Back to Basics

It's probably safe to say, everything (earthly) is grounded in foundational basics.  I am reminded of this as winter continues to challenge human basics like, safety, warmth, shelter;  our time is spent maintaining these basics more ardently unlike other times of the year.

Not to simplify, but if you asked most professionals what is the most important thing about being an expert in their field, many of them would say it is their grasp of the basics in their specific area.  Yes, it is true, professionals have spent numerous creative years evolving their basic knowledge, but it is all grounded in basic understanding.  A basketball coach returns to basics as she increases the skill of her charges, a chess master has the form of the game to return to as he hones his strategy, a farmer knows it is the dirt that matters.  Plants need water and sun, but if the dirt plants grow in isn't renewed and nourished, the plants don't thrive.  Attention to the plants is natural, but attention to how the dirt is fairing is basic to the health of the plant.

And so it is with us.  We are human.  We are supposed to be in flow as pointed out in our several circulation systems (blood, lymph, respiration, cerebral spinal fluids).  Winter or not, flow we must be.  So, getting back to basics for us would be asking questions that we may have gotten distanced from due to weather or lack of sunlight.

Am I hydrated adequately?  Because sweat is not the most obvious occurrence in cold weather, we tend to drink less water in the winter, losing track of fluid intake.  Adequate hydration keeps the various virus' and viral bacteria on the move.  Flushing the system keeps us in flow.

Am I moving enough?  Movement in inertia-prone cold weather, keeps the immune-promoting lymph circulating. It also primes and helps to balance our hormone-producing organs.  It tweaks our pancreas, pineal gland and thyroid.  This is basic for wellness.  Movement supports our winter-waning qi and prana.  Our winter-subdued respirations are woken up and start to flow, activating all the other circulation processes.

What is the quality of my rest?  This probably hinges on one's activity level.  Rest for most 21st century occupants is tied to electronic media or technology.  Gone is the ritual of putting one's feet up in front of a fire and relaxing with a good book.  So, how is your rest?  Do the little-vigilances that we all participate in, let down?  Are they shook up a little bit everyday with deep laughter?  Laughter?  Remember that carefree, releasing action?  Yet another aspect of rest is engaging with spirit.


And finally we come to another basic: nutrition.  Ah, nutrition in winter.... what exactly is that?  The greens available are so uninspiring.  The body craves carbs.  Ugh. Maybe nutrition in winter is about following from the inside out.  What calls me after having tired of endless soups, broths and teas?  Fleshy, golden squash?  Fresh herbs, fragrant and deep in color?  protein-rich mushrooms with their particular dense vibration? an herby-wine poached white fish locally caught?  Potato-garlic mash?  I spend a lot of time being still in the produce section of stores. (I spent about 10 minutes with a bunch of foot long chives the other day, admiring their plump juicy heads, imagining them in a stir fry, or thrown in at the last minute in a fish stew.)  Looking. Watching. Opening.  This is required in winter, unlike the abundant seasons of spring, summer and fall, when the produce is grabbing you with their energy as you try to pass them.  Produce just isn't that spunky in winter.  It travels long distances, and is usually displaced from its normally exotic home.  It's jet-truck lagged?  Been on ice too long?  Sometimes a long opening wait in front of greens is required before you can hear the call.

The qi manifests in glowing embers rather than burning fires.  Ambitions and ego are subdued.  It's a slow time.  Back to basics.

Healing Practice: the Slippery Slope (Part II)

"Thought", Rodin
Rodin Museum, Philadelphia

In Healing Practice: the Slippery Slope (Part I), I talked about what healing practice is and some of the inherent challenges.  In Stress, Self-Responsibility and Health the idea of self care for those who are caretakers (healers) was addressed and the subtle aspects of what it means to take responsibility for one's own well being and health.  Lee van Laer's essay,  My father's shoes is an interesting take on putting others before ourselves.  He indicates the subtle motivations one participates in when deciding on taking a caretaking attitude and the self-accountability that transpires, often unwittingly.

This post hopes to expand upon the challenges we face as healers, be it the self care/responsibility piece or actual practice of bringing awareness, sharing energy and the ever present issue of transference.

an external relief, Chartres Cathedral

In a very basic and true way, all and everything is about our depth of awareness and attention in a moment and the relationship we make then. Practicing healing work is that synchronistic work along with stripping and paring ourselves down to our essential selves so that we don't bring to the work that which doesn't belong there.  Having said that, our essential selves alone are not equipped to handle whatever is the task in front of us.  Our essential selves sets the right tone of honesty and authenticity and is often cued into the creative and our intuition.  This is a valuable resource we want in play as we evolve the healing relationship.  However alone, it is not grounded; grounded in thought, skill, discretion or purpose.  These are the qualities that are most available and familiar to us.  These are often the elements we (and our identities and egos) are fully invested in, brought forth with pride, confidence and knowledge.  These are aspects a third part of us (he who is attending) needs to watch carefully and monitor, because otherwise that executive part will portend to be our whole, and pretend to be the only thing that matters.  When our ego-authority takes precedence, often our self responsibility is lost and a healing becomes marginal.  In that moment, either we falsely become the big kahuna or we become transferred upon. The slippery slope of navigating the complex relationship of a healing, involving myself (and my energies), other (and their energies), our mutually conjoined energies and the great Unknown, teeters.

Rodin

This "depth of awareness and attention in a moment", is just that.  It is fleeting. It is required to be renewed over and over again.  When we get a taste of it, even in a protracted series of moments, it is possible to become trapped in the illusion of its permanence.  It is not permanent at all and it isn't meant to be.  The permanence I seek is the effort of renewing.  This is what I work for, this is what I try to move towards.  Renewing keeps me honest and keeps me present (to mild shifts in energy, to transference).  Renewing prevents the work from becoming static, keeps me curious and intrigued with what is, not what I hope for or expect.  Renewing my effort revitalizes my awareness, attention, sense of openness.  That practice helps me to stay grounded in the relationship at hand and with myself.  It keeps me "clean" and the work genuine. It helps the essential self to combine, overlap and work with my skills, my creativity. It helps me create a healthy separation in the duality I've entered when in the healing relationship.  It keeps me real. 

Building attention and an awareness is like exercising a muscle.  With repeated efforts it grows stronger and has more endurance.  It is an experience of a sublime movement of Qi or Prana which subtly courses through my organism, building a circulation.  Both this movement and effort can be likened to experiences of meditation.  Effort isn't like the effort we make in ordinary life. I am not Trying.  I am not gearing up available forces to Do.  Effort is an awareness and subsequent engagement of more of me; the parts of myself that are usually least accessible.  Its quality is quiet. Receptive. Not strained. It is what it means to be in a more total relationship with myself.

"Two Hands",  Rodin
Rodin Museum, Philadelphia

Because of this, every healing is a self-healing.  We are meeting ourselves as much as we are matching another.  Because of the effort of attention and awareness I am more One.  I am related to myself more fully, the person before me, all and everything.  I am able to be a semblance of the rock or tree John Blofeld (see below) speaks of becoming.  The change (or healing) I am open to becomes possible because of this type of unification I experience in a moment.

This is an ideal; every healing experience is different than the one before depending on the awareness and attention present. The element of my humanness keeps it interesting (at least for God!).  My blind spots, frailties, inherent woundedness, lack of any type of perfection in a way is an integral part of the ideal.  When that humanness is seen, struggled with, included, acknowledged and accepted with compassion and love, it actually helps a session to "work". It manifests something deeply real (even if sometimes it is not "pretty").  My imperfect humanness and my willingness not to hide it but to be with it is often the very healing another is needing to witness.

Excerpt from Beyond The Gods, by John Blofeld

"When contemplating a little change, it is fitting first to observe what you wish to alter at different times of day throughout the four seasons of the year, lest by hasty action something precious be lost. Also you need to become a rock or tree yourself before you can judge how to make a change that will accord with its nature."

"Become a tree?" I asked.

"Do you find that astonishing? If you had much time, I would show you. You just sit before it in sunshine and in cloud, in rain or snow if necessary, and project your mind into it. Slowly you learn how to be at one with it, to sense its rhythm, to know how its branches would dispose themselves under just slightly altered circumstances. Only then can you make a change without doing violence to its treeness. All good gardeners get to know their plants as intimately as their own children; otherwise, how could they be good gardeners?"

Dalai Lama's hand, 1987
Herb Ritts