Musings on the Way

I have been enamored with the Tao, without knowing it as such, since early childhood. Often, as a young boy, I would sit in the bushes in my yard, stare at the moon and clouds and sing songs to the flowers for hours on end. My young mind would fill and then empty with all kinds of thoughts and thinking. I got into the habit of watching my thoughts come and go, like the clouds. Each month, I would watch the moon grow and die, and felt there was magic in her path and knew that just “being” with her was healing.  No one taught me this, it just happened naturally, as I hung out spending way too much time (according to the ethic of the day) doing absolutely nothing. 

As a young adult, the autodidact in me began to read and study everything I could on philosophy, ancient wisdom traditions, metaphysics, natural healing and acupuncture, sacred geometry, Jungian archetypes, world spirituality, Eastern mysticism, the divine feminine, the extraordinary vessels and just about anything that would nourish my curiosity and soul and expand my growing repertoire of world views.   Along the way, I began the semi-formal study of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Thirty-nine years ago I became an acupuncturist. As a young acupuncturist, I relied on what I had read and been taught by my teachers. After several years I began introducing some of the wisdom I gathered from my direct experience and study of the extraordinary vessels into my professional practice. I also began an earnest personal exploration and cultivation of the Tao and the extraordinary vessels. 

Hanging with Jung

After what seemed then like a very long time the “written-centric”  way no longer worked for me.  I still found tremendous beauty, power, and wisdom in the written word, the great wisdom of those who had traveled these roads before me. But, my explorations of the extraordinary vessels and my direct immersion into the limitless depths of the Tao began demanding something very different from me. Increasingly,  I  found myself absorbed and returning to my childhood path of just hanging out. A path looking inward and outward with an empty mind and loving heart. A  path abundant with internal processing and external discernment. A path that led to the dissolving of dogma and the embracing of the essential mystery of the Way. 

I now spend many hours daily (the early morning hours before sunrise) in personal cultivation and many more hours weekly cultivating my relationship with the world; as a family member, friend, member of society, and as part of my professional acupuncture practice and teaching.  In the early years, I was hesitant to “go out on a limb” clinging to the traditional texts and rudimentary teachings that I had been blessed with from masters of the Way. In more recent years, as I grew older and much deeper in my process, I started taking more teaching risks, allowing my inner insights, realizations, and inspiration to lead the way. 

I believe, after all these years, my relationship to this path has evolved and developed and deepened.  I have been blessed with directly witnessing other individuals and groups of individuals directly experiencing the Tao. Directly experiencing the essential mystery which is the heart and womb of existence. Directly experiencing the ten thousand things and the no thing which are the Way. That this can be facilitated online and across time and space throughout the globe is something well beyond any thing I ever imagined.

Experiencing any “thing” or “no thing” directly is profound and humbling beyond words. Navigating the Tao, it turns out is simple. The Way is simple. Dissolving our old, complicated, and habituated patterns of the mind and body; moving through and beyond the ever-increasing distractions of the unnatural, modern world; accepting and letting go of all that we do not need; these things are not necessarily easy. Just simple. 

Simple as in, simply thinking, simply imagining, simply sensing, simply processing emotions, simply moving the body and simply connecting to the breath with simple awareness and simple gratitude and simple grace. 

Simple as simply emptying oneself of one’s self and simply immersing directly into the simple pulse of the simple cosmos as it manifests simply within us and around us. 
 

Why we gather: Entering the Vessels Online

I first experienced the extraordinary vessels as a cultivation practice in 1983. I was in love. My yearning and search for anything and everything extraordinary vessel was on. There was very little in writing and so my quest included asking every acupuncture or meditation teacher I met what they knew of the extraordinary vessels. In 1986 I met a teacher with a family lineage of using the vessels as a cultivation and clinical tool. Over the course of a few brief meetings, I learned the basics of this system. These basics, these very brief interactions, form the foundation of what has become my life’s work.

I began teaching Entering the Vessels, as a weekend workshop, in 1992—twenty-nine years ago. Our first online course was a little over a year ago. I am excited to be presenting it again this summer!

The following is a transcript of the opening session of our online Entering the Vessels Online Course.

Welcome to the NSEV Healing Academy and welcome to our NSEV healing community. We are a community and like all communities, we have our personal agendas, our reasons, our motivations, our desires, our expectations, or maybe we have none of those things for taking this course. But I can tell you that often what our agenda is transforms during this experience. Your professional interests will become personal and your personal interests will become professional.
. But for this way, for this path, this medicine, this healing, this cultivation to be real, it has to apply to everybody, to every being, all ages, all professions, all gender identities, all nationalities, all socioeconomic statuses, all the world's tribes coming together. 

To the health care providers and the healing professionals, I say we have so much to learn from our patients. When we gather together in this way, exploring our personal and collective humanity, our beingness on this planet together, we all benefit in ways beyond description. To the non-acupuncturist, I say, and to all of you really, even when you are not exactly sure what is going on, you can listen to the language. Let the metaphor wrap you, feel the vibration of the language in your being, feel it in your breath, and your spirit. Let it speak to you in that way.

In fact, it is my expectation, I do not know if I would call it my hope, but it is realistic that all of you will feel confused or lost at times, and this is a good thing. This is a moment of what my dear friend, Stephen Cowan, calls, "I do not know yet." It is an invitation to the unknowable into your life. It is inviting curiosity into your being. To the acupuncturist, I say we have amazing and extraordinary and very serious cultivators and cultivation instructors in this course. We all have so much, I know I do, to learn from them. Here we are, acupuncturists, mental health professionals, bodyworkers, energy healers, yogis, business professionals, activists, parents, children, brothers, sisters, seekers of all kinds coming together to explore these ancient wisdom traditions. Coming together to explore these vessels.

Sharing Lao Gong during our first Entering the Vessels Course

We are coming together to explore the most primordial aspects of ourselves, the most primordial aspects of our families, the most primordial aspects of our communities, and the most primordial aspects of our place on this beautiful planet, and the most primordial aspects of our place in this great cosmos. I believe this worldview, this path, this way holds a space and a time for everyone. In prehistoric times, and these prehistoric times still live deep within our being, communities gather around the fire, the life-sustaining fire, the life-gate fire under the moon, the very same moon that we gather under now. They gather to share stories, to figure out how they were going to spend their day, to organize their communities, and to discuss the way of the universe. Like in ancient times, we gather now in a completely different way around this new fire, the fire of our computers and our cell phones, that glow, but still under the very same moon, across time and space, but in the now-ness of this moment, whenever this moment is for you. We are seeking the source of our commonality, the commonality of our thinking, of our imaginations, of our senses, of our embodied emotional worlds, of our breath, and our one undivided spirit.

It is with this intention and with this invitation that I invite you to spend the next six weeks exploring the vessels together with all of us.

Entering the Vessels Summer 2021 is Enrolling Now!

The dance of the Tao, living cycles, and cultivating sleep

This is an excerpt from Chinese Herbs for Peaceful Sleep, an online course with Daniel J. Atchison-Nevel

A very important concept that we are going to discuss is that life is experienced and lived in cycles. Sleep itself exists as part of that cycle, is a cycle of its own, and has many cycles existing within it. In this worldview, human bein exist and may be viewed as the interplay between the descending Yang forces of the heavens from above and the ascending Yin forces of Earth from below. This interplay evolved out of the undifferentiated wholeness. Out of the undifferentiated wholeness evolved the first division and then out of this division evolved the dance of the descending Yang forces from above and the ascending Yin forces from below. The dance of the Tao. 

This interplay between the descending Yang from above and the ascending Yin from below birthed and continues to birth an endless series of cycles. One of the ways we can view human beings is as a focal point existing within these cycles and as part of the cycles. So this is our worldview. We view humans as these embodied fields or these focal points. It is a critically important point to remember that we are simultaneously embedded in the whole and contain the whole within us. That means, we are inseparable from the whole, we are part of a whole, but we also contain the whole within us.

We are also simultaneously moving through the world, and receiving the world as we move through it. We are moving through the world and we are receiving the world as it moves through us, and these are very important principles to keep in mind as we move through all of this information. So as the world is moving through us, as we are moving out to the world and as we are receiving the world as it moves through us, we are constantly relating to and reacting to both the world out there and the world in here.

There is really not a difference between the world out there and in the world in here. It is really just a point of focus. Where we are placing our attention at any time? In reality, we are always embedded in the whole. We are either focusing and attending to the world outside of ourselves or we are focusing on and tending to the world within ourselves. Now, in reality, and in our everyday activities, both of these are going on simultaneously. Even as we are reacting to exterior phenomena, we are having interior world reactions that are happening, and even as we focus inward, we are reacting to things as they happen in the outside world.

When we sleep, the primary balance of what we are doing shifts from moving through the world as we do in the awakened state to receiving the world in our sleeping state. It is not that we are not still a little bit moving out into the world but primarily we are receiving the world when we sleep. This is one fundamental difference between being awake and asleep. We are in a more Yin, more receptive state as opposed to our awakened state, where we are more Yang, acting out into the world. When we consciously place ourselves in a meditative state, we are moving from a more active movement through the world state to the receiving the world state. In a meditative state, we may move from an inward focus to an external focus, from a moving in the world state to a receiving the world. state. There is an ebb and flow to this, perhaps moving in and out, acting on, and then receiving. Sleep is different. It is a steady movement from acting on the world to receiving the world. A steady movement from focusing and tending to the exterior world to focusing on and tending to the interior world. 

This is one of the reasons, from our worldview, that makes quality sleep critically important. When we sleep we are meeting a deep primordial need to focus our attention on really cultivating, paying attention to, and tending to our inner world. When we do not have peaceful sleep when we are not cultivating quality sleep dissonances and imbalances from awake time do not get addressed and tended to. Disharmonies arise in our relationship to our interior world. These disharmonies can manifest in our awake lives as mood disorders, diffuse anxieties, stress patterns, and a variety of functional disharmonies including autoimmune and immune disorders. 

To learn more visit Chinese Herbs for Peaceful Sleep 

Why we gather: Entering the Vessels Online

The following is a transcript of the opening of our first session in our online Entering the Vessels course. Our Winter 2021 course is enrolling now!

Welcome to the NSEV Healing Academy and welcome to our NSEV healing community. We are a community and like all communities, we have our personal agendas, our reasons, our motivations, our desires, our expectations, or maybe we have none of those things for taking this course. But I can tell you that often what our agenda is transforms during this experience. Your professional interests will become personal and your personal interests will become professional.
. But for this way, for this path, this medicine, this healing, this cultivation to be real, it has to apply to everybody, to every being, all ages, all professions, all gender identities, all nationalities, all socioeconomic statuses, all the world's tribes coming together. 

“When we gather together in this way, exploring our personal and collective humanity, our beingness on this planet together, we all benefit in ways beyond description.”

To the health care providers and the healing professionals, I say we have so much to learn from our patients. When we gather together in this way, exploring our personal and collective humanity, our beingness on this planet together, we all benefit in ways beyond description. To the non-acupuncturist, I say, and to all of you really, even when you are not exactly sure what is going on, you can listen to the language. Let the metaphor wrap you, feel the vibration of the language in your being, feel it in your breath, and your spirit. Let it speak to you in that way.

In fact, it is my expectation, I do not know if I would call it my hope, but it is realistic that all of you will feel confused or lost at times, and this is a good thing. This is a moment of what my dear friend, Stephen Cowan, calls, "I do not know yet." It is an invitation to the unknowable into your life. It is inviting curiosity into your being. To the acupuncturist, I say we have amazing and extraordinary and very serious cultivators and cultivation instructors in this course. We all have so much, I know I do, to learn from them. Here we are, acupuncturists, mental health professionals, bodyworkers, energy healers, yogis, business professionals, activists, parents, children, brothers, sisters, seekers of all kinds coming together to explore these ancient wisdom traditions. Coming together to explore these vessels.

Sharing Lao Gong during our first Entering the Vessels Course

We are coming together to explore the most primordial aspects of ourselves, the most primordial aspects of our families, the most primordial aspects of our communities, and the most primordial aspects of our place on this beautiful planet, and the most primordial aspects of our place in this great cosmos. I believe this worldview, this path, this way holds a space and a time for everyone. In prehistoric times, and these prehistoric times still live deep within our being, communities gather around the fire, the life-sustaining fire, the life-gate fire under the moon, the very same moon that we gather under now. They gather to share stories, to figure out how they were going to spend their day, to organize their communities, and to discuss the way of the universe. Like in ancient times, we gather now in a completely different way around this new fire, the fire of our computers and our cell phones, that glow, but still under the very same moon, across time and space, but in the now-ness of this moment, whenever this moment is for you. We are seeking the source of our commonality, the commonality of our thinking, of our imaginations, of our senses, of our embodied emotional worlds, of our breath, and our one undivided spirit.

It is with this intention and with this invitation that I invite you to spend the next six weeks exploring the vessels together with all of us.

Entering the Vessels Winter 2021 is Enrolling Now!

Riding the Dragon

“The mythology of ancient China and many pre-historic wisdom traditions provide a different “way” to relate to our dragons. In this “way” we ride the dragon, instead of slaying the dragon. We embrace the dragon! ”

A dominant Western mythology that re-emerged and fully evolved in medieval times, is slaying the dragon. This myth is the essential component of the hero’s quest, which to this day deeply impacts our modern psyche and culture. It is said and believed, that  as we travel the world (inner or outer) we will meet dragons. When confronted with a dragon, to become a hero, we must slay it. If we flee the dragon we have some how failed or perhaps “survived” to fight another day. When we are immersed in this myth within our interior world, our emotional experiences  such as anger or fear are perceived as dragons to be defeated.                                                                                                                 

The mythology of ancient China and  many pre-historic  wisdom traditions provide a different "way" to relate to our dragons. In this “way” we ride the dragon,  instead of slaying the dragon. We embrace the dragon! This was in part due to the way time was embraced and experienced in these cultures. When we experience time  cyclically as opposed to linearly we must ask ourselves "what time is it when the dragon appears?'  Dragon time!  When the dragon shows up and the dragon is the anger dragon, it’s dragon time! It’s anger-dragon time. So we've got to get on and go for the ride. When we embrace time this way we qualitatively learn how to live in that time, as opposed to trying to slay it all the time. So here we all are with so much time spent in anger time, we should all be pretty damn good at it.  But we’ve been busy, utilizing tremendous amounts of energy,  trying to slay anger or flee anger, instead of learning to ride it.

When we  become fearful, we encounter the fear-dragon. We are taught to "overcome our fears" to metaphorically slay our fear dragons. If you lay this out in a linear time experience it plays out as  “now I’m fearful and I don’t want to be fearful, what can I do to overcome and defeat this fear so that  a half-hour from now or an hour from now or two days from now I may not be fearful.” As opposed to, “at this moment in time I’m in fearful-time.”  It would be a completely different kind of experience, a different "time". 

If you can embrace the fear,  express and process the fear, ride the fear-dragon,  dance with the fear , you will learn how to do fear-time. If you are constantly battling fear time, you never learned how to ride the fear-dragon. 

We tend to think about fear in its extreme pathological sense because we put it into this straight time line. Fear is not just about being excessively fearful or  terrified. Fear is a beautiful, wonderful thing. It’s a very, very important survival mechanism. Without fear we couldn’t survive. What you’re talking about is excess fear. And when we say excess we don’t necessarily mean quantitatively excess but qualitatively excess. Crude fear instead of misty, crystal fear. The kind of fear that’s delicious and nourishes us, that enables us to go deep within and contemplate and make good decisions. The fear that connects us deeply to the universal vibration. That can be fear time as well. But we’ve been living our lives with a superimposed and calcified linear timeframe. We’ve all ingested and manifest a worldview that tells us to "slay the fear dragon" or run from it as fast as possible.  But some thing else is possible. We can climb aboard this mythic dragon as well. We can ride the “slay the dragon” myth that lives within us and see where that beautiful ride will take us.  

Discovering Sound Healing with Shweta Oza, Ph.D

We are thrilled to welcome Shweta S. Oza, Ph.D as the newest member of our NSEV Healing clinical team!

Shweta is a certified NSEV Sound Healer, Gong Avatar, Kundalini Yoga Teacher, and Spiritual Response Therapy (SRT) Practitioner. She has been on yogic and healing path of consciousness expansion for more than 15 years.

Native of India, Shweta was born into a yogic lifestyle and at a young age developed a deep drawing to the understanding of one’s connection to the subtle realm. Upon completing her undergraduate studies in Physics & Mathematics and Graduate studies in Business, she taught Undergraduates and Executives in Business Programs and provided total business consulting to entrepreneurs. Her journey to the USA to continue further education led to an MBA from Univ. of Delaware and culminated in a Ph.D. in Business from Univ. of Maryland at College Park, finally bringing her to Univ. of Miami School of Business, where she taught, researched and served as an Asst. Professor of Marketing.

During her time in the USA, she deepened the connection to her primal roots. In the process of self-healing and self-mastery, she found SRT (Spiritual Response Therapy), Kundalini Yoga, the Art and Science of Sound - especially the Gong, and NSEV Healing.  Witnessing the life-enhancing positive impact these healing techniques had on her, she embarked on a path to systematically learn each of these, progressively integrating them and embodying their wisdom. It is from this well integrated, embodied wisdom space, that she facilitates the consciousness expanding journey of self-learning, healing and empowered growth for all that she works with. 

We had a few questions for Shweta and we really enjoyed her insightful answers.

What is Sound Healing?

Stated very simply, sound healing is the science of synchronizing and harmonizing our internal vibration to the vibration of the universe. It is what the ancient yogis called NAAD – the science of Sound.

My favorite quote on sound sums it up nicely:

“A person does not hear sound only through the ears; he hears sound through every pore of his body. It permeates the entire being, and according to its particular influence either slows or quickens the rhythm of the blood circulation; it either wakens or soothes the nervous system. It arouses a person to greater passions or it calms him by bringing him peace. According to the sound and its influence a certain effect is produced. Sound becomes visible in the form of radiance. This shows that the same energy which goes into the form of sound before being visible is absorbed by the physical body. In that way the physical body recuperates and becomes charged with new magnetism.” -            Hazrat Inayat Khan, Mysticism of Sound

The power of sound vibration has been demonstrated in modern day revolutionary research by Alfred Tomatis, M.D., recognized by French Academics of Science and Medicine for his clinical work in hearing and sound. He surmised that chanting functions to energize monks by awakening their field of consciousness.  This became evident when a group of monks became extremely ill and lethargic. After several doctors could not resolve what was the cause of their rare illness, an intensive investigation showed that days prior to becoming ill, the monks were instructed to stop their 3 hours of daily chanting to complete other task around the monastery. The moment they were instructed to resume their Gregorian chants, the monks miraculously recovered. The simple melody and harmonic vibrations served as healing instruments for the monks.  (ref. The Healing Power of Sound by Dr. Mitchell Gaynor)

What has been your Sound Healing Journey so far?

We are all entrained to sounds right from conception. We think of them as words because we have associated certain meanings to certain sounds. E.g. the sound MAA is mother and DAA is father in some form or other across languages. But when we take the layer of languages away, at the root it is just a sound, a vibration. And I was entrained to the sounds of Vedic chants – which essentially are sound arrangements for creating or invoking specific vibratory frequency - from my childhood. I did not know why and yet I always gravitated to certain chants at certain times and always found a sense of belonging with them. During my Kundalini Yoga teacher training, this connection to the sound further deepened and I was introduced to the sound of the Gong. Soon after, I was divinely led to study the art and science of sound – especially the Gong at the Gong Avatar Academy, Miami. In the consciousness expanding journey of mastering the self, I further deepened my connection to the Gong and playing it along with all sound tools from tuning forks, to singing bowls and crystal bowls, to tinchas, etc. It has been a lot like homecoming – connecting to the sounds of my childhood but now with wisdom and reverence. During this time, through certain events in my life, I started coming to Daniel Atchison-Nevel for my own acupuncture treatments. Over time, I was so intrigued by the Non-Somatic Extraordinary Vessels that I decided to immerse myself in the study of these vessels and when I realized that there is a way to merge my sound training to the application of NSEV, I was on it. That path took me to my training in Acutonics – where I learnt to work with sound in an Asian Medicine overlay. And that brings me here to the NSEV Healing and Acupuncture Clinic, where I merge these lineages to facilitate vibratory healing through Sound for all that come by.

For somebody who has never had sound healing done before, what can they expect?

Most of the time, what I have encountered is people thinking sound healing equals  only group Gong Baths, or Crystal and Tibetan Bowl sound events. Some people have also encountered it solely as working with tuning forks on their body. My approach to sound healing is one-on-one and as unique to each person as they are in this world. The tools may be the same, yet the healing is custom-ordered. When a person comes for a sound healing session, I will have my initial conversation with them, in which we gather the context and the purpose of their visit. Then in the sacred space of the sound current, I work to assist them on their healing journey. The sessions use a combination of tuning forks, bowls and gong. I also use crystals for their vibration enhancing and augmenting properties and certain chants as necessary. The sessions are for everybody; some folks just want to experience the power of sound and may come in occasionally, and others having experienced the transformative healing aspect of sound have incorporated the sessions as a part of their self-care, self-healing, self-advancing process.

What can you tell us about the Gong?

Gong is an instrument that dates to the Bronze Age. Yogi Bhajan, the Master of Kundalini Yoga says, "The Gong is the first and last instrument for the human mind. There is only one thing that can supersede and command the human mind, and that is the sound of the Gong. It is the first sound in the universe, the sound that created this universe. It's the basic creative sound. To the mind, the sound of the gong is like a mother and father that gave it birth. The mind has no power to resist a gong that is well played." All the sound healing sessions include Gong playing. The extended session includes a longer immersion in the sound current of the Gongs.

You are also offering Meditation sessions here. Can you speak a bit to that?

Yes, so when we meditate, we are essentially recalibrating our vibration through the power of breath and sound (if the meditation incorporates sound). I work with each client to teach them a meditation – NSEV meditations or others that are in my learnings to best support them in creating and maintaining the vibratory frequency that best serves them and facilitates their self-healing process. When somebody comes to me for Meditation session, we first assess what is the context in which they are and what is it they would like and from there find a practice that serves them and walk them through it. Anything you want to share in closing? It is well researched by mind-body scientist that what happens to us physiologically reflects that what is going on at emotional and spiritual level for us. I have resonated a lot with this ancient yogic view of dis-ease - When we are in dis-harmony within ourselves and with the cosmos/ the universe, we are in a state of disease. Utilizing Sound and Breath Techniques is a powerful way to harmonize ourselves with the cosmos, thus integrating ourselves into a state of EASE. Also, my understanding of Dan’s NSEV approach is that by dissolving old calcified non serving patterns, we create a space to birth self serving patterns. Both sound healing and meditation support this dissolving at all levels of our being.