Eric Grey

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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!

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On using the time that's given us

Something happened in the last... um, maybe 3 weeks that has really just blown the lid off of absolutely everything.  I'm sure it has something to do with the treatment I'm getting (herbs, homeopathy, nutritional supplements) and something to do with my ongoing meditation practice (and recent meeting with my meditation teacher) and something to do with the Metal Tiger year.  Maybe also something to do with my life settling into its newest manifestation.  Where "settling" is defined by two or three day long plateaus punctuated by many week long hurricanes.  Unsteady, but steady in that.

Anyway, Jason Lay - my friend and soon to be student (weird) just hit on something in a recent blog post that totally rides the wave of my energy over these weeks.  I don't think I could really explain it, even though I want to do so very badly.  It feels something like leaving the shore, at night, on a ship you don't know, with an uncertain destination and only a dog for a companion.  With no map.

Exhilirating!  And terrifying.  (PS:  I somehow now want to do exactly that... anyone have a ship?)

In no particular order, here are some things that have to do with all of that:

  1. New and slowly developing book project re: Chinese materia medica PLUS+
  2. New and slowly developing book project re: a rigorous phenomenological approach to understanding and practicing Chinese medicine as science
  3. The not very new but now rapidly accelerating plan to utterly revolutionize the structure and aim of my website Deepest Health
  4. The ongoing development of my clinical practice
  5. The growth of my clinic, Watershed Community Wellness
  6. Various personal life developments involving relationships, lifestyle design and so on

The dark, lonely, scary part is the degree to which I'm being asked to really make use of the time given me.  I spend a lot of time not saying things, not "putting myself out there," for fear that I will be criticized.  The funny thing about that is I'm not even that worried about the criticism that actually comes out in the open.  I worry about the criticism I never hear.  I don't fear confrontation, I fear silent condemnation.  I don't fear closed doors, I fear the doors that I never noticed should be open in the first place.  I don't fear the open warfare of philosophical objection, I fear the subtle disharmony of uneasy interaction.  As poetic as that all is (wow, I'm amazing) it really is just stupid.  Neither end of the spectrum is worthy of fear, because in less than a century it will all be forgotten anyway.

That doesn't make me despair, it invigorates me.  There's no more emboldening future than one that is a blank canvas, erased regularly.  Why not go for it?

I've been learning Chinese medicine for five years.  Given my sickening work ethic and insatiable appetite for near-constant information consumption, I've packed about 10 "regular" years into that 5.  I still don't think it's enough to say anything about Chinese medicine.  But let's consider. The ten years before that, with no less insatiable an appetite, I've been a gluttonous student of human society, human interaction, biology, epistemology and the art of thinking.  

I've been tutored by laboratory scientists, Harvard educated biochemists, prize winning environmental ethicists, free thinking religious mavericks, artists, soldiers and my daughter.  I've travelled, played in bands, reinvented myself ceaselessly, spoken publicly, fallen into obscurity and generally done everything I can to learn everything I'm able about this conundrum of living in the world.  

But I've been timid.  I've been reluctant to put all of this developed skill and insight to the test.  I've been afraid to expose myself, either to praise or to criticism.  I've insulated myself from entering into the kind of fertile cacophany that raw exposure, collaboration and conflict enable.  I've figured that I need to gather more information, and that there will be plenty of time for that later.

Today I'm serving myself notice that safety is no longer available.  Pulling all of this together and leaving it raw and open for examination, reflection and revision is now my sole occupation.  I must grab hold of my birthright, this peculiar amalgam of insanity and experience and see what can come forth from it.  

I'm saying goodbye to the shore.

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1 comment

May 11, 2010
Jason Lay said...
Man, whatever blew off your lid to inspire this post is something I want. Whatever it is, I'm glad the maelstrom of Eric Grey has been released. And thanks for the mysterious mention :)

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