It's still summer, see?!
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Random notes from this episode of the Year of Diligent Action...
1. I keep trying to force myself to make Qigong my main practice because, well, I feel like it should be. I love it, love it, love it. I want to teach it! It's great! But for some reason, right now, my body wants yoga. It's crazy for yoga. It can't get enough yoga. So, yoga it is. My fiancee and I used to do yoga every single day together and it was really some of the best time we've had together. Not so much DURING the sessions, you understand, but how it impacted us in the rest of life. So, we're trying it again at the Bhaktishop in Portland, which is a way cool place. I've looked for yoga studios in Portland before, and while they all have their benefits, this is the one that is most like our beloved studio in Eugene, OR. There's chanting and singing and the cyclic soothing of vinyasa but also some long holding of poses. It's just a really good place and in our favorite neighborhood, where we hope to buy a house someday. So, we've gone every day for the last few days and that's the plan moving forward. Let's see how it goes. 2. Chinese language learning has taken a bit of a hit this week. We've got some big big business things going on that I don't want to talk about, yet, and that's taking all my energy. Seriously, it's all I can do to keep up with patients, yoga, my family, and this monster project I'm working on... actually two monster projects. Anyway - I have basically just been looking at my flashcards, and that sucks. It looks to be able to turn around by the weekend. Then I'll have more to say about learning Chinese. 3. I have been working with learning some Chinese medicine (gasp) as I said I would. Mostly, I've been reading this book "Applied Channel Theory in Chinese Medicine" by Wang Ju-Yi and Jason D. Robertson that's just been knocking my socks off. I don't have lots of good observations to tell you right now, and probably most of you don't care, but it's a fantastic book. It's really... just refreshing my whole mind and body. Good stuff. Also - I've been gardening. Nothing like tending the Earth to bring you back to yourself. This week my lesson has been that being still, and cultivating deep internal power are pretty much the same thing. Both are crucial to this whole project of mine.I was going to go into this big discussion about all the things I've been through this week, but decided against it. Instead, I'll just show the results.
Ok, first off, the name of the project is misleading. It's a lifetime of diligent action, but I figured that would make people unsubscribe from the blog right away. Nobody wants to read a story with no ending. Or, rather, one that's way far in the future.
Probably most of you here read Deepest Health, my Chinese medicine blog/website. But, not all Deepest Health readers also read my personal blog. I'm not going to draw a Venn diagram or anything, you get it. Anyway - I'm trying to integrate things a bit more in my life, and I've got a new project rolling over at DH that will end up helping me do just that.
You can read about the project here: So, I'll be talking about that quite a bit. Feel free to flee. (Now that's a sentence) I'll post again in a minute to indicate what, exactly, I'm going to be doing. Thanks for reading.Sometimes, you just have to make choices. Look, the thing is, I've not always been great with this. I want to believe I have time and energy enough to do everything, all the time. Seriously. Now, of course, that's not quite true. I'm not trying to be a pro baseball player, start my own soft drink company, learn to make paper, doing elaborate recreations of Civil War battles or finding new and interesting recipes for Spam. To name five. One is always focusing, refocusing, choosing, choosing again. It's inevitable.
So, I guess, I've not been good at making a few specific choices. In fact, just one. It's a choice that lots of people would probably argue with me about, because that's typically what people like to do. It's a choice about what I devote my life to doing. It's about how closely I follow my ideal about that choice, that calling. It's about not giving into anxiety that I will fall behind in other things. I took a long time to choose Chinese medicine as something to do in this brief, harried life. I fell in love with it when we first met, and I've been in love ever since. But, like all love affairs, I've gone through my phases. There was the, "oh-my-god-i'll-never-learn-this-well-enough-to-do-it" phase, the "i'm-so-sick-of-studying-i-never-want-to-read-anything-about-chinese-medicine-again" phase, various phases of disillusionment and doubt, and so on. I've gone through that with other studies and potential careers as well. Mostly, I think that when things get hard and the thrill is gone, my interest wanes. Surely I'm not alone in this. But, I'm in it hook, line and sinker. I'm not letting go, I'm not getting out. Not now, not ever. And the thing is that to me, this is more than a profession. It's not something I do from 9-5 and then go home. It's my life. The things I learn, the things I teach, they are part of me. An integral, kalidescopic part of me. The images of the Great Physicians of old, the persons of the Great Physicians I know today, the oath I took as a graduating student at NCNM, the words of Chapter 25 in the Neijing Suwen, the principles of Yin and Yang, the five elements, the endlessly dancing patterns of nature, the plants and animals all around me and those I use in formulas - these things paint for me a very coherent picture of the person I must become. Because it's the modern world and noone is going to pay me to study 16 hours a day, because I have a family and various worldly obligations, necessarily other things will come into the picture. But there is much that can, must and will fall by the wayside. It's not popular, but it's what I want for my life. Wheeeeee!I'm on vacation in San Diego with my lovely partner. We've actually been on vacation more or less for the last three weeks, and boy did we need it. Amazing.
Anyway - we went to Disneyland (rented a Zipcar, drove through SoCal traffic, no problems) because I'm a huge sucker for themed amusement parks. Especially that one - long history, lots of good memories. Because we only had one day, and knew we probably wouldn't be back for a while, I wanted to maximize our use of time. The worst part of these huge parks is the huge lines, long waits, etc... I found this software online called Ridemax (http://www.ridemax.com/index.php). It's Windows only right now, but runs famously in Parallels if you're on a Mac. It took me a while to find it and I couldn't find many user reviews online, so I thought I'd put a quick one up here. Why not? We got there on a day that was quite cloudy (blissfully - nothing worse than Disneyland lines in the blazing LA sun) and thusly a little less packed than usual. We were able to park in the LOT, not the parking garage, which is a first in my adult life. Anyway - got in line and followed our ambitious Ridemax itinerary. See - you enter in all the rides you want to ride, and it develops a plan using Fastpass (a "get through the line more quickly" card you can get periodically in the park) and avoiding the busiest times of day for the busiest rides. You then spend maximal time either ON RIDES or just hanging out people watching/eating/resting and minimal time walking around and waiting in line. It worked. Like a charm. We had such an amazing time. I was really floored by how well it worked. It was as if we were on some kind of alternate flow from everyone else in the park and could just do what we wanted to do. It was totally awesome. Proof positive:Me in line for Space Mountain for the third time. Stoked. Amanda has a similar picture, but I'll spare her the public embarrassment.
Thanks for listening. :DI've been making lots of family connections lately. Been integrating (I hope) into my new family - the Barps, Fears and so on. Great reunion in rural Wyoming - learned how to sharpen knives - learned more than I ever wanted to know about mosquitos - got some kayaking done... Got to see my most favorite parts of my blood family (mom, dad, little bro) in Idaho and just chill, tour around my home valley, enjoy mountain thunder storms... Just recently connected with some long "lost" parts of my blood family via Facebook/email and so far, so good. With all of this and the wedding stuff coming up, I'm really becoming quite reflective about the role of "family" in our lives.
I don't really have anything deep to say about it. Just something I'm thinking about. Maybe more later. For now, a couple of photos from the trip...As I work on the Deepest Health redesign, but also my (our) clinic I am occasionally paralyzed. This mostly has to do with one unavoidable fact. The vast, vast, vast majority of information out there about health, wellness, Chinese medicine and the rest, regardless of intended audience, is unbelievably boring. One of my least favorite posts is the, "This is what Chinese medicine thinks about the Spring season" type of post.
Gaze upon this insane mindmap/ Venn diagram I made while explaining the value of TCM "clinical experience" to a small group of students.
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