, the nature of 10,000 years of human civilization, and the prison that all by 1-2% of the world's 6 billion people are in - the prison where the food is locked up and guarded, and you have to work your whole life in order to earn the right to get at it, so that you can sustain your life on this planet. Through reading Quinn's work I realized in astonishment *why* the world is the way the world is, and that there are totally compelling alternatives to living one's life now and into old age which challenges the blueprint of how a 70+ year lifetime of a human being must be spent on this planet.

To go into Quinn's work in this blog entry, or even to mention it without its full context is to do a complete injustice to communicating the impact of his words on my life and the incipience of the existential revolution that is occurring in my life and will most definitely shape my life on this planet, and hopefully for all who are freed from the chains of our cultural prison by encountering his work and realizing the emperor has no clothes.

If my life lacked purposeful structure before, it has surely found one - if only as yet to recognize that it has been without a compelling one, one worth living.

The revolution will be franchised - and it will not be through actions, programs, or a fight against the establishment like that of prior generations. This revolution is in the heart and mind of each human being who wishes a life well lived and who will not compromise on what is authentic to every human being - the right to total power, freedom, and self-expression - not as an individual living a solitary life, but as a member of a community, a new tribe dedicated to living as a community that loves its members and looks after them like nature looks after its own.

Don't worry, I will not grow a long beard, shave my head, join an ashram, wear a saffron robe, live in the woods, renounce civilization and live on the streets and panhandle for a living - though in some ways this seems more appealing. All that is a pretense designed to reject the world rather than embrace it. That is not the purpose of the revolution.

Belonging....

Before encountering Quinn's work I got a horoscope in email several months ago that stated that the following transit will last from May through September in my sector of Career and Vocation:

"You're not sure what you want to be when you grow up, but you're sure that this isn't it. Don't beat yourself up about it. Big goals take a lot of time."

I was not pleased to hear this. There are many times when I don't understand horoscopes and their application to my life, especially when highly generalized. Most only give you a layout for one of the 12 signs. The one I've been using was more precisely aligned to my individual chart which raises its accuracy. Whether one believes these things to be guidance from a cosmic clock (which I tend to believe) of known energetic influences (and not destiny) which influence observable changes in behavior much like the moon does on menstrual cycles - or whether one believes it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy which once read tends to manifest (I can't deny this is a factor) - it got me thinking: The statement really leaves me uncomfortable not because it has an ominous implication - but because I resonate with it and have felt very uneasy, shaken, out of place, and certainly not in a place of being comfortable about my life as it is right now. I'm not secure. I'm not in a routine. The horoscope resonated with me on a couple of levels:

1. I am unemployed, and I resent the notion of returning to work in software, or anything else requiring doing anything that I didn't "like", or that I wasn't suited for doing so that I could pay the bills
2. I was in Hawaii doing work that I no longer really wanted to do (because my work is now Five Element), but work which I felt obligated to do because of my prior commitments.

I knew this statement did not apply to my work in the field of healing, and it didn't apply to my new Five Element school in Colorado, as I love this work. When evaluating this statement further I realized that if I were honest with myself I knew there was another level at which I resonated with this:

3. I don't know what to do with my time between intensives after I come back to live in Colorado full time, and I know I don't want to work for the pharaohs, but loafing around and twiddling my thumbs is also not an option. Its boring, unfulfilling, isolative, and lonely. I cannot isolate, I must be around people and contributing in some way. What path I should undertake is completely unclear, and this is the most frustrating reality that the three sentences of my horoscope were asking me to consider i.e.: you don't know what you want, but this isn't it, and don't worry, resolution (of some kind) will come by september.

I know which realm this will take place in. The resolution will be in my career, vocation, and what I do with my day area - the very area that I've a void filled with confusion. What I do know is that whenever someone suggests something "You should do X, or Y, or Z" - I know immediately if it resonates or not. i.e: I certainly know it isn't it when I see it. When I do know is that I'm no longer willing to settle for 'a job', or settle for something that passes the time. I am committed to finding what is authentic for me so that when I do it, I know I will love it, and therefore I will excel at it and it will give me my living.

It may mean a 'job' of some kind - or it may mean living off savings and loans until I am able to open a private practice and in the mean time finding a place to contribute to the community voluntarily in a way that serves.

I am open to receiving guidance and wisdom from the great universe and listening for the signs...

The Tribe of Waimea...

I knew when I left Colorado to go back to Waimea that I didn't want to be there. I was leaving my new Tribe of Louisville behind and losing out on the opportunities to build deeper friendships and concentrate on my school work. I knew I wanted to be home and living in my own place. I knew I didn't want to spend more money on learning in Hawaii. I knew I didn't want to sleep on someone else's bed, and I knew I ultimately do not want to make the modality I'm learning in Hawaii as the focal point of my career. I wanted to be home. But I also knew that I was getting value from my clinic experience, that I was extremely lucky, and that in making my commitment I had to sacrifice my wellbeing for the sake of some greater good out there - that being the creation of the best well-rounded education I can give myself in the arts of acupuncture that are possible with my resources.

When back on the Alcatraz, er, I mean the Big Island, my floating prison - my life was focused on clinic, writing, attempts at doing homework, fighting a toothache, and reading Daniel Quinn's books.

In hanging out at my former school, and chatting with former roommates, students and teachers I knew that I was now a foreigner. An infiltrator. A persona-non-grata. A deserter. A disloyal member of the clan. A defector.

Everyone treated me nicely, smiled, nodded, welcomed me, asked me how I was. I went out to dinner and spent some time with a few former classmates - but ultimately - I was no longer one of them. I didn't share their struggles anymore. And because I didn't share their struggles, I was a marginal individual on the periphery of the social group and no longer an insider. Things were not the same anymore. I knew it. They knew it. And it was as it should be. Its natural. Its normal. When a person leaves the tribe to go to another, they are part of the new tribe. And I missed my new tribe very very much.

On the flight back to Colorado I started to get excited on the leg from Phoenix to Denver. I watched the whole journey out the window and saw the deserts below slowly changing into snow capped mountains with green spreading through the valleys until we were flying above spring manifesting itself along the front range. With each passing mile I was giddy, antsy, and like a puppy who can't wait to get outside from excitement, I felt like my tail was wagging. If it weren't for the fact that it wasn't sanitary, I would have kissed the ground when I got off the plane. I was home.

The Tribe of Louisville...

My tribe here is small, but loving. We're all new to each other, and we're growing closer by the day. When I live here full time I know that we will get closer still. I don't want to leave my new home. I want to become part of the community. What compels me into my new future since reading Quinn's work is changing the context for belonging into one which reestablishes the best of what human nature has to offer - a new tribal revolution. A revolution wherein you are needed as much by the tribe as the tribe is needed by you.

The Tribe of Colorado...

In native tribes the tribe was all there was, and all that needed to be. You had all your needs met through the tribe, and you supplied the tribe whatever they needed. This wasn't work. This was simply being and responding to each other's needs and helping eachother because the tribe knew that their survival was depended on your survival, and that your survival depended on the survival of the tribe.

You contribute to the life of the tribe whatever abilities, skills and resources you have, and the tribe supports you, gives you food, clothing, a place to belong, a meaning for your day to day life which directly impacts all others.

A tribe is not a commune. A commune is a group of people with a common belief structure that unites them together but without the requisite skills to really succeed at running a self-sustained community. A tribe, however, is a group that self-references. Gives purpose and meaning to each member and is defined through the contribution and participation of each member to the tribe. It has no hierarchy of power. Its self-policing, based on reciprocity, integrity and authentic contribution.

This is the tribe I wish to belong to, this is where I want to make my living and feel like I'm making a difference. What that looks like is an unknown. With enough people wandering the world looking for a tribe, we may find each other and in small ways contribute to eachother's lives and well-being in a way that gives our time on this planet a meaningful existence.

I will give my services and time to those who will give me food, money, and clothes for my back in exchange for my helping them in their lives as directly as I can so that none of us need to work in a meaningless 9-5 job anymore building pyramids for the pharaohs.

I paraphrase of words spoken by Dianne Connelly of Tai Shophia as she addressed a community workshop:

“You think that you’re here for you. You are not here for you. You are here for the seven generations of humanity that lives, breathes, and walks this earth today. You are here for the your generation, all parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, all children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. You are a part of the seven generations, and we are a part of you.
You were brought here to help ensure that the generations continue and do not forget the sacred knowledge of nourishing life passed down through the ages.
If you seek a meaning for your life, what greater meaning is there than that of contribution to the generations that have given you life.”

In the words of George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy in life. The being used for a purpose, recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

My ad in the Planet Earth Times will read ...

"31 y/o single white male, seeks tribe. Willing to contribute to wellbeing of others. References available upon request."

3/20/10 - Bitter Coffee

2010-04-06T10:32:00.000-10:00

I’m in Chicago at my ZB II workshop on the last two days before the equinox. The weather is heating up, the birds are singing and the frenetic activating wood energy is rising. Frustration with progress is abounding. I went in to Starbucks on my way to class and ordered my usual drink. The barista rang it up as another drink name. I told him that if he ran it up the other way it would be $0.10 cheaper. The more senior barista told him to still ring it up as the more expensive drink name because the Venti cup and the extra ice in my drink warrants the extra $0.10. I was too asleep to argue and my insides began fuming as the next guy after me ordered his drink and also requested a cup of ice water without being charged for it. I want my $0.10 damn it!

The next day was no better. Thinking to outsmart the guy I decided to alter my order and attempt another $0.10 subterfuge. To my dismay he still had me ran up at the higher price because he told me that the extra shot I asked in the grande would be more expensive by $0.25 than if he rang it up as the Venti drink the other way – yet still refusing to acknowledge the other way of ringing it up the way I had historically rang it up with every other starbucks in the nation. Exacerbated, I almost sliced the air with my credit card as I handed it to him, secretly hoping my brash response would indicate my level of displeasure. I surprised myself in my reaction on both days as it took me a good half hour to stop fuming over $0.10. By the last day I had resigned myself to ordering it the way he wanted to ring it up. The coffee was even more bitter than my attitude.

That same evening the people in the hotel room next to me decided to have a party. There was at least 6 twenty-somethings in the room laughing and banging against the walls at 11pm. After giving them some time to stay quiet as I lay there trying to muffle my ears with the pillow, I rang the concierge who said he’d put a stop to it.

Wood rising in me is very passive aggressive and I tend to explode internally with frustration. I was very happy to have a ZB session which focused a lot around the ribs around my Gallbladder and Liver back points which were abnormally store and painful. The energy of spring resumed unencumbered flow without frustration the following day as my compassion for the world returned once again.

3/13/10 – Break up

2010-04-02T17:05:00.002-10:00

I found myself needing to break off a relationship with someone who I had gone out with on a few dates. The regarding of it as a ‘relationship’ was really necessitated by the fact that he had come on extremely strong and desired a far bigger commitment than I was willing to give – while deciding to call me his boyfriend on the second date. For him it was a relationship, for me it was a few dates. For me the dates where a whirlwind of intense amounts of warmth and intimate conversations exchanged between two Fire elements where the intensity and depth of conversation had gone from 0 to 100 mph in no time. Per my prior post, this is a great example of the fantasy of a huge blaze which can be created in the mind of a Fire constitution from what in reality is just a stick, a few leaves and perhaps a little smoke – very boring and underwhelming.

By the third date, however (which was a full month apart due to travels) I found myself smothered and burnt-out by the amounts of phone calls and messages that were on my phone. I knew that ultimately I needed to end future encounters and return back to reality.

Ending a relationship for me is akin to withdrawing the warmth of my Fire from someone. I don't like withdrawing warmth - it seems counter to my nature. A fellow Fire constitution friend at school told me "The way we break up with people is - I'm breaking up with you, but please continue to love me even though I don’t want you in my life anymore". Another way of saying that is “Lets just be friends”. Its such a foundational need - the need to be loved, liked, and understood that comes out of the Fire CF, its ridiculous - the alternative is rejection, misunderstanding and loneliness which causes sadness and lifelessness.

My friend Suzy noted that there seems to be a fundamental assumption for the Fire constitution that they will be unloved, uncared for and unrecognized unless they continue to pour all this warmth all over everything and make everyone feel better about decisions, actions and needs.

I can see that since the very early formative years of my childhood, most of what I remember occurred in three homes in Poland (paternal grandparents, maternal grandparents, and parent’s home in Warsaw). The fundamental ‘story’ I created from a very early age is that I must provide joy, laughter and entertainment if I am to be loved and noticed. Though I had plenty of evidence that my parents and my maternal grandparents always loved me as a child, I did not feel the same way in my paternal grandparents’ home.

In that home there was a perceived scarcity of love and attention and unless I was warm and pleasing, put smiles on people's faces and did exactly what I was told, I was ignored and in short – unloved and rejected. There were many things which my grandfather in particular did which I remember scared me into line as a child, and no matter what warmth I gave, it was never enough.

What causes the constitution in a person is unknown, and whether various incidents in those years ‘created’ the constitutional imbalance, or whether the imbalance was created far earlier, or was born into me is unknown. What I do know is that the lens of my childhood and my years to come centered around the conviction of being misunderstood, unloved, and ignored unless I behaved. It is because of those years that I never grew close to the family in Warsaw and have to this day remained cold and unemotional in response to those times.

My constitutional Fire element seeks to create love and joy in everyone as an imperative to create that which I perceived as being insufficient in my environment and insufficient in my heart. The Fire pathology I’m describing here is a Small Intestine/Heart Fire pathology versus a Pericardium/Triple Heater Fire pathology which is slightly different.

In learning how to behave in those years, I bring into all my relationships a fundamental fear of being rejected. I project that this same set of feelings that accompany rejection will be made in another if I don’t shield them from my rejection of them. I either don’t reject anyone and let friendships and relationships persist long after their natural end should have come, or I reject people first and shut them out of my life at the earliest hint of being rejected or the perceived notion that I will be rejected by them. This has me write overly discriminate between who I will pursue in friendship/relationship and who I won’t. It may have very little with whatever virtues the person has or hasn’t but instead has mostly to do with how I will be perceived by them. The grip of this belief structure has weakened over the years and I no longer care as much about what people think of me as I used to.

It is through this need to always end up looking like ‘Mr. Nice guy’ and never making anyone feel bad that I developed the tools of being politically correct and understanding of where all people are coming from. When I attempt to end conversations, I only feel like I have succeeded if I have created warmth in another and ensured that they didn’t feel rejected by me but felt embraced and heard in the time we spent together. This mechanism is extremely tiring and again no longer has the same grip on me it once used to.

This need to prevent myself from being rejected is what prevents me from rejecting what isn’t wholesome in others. Its what has me attempt to transform any perceived negative into a positive. This core belief is so fundamental to my constitution. Rejecting someone rather than embracing them in understanding fundamentally has me commit the worst thing a person can do to another - to reject, and close off from the warmth of being in connection with, and understanding someone fully. The Small Intestine portion of the constitution also believes that anything can be transformed from impure to pure substance - any relationship, any negativity - its all subject to the possibility of transformation. This has me be gullible and accept anyone no matter how potentially unwholesome because of the belief that there is fundamental good in them that I can always see and seek to excavate.

So for fire - the deepest need is to be understood - therefore understanding and warmth is what the fire constitution gives. The Small Intestine component transforms impure into pure by shining light on only the good, the possible, the potential of what can be, while ignoring the mud. The problem is, this can mean a lack of discrimination when there is so much mud, because only the fundamental potential for good and wholeness is seen as the end goal to the alchemical process of relationship.

Suzy asked what would happen if I break up with someone, and they say “oh yeah? you don't want to be with me? Screw you then!". I’d be perfectly ok for a while, perhaps even happy that they didn’t want to still remain with me and I’d have to find other ways to let them down easy. Then I’d probably attempt to ruminate why I pissed them off so much, and how I can still be friends with them, because I don’t want them to perceive that I rejected them. I refuse to be the ‘perpetrator of rejection’. Unless I remember that the other person is an adult and does not have the same pathology as I do, then I can let them be who they are without trying to shield them from the perceived rejection which I’m ‘inflicting on them’. One of the life themes to balance in the Fire element is the feeling of being a victim and imagining that others are your victim unless you love them unconditionally and constantly turn the other cheek. It's a disgustingly disturbing thought process. Luckily there is enough self-awareness enough of the time where this doesn’t play itself out completely subconsciously.

The Small Intestine has a hard time realizing when out of balance that it doesn't have to sort through something that is 80% crap to extract 2% good. This is what I attempted to do with my prior two year relationship. He was a Metal Large Intestine constitution and was constantly shitting on everyone. The only thing that tempered and controlled that behavior was unconditional love and Fire that melted his rigidity and saw through his shit into the gold. Unfortunately the consequence was that I fell in love with who he could have been, and not who he was. I fell in love with the 2% good and decided it was worth holding onto the remaining dysfunctional 80% for the 2% that I had found.

There seems to be a constitutional theme to every element. The very thing that is deficient in a person that creates their constitutional imbalance is the very thing that they attempt to create externally in the world as a gift for those who are deficient in it. So - doing something 'for someone' is an expression of the recognition of authentic need of that in the world. So - I make things better or okay for people, because it gives them warmth and light in times when they need that and don't have it themselves. When others have rejected them, I bring them warmth and attention. In the same way I come to believe that it exists in the world and I get that emotional need and warmth fulfilled in myself.

Fundamental Themes of this Small Intestine Fire Constitution:

I deserve nothing and therefore must work for it by being as warm, loving and compassionate as I can so as to have unconditional love in my life (so goes the story).
I must transform negative into positive and always look to find the good in a person because I’m ‘supposed to’ at all costs love someone despite them being an asshole.
Complements wash off me like water off a duck’s back, because no matter how nice I am now and how much I have listened to and understood you till now, I will one day disappoint you. I will not be able to keep up with the bar I’ve set, and you’ll reject me eventually anyway.
I’m not worthy of love. So I accept anything that looks similar, close, or a good enough substitute.
I'm unlovable, and will be rejected for [insert reason here].

Therefore…

I will love and find things in everyone that is lovable, and reject noone
I will reject love if I see it as threatening, luck luster, and capable of breaking my heart
I will also prefer to feel alone and lonely by avoiding content so as not to be rejected, then to connect and then suffer the potential of rejection

What now?

I'm told that one never ‘gets rid of’ one’s constitutional imbalance – one can only bring it more into balance within itself and with the remainder of the elements and mitigate its impact on one’s life through Five Element acupuncture treatment. In meditation one can watch it and observe its skewed thought processes and belief patterns and one may even seek to remain more conscious of it in the everyday walk of life so that it becomes a source of potential amusement.

At the core of my Fire there is a sense of accomplishment when I'm able to create, harness, or hold onto the warmth of being in relation with someone - this presence of warmth is intoxicating and deeply nourishing. I'm mediocre at being able to create that for myself where I am whole and complete needing nothing - because needing nothing implies for me - needing noone. Isolation is a theme in my life. I felt isolated in my childhood all the time and this isolation became a core issue of my life.

The only times when I am able to convent loneliness into solitude (a state of being content and whole while alone) is when I am in communion with nature and my studies of medicine and of what separates people from people (the Small Intestine Fire imperative for processing life). When I'm not busy studying the arts of transformation of pure into impure, and the separation of pure from impure through the study and observation of the human condition, I crave people - attention & warmth. When that's not there, I feel cold and alone. I don’t need to be surrounded with people as much as the Pericardium / Triple Heater constitution does, as for me the alchemical process of transformation of relationships is more personal and transpersonal rather than interpersonal and social.

This is my most current understanding of my Small Intestine Fire constitution and my fundamental state. I know nothing beyond operating on my basic imperative. Ultimately its what I will be bringing into clinic.

The Heart component of my constitution (The Supreme Controller and unifying ruler for all the Officials) expressed itself most vividly in my prior profession. In my professional capacity as a project manager my job was to sort through complicated problems and relationships that prevented people from getting along and then offering an understanding and solutions for them where all were valued equally. Through streamlining communications between them and instructing each group on how important it is individually to the operation of the whole organism, I would be unifying all their needs by creating interdependence between them that was based on mutual warmth and understanding. Ultimately this would result in a fulfillment of needs with everyone expressing joy and warmth in contributing to each other’s success and the success of the whole. Political aptitude arises out of the Supreme Controller’s imperative to keep the kingdom at peace – learning to say that needs to be said so that everyone gets along.

In my acupuncture practice this translates to my creating an energy of understanding in my clients that eliminates the boundaries of separation from their loved ones and from joy in life so that love for their whole being can be expressed and can go into the world and affect their families and friends.

Learning to soften the blow of telling someone what they don’t want to hear was and will continue to be a source of contention for me because of my desire to stay out of direct confrontation. This fundamentally robs me of the balls to say what needs to be said to confront people where they are not at cause in the matter of their health for fear of them rejecting me as their practitioner.

I’m reminded by a 74 year old Jewish Greek grandmother who attended my Zero Balancing II class in Chicago a few weeks ago. She said “I realized a year ago that I no longer need to do anything for nobody. So screw you all. You’re all adults and can all take care of yourselves just fine. And if you can’t, too bad. And boy do I feel free to be myself and just live. Now if someone wants a ZB session, sure I’ll give you one, I wouldn’t mind getting one either”.

Hmmm ... :)

3/12/10 – Mallory Cave & Musings on Fire …

2010-04-02T09:21:00.004-10:00

On my hike to Mallory cave I noted the distinct difference between life occurring in shadow and life occurring in the sun. On the cusp between Winter and Spring the distinctions between Cold and Warm are clearer to see.

When in shadow we’re cold and alone. When the sun comes out, everything warms, expands and moves out towards the sun in camaraderie. All the shrubs and bushes turn to the warmth. All the animals and plants start to hum and expand in its presence. It is spring – let us get into the sun and bask in it. Such is the need for Fire.

When watching people interact with each other it clear to see the function of the Pericardium (Heart Protector). The assumption for all interactions in this world is that it isn’t safe. We must be guarded and closed first and test the waters of safety. People must earn our trust and then we will open up. This can be seen in social circumstances as people fold their arms over their chest (protecting their Heart) or walk in a very self-contained, vulnerable and monitored way. Gradually as conversation and warmth is exchanged the barriers melt, people unfold their arms, expand and relax in chairs, exposing their chest and creating more space for the expansion of radiant warmth. Culturally the lands of every-present sunshine exhibit cultures of open warmth, exchange, and communication.

In a perpetual quest for warmth the Fire element will want to expand and open up for everyone. Bearing its heart on its sleeve, the Fire element will want for free, open, and in consistent communication and exchange of warmth with everyone. For fear of having its warmth rejected, the Fire element will reject first, flare up, scorch and be dismissive to anyone it suspects will not return warmth, will reject it or misuse the trust that is extended. In rejecting first it protects itself from being burnt in a one-sided pursuit of warmth with another. Feeling like its warmth will be used as a way of reaching its vulnerable inner sanctum, it will clamp down the Pericardium (Heart Protector) around itself. Cold and dismissive, it will avert its attention as if the person doesn’t exist – punishing them, it creates in them the very isolation and rejection that it itself suffers from the most.

In its interactions with the world it fears that people will only bask temporarily in its warmth and leave, failing to appreciate the unconditional love it has to give.

Natural leaders, Fire element constitutions will rule with understanding, and magnanimity giving warmth equally to all. Like the Sun which gives warmth unconditionally to all, the Fire constitution has people constantly around them so that it can manifest unconditional understanding and love to all. Like a fire that consumes all fuel available to it, it can be selfish and gather people around it to fan its flames, whether it is an audience or staff in the office. Having the need for showmanship, it consumes experiences, has great desires (sexual, material, relational). This will manifest as an individual who is the center (the sun) of attention in a constant need to perform for the entertainment of others, so that its fuel for warmth to quell internal loneliness doesn’t run out. Exhausting itself, it will exhaust others. This can manifest as someone who collects friends like a coin collection – always having someone on speed dial when they get lonely.

When the wounds to the heart are too deep and emotional blows have weakened the Pericardium, the Fire constitution will isolate themselves, becoming a hermit – licking its wounds in loneliness, sadness, solitude, and a feeling of being misunderstood. Feeling victimized it will avoid further hurt, or being burned out and used.

Seeing the potential of love, understanding and camaraderie in all, the Fire element falls in love with the fantasy of what a relationship could be rather than what a relationship is. Unaware of the availability of fuel that is being burnt, the Fire element will fall in love with love itself rather than the reality of the depth of connection. Burnt from failed relationships and communications, the ashen color will appear on a lifeless face. In desperation for contact, Fire will reach for intimacy (sexual, mental, spiritual) to complete strangers in the hope to kindle a spark through its outwardly warm demeanor. Like fanning embers where no real fuel is present, the Fire element will create warmth where no warmth exists. Seeking connection it will seek to be friends with all old lovers, distant acquaintances, and will seek to expand on what little influence or commonality it finds with people into epic dramas of deep connections that simply do not exist and which can burn out as quickly and easily as they were started.

Assuming warmth and connection can be had with anyone in a space of full disclosure and understanding, the Fire constitution will disclose itself to the degree of safety it feels abounds. Feeling brash, open, and free from personal attack (an open Pericardium), it will disclose intimate details of its life regardless of whether it is appropriate or not in an attempt to seek connection. Even if publication of such things is through something as impersonal as a blog ;)

03/06/10 – En Route to Eldorado Springs

2010-03-30T17:01:00.001-10:00

Driving by the houses en route to Eldorado Springs on Cherryvale Avenue – the issue of resources and who has enough and who doesn’t are reflected in how each house is maintained. The poverty and seeming lack of life is reflected in some houses with boarded up windows. I can see in these properties how the scarcity of resources evokes anxiety, the showing of paranoia and need for protection of your homestead, your family and your possessions. People who don’t have enough tend to be afraid of their neighbor and to suspect a villain at every turn. To look at these houses I feel the austere danger of potential harm welling up in me at the thought of approaching a window and peaking inside. The kind of paranoia that accompanies the dilapidated house, yellowed curtains in the window, with a tire in the yard hanging from a tree, piles of fire wood, an old beat-up truck in the garage, and tin cans riddled with bullet holes is the kind of paranoia that necessitates strong resolve and the ability to plan for the worst case scenario. When paranoia is strong, it gives birth to such things as the second amendment – the apparent need to bare arms to protect your loot.

I notice in me how the lack of resources and my lack of security through not having work evokes a feeling of paranoia. Over the years of taxing my bladder reserves, and my Liver and Gallbladder through years of heavy drinking and constant stress at work further added strain to the two channels that support moving forward into the world with confidence (Bladder channel), and with the necessary judgment and decision making abilities (Gallbladder channel) to plot a clear, strong, and steady course ahead in life. These two channels are the primary channels of my hair loss, and of my left hip stiffness, sore shoulders and back pain that flare up on occasion when decision making and exhaustion take their toll. These two channels are what primarily give me physical pain as a result of the many years of stress, anxiety, and constant decision making at work in an environment where we had no idea if our company would survive through the many years I worked there.

I notice in me how my low reserves of the water element evoke a feeling of paranoia. When water is low, the fear of the bank coming after me, anxiety of bills having to get paid, of not having a job, not knowing where money’s going to come from gives me racing thoughts, darting eyes, and an overactive nervous system (Bladder meridian). Unlike the deep Kidney Yin fear of constitutional reserves, this Bladder Yang fear is all to do with gathering, storing, and measuring out resources for day-to-day survival. Feeling anxious, thoughts racing, this subject, next subject – what am I going to do, how am I going to earn my living. What’s next? This nervous activity is exhausting to my adrenals, and taxes all my abilities, cleverness, and resources in determining how to make my store of monetary reserves last.

Decision-making power (Wood) to pursue a particular course of action isn’t strong when the Water reserves aren't strong. Nothing can be resolved unless security is resolved first. It’s very difficult to make any decisions (Wood) unless you have courage (Water) and know that you have what it takes to beat through what needs to be beaten through. This anxiety seems to intensify for me as we get closer into spring – as things start heating up and the promise of new movement is starting to shake things up. There’s a pent up energy that is felt as people are rearing to go. They just want to go – they have this impatience. Waiting for the spring to hit as soon as is humanly possible – counter to what nature wants. When the spring is ready, the spring is ready. I’m impatient with impatient people, and I’m impatient with myself and with my progress in most things. I want the wherewithal to go go go and forge my future not some day, but now.

In the coming of spring the waters of winter are loosed and the snows melt and everything starts to flow. The same way when people are ready to embark on a new project all of their resources, skills, abilities and cleverness are put to use in the execution of plans.

At the cusp of Water moving into Wood – of Winter turning into Spring is this frenetic energy – when will this winter end – when can we stop resting and just go! After I finishing these thoughts, I turned on the radio and some guy in synchronicity mentioned that he too has spring fever. He can’t wait to get out into the garden and start planting new lettuces and spring vegetables. Takes only a few warm days in the spring to get antsy. It becomes even more frustrating when the winter snows come as Yin and Yang alternate rapidly and finally resting in equilibrium within the rising of the Yang energy of spring. In the same way, when we go from rest (Water) into manifesting an idea (Wood), that initial start/stop and the frustration that accompanies clearing the roadblocks manifest most strongly this time of year in movement of energy from the Bladder and Kidney Officials to the Liver and Gallbladder Officials.

The anxieties and fears of water remind me distinctly of two personalities I’ve encountered in my recent past both of whom I suspect as Water constitutions. When we are afraid, we seek reassurance that everything will be ok. When a person is constitutionally Water the issues of fear, anxiety, boundaries and reassurance rise to the surface.

I’m reminded of J and his watery and dazed eyes that stare into the depths and reflect on life. Not wide with fear, but unsure of destination. Clever, quick witted, yet cool, reserved, controlled, held back and with clear boundaries. He evokes in me an anxiety to be around him – not knowing where or what he will do next – whether what he said is in jest, or whether he is being serious.

K with no boundaries gets into my face and her eyes are wild, wide, angry and on point. We became quick friends as we traded verbal wit over the year we got to know each other on the island. She invited me to a going away dinner party at the end of my year after I announced I was leaving to move to Colorado. A couple of my friends and I turned up at her house to find her completely drunk. She said she was sorry but she had too much anxiety to be hosting for people and feels socially inept unless she drinks. Come to find out later she did the same thing to sabotage herself on her first date with a new guy. She drinks to quell her fear of social connection. During the whole evening that followed she begged me not to leave, and was then seeking reassurance over and over again that I would be back. She made me promise four times before I left for the evening. I had to hold her hands and stare her in the eyes each time as I did so – but no amount of reassurance would satisfy her and as I finally said goodbye for the night, she dismissed me, convinced that this was the last time she’d see me.

As the cold air blasts me and forces me to recoil and curl in to conserve what's precious, there’s a recoil when I’m confronted with the Water element. A pause of sorts – do I have what it takes to have this interaction right now, what do I need to react to the situation appropriately. I find my reaction to be similar around J and K.

Having reached the trailhead of Eldorado Canyon I parked, packed my backpack and headed down the unknown trail towards the jagged cliffs in the distance. As I wandered through the wilderness on a path that had an unknown, but hopefully fruitful destination, with no one in sight, and having told no one where I was going – would I have what it would take to confront a mountain lion if its hunger sought me out, or would I survive the night and be found if I fell down a ravine and broke my leg? I felt myself watchful throughout the hike, taking extra care on patches of snow and ice. I wonder if this is the life of a Water constitution – ever watchful, ever fearful, always looking behind their back, always taking time to calculate each step forward, or feeling immobile in their place if they feel inadequate to the task?

I approached a treacherous set of steps covered with snow and ice that led 200 feet down into the canyon. One false step and I would plummet down into the gorge and fall in the freezing raging river below. I paused, considered turning back, but after taking a deep breath I wearily proceeded to take one small step at a time, carving out holes in the ice with the heel of my boot and my hiking pole wherever I could. Descending one foot gingerly at one time, I would calculate each rocky ledge and angles of impact I slipped. I held on to whatever solid object I could find, whether a rock, a tree branch, or a rock wall for support as I inched my way down the steps of doom. When we approach something that is treacherous and we don’t have sure footing and don't have confidence, we can slip and fall and plummet down suddenly into the unknown which is assured to contain pain or even death. Is this why the Water constitution plans out each plan of attack with meticulous precision and cleverness, backing down from any challenge unless they have assured success?

Having made it back out the canyon and to the other side, knowing instinctively that I had taxed my body to my halfway point, I turned around and retraced the 3 miles I had come through this terrain back to my car. Coming out of the switchbacks along the icy mountain paths I emerged back on a path awash with light and warmth. The birds were chirping here with great excitement for the coming spring. Shouting little tiny shouts – meep! meep! meep! - tiny little shouts, with great exuberance – Yay! Life!

As I sat on the side of the road eating a cliff bar and drinking water, four strangers passed me by. A brief lesson in Fire: Each of them had a different way of expressing warmth. The first woman in a bright green shirt with fiery red hair, with a bounding red dog ahead of her smiled brightly and said hi! The one that followed said a quick ‘hey’. The two guys after – one said a quick and short ‘hi’, the one after didn’t say anything, but nodded. The last girl didn’t even look at me but sighed and passed on. I noted that the warmth decreased with each stranger; the leader greeting and the cohorts following. I wonder if when the natural order of that posse changes, the order of warmth would reflect similarly?

02/08/10 – Warm at the Core

2010-03-28T19:39:00.001-10:00

As I stepped into the sunlight after many days of being inside I felt myself pause. I closed my eyes, raised my head, expand my chest and breathed in a huge breath warm afternoon air. I stood there, basking, glowing, and expanding in the radiant sun. As a smile and warmth spread across my face and my whole being, the whirling of my mind slowed down and I noticed how all life gravitates towards the sun. The trees reach for it. People gather in places in the middle of the equator where it is warm so that they can celebrate and dance in worship. The South is the direction of brilliance and sunlight and of ever-present warmth. The fluid magma at the center of the earth provides fluid warmth from the inside out without condition. It warms our planet, and is at the heart of our mother Earth. It is this core that gives our planet gravity, the attraction and pull of all things that ‘matter’ towards the center. When the Fire element is burning within us people are attracted to us and gravitate to us much like all the planets that orbit the sun gravitate to its awesome and unconditional warmth. We have the same inner sun inside us, and we too have a personal gravity that has friends and family orbiting us, much as we orbit around those who give us warmth and love in return. We bask in their glow; we open up and warm to them as we brim with joy.

What would happen if our internal suns in our hearts, the sun at the heart of our earth, and the sun at the heart of our galaxy were to burn out? Think about it. Feel it.

What happens when a cloud moves over our heart, or over the sun? Think about it. Feel it.

That feeling is the feeling that accompanies the Fire Constitution who lives in a constant nightmare of the possibility that the sun in their life is about to burn out.

How to Prune a Tree...

2010-02-02T09:33:00.004-10:00

This is in response to the last comment on my prior post. I'm glad you liked the story from my Sensei of washing one's hands.

On a personal level I agree with you that when we are in the right environment, have plenty of water and know how to concentrate our efforts towards the right growth for us, then the sky is in fact the limit... for this is indeed the purpose of Wood. We need proper environment, nourishment, resources, and guidance to flourish. When one or more of those is missing, our Wood can either grow out of control and we spread our resources too thin, or we cannot grow at all because we don't have what we need to do so. Not all growth is good growth. We prune back roses in the winter for a reason. We prune old growth, and we cut off branches that are taking up precious resources which deplete the whole plant. Control is good in moderation, because it guides our growth towards the highest quality blooms. Not all growth is quality growth. We remove weeds because their growth is poor quality and we need to conserve resources for more valuable plants (flowers, shrubs, fruit, and vegetables).

In terms of how Wood is out of control in our culture I meant this at a more global level. When we look at our planet and each culture in the world as if we are looking at a patient - we can diagnose the dynamics of balance of the Five Elements within just as easily.

We need only look to the sprawl of housing developments, new pulty homes springing up where forests used to be seemingly overnight like mushrooms. The materials used are of poor quality, and noone builds high quality brick buildings anymore. The growth is optimized for speed and sprawl and not quality.

Growth in our cities is happening so quickly that like a branch of a tree the inter-county connector in Maryland is built seemingly overnight to accommodate more growth and expansion as our greed for more and more replaces the forests and rivers and trees with more conduits for transport of resources (water, fuel, people) to places where more growth is expected. These conduits are like the branches of the tree that deliver resources to the far leaves, so that the leaves can stretch out further and further.

Just like the energy of wood has to battle against obstacles to grow - the project of the inter-county connector is a good example of the frustration it created in many citizens, especially those who's houses had to be destroyed or properties taken away by the county to create this new growth. This is a great example of how the emotion anger and frustration are the emotions associated with growth. The project was frustrated by opposition, and yet the government kept pushing through - each side was frustrated. Ultimately it frustrated the citizens more who's plans for living a calm life were derailed by the project going forward and their houses and properties were taken away. This is a perfect example of how the function of growth and frustration go hand in hand - and also why growth must be selective.

In our culture Wood is also out of control in non-selective creation of more and more consumer goods and the shelves of our stores are filled with new types of electronics, toys, and products at an alarming rate - and most of them are crap. Cheap growth, rather than quality growth. Just like weeds. Cheap means that you can produce more and more and more, and quicker. Our shelves are filled with weeds and not roses. Conventional vegetables and cheap imports from abroad - quality sacrificed for quantity. The regulatory element for Wood is Metal. The Metal element is what establishes quality growth by looking towards the true value of growth.

Metal also represents spirituality, religion, ritual, tradition. Spirituality and ritual is about respecting and having reverence for what you have and what you produce. All new growth should be evaluated from the perspective of whether it is aligned with your highest ideals and values and any growth that isn't must be pruned back and discarded.

When the Metal element is not controlled by the Fire element properly, it becomes perverted and hard - out of control structure, religion and tradition stifle growth and evolution and the creation of new ideas. You are kept in your rigid constraints. This rigid constraint prevents growth, just like a rocky soil can restrict growth.

It is true that when we prune back too far, and when Metal is out of balance we become a cold and cutting patriarchy (which is what our culture rebelled against by throwing our religion). The Metal element represents spiritual guidance and ensuring that our lives are filled with quality and not quantity. In this way Metal is the moral backbone of tradition and ritual. When our culture went away from religion and guidance by the Heavens for what growth and which path is righteous and with the greater good of all, the Wood was no longer constrained by any specific values or guidance to channel its energies appropriately. Wood began to grow in all directions as a way of replacing God by products and new ideas as a way of filling the void.

The technology evolution boomed out of nowhere with the discovery of fossil fuels (the Water which is the Mother of Wood for our society). When our planet's deep reserves were tapped the growth sprung up over night and we are drinking through our Water reserves as a culture without any spiritual and moral guidance (Metal) that normally guides Wood's growth towards pure and quality pursuits - in the same way as Metal wires and Metal clippers guide a Bonsai tree in a direction that best expresses its essence, without the distraction of unnecessary and poor growth to take up precious resources. We prune back so as to conserve and make the plant stronger. But when we prune back too much and put too many guiding wires we stifle and choke growth.

We clear out weeds so that we can conserve resources for our vegetables and crops. Proper control of growth is needed to ensure resources aren't squandered. In our society all we do is squander resources (Water). In our society we have very little pruning taking place.

So, in our lives as individuals we can ensure that our Wood is healthy by giving ourselves the right environment, as well as having a balance of values and qualities which we want to see in our growth. This way we ensure that when we grow, we grow into roses and not into weeds.

How to Water Plants...

2010-01-26T10:31:00.004-10:00

This entry is in response to the prior comment posted under my prior entry.

Thank you so much for letting the seeds get watered and germinate in your mind into your unique contribution and response :) I'm glad to be having this discussion because I learn lots of things from it and it allows me to expand on my own thoughts on the matter.

It also warms my heart because I too find it so hard to let people live their lives as they are living when I have some food and water that I know works for me that could help them live better. Of course I know that 'better' is unfortunately my own definition and I have lots of proof and evidence to point to that this definition of 'better' is applicable to others.

Its so difficult to watch others suffer. And yes, maybe its just not their season to grow. Maybe they must grow ugly, wither and die, letting go of old growth first and live in the winter of being dormant and without any new movement. Knowing that we each have cycles of growth and cannot be pushed to early spring, to early flowering, to early maturity and early harvest gets the pressure off of us to grow at all costs even when its not time. Some of us want to grow all the time, and in today's culture the Wood element is out of control. We grow all the time, we take no winter, and we don't let go of the past, but grow, faster, faster, and faster, using up all the resources till we're incredibly tired. This is not how nature intended. Nature intended distinct seasons and distinct timing. When we allow ourselves to live in whatever season is appropriate to our growth we can be peaceful, and grow in accordance with time.

Looking at other people's suffering causes us to feel like we want to respond. Its a natural thing, and if we didn't we would become cold and dead ourselves - completely unable to help those in need. Instead of becoming cold and ignoring people's suffering - the way that I think we can respond is to be relevant to what their needs are. Sure, they may not be caring for their basics like food and water, and from our perspective it looks like the most important thing they are missing is food and water. Just like Marshal Rosenberg says in Non Violent Communication - the causes of people's suffering is rooted in unexpressed and unfulfilled needs.

When I try to communicate and bring the water I have and sense resistance - I must know that the resistance isn't about me. Its about them and what their unfulfilled needs are. This should be a wakeup call that I'm not bringing the right food that is needed in this moment. I talked about this in the GIEN conference - be relevant first, and they people open up to whatever message you have. You know the feeling when you are hungry and you still have 2 hours before you will get home? You are ravenous and can't pay attention to anything or anyone, can't listen to the radio, can't concentrate on what everyone else is saying. Your basic needs are screaming to you - I... need... to... eat... now....

Nothing goes in unless our basic hunger is fed first and this is the lesson from Earth. Because of this, and if we learn to recognize the needs to others, we can respond to their suffering without being frustrated that they're not taking in what we think is good for them right now. This is why Non Violent Communication suggests that we need to verify what we thing people's needs are, because we can get it wrong.

Resistance is a mechanism each of us has to anything new that may threaten the balance or introduce something that doesn't fit in with what we need in the present moment. Perhaps the resistance others have towards us and the resistance we have towards others is the source of lessons which will give us peace and ability to be free to be ourselves in any situation.

The nature of Wood is to feel resistance and be frustrated by it. The distinction is whether you make the resistance personal, or just simply something that needs to be broken through for your own growth. Benevolence therefore mediates the discernment between your growth and the growth of others as being on a different trajectory and cycle than your own and knowing that this is as nature designed it. And because nature designed it this way, it should be celebrated.

So when people suffer they may be suffering because they arn't being heard, they have noone to come home to, they are disconnected from their family and friends and feel lonely, they feel unvalued, they feel unnourished by their work and feel stuck and mired in a lifeless routine, they're disconnected from their spirituality, are unable to let go of the past which limits who they believe they can be in the future, they're afraid of making changes in life and being alone, or suffering, or losing themselves in the process. Sometimes they just need a hug, a glance of "I understand you sister, brother". We are all wilting for different reasons and need different food and water in the moment to give us spirit to persist on. And when we're given our immediate needs, be can become far more open to new ideas. If our spirits are safe, secure, nourished, loved, contributing, and alive - we can be more inclined to hear, and have room in our lives to look to other sources of food and water.

Maybe in this life some people are like a cactus that is prickly and ugly on the outside, and is malnourished, and doesn't have abundant food and water holding on to all of its reserves and putting up thorns so that noone gets close to them and takes what they have. Maybe they think that they are unloved, unappreciated, and noone wants to touch them. Perhaps a cactus like that in the office needs a special type of care and needs to bask in the sunshine so that they too can flower in their own way with what God gave them. Maybe their destiny is to be that way and still bring joy and nourishment to others within their own type of self-expression. If don't see that we spend our whole lives fighting against people being who they are, versus fighting for our own cause - and this is exhausting.

The image for benevolence is to imagine yourself growing into this huge 300ft tree like in the movie Avatar. You spread your branches far and wide and then all sorts of life can live within your branches and in your shade. They come to you for what you have to offer because they have needs and see that you can fulfill all their needs. Not just give them fruit and nuts, and dew from your leaves as water - but offer shelter, security, understanding, support, a place to lay their head, and to be themselves in your branches. All the birds, bees, squirrels, and other beasts of the trees then make your branches their nest. Other plants that need less sunshine and need cooler climates can then grow on the floor and they in turn are nourished by the compost of whatever leaves you let go of in the process of yearly renewal.

Being happy and at peace is not ignoring others and being only concerned with your own growth and wellbeing while watching people wilting around you. If you are offering what they need most they will come to you. And if someone else is offer what they need most they will come to them.

If you don't offer safety and security (earth), they will go to someone or something that does.
If you don't offer unconditional love and acceptance of who they are (fire), they will go to someone or something that does.
If you don't offer quality and inspiration (metal), they will go to someone or something that does.
If you don't offer confidence, wisdom and courage (water), they will go to someone, or something that does, and
If you don't offer vision and persistence for what is possible in all realms of body mind and spirit (wood), they will go to someone or something that does.

Its a tall order to have all those virtues and embody them in such a way that they overflow with such abundance that everyone can be nourished by you regardless of each of their individual needs. This is why we were each given talents so that we can nourish those that resonate to our talents. And we can point them to others who have talents we don't if they need something we cannot, or do not offer ourselves. We don't need to be everything for everyone.

If we can grow into the vision of the tall tree, healthy in the body, mind, and spirit, and always looking towards the vision for what is possible in those realms and pursuing it with the even, steady, and cyclical growth of the seasons, then others will come to us looking for what source of nourishment we used to get there and what needs we went after in our lives.

The funny thing about cultivating our individual talent is that by cultivating one, we cultivate all of them. When one element is truly balanced, all the elements come into balance and we end up offering them all. I see this in my Sensei. She has her goal of teaching and using this one form of acupuncture, and that is her own vision. She is also so beautifully benevolent in that she knows that she believes so much in her own work, but knows that this may not necessarily be the way for everybody. Each lecture we get she talks about us finding our true source of water. In her encouraging me to go to Five Element school, and encouraging others to leave her class and do their own thing (one become a publisher, another a videographer, another a musician) that she is giving them the best medicine. She is giving them the right to exist as they were born to be. In being benevolent, she also radiates all the virtues of all the elements.

She said the other day "You all know that I have a temper, and I have been fighting my whole life with my temper and my frustration. Each day when I wake up I pray to God to help me be clean for the day. In between each patient I wash my hands, and it may look to you like I am washing my hands, but to me I may be furious with the patient and frustrated with why they are here again, but in those 30 seconds, it is the alone time I need to wash my hands, my mind, and my spirit so that I can bring in the light of God, the gold light of healing into my being so that it can express itself in the treatment. I am nothing but a hollow insertion tube, and God is the needle. I must polish and clean my insertion tube every day so that nothing obstructs God coming through the insertion tube into the patient."

1/21/2010 - Individuation of Wood & Benevolence

2010-01-21T12:04:00.003-10:00

Shrubs of Western Hawaii cannot grow in the humid climate of the Eastern side. Likewise the Ferns of Eastern Hawaii cannot grow in the hot and arid climate of the Western slopes. The land and weather dictate the best climate for each plant according to its individual plan. A fern does not grow with the cacti of Arizona. It must grow in the jungle. A cacti cannot grow on top of a mountain. A banana cannot grow in Siberia.

Likewise, we must surround ourselves with the correct climate so that we can express ourselves fully and most authentically. We must be surrounded by people of like mind and spirit if we are to be supported on our path. We cannot grow where we are not meant to. This is why I moved to Colorado to find the medicine of the spirit. I realized that no matter how much I wanted to grow in my path, my surroundings were not supporting my growth. So rather than being a plant trying to grow in concrete, we must all transplant ourselves to the fertile land that nourishes our plan and our personal being. That which is nourishing for some is poison for another. This is why we cannot expect that our plan is the right plan for another.

We are all transplanted by the winds of change as seedlings throughout this world and with short travel time we can be in any new climate, culture and surrounding. Having all this choice is not necessarily the best thing for our spirits because we loose touch with what the most nourishing circumstances that allow us not just to survive, but allow us to thrive! How does Wood show us the difference between surviving and thriving?

Wood also teaches us that each plant grows at its own rate. Each plant also needs different conditions. Some plants grow slowly, some grow quickly. Some plants need volcanic soil, others need clay, others need just the air, while others need rich and loamy compost. Their plan, vision and needs are their own and we cannot judge them based on our plan, our vision and our needs. Their rate of growth is different and their individual needs are different.

In the same way, benevolence is allowing people to be where they are in life because we do not always see what people's plans are or where they are going because we are on our path, and they are on theirs. In a way its not our business. It is of more importance to be concerned with where we as individuals are going, and then helping others reach their own potential if they ask for help. Only when people are ready and willing to receive our ideas will they ask. We cannot force our way on others no matter how much we think we have the right idea. Not all people are ready, and our advice may not necessarily be the most important thing they need at the time.

The problem with being a prophet in our own village is that noone is asking for what we have to give. If they need water, we cannot give them a loaf of bread. And if they're not thirsty, but are hungry, giving them water will only frustrate them. This is why assuming what people need and that we have what they need to 'fix them' never works in our favor and we're like a tree trying to grow in concrete.

Instead we must focus on what we are doing as our own 'play' and then it no longer becomes our job to stand and preach to people about the path to righteousness. That is our path to righteousness. That may not be their path. The image we should go going for is not a preacher, but rather the counselor to whom people come when they are in need. Rather than telling people what to do, we welcome them to come as they are and then if we don't have what they need right now, to just be there with them on their own path. That does not mean to suggest that we shouldn't inspire people and encourage them. What it does mean is that we should not seek to encourage them to be like us.. but encourage them to be authentically who they are. And if part of who what they aspire and envision and dream for themselves is compatible with where they are right now, then we have give them what we have learned. Just like the plant knows when the time is right, we need to know when the person needs sunlight, and when they need water. This can only be done if we pay attention and not come at them with intention.

Our friends job isn't necessarily to agree with us. Its their job to support us in whatever we are doing by allowing us to be ourselves. Their job is not to change to become who we want them to. It is also not their job to change us and make them in their own image. We all walk around in the world trying to make people into our own image. But that is not their destiny. We don't know their destiny. Friends should only help friends express their destiny and not copy or mirror it from us. We're human and we do not have all the answers.

Allowing others the be who they are allows us to rest, be at peace, and be happy and not stress about where other people are going, what people want from us, or that we need to do something for people to like us the way we are. Benevolence allows us to be authentically ourselves, and others to be authentically themselves.

I had a realization last night that just because its possible to be a certain way in life.. it doesn't mean that I have to be that certain way. I must do what fits right for me and not worry about what other people expect of me, or what I expect of other people. Just because its possible to live an enlightened life as a buddhist monk, doesn't mean its the right possibility for me. Just because its possible to be a herbalist, it doesn't mean that its the right possibility for me. Just because its possible to be a nutritionist, a coach, a writer, a preacher, a seminar leader, a singer, a pianist, a cellist, a computer scientist, a nurse, a great swimmer, a great athlete, good at math, having a six-pack, being an astronaut, a underwater basket-weaver - it doesn't mean that its the right possibility for me. Its great that all those things are possible. And I'm glad there are plants growing in the world out there who's authentic self-expression is most alive when they are living their lives fully dedicated to those plans.

Its all possible - but only one plan will be followed according to each plant's nature. That's the lesson of wood. Vision and clarity allow us to see to our depths to see what is authentically our own self expression. For me right now it is the study to be an exceptional acupuncturist and healing physician. I don't have any vision beyond that. I don't need one. I authentically love and am playing at doing this. Where the path will lead after that doesn't matter. Perhaps its not my time to see. Being released from other people's expectations, social stereotypes, images, and other people's molds for what we're each 'supposed' to be, and then freeing myself from my own expectations and my insecurities and need to 'look good' gives me freedom to be me myself. In that I allow others their freedom to be different from me, and have the opportunity to help them get transplanted to the soil in which they will most flourish. This is benevolence.

The beauty of wood is that it has its plan and allows other plants to express themselves. Some express as ugly fruit, some as a venus fly traps, some as vines, some as strawberries, some as grass, and some as orchids. We cannot judge the validity of each type of self-expression. We can only judge whether we esteem to that, or to something else that is more authentic to us. Each has a destiny.

What soil do we need? What temperature? What type of bees to pollinate us? What kind of birds to nest in our branches? What amount of water? What amount of sun? Where do we get our nutrients? How fully and lushly can we express our plans. Benevolence then allows us to view those needs in others and to guide them not to our needs, but to their needs.

1/17/2010 – The Cloud Forest of Kailua-Kona

2010-01-19T10:38:00.005-10:00

At the time I went into the Cloud Forest, the clouds had not yet arrived and the forest basked in the brilliant and hot sun. As I climbed up the slopes of Hualalai I become aware to the ways of the trees, vines, grasses and mosses – the children of the Wood element.

Wood seems to be a healthy balance between realism and optimism. The roots each plant creates go as deep as they can to find groundedness in the reality of what the truth of available resources is. Each plant, bush, grass, and moss expresses its creativity to the extent of water’s availability. Their downward growth towards resources is proportional to upwards growth. They generally do not attempt to extend past reality, but are still hopeful for their future.

Wood is the intermediary between the depths of Water and the heights of Fire – between potential, and manifestation. The unification of Heaven and Earth is in the plan of the tree.

Wood in all of its multitude of expressions is the embodiment of trying out different ideas in life. For what purpose, I don’t know, but to manifest potential. In the cycle of creation the trees celebrate each cycle of growth by flowering, and saying “Yes, we did it!”. As the season continues they let go of the structures they used to get there (old branches and leaves) and they rest before taking their next spurt of growth. Why do trees do that? Perhaps it’s just to see if they can.

This “Can it be done”, “Yes, it can”, “No it can’t” is the difference between hope and despair. So, what is the purpose of hope? Fundamentally it is the belief that “It’s better over there than it is over here”. Its that same game of sights directed towards the future. So, what is the purpose of this game? Perhaps it is to escape the sea of potential, and actually pull the potential out of slumber and manifest it in reality, for its own sake. Wood’s ‘in order to’ is to manifest full potential. That is the only ‘in order to’. So this is why wood constitutional types strive for their own goals, towards their own ideas, and then call others, giving them that inspiration through the dedication to their aspiration – to show that it can be done. Wood is the exclamation to the exclamation point! “Look what I can do! Look what can be done!”

Unlike the excitement of the fire element, Wood’s excitement is exuberance in stretching out in all directions, into the new and the unknown – but with a plan!

Plants don’t compare themselves to another because they know that their plans are valid expressions of their inner contribution to the world. They don’t compare who’s got the most colorful bloom, or glossy leaves, or tallest branches. Issues of self-esteem arise out of comparison of oneself to another and “Look what they have done with their resources, and I don’t have those resources, I’m not good enough, I don’t have enough to manifest my plan. I am weak. They are strong.” Just like each type of fern, each tree, each vine, and each sapling has a right to shout “I live. I’m here. I have a plan” - Self-esteem is therefore finding your place in the world as a unique contribution, as the fulfillment of what you have to offer, as a fulfillment of your particular form of self-expression and the claiming of your own self-expression as valid, necessary and needed in this world.

This is distinct from self-worth, and valuing what you find when you examine yourself – which is a Metal quality. The way that Metal controls wood is by saying what is or is not valuable in terms of growth. Which branches are necessary, and which will lead you to spread your resources too thin. Where its appropriate to diversify, and where its appropriate to specialize. What steps in growth are essential, and what are inessential. What is the best, what is not the best. It’s the ability to then sort through all those decisions and all those plans and say “This is a worthy pursuit. This is a good path to take along my journey. This is a good expression of my planning, my decision making and my potential and this is not”. The dictionary defines self-esteem as the valuation and appraisal of your own self-worth. In this instance it is the distinction between having the vision to see that you have a unique self-expression that should be manifested, what is your unique contribution is versus putting value in that. One has to first see what one’s potential is before one can ‘evaluate’ and declare self-worth.

As the sprout breaks through the ground and the vines push through and up against obstacles so does wood break through what it needs to in order to manifest its potential. No wonder then that anger is the primary emotion associated with the wood element. Anger is nothing more than frustrated growth and the energy of upward pushing towards a destination. When something stands in your way that energy of frustration is what shows up. The lesson from the tree in how to deal with anger is to be flexible and move with ease around the obstacle, bending where appropriate and not taking these frustrations personally.

Wood can only accomplish what it desires to by facing everything and avoiding nothing – by not hiding, by not cowering from its potential, by not hiding from difficult conversations, by hiding from tough decisions, by not resigning itself to its circumstances – but facing what it needs to face to break through whatever obstacles it needs to break through in order to manifest its plan. Woods must do this either in reaching down for resources, money, people, skills – or reaching up to manifest its vision regardless of what stands in its way.

Like plants living above the cloud line where they rarely get enough rain, their root systems shallow, barely able to scrounge water – Wood must make its plans in accordance with available resources. Wood will grow full and lush, or it will grow short and stubby. This growth is proportional to its resources and wise decision making. Its plans must be appropriate to the environment. If you are to be scorched by the sun, your leaves should be thicker, darker and more concerned with conservation of water, your branches and leaves fewer.

Above the cloud line, the wood here is dry, inflexible, brittle, undernourished, hard, gray, lifeless, depressed, skeleton-like. The trees and shrubs here are dried up, burned by the sun and have chosen to grow in areas where resources are scarce. When wood extends beyond its means, it dries up and it gets burnt. Poor planning, circumstances, and bad decisions can put it out of reach of these resources. Instead of being supple and flexible, the trees become hard and brittle and that much more frustrated by their lot. Just as the forest thins and growth becomes sparse, Wood’s single-minded pursuit of growth regardless of whether there are enough resources can leave then alone, without friends, and without resources. When all its plans are for naught, all the carcasses of wood’s former plans lay bleaching in the hot sun.

When wood as a parasite overtakes another tree, it uses the growth of others to piggy back its own growth. Wood is so forceful and self-directing, that it must manifest at all costs. And because of this need to manifest it has all these strategies in order to conquer, subdue, break through, beat through, shout over the top of, talk at and overcome another’s point of view. Convinced its path is the only righteous path, it ruthlessly conquers all, in single-minded tunnel vision.

When looking at the majestic and tall tree as compared with a vine, it seems that the majestic tree has stability and self-confidence. The mighty tree doesn’t need anybody’s help. They’re good enough on their own, they have strong trunks, strong bark, and thick stable roots. These trees aren’t as rushed to manifest their plans, because for them stability and planning for the future is more important than fast growth. The vines, however are weaker. They want to grow fast, they need support, they need to manifest quicker – so they climb on the backs of others. Flexible, quick, ravenous in their growth, they accomplish their plans and grow overnight.

When wood wishes to accomplish something is has available to it the ferocity of overnight growth. It can grow out of control and choke others. Alternatively, it may be wise in its utilization of resources and plan wisely for the future so as to survive many many years, and not just into the next season.

When wood charges ahead in a state of blind self-righteousness it overtakes and grows on top of the right to be and plans of others. Because it must manifest its vision at all costs, regardless of what life another plant may have planned, they’re shouting “Me first” and are unable to offer any benevolence for others. Lacking perspective of how their plans damage their relationships with their friends, family, and neighbors they force their way past other people’s ideas to manifest their plan. Other people have their own plans and wish to grow unencumbered. Benevolence is therefore the virtue for wood to cultivate – to have perspective that other people’s plans are valid expressions of their own ideas, and no better or worse than one’s own. Each plant must reach for the sun in its own way. Benevolence encourages all to manifest their own potential without choking the plans of others because of one’s own will, purpose and way of doing things. Perspective is therefore the virtue of seeing how your plans impact the lives of others, as well as the notion that your idea may not necessarily be the only valid idea but that others’ ideas are just as valid. Perspective allows us to plan properly and in full light of circumstances so that we can make wise course corrections in our plans rather than single-mindedly pursue our ideas with blind impunity.

I picked wild lilikoi (passion fruit) from the vines that covered the many trees of the Cloud Forest. Delicious, juicy, and fragrant, the barren forest was still abundant in the results of the vine’s plans. When a plant gives birth to fruit and seeds, it seems to speak “I liked that plan. I liked that idea. I want future generations to follow that same plan and idea and maybe make it better.” Its because of this that it puts so much effort into creating fruit, ensuring that its plan passes on.

Grass is still green in the cloud line but above the cloud line everything is scorched from the sun and what little water is there makes the vegetation dry and hard and burnt. Here its more lush and the clouds move quickly, depositing their moisture, running from place to place infusing the place with just enough resources to continue. I do not know if this is metal condensing water or whether it’s the earth creating a humid, languid, moist, enveloping, opulent, nourishing, mothering cloud. A future trip here may reveal to me the secrets of the Earth and Metal elements.

1/15/2010 – Cultural Spirit of Aloha

2010-01-15T13:40:00.003-10:00

Kona is awash with flowers. The Winter here is extremely subtle and the land is constantly producing new growth, flowers and an abundance of fruit. As the pink and red flowers float in the breeze it evokes a sense of laughter in me as the full showiness of the island occurs all around me.

I’m reminded of one of the tradition that exists here between families. When you come over to someone’s house you bring some flowers or fruit from your yard. The land around my house while I lived here produced lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, persimmons and avocados. Bananas grew in the neighbor’s yard and he’d decorate his banana trees with Christmas lights when that time of year came around.

We always had an abundance of fruit on the table outside our classroom which was brought by various students from their own houses when the land produced more than they could possibly eat themselves.

The land produces a huge abundance and people share fruit and vegetables with every opportunity. The generosity of the culture here reflects the generosity of the land. People will do anything for you when asked because everyone looks after everybody else. Many people rely on other drivers to hitchhike to other places for nothing more than a smile and friendly conversation. Passion fruit fall and litter the roads from town to town and many a hitchhiker can score a meal off the side of the road without any trouble. People exchange favors, open their homes, their fridges and their hearts to anyone in need.

When I first stayed on island a year ago I stayed at a bed and breakfast which was surrounded by fruit trees. The sickly smell of rotting fruit and avocados lingered in the air on the property. The owner insisted on my eating as much as I could as bushels of avocados sat uneaten by the laundry room. She could never give all the fruit away and her insistence felt pushy and evoked a sense of fullness simply by looking at the amount of food available.

As the island is sympathetic to its residents’ needs, the residents’ are sympathetic to one another. There is a sense of deep concern that people have for one another. There is a lilting, melodic, and rhythmically punctuated tone to the Hawaiian language and the opulence and sensuality of hula are indicative of the fullness of expression present in the culture. Everyone is an auntie and uncle to the children regardless of blood relation. Warmth, hugs and mutual concern predominate all exchanges. There is great gratitude that predominates the islands and this energy wakes everybody up to be present to the blessings of life, to forgo the future, and forgo the past, living fully in the present.

This Earth energy, nourished by the Fires that create, purity and warm the land create the most abundant and full Earth spirit. This is the fulfillment of the Spirit of Aloha:

You have probably heard about Hawaii’s “Aloha Spirit,” but what is it exactly? In the Hawaiian language, “aloha“ may mean love, affection, compassion, mercy, sympathy, pity, kindness or grace. These sentiments make it a lovely common greeting and expression of farewell. The idea of aloha is so important in Hawaii that the “Aloha Spirit” is even part of State law. The statute reads in part:

“Aloha Spirit” is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and emote good feelings to others. In the contemplation and presence of the life force, “Aloha,” the following unuhi laula loa may be used:

Akahai, kindness to be expressed with tenderness;
Lokahi, unity, to be expressed with harmony;
Oluolu, agreeableness, to be expressed with pleasantness;
Haahaa, humility, to be expressed with modesty;
Ahonui, patience, to be expressed with perseverance.

These are traits of character that express the charm, warmth and sincerity of Hawaii’s people. It was the working philosophy of native Hawaiians and was presented as a gift to the people of Hawaii.

“Aloha” is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation. “Aloha” means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return.

“Aloha” is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence.

“Aloha” means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable.

In exercising their power on behalf of the people and in fulfillment of their responsibilities, obligations and service to the people, the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government may contemplate and reside with the life force and give consideration to the “Aloha Spirit.”

We hope you will embrace the spirit of aloha in your everyday lives; for it is not a gift only for those who visit our beautiful island, it is a gift which can be shared throughout the world.

When we are full, nourished, and have more than we need, our giving becomes abundant and filled with joy and gratitude. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to be, we are content, full, and present with each other and for each other, in the now. This Earth energy is abundant in cultures that live closer to the tropics and the equator – the geographic and homeostatic center associated with the Earth Element.

1/12/10 – Motion of the Ocean

2010-01-15T13:40:00.001-10:00

The wave gathers strength and through its will it picks itself up and crests in a white plume as the full strength of its force uproots its potential and pummels the surface with a groaning roar. It communicates two types of energy. The white frenetic crest of the wave is the nervous and overflowing recklessness of bladder energy, while its body and massive potential that fuels its curled expression is the kidney energy of deep strength of willful reserves.

The water recedes back and knows when to retreat and amass its strength before advancing with unstoppable force towards its inevitable destination of flowing at, against and around whatever obstacle lies before it. As the waves crash against the shore, I’m reminded of how all planned motion in any particular direction must have proper timing, proper conservation and gathering of resources, and non-hesitant forward motion to complete any change cycle.

Any task I undertake I must know when to retreat and gather in my resources so that when the time is right to exercise my will, I know that I have what it takes to do it. If the waves gather too early, they crash and fizzle their energy against the water and disperse in every direction, but if they wait until they are closer to shore, they can conquer all.

I know a woman who is unrelenting in her pursuits. If she needs money, she will go and ask for a contribution from everyone she meets. If she gets a no in response, it doesn’t matter. Unfazed, she retreats, and then confronts the next person, and the next, and the next, until she’s completed her task. Unrelenting as the sea, she’s ruthless in her pursuit, but does not make it personally when someone says no. She just simply moves on to the next person. She does this will all the pursuits in her life. Flowing around obstacles… she persists… on… and on…

1/10/10 – Clarifying Powers of Water

2010-01-15T13:39:00.003-10:00

I was talking with a visitor here about why I moved from Hawaii to Colorado and how I found I prefer the mountains to the sea. The conclusion was that I find that the mountains offer a future-oriented contemplation towards higher aspirations and possibilities as embodied through the virtue of inspiration. The sea, on the other hands focuses one to perform deep past-oriented introspection into the depths of one’s being by examining what lurks beneath and what is most important to survival.

Perhaps what I find so compelling about the mountains is that they do not force me to still my mind and look deeply at the places that scare me, but give me an opportunity to look up and towards the future I’m committed to, unencumbered by the heaviness and significance of past decisions. The dynamic between my future being an empty canvas onto which to paint a created life, versus a sea of prior completed works which indicate one’s former patterns representing the sea of the past.

The two years of experimentation with sex, drugs, and rock’n roll when I lived in California in my early 20s taught me what I did not want out of life. I moved back to Maryland with that new knowledge and fell into a life with the absence of those things – but with presence of little else. After 8 years of finding myself in a career that was not satisfying I moved to Hawaii to pursue a degree in Chinese Medicine. It took 10 years of floundering around in my life in a miserable and non-contemplative state for me to break free from the stagnation my life had become in Maryland. While in Hawaii, the island turned me inside out and had me stare intently at the places that scared me. In that year, for the first time in my life, the contemplative power of the sea taught me what I did want out of life. That gift of self-knowledge give me a new vision of what I needed to create for myself so that I can be best supported in my quest to be of service to others.

The year in Hawaii was the loneliest and most isolated I felt since early childhood. When I moved to Hawaii I had left my family, my friends, my career, source of income and let go into the waters of the unknown life with only a hope that I was doing the right thing. I was alone on a rock in the middle of nowhere studying a style of medicine that did not speak to my spirit and a group of people that didn’t really bond. Uninspired, I encountered very few people that shared my love for the divine in this medicine. Grieving for a loss of my former life and unable to let go fully I developed terrible fatigue and depression accompanied by shortness of breath and bad reactions to volcanic smog pollution from Hawaii’s volcano. I attempted to piece a new life together by getting involved with a local classical music group and give myself a practice for adding inspiration back into my life while struggling with the decision whether I should remain on the island and continue studying this uninspiring medicine or leave.

The sea clarified for me what I did need out of life. I needed to pursue Five Element medicine, because it was in this medicine that I found inspiration and spirit. I also needed a community of support as most of my former friendships and relationships stopped being relevant to the person I was becoming. I needed a cooler climate, expansive vistas, clear streams, and a clearly delineated autumn season. The school in the mile high state of Colorado held a deep presence of the metal element in its most grand expression of the Mountain scape. Newly inspired – my life on the Island became enjoyable again. I loved each day. The familiar beaches, forests, and vistas which had been my prison for 8 months became instead a wonderland of restful and joyful abundance. I once again could enjoy Hawaii for its primitive and untarnished beauty. With the promise of a new possibility, the knowledge of what I needed, and a new found wisdom in what was necessary to attain it, I was renewed and capable and made the move.

Since that time my life has turned more vital, awake, filled with newness and motivation. Since moving to Colorado I’ve been hiking, going to the gym, studying, making new friends and contacts, and thoroughly enjoying the mountains with the freshly awed eyes of a newborn each time I lay eyes on them. I have found my home and the community I need to support me in the years to come. Renewed, the Metal element lets go of the past, enables a symbolic death and the rebirth through the infinite sea of potential found in the water element to a new, inspired and joyful life.

I have found a place that supports my deficient Metal element and brings me back towards a more centered space. Now that I’m back in Kona sitting under a kukui nut tree on the beach looking at the roiling waves before me, I’m curious what new knowledge and wisdom my time here will offer…

1/11/10 – Breezes in Kona

2010-01-15T13:39:00.002-10:00

To look at environmental conditions of wind, heat, humidity, dryness, and dampness is a key to understanding the motivational imperatives of each of the elements. I’m not sure I’m fully present to all the implications, but wind become more clear today in observation of its effects on trees and water.

Wind is the energy of change, of movement and of motivation (a condition of being moved). Wind is the energy that animates and gives birth to all ideas in terms of the journey from A to B. It creates the game of life embodied in the notion of “its better over there than it is over here”.

Without wind, the surface of the ocean would have no motion and would be clear, calm, and non-erosive, having no directionality.

I see that there are two distinct realms of existence for water. The deep Yin existence and represented by the depths of currents and pressures deep below the surface. The churning of waves, of surf and foam exemplifying water’s chaotic nature, represents the shallow Yang existence.

I see the split nature of Yang Water (Bladder) and Yin Water (Kidneys) as being personified in the movement of Waves (Yang), and Currents (Yin). Currents are controlled by their own willful purpose and are unaffected by much other than their own weight and gravity. Waves, however, are very much affected Wind and the energy of change.

In the same way as change has us be vigilant and responsive to threats and changes taking place in real time which is most akin to the Bladder meridian which represents the nervous system – a system designed to process and respond to changes, and potential dangers by responding directly and immediately to any contact with change. The deep waters, however, are not as concerned with responding to change as they are willful to their own directionality and are not affected by external conditions.

In terms of relationship to Wood and creation of new ideas, wind gives us directionality. Without a particular course to take in life the potential of our willpower is never directed in any specific direction and all our energies are contained. No wind, no movement, no direction. Without wind, Fire would never spread. In the same way our warmth would never spread and our passions would never be ignited from our embers to move out to others. The Earth would never be cleaned as the Fires would never rage across it, and seeds would never be pollinated and no fragrance of what is nourishing would ever drift before us to entice our appetites to life. In the same way our minds would never have any new food to integrate, nothing fresh, and nothing nourishing. No wind and our air would never be refreshed, the trees would not be cleaned of old growth and no room would be made for the new. The Winds of change remind us that nothing is permanent and that all passes on and nothing stays the same. Without this energy Birth and Change, nothing would have motion.

Stagnation is the worst thing that can happen to us. Without wind to create change, we would be inert, lifeless, directionless, overly contained, barren, uninspiring, and completely untapped. Trapped in a rut we’d be repeating the same patterns, or we’d be inert in our inaction.

The greater the wind, the greater the change. Trees snap, fires rage, and the earth is stripped of its nourishment, all that is valued is blow away and scattered. Wind is also the energy of stress and if we are not supply, we can snap against it easily.

I watched the breeze come into Kona today and clear the air and gently stroke the trees. In animating the trees they revealed their flexibility and beauty in their dance with change.

1/08/10 – Kailua-Kona

2010-01-15T13:38:00.004-10:00

I’m in Kona for 35 days and the trade winds have started clearing the volcanic smog away from the slopes of Hualalai to reveal the shape of the land. The Hawaiian islands are as enchanting as nature gets. The Big Island of Hawaii exhibits 18 of the world’s 21 climates and includes deserts, rain forests and glacial tundras.

The climate overall is a vivid example of the meeting place of Fire and Water as the volcanic lands of boiled metal rise through the sea to give place for plants to take root and begin the cycle of new birth. The islands are ancient but are being terraformed at an exceptionally fast rate. I wish I had the time to document all I can learn from this place. Each day will bring new insights as I travel through the 18 climates of this strange and wonderful land.

There is an ancient respect that the native Hawaiians have for the islands and the recognition of the value the land provides for its people. As the most remote island chain from a major land mass in the world, the miracle of its existence is deeply respected here. The sea is recognized as a huge resource and much of the economy is centered around fishing and water sports. Hawaiians always test their fears of water through surfing 20-40ft waves and swimming with the sharks. The sea is feared, respected, honored and nurtured.

My first impression is how Fire predominates the island chain as a whole. The people are warm, friendly, open, intimate and joyful. The importance of family to the native Hawaiians is not to be underestimated. Most are content with waking up in the morning and heading to the beach with a cooler to spend the day surfing and playing the ukulele till the evening bonfires bring people together in song and drumming into the night. The Earth element is also richly present. There is a constant air of celebration to this place and of thankfulness for the friends and family you have around you. Everyone looks after everybody else and reciprocity, fairness and mutual support is a reflection of the complete balance of a closed and self-maintaining ecosystem.

Despite the rich rain forests of the windward facing side of each of the islands, Wood energy doesn’t manifest itself as explicitly in the island’s people. People are not future oriented, are not as concerned with creating plans, but are content to simply be in eachother’s nurturing presence. The Metal element is also very strong here. There is a deep respect for the value of the land, of each other and of each rock, grain of sand and leaf of every tree. The volcanic metals give essence to the many plants that thrive here and the Hawaiian people permit and encourage all forms of self-expression and freedom, so long as the land is respected. Many artists, healers, musicians and entertainers live here and the clothing is vibrant, colorful, and bordering on gaudy. Warmth, sexuality and juiciness pervade the culture. It is very educational to watch the sun-deprived, dazed and confused tourists come in and out of this strange land caught like deer in headlights unable to fully take anything as they avoid showing more skin than they think appropriate, and take cover in the shade for fear of their white flesh being smitten by an unfamiliar rosy glow.

Two types of climates tend to predominate. The Western side of the island is dry, arid, and desert like, while the East is steamy, wet, moist, richly green, and opulent in plant life where the Water element tends to predominate. The Fire element predominates on the Western side with is where the beaches team with celebration and togetherness. The Eastern people are more oriented towards hard work and labor. People are more secluded and rely on more reclusive and quiet familial togetherness. There is a secretiveness to the Eastern side and its people. Industry of all kinds tends to predominate from fishing to construction services. The Kahuna sorcerers tend to live on the wet side of the island where the mysteries of the Metal and Water, death, and rebirth from a sea of potential predominates their pursuit of medicinal plants from the rainforests.

The plantlife on the Western side is shorter, stubby, compact, barky, thick-leaved, and oriented towards the conservation of water. The leaves and branches are fewer, but the plants are sturdier and more resistant to the sun that’s beating down on them with no restraint and no promise of rain. The plants are resilient, conserve their resources, and more brittle, and attuned to the fewest possible plans necessary to get the job done. This type of growth reminds me of more rigid, stronger personalities oriented towards more conservative use of resources, and surviving through the competition for resources. Their plans are firm, strong, unbreakable, and stand the test of time and will persevere despite harsh conditions.

In contrast the plantlife on the Eastern side is lush, large, expansive, varied in color, more fragile, and opulent. The plants here tend to express more creativity in their flowers, leaf organizations, fruit qualities, and patterns. The Water element is so available here that there is little fear for starvation and growth can expand in all directions unabated. The plant life is so thick that it almost tends to choke itself. Unlike the Western side of the island, there is less competition for resources here. When we have ample resources we do tend to be more carefree in our self-expression and our planning is no longer conservative. If we have time, money and contacts we can spread our wings wide in any direction we choose, unencumbered by the constraint imposed by scarcity.

12/22/09 – Lessons from the River

2010-01-15T13:38:00.003-10:00

I went on a hike to my favorite river in Maryland which is located 20 minutes drive from my parents’ house. I noticed how all the trees reach to the source (Water). All their roots grounded in what resources are available, while their branches reach down for the source of potential.

The river is flooded from all the snow melt. With is roiling waters it is murky and unclear. When our flow isn’t restrained but we must above all costs reach our destination with speed, we can be murky and unclear in explaining our intentions to others for fear of possibly being derailed from our path.

There is no wind today. The trees are yin and the waters are yang. The trees are in quiet contemplation over the roiling waters, unconcerned over what goes on below and only concerned over their own plans. Wood can be quite single minded its own ideas and can fail to consider what is going on around it.

Water goes down to total yin, away from Heaven, towards depth. It is pulled up by the Yang of Wood to manifest as life. The energy of water finds the path of least resistance, whereas wood grows up through resistance. There seems to be an urgency to water until it reaches its depth. Whatever amount of gravity is allowed to it, it will take it. You give a water constitution person a foot, and they will take a mile. This is not so with wood. Wood will grow in its own time and in proportion to its season and chosen plan. It will push through obstacles that stand in its way, whereas water will simply move around the next obstacle without any direct confrontation until it has found its resting place.

As the snow melts the ground is waterlogged and even the earth cannot exert its controlling power over it. When our minds are flooded we often have difficulty feeling grounded and contained. Our boundaries become meaningless as we overcome everyone with the force of our will. The melt takes all the nutrients away and washes them out. Having no time to seep deep into the soil, our reserves are never contained, are squandered and are washed away by whatever latest flood or catastrophe has taken over our lives.

The river was like an unleashed torrent – raging, roaring, and forcing its way against the rocks that say in the middle of the river. Once the obstacle was overcome, the river once again become peaceful and unencumbered from its low. The water roils in possibilities of different directions, trying to find the path of least resistance. Yet it is still determined in its path. The boundaries created by the rocks are still, watchful and seemingly unassaulted by the danger rolling around them. They quietly guide the raging river down towards their destiny. Anything less solid than the self-assured rock would be in grave danger if you got in the way of the water. Still, water has a way of wearing you down over time.

If we’re overflowing like a raging river, everything is pummeled and beaten. Our judgement and discrimination is murky, unruly, unfocused, and unclear. We will go where we want regardless of what or who is in our way. Our thoughts flow, and flow, and flow into every corner of our mind as we’re unable to contain ourselves and take rash actions in the face of dangers or obstacles. Fantasy and reality intermingle as our nervous system keeps us on constant alert.

The waves and ripples on the surface of the river illustrate the changing state between activity and inactivity, of advance and withdrawl, gathering in and rushing forth. The wisdom of the timing and knowing of when it is appropriate to withdraw and when it is appropriate to move forward is innate in the water element. Only when we cultivate this wisdom in ourselves will we not be squandering our resources when it's inappropriate to move forward, or when we do not have enough strength.

The qualities of movement of a stream and of a river are quite different. The smaller the body of water, the lighter the sound, the gentler the flow. Less effort on the part of plants and animals needs to be risked to tap into its flow. There is less to risk, and less to lose. When our resources are low our ability to sustain life is weak. When our rivers are wide and full, all of nature thrives at our riverbanks. People are attracted to those who have power, money, and skill.

Life gathers to the river much like people gather to the resources of others for security and ‘ability’. Ability and money are the highest prized possessions. He who has spiritual, mental, and financial resources becomes the focus of everyone’s attention. And he who has access to resources ‘wins’. Wars are fought over resources. This is the unstoppable and primal will and instinct of nature towards self-preservation. All skills are born out of this element. They are currencies of exchange. Nature competes constantly for the best pool of resources. Trees strangle other trees, one pack of lions will drive out another pack of lions from the watering hole, and if the lions are hungry all they need to do is hang out around the watering holes until their prey is thirsty. He’s who’s strongest, fastest, most clever, and conniving wins.

As a culture we do not know what it takes to bring all the food and abundance into our grocery stores and all the services and products we take for granted. We’ve lost the ability to truly know how to struggle for our own survival when everything has been catered for us. As a result, we squander the resources we have because we never appreciate what it took to acquire them. Someone’s blood, sweat, and tears toiled the land, irrigated the plants, and picked their fruit to bring the food to the table. The huge expenditure of resources to bring food from farm to fork is hidden in the spread-out cost of a few bucks it took to buy the ingredients at the store.

We go to work to expend our water (resources: time, energy), to turn it into water (resources: money), so we can secure our existence (resources: food, sleep, vacation time). Majority of our life is in transacting our internal water for the internal water of others and of the waters of the land.

In our culture of getting and acquisition we see how the same story line of nature is repeated in the reality TV shows all focused at the acquisition of money, beauty, power, notoriety, material possessions, cars, iPods, houses. Everything is acquired and everything is transacted. The same game of getting hasn’t fundamentally changed since the dawn of time.

Our bladder is the manifestation of the frenetic energy which we direct towards the acquisition of external resources as we interact with the world. The meridian runs from the eyes which see the object of our desire and flows down to the feet which giving us the ability to stand erect and move forward towards what we’ve seen as the goal of our pursuit. It is our longest meridian, irrigating our whole being with the energy necessary to go and get our potential.

Likewise the kidney is the manifestation of our deep reserves what are most precious and worth protecting in us. This might be symbolized by the kidney meridian which runs down the front of our chest and abdomen and down the inside of our legs, as allowing us to curl in and protect ourselves against all potential danger should our deepest reserves be threatened.

Irony and Re-incarnation...

2010-01-15T11:12:00.004-10:00

The subtitle to "The zen you find on top of mountains is the zen you bring up there", and my subtext "... but choosing a good mountain helps" is ultimately ironic. I had chosen the volcanic mountain of Hawaii, but it turned out the mountain I was really seeking was that of Colorado. Perhaps my life will consist of traveling between mountains - if for no other reason than to change my point of view.

My family mentioned that they felt disappointed that I had stopped blogging since I had moved to Colorado. I realized that I had no answer for why this was. A friend stated "The moment you stopped blogging was the moment I knew that you were happy". In that startling and incisive insight she revealed the reality of what this blog had largely consisted of: a venue for online therapy and the communication of the angst associated with the pursuit of a destiny for myself which began when I set foot on the islands of Hawaii.

When I moved to Colorado the quest had ended and with it my reason for writing. To my family and friends: I am happy. I love where I live. I love what I'm doing. Thank you for concerns, your best wishes, and support. I am so grateful to all you've given to support me on my journey through my dark time of confusion and uncertainty.

As the old intention passes into the void, my new intention for this blog is for it to reincarnate as a journal of my insights into the nature of the Five Elements, as part of the fulfillment of my studies.

Namaste

Arapaho Pass & Lake Dorothy Trail

2009-09-04T09:36:00.006-10:00

Last weekend Lukasz, his two dogs Figaro, Pebbles and I took off for the Arapaho Pass trail. A gorgeous hike that climes to over 12,000 feet above sea level, a mile higher than the mile high planes of the Colorado flat lands. The temperature varied from ~85-35 as we encountered higher winds at increasing elevation. I plan to return to this place in the spring when the wind flowers are in full bloom. The hike and various interesting facts about it can be read here.

This week I moved into my new apartment and after spending time unpacking, hanging pictures, and decorating I sat down to my first coffee from my very own coffee maker in my very own place with a view of aspen leaves fluttering in the wind like green coins.

Fall is coming...

The Move to Boulder

2009-08-20T18:53:00.003-10:00

Whoever thought it was a good idea to drive from Maryland to Colorado after only a couple days of rest after flying from Hawaii, on top of lots of shopping, buying two chairs off of craigslist, packing up a huge truck and leaving MD at 6pm on a Sunday should be stopped before they cause harm to self and others. Oh wait, that was me.

After traveling 1,700 miles from Maryland to Colorado through fields upon fields of flatlands and corn last week in a rickety penske truck with poor alignment and a crooked axle, the view of mountains in the distance was a sight for sore eyes. What followed was a week of terribly frustrating beginner's luck in locating a good car and an apartment within my price range that had any sunlight at all, and which wasn't located in the midst of downtown Boulder's college housing district. I was blessed to have Suzy by my side to help me deal with the stress of this endeavor and helping keep me positive :)

The Car...

I was looking at Subarus, Audis, Saabs, Volkswagens, and a few Nissans, and Toyotas. Of the above which was not sold when I called, and which was within my price range with less than 130,000 miles, we only saw about 5 vehicles. All were in various states of disrepair, dirtiness, damage, and lemoniness (yes, Wikipedia states this is a word - "The state or quality of being lemony". Google shows 6,690 search results). Finally after deciding that the car I was really after was going to be a Passat or a Jetta, I made several appointments for all of the ones I could find within my price range and general criteria of not being a POS. The first VW I saw was a stick shift, with a well running engine, but very poorly looked after interiorly and exteriorly. The second ended up as my car, and it has a good story...

His name was Noah (not the car, the guy). Apparently he had booked an appointment to have this guy Todd's Passat inspected by a local Volkswagen mechanic. While test-driving Todd's car, he managed to plow it into an open man hole cover at a gas station, and ended up busting the car's oil pan. Now Noah had not only a pissed owner on his hands, but a $200 repair bill to pay for. In addition to this, Noah was a young college kid who didn't have cash to pay for the car, but was working on a car loan, and making sure he could get insurance for it.

By the time I saw Todd to test drive the car, I met him at the mechanic where the car was being fixed and inspected. Todd was all but begging me to make an offer on his car, so that he wouldn't have to sell it to Noah. At this point, the owner was willing to eat the cost of fixing the car rather than letting Noah pay for it. I made Todd a cash offer only $100 above what Noah was going to need to pay for it, and in hind sight, I could have made an equal offer in cash, and Todd would have taken it just so he didn't have to deal with Noah anymore.

Todd ended up footing the bill for the repair, and I took Noah's cost of the car inspection so at least poor Noah wouldn't be stuck without a car, and with a $100 inspection bill, and $200 bill for the broken oil pan.

I was en route to see more passats that day when Todd called accepting my offer and stating that Noah had backed down and cancelled the inspection. Poor Noah was apparently lost for words when Todd called him saying he had gotten a cash offer, and that Noah would have to beat it, on top of the repair costs.

The funny thing is that after calling to cancel my next two appointments, one of the appointments called me back and said "Oh man, that sucks. I just finished cleaning out my car when you called. Gimme a call back if you change your mind". If he had just finished 'cleaning out his car', I wonder what I would have found ;) Based on the sound of the guy, I was glad I had made a good decision.

Some College kid somewhere in Boulder, named Noah is probably cursing my name right now, because he doesn't have a car. But at least he didn't have to pay for his mistake. I'm still trying to determine whether the karma train is in my favor, or in Noah's favor. After all, I took Noah's car from under him, but given the extra cost of fixing it (based on what came out of the inspection), I probably did him a favor.

The inspection was the most meticulous piece of work I have seen anyone do in an extremely long time. The owner of the shop took over an hour explaining each thing they did, what they found, what it meant, why the car has it, why it happens to cars, what the issue signifies, what the cost might be to fix it, and what to expect from maintaining this vehicle. I left more educated and completely empowered, and fully eyes wide open from this conversation - I also left knowing I had found the right mechanic.

The owner of the shop (a Volkswagen and Audi shop exclusively) owns a Passat himself. This is a good sign. He also stated that he was happy to have ruined potential sales before with prior inspections he's done over the years, and that he's pleased to say that overall Todd's car was a good car.

He mentioned about $200 worth of work that should be done fairly soon, with another potential $200 worth of work to replace the serpantine belt within the near future. He also noted that the car will need new rotors and new break pads soon. All in all, he stated that I'd be looking at an estimated total of $1,000 in expenses within the next year or so because this car is a '99, has 128,000 and the things that need work are just regular expected wear and tear. The maintenance history on the car was also pretty immaculate based on going over all of Todd's maintenance records. All things said and done, with estimated cost of maintenance in the next year included, I still got a car within my budget, and around the same amount of money which I reclaimed from the sale of my Jeep back in Hawaii.

So.. I think his name is either Leo (ala stage presence), or Stewart (ala Mad TV). Suzy and I have yet to decide. Its hard to tell the color, but its metalic forest green with tan leather interior, iPod hookup and power everything.

The House...

Arriving in the last two weeks before University of Colorado, Boulder school starts, a time when all of UC Boulder's 5,833 incoming freshmen students are attempting to locate housing severely frustrated the quest, with most quality places already taken. The pickings in Boulder proper were slim, dirty, old, falling apart, overpriced, small, dark, or next to train tracks. Pickings outside Boulder were also slim, but more reasonably priced and that is where my quest eventually found its rest. The stories were all very similar "I love my place, I'm only moving out because I'm moving in with my boyfriend". One exception was a guy who apparently loved the condo complex so much that after dumping his girlfriend, he decided to rent an apartment in the same complex.

Since our search was yielding nothing, we were forced to rent a storage unit to move all of my stuff into prior to returning the penske truck on Saturday night. We found a storage unit in Arveda (a district of Denver) rather than selecting a more local Boulder location because of the huge price difference. The couple who operate and live on the grounds of the Mini U-Store It location (no they do not live IN an actual storage unit - but they do live out the back of the office with a small fenced in yard inside the complex) were absolutely charming, and both very motherly in their hospitality. After working out a deal where my fist month of rent is only $20, they brought us water and gave us free drop cloths to protect my chair and mattress while Suzy and I unpacked the truck. Once they left us with supplies, they went back into their office to close up, and go home for the day (through the door in the back), and went about home life - firing up the grill in the back yard - all surrounded by and contained in the barbed wire fences of this secure storage complex.

The lady's prior husband used to be a doctor. She got rid of him, and found happiness with a guy with whom she could work side by side and live with inside a storage facility along with their pet chihuahua who's name escapes me. Vignettes of life continue to bless me with studies in the simplicity of human love, humility and life.

God bless apple, and google for coming up with technologies which allow us to be natives in a foreign land through their guided GPS systems that located everything we ever wanted, and got us there. Our ability to be on the road, and read craigslist postings within minutes of them being posted, looking up the addresses, verifying the parts of town they were at, and getting immediate routing allowed us to preview scores of properties, drive by to evaluate some before calling, and make closely scheduled appointments to view many in a day.

After a further two days of nonproductive searching - a time filled with battling stress, sleep deprivation (due to allergies, and noisy cats), and extreme dehydration from Denver's extremely dry and rarified climate made for indulgences in hopelessness over ever finding something adequate to live in. This hopelessness had me consider a location which while being in a good location, good neighborhood, having ample light, a good floor plan and located right next to a lovely park at the end of a deadend street - had rotting floor boards on the staircase up to the front door, and several partial boards on the back staircase which could have given way any moment. The balcony railing moved six inches in any direction your finger nudged it, and was reinforced with two randomly nailed planks of wood to prevent its total collapse. While speaking with the realestate agent who was showing it to us, it became apparent that the owner of the building had no intention of fixing the dilapidated exterior. I wonder who would pay for the injury lawsuits resulting from the collapse of this building. The fact I seriously considered this location was a result of complete desperation given the amount of properties we had seen prior to this 'promising' fixer-upper.

On Tuesday morning, the winds of change blew in a breath of fresh air. I came across a 1 bedroom condo in a small but new condo complex in Louisville, with plenty of light, a great kitchen and a non-boxy floor plan, a washer and dryer, new carpeting and appliances - within walking distance of my new school, and within 10 minutes drive to the thriving college town of Boulder all at the price of $695 a month.

I get to move into my new home around the first of September. After leaving Hawaii to relocate to Colorado I've felt very displaced, and despite the hospitality of others, I desperately wish to move in to a place of my own, get settled, and resume my studies.

The School...

This week we decided to stop by the new school unannounced just to check out the building. Its a great building, very clean, very well organized, modern, and very professional. The people are warm and friendly, the library is smaller than my prior school, but functional, plus they have an on site book store for all of the required books. They have 3 spacious treatment rooms with comfortable seating, a desk, a sink, and basically a similar setup to what you find at a western doctor's clinic. The school and clinic are located in a medical complex and shares building space with a western doctor's office. The medical complex has many modalities making referral business easier. Downstairs is a student's lounge, including a shower and a futon for anyone who needs a nap. They have two classrooms - a large one with plenty of floor space with yoga mats, etc, and a smaller one for upper classmen.

I took a look at the literature in the clinic lobby, and based on reading a few simple things in the brochure given to clients, I knew I had found the place for me. Each new client should allow 3 hours for their first intake, and 2 hours for each treatment session. This is what I was expecting from my previous experience with 5E schools and I'm really glad that they follow the same principles of diagnosis and practice, rather than a more rapid triage based approach emphasized by a few supervisors at my prior school. I suppose it all depends on what the desired outcome is and the diagnostic rubric. The techniques and philosophies are so different, I don't really know what to expect as I'm not familiar with the one on one 5E treatment since my first 5E experience in a community clinic setting, where the intake is very quick and treatment is in a communal setting. Expediency of treatment in that setting takes priority over extended diagnosis. The lengthy 3 hour intake I had once was for an herbal consultation. It will be interesting to see what the one on one 3 hour acupuncture intake entails. Still, I like that what will be taught is the more extensive one on one diagnostic process. All in all, I feel based on what I've seen at the school thus far that this is the right place for me. It will be interesting trying to integrate what I've learned thus far into what I am going to encounter now.

The Day's Adventuring...

Lukasz and Judith belong to a local farmers cooperative which distributes allotments of local organically grown fruit and vegetables on a weekly basis out of a truck in the back parking lot of a local synagogue. You don't know what veggies you'll get from week to week, but the surprise bestows on you mystery vegetables of the week which can tantalize the pallet with unbeatable quality of the produce. The expectation alone is nail-bitingly good.

Today, since they're away while I look after their cats, I picked up a bundle of red kale, some zucchini, baby potatoes, squash, yellow peppers, two cantaloup, a melon, and a dozen or so ripe peaches. I shamelessly ate peaches three this afternoon.

Other than picking up the veggies at the synagogue, my remaining accomplishments for the day included a curiosity-inspired self-directed tour of Louisville and Lafayette (the two communities wherein my new home is located), and lunch at a salvadorian pupusas truck stand on a street corner in Louisville, a few clicks down from my new address on West Centennial Drive. My only other accomplishment today has been to open a local bank account and several random conversations with friendly strangers.

Looking Forward...

This morning I took a look at Naropa University's community class workshops. Through their site I found a T'ai Ch'i teacher, Bataan Faigao of Rocky Mountain T'ai Chi who teaches the Cheng style lineage (the form I had been learning in DC prior to leaving) at Naropa for $405, but teaches the same class outside of Naropa's per-credit-hour-cost, at $150 for 15 sessions - I believe the same cost as my Shi Fu Michael Ward in Maryland. The class starts the evening of September 15th. I do not know what time my school intensives run till, but hopefully I will be able to go to these classes thereafter which start at 7:15pm.

Additionally, there is a weekend workshop, Breeze of Simplicity on the basics of sitting meditation taught at Naropa, with Tibetan Buddhist lama, Anyen Rinpoche November 13th-15th for $195.00

Here's a listing of some other Public Courses taught through Naropa, as well as some Community Events .

Tomorrow?

I have no idea.

Mahalo, Hawaii.

2009-07-30T21:15:00.003-10:00

I am observing myself living in an active major change cycle. I do not know where it will lead. The destination is predetermined: Boulder, Colorado.

I will be leaving Hawaii on Thursday, just a few short days away after concluding my final exams of the year.

Looking back on the year has shown me visions of how I reacted poorly to change and pressure from school and work, and how I adjusted to a complete uprooting of all of my grounding practices, habits, and ways of life. School and work became 100% of my focus, without any time for fulfilling on my promises to myself of good health, adventure, and spiritual practices.

Going through a growth spurt without proper nourishment and cultivation is difficult on a human being as it is difficult on a plant. With too much water, the plant is overwhelmed and rots. With too much sun and not enough water, the plant is scorched and withers. With no nutrition in the soil, the plant's growth is stunted. When the plant grows in too many different directions all at once, its strength is spread too thin, and yields poor, flavorless fruit. With pruning, watering, sunlight, good soil, and good air, the plant can flourish and bloom. When the plant is not nourished well enough to grow tall and strong, change as represented by wind, comes along and snaps its branches, as the plant hasn't grown strong, flexible, and firmly rooted in its soil to weather the change when the winds of change come to stress it.

This year has seen me go through depression, gloominess, indecision, inaction, anger, resentment, frustration, apathy, resignation, cynicism, hopelessness, as well as courage and determination. Most of these emotions are all associated with the wood element. These are all emotions associated with growth.

As I embark on a new growth spurt after planting the seeds of a new plan to pursue my choice of nourishment in a healing modality defined around assisting human beings in all transitions in life, I embark this summer with renewed enthusiasm, and loving support of my friends and family to reap the fruit of my labor by entering a new community in Boulder.

Letting go of the old stresses, objects, places, habits, decisions, resentments, frustrations, old hopes, and old excuses is the biggest hurdle to any new growth. Old growth must be pruned back after it has withered and died, because it will choke a new plant and prevent it from manifesting its potential. In this manner, I must settle all expenses here, with my short sale, and with my car. I must be willing to lose a branch of old growth after letting go of the grief over it, and the fear of not having all the resources I need to begin a new growth cycle.

Today I sold my car. It will be picked up on Saturday after my last clinic shift at the school. I'm getting less for it than I would like, but it will help buy me a new car in Colorado. Letting go of it brought me an hour or so of grief, as the symbol of my last major physical and financial attachment to this place dissolves itself in preparation for the new. I must learn to live in the unknown without worry and trust that all will be revealed at the right time, and the road made clear.

I am blessed to have had these lessons, and though I find it so difficult to be thankful for them, I know they exist for me to learn the nature of the elemental flow in life in the areas of my weakness, such that I can learn the becoming of mastery. I know them to be lessons in humility - the acceptance of my lack of mastery in so many areas of my life - all pointing out the areas of pain that need the most attention. Trials by Pele's fire, they have been and her particular brand of education leaves burn marks as reminders that the lesson is not learned until the scar is fully healed. Mahalo Pele.

As my current school's final exams cause a welling up of a brief frenzy of activity, and fade away in an aftermath of collective sighs of relief - they leave the class with feelings of anticlimactic completion mixed with awe at the cumulative year-long accomplishment, and simultaneous exhaustion. Four more finals next week. One on Tuesday, and 3 on Wednesday.

Wednesday night I pack, do my laundry, clean my room, settle any final expenses, seal up my remaining box of books, and go to sleep. On Thursday I take my box to the post office, and drive back in time to have my roommate take me to the airport.

Maryland, and a cross-country trip await shortly thereafter. Till then.

Changes

2009-06-26T18:08:00.002-10:00

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.

True Medicine

2009-05-18T08:41:00.000-10:00

This weekend I attended a workshop in Berkeley held by Lonny Jarrett, entitled Chinese Medicine in the 21st Century. What follows is a collection of thoughts and conclusions from my trip.

Self-realization...

Having been revealed today as a Small Intestine constitutional type (subset of Fire) was quite unexpected. At first it seemed more to me that my current set of problems were more recent Small Intestine acquisitions, yet when I take time to reexamine my life through the context of this lens, much more seems to fit than a primary constitution of metal. What is true, however, is that elements exist within elements, and my prior assumption that I was metal has in large part fallen on me to reconcile into a newly suggested framework. What I did know previously is that there is a primary and a secondary elemental type, and much of the secondary element is created conditioning and assumed coping mechanisms layered on top of natal conditioning.

While I'm still processing what has occurred this weekend, and sorting through it (as a Small Intestine does), one thing that ran true is that a Small Intestine constitutional type in a pathological state does not know how to separate that which is pure, essential, and succinct from everything else. Because of this, the SI type has a belief of "I am misunderstood", or "I cannot understand". This results in ceaseless attempts to explain itself over and over again as it fails to clearly separate that which must be communication from that which doesn't through proper articulation. This generates a person who creates 14 page articles on something that could be articulated in a few short paragraphs. This creation just happens to be one more of them :)

In a healthy state the SI is able to recognize that which is worth keeping and that which is superfluous, and garbage. In a pathological state, it oscillates - seeking to avoid commitment to any one thing and putting a stake in the ground about its value - and therefore pursuing it till completion. Because of its inability to extract the essence, it lacks nourishment. Because of the failure of my subdued fire to control the metal of my Large Intestine, this has resulted in a very Metal methodology of dealing with life. Metal precision and perfectionism becomes a predominant characteristic.

An example of this has resulted in my taking over 100 pages of notes this weekend - total and complete inability to sort through anything - so I keep it all, as much as possible and confuse myself completely in the process. Its interesting how all of my career choices have had to do with dealing with vast quantities of data in order to extract the essence. My prior career was a compensation for the lack of applying this same skill in other areas of my life, where paradoxically it functioned so extremely well within the context of software development, and problem solving inherent in technical project management.

Since the remainder of this post was written yesterday, I've not edited it much, and am not going to apologize for its run-on nature. I will simply make conscious choices henceforth to attempt to edit myself more :) The possibility of being supported in this through Five Element acupuncture is much of a relief, while at the same time realizing I cannot take myself off the hook.

Conclusions from Berkeley...

After concluding the first day of the seminar on Chinese Medicine in the 21st century with Lonny Jarrett I took a walk through Berkeley. Much of this post's words are my interpretive summation of some of Lonny's words articulating what I have instinctively known to be true and what I have failed to articulate and distinguish before.

The picture that Lonny paints has been an integration of several new paradigms of thought:

Integral Theory
Spiral Dynamics
Evolutionary Enlightenment

Theories largely introduced and developed through work of Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen at the Integral Institute and Enlighten Next organization. What Lonny brings to the table is a paradigm of medicine designed to harness Five Element constitutional diagnosis and treatment as it applies to the nourishing of individual and global destiny in the context of the above theories.

I did not have any questions of substance for Lonny today, because from what I surmise, I have all of the 'information' already. Lonny has the knowledge, experience, and level of integrity which creates the living embodiment of the values and what those values make possible alive in him as an example of that to which I aspire and will in myself to become. Most of what I could have asked I knew the answers to already, and anything technical or informational is not a relevant question - because either he'll talk about it, or its already in his book or available on his forum. If anything, as a sign of respect I must read the book first. All of what I learn and aspire to can be practiced now in all areas of my life. What's missing for me is not the information, and this weekend has clarified it for me vividly. I'm not practicing and thus acquiring the skills I aspire to cultivate in myself. Through practice and consistently shifting my attention off the ego, clearing away inauthenticity, focusing on the creative impulse and authentic self, I know I can cultivate these virtues to the degree of integrity that I know I can. The realization of my lack of integrity in this simply brings me shame.

Shame:

All the practices I must follow I already know about. I'm not missing the information. All I'm missing is the action under the guise of 'getting ready' to be ready - delaying responsibility by thinking and talking about it and making it more complicated than it is. All truth is fundamentally so simple we as a species complicate things by talking about it rather than acting upon it. Even in meeting with some people during breaks it became apparent to me just how willing we are to talk about what we know we should do as an act of delaying taking action. Much of what goes on in churches and support groups after the meeting is over is a mutual pat on the back and agreement about why its hard to be authentic and actually follow the words spoke. Its a stream of justifications and cynical marginalization with a prompt exit towards the nearest restaurant where what was talked about can be forgotten and replaced with good tasting food to obliterate one's senses and make one feel better about not living up to instilled potential.

Its for this reason that I found myself silent today. Silence is the only appropriate response for me in the face of knowing that I'm missing is action - and the silence is simply nothing more than my own shame. I cannot hide under the blanket of pretending to not understand and the blanket of continuing to need clarification just as a delay tactic for taking on what I authentically know is true.

Even right now I want to give myself an out about making a commitment to meditating - something I know will yield untold benefits - but I delay to give myself an out from the practice because my ego seeks a better more fun, more pleasurable experience. Many people can have a 'truth' and talk about it fluently, but have no integrity in their lives about it - myself included. We're all well read experts on our favorite well intentioned topics which require nothing more than action. The worst thing we want is to be shamed into action, and to be humbled - yet this is the kind of medicine we need to wake up from our own selfishness. There is no greater compassion than to give people back their meaningful pursuit of purpose in their lives as a remedy to resignation and cynicism.

The Trance of Narcissistic Self-Absorption:

I reflected on the day while walking the streets of Berkeley. I became present to just how much work there is to be done in the world - how many experience-chasing narcissists walk the streets pursuing the next thing to make their privileged lives more comfortable and pleasant - how many people are self absorbed with their own problems and excuses for why their lives take on such mediocrity - myself among them - everyone patting eachother on the back with the unspoken placation and mutual agreement: "what a hard life you've had, its ok, do something nice for yourself, lick your wounds, you're a victim of such a stressful life, go to the spa, get a massage, a pedicure, or attend a conference on chinese medicine - go buy your next good experience, you deserve it".

The Illusion that All things are Relative:

Post-modern people live in the illusion that there is no absolute truth, and that all truth is relative. You're experience is just as valid as my experience. This occurred after authoritarian hierarchies such as belief in institutionalized religion was abolished with the baby boomer generation. The failure to realize that if you are to have any authentic spiritual life it necessitates the belief in the existence of hirearchy was forgotten - i.e., there's something higher than you which obviously points you away from your self-referencing relativistic truth. Instead all truth and all religions became relative truths and stopped being regarded as absolutes. The getting rid of absolute truth created a culture where everyone gets to escape from being judged and all actions no matter how insane or unethical become ignored for sake of the collective illusion of peace. If you notice, there is no place in nature and peace does not exist naturally. This manifest universe is not a space for peace - chaos exists at all levels, because the universe is not about peace and stasis, its about change.

Post-modern narcissists ignore responsibility to the community, to the world, and most of all, anesthetize their own conscience and listen mostly to their permission-giving rationalizations for self-absorbed vain narcissistic experience-seeking indulgences. All of this in order to avoid doing in their relationships, families, places of work, and communities what they authentically know needs to be done deep in their heart. Making all truth relative has elevated the self, the I, the me to be the judge of all phenomenon as the dictator of absolute truth - noone can judge me. I create my own reality.

Buddhism and the Post-modern mind...

Today's Buddhists in the west cannot possibly relate to the original doctrines that all life is suffering. There is very little suffering in the west. All of the physical suffering has been eradicated for the middle class. We're fed, clothed, educated post-modern people, with absolute freedom and no externally applied stress. The only suffering that remains is suffering created purely as a result of human choice and not acts of God creating floods, earthquakes, and famines.

When survival needs are met and a middle class develops, suddenly problems which before were completely inconsequential become the focus of day to day life. When there is no absolute hierarchy, noone needs to respect tradition and follow external authority, the authority becomes all internal. Hence why morbid self-interest has become the disease of the 21st century and given birth to psychoanalysis and therapy - because all that remains of the threats to the individual exist within choosing mind and its decision making narcissism-driven processes. Its these processes then that seek nothing more than to feel better and better all the time about the guilt, hopelessness and meaninglessness felt as a result of having an existential void - a lack of direction in life other than relativistic selfish pursuits born purely out of self-referencing.

Divine Justice:

Some people who have had near death experiences have reported that in the second after death where the nervous system releases control over the egoic filter people see their lives for what they really were, and what they really could have been if they had followed every impulse they knew was authentic and had integrity. To those people watching the movies of their entire incarnation playing out and the potential their lives could have manifested in life is the final excruciating justice a person can receive to see how they used what was bestowed to them at birth. Whether you believe this actually occurs or not is unimportant. What's important is the implication this has on examining what our lives are for, what we could become if we take living an authentic life seriously. Doing so is simply a matter of choice, and not a matter of conditioning or agreement.

Since globalization and the advent of science and the industrial evolution of the 1800's, God is no longer deciding the destiny of this planet. God is not running monsanto and genetically polluting the world's food supply. God is not poisoning the lakes and the rivers. All of these are direct consequences of human choice. This has everything to do with the evolution of our race's global value system - or lack thereof.

Our value system has had to shift over time from survival of the self, to the family, to the tribe, to the race, to the nation, to the planet, and finally to the process of life itself. We may operate at the level of identification with any one of these value systems, but the bottom line is that noone below the global value system has any inkling of why its important to recycle, for example. Global consequences of our actions and the extinction of the species is not considered by value systems prior to this level, and most Judeo-Christian religions are mostly concerned with leaving this rock from a dated belief that we were somehow plonked on it out of nowhere by God, rather than born of the Earth as the most current incarnation of consciousness and spirit itself.

The responsibility for stewardship of the planet has been swept under the rug of "what's the point, God's coming soon anyway to clean up our mess", we can do what we damn well please. He'll forgive us anyway. Well, if you notice, this hasn't happened yet and each generation of Christians think their generation will be the last one and the end will come soon. This lack of planning for the future and resignation about the fate of our planet and all species on it is a complete lack of responsibility and laziness, and ignoring of reality. In the meantime, the scriptures read "Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the earth". 'Meek' could be translated from the original scripture as "those that follow the laws of nature" but has been replaced with an obscure term that is thrown from the pulpit with no consideration for its actual meaning.

Its interesting to consider that the Mayan prophecies about the end of the world all state that the very ones who have damaged and polluted the earth will be charged with its restoration and the starting of a new age. We're still very far from taking responsibility for our abuses we've exercised on our home and eachother as a species. We're too self-absorbed and our value systems around the globe will only catch up if narcissism is renounced for sake of the greater good.

The Illusion of no Hierarchy:

The cancer of the ever capitulating, hirearchy-renouncing post modern mind walking today's streets generates an unspoken anesthetic - its all relative, everyone is equal, everyone's opinions are valid, you do you're thing, I'll do my thing, nobody is wrong, therefore don't judge me, and I won't judge you, you can't tell me what to do, I'll do what I want, how I want, when I want it, and everything will be just fine. We can live around eachother ignoring the lack of ethics, manipulation, self-centeredness and self-absorption that permeates every decision and action perpetuated by the egoic self in an attempt to feel better about the latest setback in the quest for power, sex, or money, because hey - my view of life is just as valid as yours. Shameless self-absorption. Where's our ethical spine? There is a natural hirearchy, and yes, some views of life ARE more superior than others. Certainly you would not say that Hitler and Ghandi were on the same evolutionary level? Therefore you wouldn't say that people who don't keep their word are on the same level as people who do keep their word?

Today when kids are introduced to adults they barely shake their hand, don't look them in the eye and return to playing their video game. They have no respect and natural fear and awe for hirearchy. This is because their parents who resulted from the post modern culture don't respect anybody and treat everyone as peers - or worse, as less than themselves - through a narcissistic belief that each one of us is special and therefore better than everyone else. When you have no respect for hierarchy, your values end up transferring to your children. There's no respect for elders, or teachers - because hey man, just cos you've lived longer on the planet, and have more experience doesn't make you any better than my narcissistic self, and therefore don't judge me, I can do what I want, and think what I want. Its a free country. Only when the natural hierarchies are restored (as opposed to artificial hirearchies designed to control people and pursue power) and there is recognition that we as a species have an evolutionary impulse and a collective purpose to our lives will we be able to truly take responsibility for the mess post-modernism has inflicted on the spirit, and on the planet.

This egalitarianism is what has created the movement of equal rights to where we now have extended space for such expressions of equal rights as gun right, logger's rights, homophobic bigots' rights, etc. Throwing our hirearchy has thrown out ethics for the sake of getting along without conflict - ignoring the responsibility we have for creating a future that works. As was reflected in today's discussions the democratic party are capitulatory and mild and don't get anything done because they're too busy trying to figure out how to get along with the republican party and to find common ground with everyone's point of view - as if they're ethically equal (i.e., post-modern relativism). The republicans on the other hand have no qualms about taking action regardless of the feelings of others for sake of a 'just' cause such as war. The democrats on the other hand spend most of their time saying "excuse me, pardon me, sorry, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings.", and therefore avoid doing anything of consequence. The exception to this has been the Obama administration which in principle stands for actual meaningful values in the 21st century and has conviction to pursue them.

The feel good political correctness permeates all baby boomer and post-modern mindset to where there is only stasis and inaction, and people refusing to take a stand for fear of being unpopular because they will hurt someone's feelings, or affect their own political careers. Everyone is just very casual about everything and never takes anything seriously anymore. No evolution has ever occurred in periods of comfort. Evolution only seems to occur when there is stress to motivate it.

The Impact of Evolving Value Systems...

As I walked the streets of Berkeley, I saw how much my life touches and comes in contact with, and just how little it takes to feel completely powerless. The disease of post-modernism gives birth to total and complete cynicism about a brighter future for each individual fulfilling their potential, and the possibility for us as a species. Its a disease of inaction and stasis. And stasis is certain death. The walking dead are everywhere - I refuse to be one of them. Empowerment is nothing more than a choice - the selection of a future as distinct from what people tell us is or is not possible.

If I actually took full responsibility for my own integrity on everything I say I aspired towards, I would probably have lots of enemies, and also large amounts of people following me around. But the fact is that I'm too narcissistic and self-protective to actually do what it really takes to give my all to a cause worth dying for. But, this is not what I'm committed to. Through constant striving for a personal increase in integrity through taking risk when previously I refuse to plants my feet on the path of living up to my ideals. The rest takes will, choice, and responsibility.

Evolution versus Revolution:

The older I get the more distinctly I realize that my value system as one I aspire to and align my will to is evolving beyond self-centeredness and self-gratification and into a value system which sees a larger context for my life and the lives of everyone around me. I no longer share the same value system as most of the people I grew up with and the number of people with whom I can have a conversation about this stuff grows smaller and smaller by the day. As values evolve, so do the relationships I choose to maintain and the people I choose to listen to are those who are on the bleeding edge and less and less with those who are simply content with the status quo.

The recognition of hirearchy can either give the ego something to feel good about by pointing out who is below you on the evolutionary ladder, or it can humble you into seeing just how far you have to go. Only cynics and narcissists will throw stones at you if you're professing something larger just to make themselves feel better about their level of inaction.

Naturally some friends will fall away because as I strive for ever greater integrity in my own life, the ability for cynicism to exist around me will greatly diminish - mainly because I won't tolerate it in others and still allow myself to keep my dignity. There is a hierarchy, and to think otherwise is to avoid taking responsibility for one's actions having an impact on the world. You wouldn't put George Bush and Nelson Mandela as being of equal hierarchy of ethics and values evolution. Calling people on their cynicism and their lack of integrity is not intended to point out the 'mistakes' they have made for purposes of looking superior as a form of spiritual materialism (i.e., look at how great I am - another narcissistic statement). Taking a stand for the possibility a person's life can be is simply pointing people back to the best part of them - reawakening their own conscience - the restarting again the inquiry of what parts of their own value system are they not living up, and where their lives could be free, more meaningful, and more fulfilled as a result - not for their sake, but for the sake of the process itself. Where has the narcissism in them stopped them from fulfilling their own destiny - their own potential? I would expect nothing less of my friends to point this out in me - but sadly, when I point these things out in people, most just throw childish hissy fits and act like wounded victims rather than confront what needs to be confronted to have integrity.

With the first inkling that someone might be shamed into humble realization about their lack of integrity - the first impulse is to attack the other person's integrity as a way of justifying your inaction and assuming the position of a victim. Unless a violent crime happens to you, being a victim is ultimately a choice, and even if a violent crime does happen to you, you only have a right to behave as a victim for as long as it takes for you to realize that you have another option.

Just because someone else has a lack of integrity, this does not absolve you from taking responsibility for the knowledge that has been revealed to you by that person. Renouncing victimhood and taking responsibility for all your words and actions is a necessary step to living with integrity.

To restate the 5 tenets as elaborated by Lonny:

1. Only when a person wants to be free more than anything else will they start taking full responsibility for their circumstances.
2. To the degree a person is taking full responsibility for his or her life circumstances having renounced victimization can they face everything and avoid nothing.
3. To the degree a person is Facing Everything and Avoiding Nothing and has renounced the right to hide *anything* from him or herself can they be transparent.
4. To the degree a person is transparent (there is nowhere in his or her life they would mind others looking) and has renounced the right to take things personally can they strive towards integrity.
5. To the degree that a person strives toward integrity and expresses gratitude for life through giving from a selfless motive can they gain fulfillment of their destiny.

Anything less is collusion and can only help a person feel more comfortable about who he or she already is.

The Price of Conviction:

If I continue to collude with people on their lives remaining mediocre, victimized, and essentially the same - then this would be only as a result of my not having a backbone to stand up and illuminate where they're out of integrity with what they profess their values to be, simply out of my personal fear of rejection and not being popular.

Afterall, most people who really aren't seeking to make their lives meaningful and impactful will run away from that as quickly as possible. Noone has the right to tell them what to do, let alone point them to whether they are being hypocritical. But, if my integrity is to remain and I am to have some dignity about my own values, I cannot continue to live in a pretense that all things are relative, all things are equal, when integrity is one of the few absolutes that one can measure anything by. Integrity is nothing more than standing by your word - standing by your convictions.

The prospect of living with integrity scares me - for it implies the potential to a very solitary life, yet my commitment is that at least some people I encounter in my life will be in for the same ride that I'm on - the life of creating something meaningful, something substantial, something worth giving up everything for and that they will hold me to my values.

Into the Future...

How will this manifest? I'm not sure - what I know is that wisdom will come with forging into the unknown. At the very least, it will mean that I will not be out to help people simply to give them another experience which they can feel good about. Its just perpetuating the myth that they can change when they've had just one more spa treatment, they'll change when they have just one more seminar, just one more donut, just one more fling, just one more retreat, just one more vacation, just a little more time to feel good about themselves before they'll truly be ready to take action on their words.

3 Days of Oahu Adventuring

2009-04-22T21:07:00.010-10:00

Diamond Head Crater...

Here are a few pictures from Monday's adventure to Diamond Head crater, and then Ala Manoa falls hikes. What a full day it was! :) This should give you an idea of Oahu's population explosion:

Manoa Falls Trail...

I wish I had the time to go further into these woods and taken the trail off the side of the falls.

Tuesday...

Tuesday I went to the temple for an additional morning class and found that the second semester students were pretty much on the same par as me regarding their understanding of TCM theory. I also found out that they had covered point location and channel theory for all 12 channels plus extraordinary vessels in one semester - with all point names in Chinese. In my school we do this over the course of a whole year, and we learn the numeric system rather than the Chinese names. They have the same core classes as us, so I wonder what gives in terms of their stress level and ours? I know we covered many many more subjects - but when I think about them, I can't remember what everything was and where all my energy went the first trimester. After meeting with the professor and getting my questions about the spirit channels answered I went back towards the clinic in time for my 1:30 appointment. I met many of the same students I had interacted with and everyone was very friendly. Prior to that I ate sushi at a restaurant which had one of those sushi conveyor belts. It was pretty fun as you can take what you want, and the color of the plate dictates the cost of the item. Mmm... 2 reds, 2 green, and one gray :) Who knew gray could be so tasty!

My acupuncture treatment at the student clinic was so strong that it blew all my qi out - it was too strong and used too many needles for my symptomology. The senior intern used some points that I had no idea about - they were on the scalp and not part of the regular gallbladder and bladder meridian pathways. I was impressed. When I left, I was so exhausted from the treatment and I could barely drive. I had to pull off on the side of the road, recline my seat, and rest for a good half an hour before I could drive again. At the half and hour mark I knew I could not drive because I was exhausted from the treatment, but I felt I had to, and my parking was about to become illegal because of the time of day. Upon returning to the hotel I tried to take an unsuccessful nap.

The treatment was good - it helped alleviate my lung condition entirely and helped me not to worry as much, providing me with many insights, but it left me very depleted. In cases of deficiency the practitioner is to use fewer needled and select fewer points. I don't think this was detected in me given how strong my pulses were and the fact that this was my first time at the clinic.

Question and Answers...

Suzy asked me several questions based on my last blog related to what I'm looking for, and how I will know when I have found it. What follows is an attempt to inquire into those topics:

To answer the question of what is it that I'm actually looking for, I bought a book which arrived several weeks ago but which I have not had the energy nor priority to read. Its a Ken Wilber book on authentic paths to spiritual development. I forget its name. In it he discusses the question of how to find a good spiritual teacher - much of which one can assume naturally. It is this quest that attracted me to Tai Sophia, and this quest that has had me look outside of the Big Island. My time with my sensei is so short each month that I feel like I am not benefiting from the teaching at the pace that is useful, because there is no forum in which to integrate the teaching within the remainder of my TCM training. Still, the teaching I get are not in philosophy, but mainly clinical practice.

What am I missing from my education?

I miss the philosophical basis of this medicine. I miss the integration of foundational concepts. When compared with counseling psychology - its like counseling of the mind, ignoring that there's a body and a spirit, and a couple of hundred years of history and theory. Its like I'm getting training in how to be a mechanic for the human body.

Philosophy in this medicine is of paramount importance if one is to be truly effective. Its like going to church but not knowing anything about the dogma. Every philosophy when executed expresses itself in ritual. In short, what I'm missing is ritual. I miss the power, energy, intuition and self/other awareness that comes with the execution of ritual. Rituals stem from the adherence to and practice of a philosophy in all walks of life - the practice of which grants one the ability to be at one with the philosophy and grants one the results inherent in the execution of the ritual.

The Christian church has its rituals, and the Buddhists and Taoists have their rituals. The rituals I am interested in are the ones that deeply permeate all facets of life - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual - in a way that grants one capacities of intervention in the life of another in order to create course corrections using words, actions, and intention as tools much the same way as an acupuncture needle can create course corrections in the physical and spiritual plane. For me the Christian church only goes so far in defining ritual at least for the lay person - prayer and adherence to lifestyle principles which tend to ignore and in many cases deny the spiritual and energetic inheritance of man in terms of awareness, understanding, and influence upon the material and non-material worlds through the use of ritual to affect changes in time and space as promised to those who execute the rituals and obey the way. There were those monks who through contemplative prayer (meditation) arrived at a profound understanding and unity with the creator (as they understood him/her) that granted them being and influence in the realm of reality simply through alignment with the way, rather than through an attempt to force one's will upon natural laws as a result of attaining some sort of 'special powers'. Its not about learning magic in order to manipulate the world - its about learning magic to work with what is already at play and therefore help facilitate freeing it from whatever stuck pattern it is in, and thus helping it move on. In short - its about helping things stay in motion - therein lies true power as any stagnation causes disease of the body, mind, and spirit and eventually resulting in death. The place of death and stagnation is a topic for another post.

I seek a teacher who will create an environment wherein I am smelted, reformed and forged through practice and structure imposed through that practice that will purify my metal to the highest quality imaginable, such that it can shine in the world and through its authentic brilliance illuminate the darkness and turn people's hearts to life's preciousness and the love that exists beyond judgements, evaluations, stories, and decisions.

I cannot do this on my own. The story I tell myself is that I'm not strong enough to do this on my own - and this story is an interpretation of facts that seem to jive with the stories of my predecessors. Every great teacher had a great teacher - living or dead. There are few who become spontaneously enlightened, and fewer who generate knowledge and wisdom spontaneously. I was in the doldrums and needed the Landmark Forum to show up to propel me to my next stage of evolution. In similar step I have emancipated myself from my former career in order to pursue total and complete excellence. People whom I deeply respect like Lonny Jerrett, and Ken Wilber all had many excellent teachers. Can I learn Tai Qi and Qi Gong on my own? No. I don't believe that these skills can be learned from a book. They must be passed on. How did inventors create them? Through meditation and deep spiritual awakening - therefore their teachers were in other subjects - but they had teachers nonetheless.

The teachers that exist at my school are excellent, and I do not resonate with them. At the Seitai Shinpo graduation I cried. I cried not for the beauty of the graduation and the graduates impassioned speeches alone, but I cried in mourning knowing deep in my heart that Seitai Shinpo was not the modality I wanted my life to be dedicated to, and I mourned the prospect of graduating amongst that group with my heart not invested in it. I feel so completely uneasy writing this in case someone from the school reads this, because though my heart is not in it, I am learning such valuable things at each opportunity when I am in Sensei's presence. There are few who have this privilege, yet this is clearly not my main path. If my Sensei ended my apprenticeship due to this reason, my decision to look for another school would be made.

I do not know what to do. I do not know whether I should stop learning with Sensei out of integrity to the knowledge that I don't want my life to embody this modality, or whether I should continue to learn this modality and become excellent at it, and therefore add it to my arsenal while learning all else she can teach me, and all else I can learn in other ways - be it through self study, or be it through commuting from Oahu while I attend WMI.

My experience at World Medicine Institute was very mixed.

1. I saw that there is a deep respect and use of ritual in this medicine which sets it very much apart from my school.
2. Student's intuitions are very well developed in this school
3. Student's esoteric diagnostic and practice skills are well honed - including such skills as energy field assessment through observation, palmistry, handwriting analysis, etc. To some these skills may seem completely irrelevant to medicine and may seem completely subjective, woo woo, insubstantiated, and 'of the devil' (according to many non-orthodox traditions - noting exception of the orthodox Jewish Kabala practitioners) - I believe that these are information streams which have their place, but which also need to be regarded with healthy skepticism, and when used appropriately with other forms of confirmation can add to the whole picture of a person's past, present, and future prognosis.
4. I like that they teach the points in Chinese and do not use numbers. It allows one to understand the meaning of each point.
5. The Taoist tradition at this schools has chants for the entire Tao de Jing, they also memorize all 28 pulse qualities by chanting them.
6. Moving here will increase my expenses tremendously. I will need to commute and cost of living is higher. Competition for jobs is very strong.
7. They teach free hand needling style which is more authentic than the insertion tube - though through my treatment experience today - more painful.
8. I dislike their clinic environment. Beds are up against a wall - two to a room. Sometimes two patients are seen in each room. The walls do not go up to the ceiling meaning that the patient can hear all conversations including other people's intake interviews. The healing space is just not set up for optimal treatment.
9. The class schedules are so free form that it gives a person ultimate flexibility. You can miss as many classes as you like. All the didactics are put on your own head to learn. The school focuses on theory application and esoterics and tells you that the rest you can learn from a book, so read the book, memorize stuff and pass the tests. This form of learning will give me more free time than I will know what to do with if I am NOT working. The benefit is that I will truly be able to apply myself to the Taoist arts through meditative practice.
10. So far, I've not found a space on the island devoid of human life. There is a trail off of yesterday's trail which I didn't take - but it would provide solitude. So far I have not seen wide empty expanses such as offered by the Big Island. I will drive the whole isle tomorrow.
11. TCMCH offers me private treatment rooms, a quiet and peaceful atmosphere without the hustle and bustle of a city, but it lacks the teachers who will teach the the esoterics. These teachers are also missing in the community.

As for returning to Tai Sophia after I'm done here? I'm not sure that this will be necessary nor desirable. I do not believe that I will want to postpone launching my practice full time while attending another multi-year program - nor that I will be able to afford it. There are shorter courses for existing acupuncturists. What results - I don't know. What would seem more useful after my program is Lonny's clinical integration course. Still this is all far away.

I have seen an alternative during this trip. It was good. It put the benefits of my school's accelerated didactic program ahead of WMI. It also highlighted what TCMCH was missing. I met a student who transferred from a mainland TCM school just one semester ago because it lacked spirituality. She is finding what she wanted and needed at this school. Though these are subjective experiences and cannot be measured.

How will I know when the teacher shows up? I'm not sure. I have no idea how to look. In a way, I really like what WMI stands for, and what they teach, and the fact that the main teacher is a lineage holder of a Taoist tradition that dates back thousands of years is extraordinary - she's the real thing. Noone at my school can claim that. The prospect of switching schools right now is daunting. I will have to relearn all my points again in Chinese. This shouldn't be too bad. It can be done. I can do it during the summer if I do decide to transfer. So far, my decision is to give it time.

Wednesday...

I woke up with a headache, had breakfast, and unenthusiastically decided to drive around the whole island. My mind neither had the focus to sit still and read a book, nor the peace of mind to stop feeling defeated by the past couple days' worth of events. I could just as easily move here to go to school as stay in Waimea. While Waimea would continue to be a test in survival of boredom and spiritual vacuity, Oahu would be a test of too much distraction and lack of externally imposed focus. In Oahu I would have to really work at creating peace within which I could study - yet I find it difficult to do this even on the Big Island due to the pressing disdain in the holes within my program. I think that if I do move to Oahu, I will have to find some way of having a place on my own. I don't get peace at my home, so I feel like I can leave to go outside to get it in the wilderness of the Big Island. Here on Oahu, I will not have the luxury of wilderness to provide me with the escape to solitude. The cost of living here is extremely expensive, so I'm not sure of my chances. Regardless, I will have to work. This island has extremely high competition for job also.

I long for the simple times - the times when I hated my job, but had an income, where I had my own house, my friends, and the illusion of security for the future. I find myself trapped in the ideations of the future and a postmortem of the past. Rarely am I present. But in this realization I find myself present for but a little while. I am putting all decisions on hold.

The eastern part of the island was overcast and when I emerged at the north shore, the sun shone down again. I drove through many changing microclimates absorbing little of the beauty around me. I spent some time at a beach. Oahu has extremely impressive beaches particularly along the north shore. The whole eastern part of the island, either north or south has little to show for it, however. The mountains of the west are arid and beautiful, and the water the most clean due to no fresh water mountain runoff given this region gets very little rain.

This part of the island, however, is where the projects and shanty towns are located. I couldn't believe the amount of poverty and make shift housing on this very overpopulated island - particularly when contrasted with the opulence of Waikiki. There are quiet and remote places on this island, but many of them are lifeless. I've not found very secluded places here, certainly no off roading to speak of that could yield privacy and solitude like the Big Island.

In the afternoon I drove back through the crawling highway traffic back into Waikiki to meet with Marcia - a 3rd year student whom I've befriended and who was also coming here on spring break. We want to have dinner and run a few errands at the mall. Tomorrow I must check out of my hotel and meet Marcia for some kind of adventure before I head to the airport for a strangely anticipated homecoming.

I will want to have some quiet when I come home. The house will be full with guests for at least another week, however. I will look forward to returning to my studies and put some distance between myself and my very mixed experience on this island. Returning to a routine will be good - it will give me a rest, some perspective, and some solitude where I can consider what my next actions should be.

Conclusion...

Time for debate will have to end soon. Either I stay where I am, go to this Taoist school (which would be the most spiritual TCM-based modality available for study) or throw TCM out the window and go to a Five Element school in Gainsville Florida, or Boulder Colorado - both of these locations have excellent schools - the one in Florida may be better given the caliber of teachers located there. At this point, I'm finding that location is icing on cake. Everyone always likes the icing, but you gotta make sure that the cake - the foundation of the desert is good too, unless ofcourse you're one of those people who will sit and eat icing with a spoon.

The 17th Floor of Queen Kapiolani Hotel. Room 1717

2009-04-19T22:29:00.006-10:00

I was in my bunk at the hostel at 10:30. By midnight my eyes were still wide open, and after crawling out of the top bunk and stumbling outside with cell phone and computer, I made a hotel reservation while questioning what I had done in a past life to deserve degree of pain and torture on my spring break. By then it was too late to book in anywhere for the night (and I did think about it), and having made the reservation I resigned myself to returning to my prison cell hoping for divine benevolence. I found the cheapest option through Kayak.com and booked my aerial twin bed extravaganza on the 17th floor of the Queen Kapiolani Hotel. All in all, the room is fine - it has electricity, no roaches, an air conditioner, a bed, and - after banging on the wall to get the neighbors to turn the TV down - a quiet place to lay my head. Above and beyond the $65 a night, I have to pay $15 for the privilege of parking. Many parking garages it seems are ran independently of the bargain hotels.

I was awake the whole night and was aware of the coming and going of everyone in the hostel. plus the shrieks of laughter from returning drunken 20-somethings puncturing the steady rhythmic snores and grumbles from down below adding to my tortured pretending and rocking back and forth that everything was going to be Ok and my vacation was not going to turn into Abu Ghraib. My eyes were bright red when I looked in the mirror this morning - akin to those experiencing waterboarding - and the only thing that propped my eyes open till 3pm when I finally checked into my current hotel in the afternoon was cooing of the Starbucks maiden.

Amidst the series of unfortunate events, including the bursting of a black pen inside my book bag staining my clothes, hands, and computer accessories, the lack of sleep for two days, a car who's power steering would give out on a whim, and getting stopped by a cop for driving down a road where only busses are allowed, my day up till 3pm was tiring, filled with small frustrations, but overall good based on the experiences I had.

Ahh Waikiki...

Only in Waikiki will you find a noodle shop, a chic nightclub for the uber rich with bouncers who's necks are the thickness of your thighs, next to a pistol shooting gallery seemingly manufactured for the Japanese tourist industry and a Salvatore Ferragamo fashionista edifice where women without any muscle left in their arms - but with enough impatient lustful strength in their boney hands and extruding sinews, produce an American Express card out of their Gucci purses in a well worn and fluid motion... and gracefully swipe with a small, tired, yet satisfied sigh.

Where Stupid People come from...

At last - the source of this demographic has been identified, and a few freshly minted copies have been caught on camera. What goes on in Waikiki really should stay in Waikiki. Alas, the gift keeps on giving ;)

Leaving Waikiki...

Once you leave the manufactured plastic and marble playground crawling with white maggots - I mean limos.. and women adorning diamonds on every available surface, accessorizing occasionally with small tatters of strategically draped fabric - you get to experience quite a different Oahu.

Driving round Diamond Head en route to the windward side of the island and my destination - the Valley of the Temples just north of Kaneohe, I encountered an extraordinary sight - hundreds of people, completely unrelated, jogging and cycling along Kalanianaole highway past the mansions, sporting water bottles and brand name spandex and breathable rayon fabrics. A little more lean on my car's steering wheel would have plowed through this artery of gyrating neophytes and scored me at least 10,000 points. Once I passed the freak show of rich panting housewives with prancing poodles along side their pet Tour de France wannabe racer husbands with naired legs and numbered jerseys - the last throws of Waikiki's pretentious excesses gave way to vistas of the most beautiful unspoiled landscapes and beaches I have seen in my short, yet blessed life.

World Medicine Institute...

Nestled within the mountains of this valley is the World Medicine Institute Tai Hsuan Temple. I will be going there tomorrow to sit in on two classes and to talk with the administration about their Chinese Medicine program. I did not venture inside, but decided to snap a few shots for posterity.

East Kalanianaole Highway...

In short - Oahu is unbelievably beautiful - at least the parts that I saw, and I must say that the sights I saw, the most beautiful of which I either did not photograph, or the photos did not turn out well. The beauty I saw tops my previous adoration of Maui's coastline by far, and what Maui and the Big Island offer in terms of Haleakala and Mauna Kea, Oahu makes up for in its welcoming valleys. Maui's and Hawaii's lofty mountains are grand - and the pristine wildernesses compelling - but the treasures hidden on Oahu's weathered windward mountain range and the beaches thereon provide peace and welcome to the heart. Oahu has no highlands or upcountry that I've been to as yet, and this indeed may not exist here. Each island is indeed completely unique and incomparable to another.

The highway gave way to views of splendid beaches with azure water and coral reefs stretching for miles along the barely frequented shores. The towns along this side of the island are small but functional and you're certainly aware of this island being more populated than any of the others. Still, I may find in my quest on Tuesday to drive the whole island that there are more scarcely populated areas to be found. I hope to also go to the bamboo forest I heard about from a friend on the Big Island.

Valley of the Temples...

After stopping a few times to take pictures of some of the many breathtaking sights, I arrived at the Valley of the Templates - a large cemetery against the backdrop of a mountain range. It's known by this name because it is home to so many denominations' temples, including the Byodo-In Buddhist temple - a replica of a temple in Udo(?) Japan, built completely without the use of any nails.

Prior to going into the valley, I stopped at a grocery store to grab some lunch and I ate this very strange but very yummy creation which I pulled out of the deli case - it was a spicy tuna roll, but instead of being in a roll, the spicy tuna filling was put on a bed of rice and sprinkled with roe and dark red pickled ginger. It was very tasty. A note should be made that Hawaii in general is exceptional in terms of having restaurant-quality sushi available at your local grocery store made by in-house sushi chefs at half the price. This is true of all Asian cuisine on Oahu. I was amazed at the amount of Pho restaurants I came across. Not too many Thai, mind you, but my trip is young and I've not been looking :)

Once entering the valley I took my time to drive past some of the monuments and then headed for the Byodo-In temple. I spent about 40 minutes at the temple and took my time to enjoy the scenery. Prior to entering the valley I passed by the grocery store and decided to cut through the only housing development opposite the Valley and much to my surprise I found myself saying - I could live right here next to this valley in this housing community. Its so serene and filled with tremendous outdoor meditation opportunities and opportunities for contemplation. Still, the trip there had taken me 1 1/4 hours with a few minor stops, so I didn't expect that taking the H3 highway back through the mountain would have me back in Waikiki in 15 minutes! How's that from a commute from one world into another?

Had I not been tired, I would have continued along the coast rather than returning to the Honolulu area, but because it was still early I decided to drive to Wahiawa to see whether there was anything there worth seeing. I was sorely disappointed. This place is a dump and reminds me of Langley Park, Maryland. Yes, I know. That realization took my breath away too.

After internally battling over whether I should go through the hassle of exchanging the car, or just dealing with the lack of power steering, I decided to return it and got a Ford Focus instead. I'm not going to complain. The prior car was a Chevy. If they import so many Japanese tourists here, why can't they import a few cars too?

Chinatown...

After exchanging the car, I went to Chinatown, went down a street meant only for municipal vehicles and had the trunk of my car rapped on by the knuckles of a police officer while I was stopped waiting behind a bus. After explaining my complete lack of paying attention, the officer was nice and issued me a warning before wishing me a pleasant day. I parked, bought a few bags of herbs to take back home, and went to eat Pho. Mmmmm... Pho.

Requiem Aeternam...

Grant them sleep, Oh Lord! I only napped an hour. I checked in to the hotel at exactly three pm. After dealing with the broken pen disaster I took a nap. I wanted to sleep more, but my bizarre set of symptoms wouldn't let me. I gave up trying to sleep and in a daze, I proceeded to take my pulses. I detected pulses that I had never felt on myself before - full and large in every position, but especially in Kidney Yang. I gave myself a treatment - tonifying the KD Yin, and draining deficient heat. I also needled several other fire points on other channels based on Zang Fu pairing or 6-level pairing depending on what seemed most appropriate.

I had been building up this excess heat from the Vog on the Big Island. Over the past week it was particularly bad, and it seems that heat had developed which had kept me from sleep and given me a physiological hangover for the past 2 days. After clearing the heat I became aware of a dry cough and phlegm coming up as my lungs were finally releasing the Vog. After the treatment I felt peaceful, balanced, and though tired, I was no longer achy or in a bad mood and decided to hit the town.

After eating some terribly chosen food, I licked my wounds with a vanilla soft serve ice cream and returned to my hotel. Tomorrow I will go to the Bamboo forest in the morning, or hike Diamond Head before heading to the temple to sit in on classes.