Eric Grey

About Me

I mostly blog about Chinese Medicine over at http://deepesthealth.com, but I needed a brain overflow container, and this is it.

On a daily basis, I think about (mostly) the following: spirituality and religion, small business ownership, raising kids, veganism, gardening, discipleship in an age of capitalism, computers and the appropriate use of contemporary technology, where did we come from, where do we go when we die, what is the meaning of life and also sometimes basketball. But, I can't really guarantee you'll see any of that in any given period of time. It's OVERFLOW, ok?

Also: I run a natural medicine clinic, Watershed Community Wellness, with my partner Amanda Barp. I think you might be interested in what we do there. You can find us over at : http://watershedcommunitywellness.com - visit us!

My Other Sites
       
Tags
Get Updates
 

It's still summer, see?!

Sent from my iPhone

Comments (0)
Posted

 

It's mostly just about being still and cultivating power

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.

Comments (0)
Posted
 

Old thinking, old practices. Renewed.

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.  

New YODA practices, same as the old, old practices

  • Morning block
  • 1 hour working ALL the bodies via my Qigong lineage practices
  • 1 hour studying Chinese
  • 1 hour studying and working with acupuncture and/or herbs, to be determined
  • Daily meditation of at least 20 minutes
  • Brief meditation and shaking before patient appointments
  • Weight lifting and biking as able, as seems right (and I bike all the time for transportation anyway)
  • Acupuncture treatment
  • Chart a path towards playing music again

    • You can see the differences.  Mostly, I just wanted things to be simpler and I wanted all the activities to be really clearly bent towards the purpose I'm focusing on - becoming a better practitioner of Chinese medicine.

    The key is that morning block, really.  It is undeniable that, for me, the early morning is the best time to do the things I *really* want to do.  Right now, those three hours are probably the critical key to becoming who I want to become.  

    It's going to be hard to stick to - as sometimes mornings start early around here.  I'm going to be inclined to stay up too late some nights, and thus not want to wake up in time in the morning.  So, here is where the majority of my self-discipline will be exerted until this is a normal, inviolable part of my daily routine.

    You can read over at Deepest Health if you want to know some observations I've had... I was a little scattered when I wrote it, so not my best.

    Comments (0)
    Posted
     

    My year of diligent action

    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.

    I have actually been sitting on this thing for about two weeks, because I wanted to make sure that I knew what I wanted to do.  I also thought it was silly to blog about it, because I always blog about this stuff, and surely people are sick of it.  On the other hand, it's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

    I'm going to start a very basic, integral, program.  I don't want to overload myself.  I want to create something I can maintain and grow as my time and energy gradually open.

    Body
    -------
    • Biking (I already do this, just want to be more mindful)
    • Weight lifting (short, intense, mindful practice twice a week - loosely based on the FIT approach)
    • My diet is in good shape, so no worries there

    The "body" piece is listed first for no particular reason.  What will it accomplish?  Well, for me, a good functioning body is the basis of all my other practice.  How can I practice without a body?  More subtly, my ability to truly connect with my patients is significantly reduced when I am in pain, exhausted or otherwise impaired.  Also, I study poorly or not at all when I'm run down.  Body's important, folks.

    Study
    -------
    • An ongoing project with Heiner Fruehauf, to be finished in 3 weeks - yikes.
    • Ongoing blogging over at Deepest Health - focusing on the basics, acupuncture and herbs.  Plus weekly updating around this project.
    • Mastery of Chinese language - beginning with Classical Chinese as taught by Rick Goodman in his fine series of books.
    • Some side reading I'm doing in Integral theory, which is a recent interest of mine.
    • Creation and teaching of classes at NCNM - most importantly Herbs Lab, this will be my second year teaching it.

    The "study" piece is what I privilege anyway.  This list is significant in the way that it is much smaller than a comparative list I might have written a few weeks ago.  I'm taming my inherent tendency to study everything all at once.  I'm focusing on projects I MUST do, and because of the streamlining I've already been doing - they all line up nicely.

    Spirit
    -------
    • Daily meditation, starting at 20 minutes (this is a downgrade to help it stick)
    • Intention setting before sessions with patients
    • Qigong practice, starting at 40 minutes twice a week (again, this is a realistic starting point)

    This is probably my biggest problem area.  It's horrible.  Part of it has to do with my tendency to create an unrealistic practice schedule, which I maintain for a time and then lose.  I don't care how long I can do Qigong or meditate - I just want to do it regularly so the benefits can accumulate.  We'll see if I can scale up and if I should.  It's not a contest.  It's a project.

    Shadow
    -------
    • 3-2-1 (a specific Integral practice)
    • Acupuncture treatment

    This is something discussed in "Integral" circles, but it's nothing fancy.  It's simple, really.  Through living as imperfect beings in an imperfect world, we develop dark spots.  They're fine, really, but they go around messing with us and mostly we don't know it.  This is the stuff unearthed by psychotherapy, the stuff treated through various "psychologically" oriented systems of acupuncture, and so on.  I've done a lot of work here, but it's not done.

    The 3-2-1 practice is something I just learned about in reading, and I'm going to try it.  It's basically a way to consciously come into relationship with those weird, hidden places in the psyche.  I'm also going to figure out who I'd like to see for acupuncture.  True disclosure - I haven't been treated in... um, a long time.

    Other
    -------
    • Begin charting a path towards playing music again

    Through some meditation and a Yijing reading, I've realized that I really lack a space to be creative in my life.  Sure, writing is creative.  Filling formulas also liberates a certain creative impulse.  But, I love fine art and music.  Particularly music.  Nothing quite "takes me there" like a great piece of music and I admire people who play music well.  

    I used to play guitar, self-taught, but plateaued in my development and never wanted to pursue training.  I'd like to right that wrong.  I'm going to take it easy on this, since there's so much else on my plate.  But, it is heartening just to consider it.

    ---
    What's all this about?  I'd like to begin the process of consciously moving myself in the direction of mastery within my chosen profession.  Everything I've read indicates that burying myself deeply into the basic information of Chinese medicine is critical.  However, even more critical than that is developing my SELF.  Developing my internal landscape.  Increasing my capacity to sense and feel.  Fine tuning the instrument of my mind and body.  Calming myself.  Seeking steadiness and clarity.  We'll see how it goes.

    Comments (0)
    Posted
     

    Welcome Deepest Health readers

    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.

    Comments (0)
    Posted
     

    Making choices

    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!

    Comments (0)
    Posted
     

    Ridemax at Disneyland - June 2010 - a random vacation post

    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. :D

    Comments (0)
    Posted
     

    Family

    I'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...

           

    Comments (0)
    Posted
     

    Most health information is just totally boring

    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.

    Please.  Please.  Just stop.

    I've written a couple of posts like that and I tried to make it less boring by making it more scholarly.  My thought was that the "boring" came from it being "shallow."  The shallowness comes from the fact that most people in Chinese medicine learn that little Neijing chart of correspondences, but learn them like they're learning the dials on their dashboard from their car's owner's manual.  Mechanistic, simplistic, boring.  Boring, boring, boring.  Unfortunately, I don't think that "more scholarly" is what MOST people want or need.

    So, my job right now is figuring out how to write what I want/need to write and not fall into the boring trap.  But, I must also avoid the "being more scholarly will make this less boring" trap.  At the same time, I must be wary of the "desecrating the medicine by making Chinese medicine like totally web 2.0" trap.  So many traps, so few escape routes.  Good thing I'm in a couple of writing classes right now.  Phew.  I'm also surrounded by some pretty not-boring writers.  They all have different ways of approaching things, but it's all incredibly helpful.

    Yeah, thinking as I'm writing, I'm struck by the thought that the main tension is this...

    I want to have some depth and some scholarly rigor (cause, you know, I'm LIKE that), also be accessible (cause, you know, not everybody is a Chinese medicine DORK) and also be deeply engaging (cause, you know, that's what makes people want to actually DO something).  Check out THAT sentence.  

    It's tough to balance those factors.  I'm not sure I'm often very successful.  But, I plan to keep trying.  Thoughts?

    Comments (3)
    Posted
     

    Michael Jackson singularity + Chinese medicine

    Gaze upon this insane mindmap/ Venn diagram I made while explaining the value of TCM "clinical experience" to a small group of students.

    Sent from my iPhone

    Sent from my iPhone

    Comments (0)
    Posted