Destiny – Feet, Hands, and Heart

Eastern philosophy holds a different view of destiny than the typical Western view. The science of Western medicine seeks absolutes in how matter behaves. Chinese medicine holds paradigms through which behavior manifests. Thus, when we look for meaning in things, which are elusive and dynamic, we will become lost and confused. When we find our purpose in a broader paradigm, a larger view allows many different possibilities to manifest.

According to one of the most ancient books of TCM, the Su Wen, there are three prerequisites for the existence of humanity: survival, movement, and differentiation. Survival is our most basic, lowest prerequisite for existence. Yet, beyond survival we move among and interact with life. Finally, we provide differentiation based upon this interaction. It is this most refined aspect, differentiation, that allows the individual to move into higher aspects of his or her destiny. It must begin with a “yes” to life, as it is. For Life gives us destiny through our existence, as it is.

At the most basic level, we need to have that which we need to survive. Food, shelter, water, air, and freedom from disease. Then we interact with life, as it is. Our feet are on the ground; our hands exchange with the essential movement of our daily life. Our heart and heads then can allow us to view the feet on the ground and hands interacting from a higher perspective. Do we experience harmony in life? Does our present view feel limited? Are we in alignment with our life as it is? Are we fighting anything internal or external? Are we conflicted? When we find the level of conflict with life as it is, only then can we uncover it, bring it back to the place of acceptance (feet on ground) and allow a new possibility to emerge.

Destiny then, is seen as the highest unfolding of life as it is. Only then can we allow new possibilities to manifest. When we are conflicted with our lives as they are and think something in the future can make it better, we are viewing life from a distorted lens. This view can never fulfill our destiny, as our feet aren’t ever on the ground. It is as if we are always scurrying forward to try to make life better, missing the view in the present. Our hands are then trying to manipulate things, as they are, in order to make our hearts ok. This defies the laws of nature.

“I need a child to make my life complete” is upside down destiny, where we are playing God, trying to control the future. “My life is complete as it is.” has the view of feet on the ground. We interact with life as it is. Then a new view can enter – “I yearn for a child.” As long as our feet aren’t misplaced, and our hands are interacting from this grounded stance, we can keep moving toward the emergence of new possibilities to fulfill our destiny.

I Love My Work

I love the work that I do. Chinese medicine certainly sparked a deep and passionate well of healing that impacted me deeply, personally, and also professionally. Most people look at me either as a doctor who treats people, or as a teacher who imparts knowledge to others. While I have undertaken those roles, and occasionally serve in the role of doctor or teacher, that is not the work I am most passionate about. That is not how the juice flows for me.

My greatest outflow of inspiration comes when I can share in someone's life journey, and walk with them on this path toward greater inner peace, finding the expression of their highest purpose; and coming home, so to speak, to give birth to their true selves.

Some come to The Fertile Soul to learn the Chinese medical approach to fertility, and to be treated. This is one level of healing in which they experience a shift from their previous approach of trying to conquer their infertility to one where they learn instead to nurture their fertility. Radically different approaches at one level. Yet others come to share at a deeper level. They respond to a call from the depths of their souls, which are begging for a new way home, a new way to tap into the life giving powers of creation. And this is radically different still from simply learning to nurture one's physical fertility. It asks for a total immersion in the self, turning away from all aspects of one's life which are no longer serving their highest good.

Women leave jobs, turn away from relationships that no longer serve them, and pursue all kinds of new and creative endeavors. Some women I have worked with have recognized that their present partner is not the one they were meant to have children with, and that contributed to their physical obstructions. Others have turned from careers in law, finance, or medicine to pursue paths of healing.

Wherever their life path takes them, I am so deeply honored when they ask me to accompany them. While I don't care much for emphasizing how to manipulating the physical form (you can find those doctors in abundance!) I will walk to the edge of their comfort zone and beyond with them when they are willing to live their lives differently in order that life can move through them in an authentic way.

I thank all who have attended retreat, but I especially am grateful for those who will give it their all- body, mind, and spirit, nothing held back. It is an honor.

The Pain of Birth

In order to gain everything, You must first lose everything.

Have you ever experienced a birth? Not the way they are depicted on the movies, where a woman grunts a few times from her hospital bed, and then is seen holding her newborn; but the agonizing cries of bringing life into existence. Life comes into being through pain.

As the seasons turn to winter, and the earth hibernates, we witness the slow dissolution of the earth’s manifestation. The sun lowers. Leaves fall. Temperatures plummet. Snow blankets the ground with the promise of things yet to come. And with spring, it breaks free again. Sounds come to life. Birds sing, insects sting, and buds push their way into manifestation again. We don’t witness the pain of emergence, but it is there.

Like a limb that has fallen asleep, when sensation returns, there is a tingling discomfort. The longer it has been asleep, the more pain there will be when blood reinfuses it with feeling.

The Taoists have a concept called the Mysterious Pass, where the energies of metal (death) turn to water (hibernation), and emerge through wood (rebirth.) This is the path of our greatest sorrow, fear, and anger. And we must go through it in order to be reborn into the fullness of our awakened existence. If we don’t, we remain caught in the wheel of never-ending sameness, much like the movie Groundhog Day.

In the fertility arena, or any other area of healing, death comes through letting go of the things that are no longer working in our lives. Sometimes these are certain patterns of relating with the world. Sometimes they are old, conditioned habits that are no longer serving us. Sometimes it is meeting the death of a fantasy, face to face. And in the depth of this death, there is great fear of the unknown. What will life be like if I let go of the way I had pictured my world to be? As we stand in the power of the unknown and face our fears, the tingling discomfort awakens us from our depths, and we can emerge anew. The aspect of our soul called the Zhi germinates from our spirit and we are born anew.

This isn’t merely a conceptual process – it is real. Time and again I have seen courageous individuals allow themselves to go through this journey, and their whole body, minds, and lives are restructured around this reemergence. They give birth to their true selves, and in the process, have new potential for life.

Giving Up Hope and Prayer

So, I happen to like the shock value of the title. We love, honor and cherish hope. We pray for more hope. The worst thing most of us can imagine is giving up hope. And whether or not we are religious, we like to pray to whatever God we believe in to get what we want. We may pray to the internet Gods that we find the right answer to our dilemma. We might pray to the medical Gods that our IVF be successful. We might look up the sky with our hope on display that the power that lights the stars grants us our wishes. Or we may pray the traditional way, hands folded or on our knees, head bowed, Dear God, please grant me my heart’s desire. I suggest giving up the beggarly quality that is associated with hope for something in the future. I suggest giving up the groveling quality that we often bring to prayer. Asking or hoping that some future thing out there be granted is about as effective as Sit and Be Fit exercises for cardiovascular health.

Oh, did I pray and hope and grovel and beg. And search and research and beg some more. And I could feel the almost palpable recognition that I didn’t have any faith in what I was doing. A mere shred of weak hope, which kept me begging for more. Only to be disappointed again, and back on the neverending ycle of hope and despair.

So, if we give up these weak ideas of hope and prayer, what is left? True hope. True prayer. It doesn’t come out of the brain, but directly out of the heart. It does not project itself in the future, but emerges right now, in all its power and glory.

Finding True Hope and True Prayer

The heart holds a wisdom that the Chinese call Xin. It surpasses the intellect many-fold. The way it manifests best is like this:

Trust with all your being the highest power imaginable, and give yourself totally to it. Your life becomes the prayer. Hold in your heart the feeling of your greatest desire, and prepare to do anything and everything to allow its unfolding. Hold this feeling between whatever thoughts cross your awareness, in the moment, all day long, and you transcend the limited paradigm that makes you feel you have to beg for your birthright.

Hold this intention with gratitude, confidence, and indifference, and you open the door to creation itself.

Longing

To take on the experience of a body is to come face to face with longing. Our whole life is seemingly spent looking for something to relieve longing. From our very first breath we long for the next, each beat of the heart longs for the next. We long for food and drink so that it can be assimilated into flesh and bone so that we can ease the longing to move around from place to place so that we can long for more food and drink. We long to be warm when we are cold, we long to be cool when we are hot. We long to love and be loved. Longing is the constant stateless state. All longing is the longing for the recognition of one's true love which is ones own true self. We can spend our whole life looking outward for something to satiate our longing when this that we are looking for is within. This that we are longing for is what already is. It is not something out there in the future that needs to be acquired. When one recognizes longing to be the creative driving power of the universe, the juice that drives creation, one's heart can open to the rapturous effulgent love that longing longs for and is. Each particle of the universe is shining with the longing that radiates from your heart, the heart of hearts that can be felt in every cell to be glowing with unconditional love. All you do is for this love, by this love, anytime and every time.

Instead of either suppressing this natural desire or focusing outward on the object of your desire, feel the source of this longing itself; notice that it is always with you. You need not try to do anything with it or manipulate it in any way because it is always perfectly and absolutely complete in every moment as this clear radiant presence that you are and everything is right here and right now just longing to love and loving to long. Keep turning it back to your own heart. Let your heart break open to more longing. Take it in, open up fully to it and breathe it into the source of life, the Dan Tien (the creative center in the pelvis).

This eternal longing never comes and goes. It is not something that one needs to conger up because it is always present and is always announcing itself. It is the very longing of creation that already moves you along.  Don’t run from it. Don’t grab for it. Use it.