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. 
 

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 

Grateful for the journey!

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.   Tao Te Ching 

Gratitude flows from my Lao Gong to yours!

On September 20th we will be launching our first online extraordinary vessel clinical training. Since 1996 I have been teaching these trainings in person, and now, for the first time, I will be teaching the clinical training online, over the course of 12 weeks. 

Sharing my life’s work, in any context, is one of those “times” for me; a fairy tale time, a once upon a time time, an aeonic experience time. At moments like these, I can acutely feel and appreciate the interconnected web woven by my great good fortune to have lived and experienced so many inspiring teachers, inspired students, and trusting and wonderful patients.  It has a somewhat magical quality, yet seems to be as natural as breathing or having a really nice meal. 

1996..Our first clinical training finished with a working retreat in Rio Caliente, Mexico.

Although I’ll be alone in my office at home, I will be sharing with a global community of inspired and inspiring healthcare practitioners and cultivators.  There is a wondrous familiarity that emerges quite quickly as we begin our journey together. Somewhat the same as meeting people from your city in a far away land, there is a comfort in the shared history and desire for a special time on your travels.  This will be a three month journey, piloted by me, and we will navigate a primordial land of cultivation, wellness, and healthcare. In our travels we will visit and study closely the land of what it means to be human, how to live a more easeful and meaningful life, how to care for others, and how to care for ourselves while caring for others. We will dive deeply into each of the extraordinary vessels as primordial fields, as foundational functions, as moving cycles and patterns, as spheres of influence, and as embodied realities.  We will discover and integrate a new, yet very old, worldview and a modern treatment model for chronic and acute pain, depression, anxiety and mood disorders, autoimmune disease, and many other “modern” maladies all the while recognizing all that we learn is infused and perfumed with the wisdom of our ancient healing ancestors. 

This training emerged from an approach and style of acupuncture that I have refined, practiced, and studied over the last three and half decades. Inspired by Chinese traditional medicine and early Taoist and pre-Taoist peoples, its core philosophy has deeply influenced my worldview and the way I navigate the universe. It is for me a deeply personal and profound professional passion.  

Cupping, especially cupping the Dai, is one of the many clinical tools experienced during the training.

Informed by a moral imperative born of deep awe of acupuncture and its philosophical roots, I engage this journey humbled by the task of coherently articulating ideas, information, and experiences that illuminate my personal and professional path but don’t lend themselves to communication through ordinary language. Yet I proceed, attempting to embrace the moment, utilizing all ways of communicating, now online and across time and space, in my attempt to take what is in my mind and heart and spirit and share it in the best ways I know how. 

I will be part participant, part observer. I hear myself saying things in ways I have said them many times before and also in ways fresh and born of the moment. 

After a while, a tenuous satisfaction emerges as the soliloquy gives way to the desired conversation (the birth of a genuine learning process after a period of gestation) and the journey is on!

After 12 weeks we will arrive at our destination, knowing full well that this ending is really just a beginning.  Although we have shared this journey together, a truly collective experience, each traveler (students and instructor alike) has really started and ended at a different place; a starting place and ending point determined by their life story and experiences that created their current personal and professional context. 

Our shared experience will simultaneously broaden the collective knowledge and deepen our personal knowing. The concurrent playing out of a community myth and personal dreams and stories is, to me, immensely fascinating and deeply satisfying. Every class, workshop, and training, as every journey, is unique. At its best, a community synergy forms that births moments that are memorable and well beyond what could be achieved individually. 

Empty Vessel Elixir. We explore herbs and their role in cultivating and healing the extraordinary vessels.

A living, vibrant whole is greater than its parts. I am deeply fortunate to have been nourished and inspired by this vibrancy of this work and our beautiful NSEV Healing community for nearly 40 years. 

With humbleness and gratitude, I thank each of the participants who are joining this training for sharing their time and experience with me and the beautiful NSEV Healing clinical community.  I am so deeply touched by the attention, passion, vision, expertise, life experience, and wisdom each of you brings to our journey together. 

Each of you is my blessing. Those of you who are reading this now. Those of you who will join us for our inaugural online clinical training. All of you who love to journey into the endless immensity of the sea!

For all of these blessings, I am deeply grateful!

You can check out the Clinical Training here:

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.