Harmony is the Rule of Nature: The Year of the Fire Rooster!

The Lunar New Year recently began and I feel the first stirrings of Spring underway. Fresh blossoms are beginning to bloom, the sky lightens earlier, and I leave the house with one less layer on. I feel an energy slowly emerging that desires greater expression and connection with the external world. After a dark cold winter of the Fire Monkey when the world seemed topsy turvy, I am eagerly aligning with the Fire Rooster for a fresh new start.

Like Chinese Medicine, the Chinese Zodiac is based upon keen observations of the patterns and laws that govern the Natural World. Existing in harmonious relationship with the laws of the Natural World is the aim of the traditional Chinese way of life.What is considered the Natural World is not only what we commonly think of as Mother Nature, but includes us as human beings and the worlds that we create. The question of how to be in harmonious relationship with ourselves, Nature, the current state of the Nation and our fellow human beings is something that many of us have been struggling with as of late.

Harmony is a skillful ordering of separate elements to create an accord of greater value than what might emerge through accident, thoughtlessness or willful discord.To create harmony during troubling times, great skill is required and the wisdom of the Fire Rooster reminds us to call upon clarity, precision and intelligence for a successful resolution. Ignoring this careful work is a cockiness--the rooster’s imbalance-- that we cannot afford, especially during these trying times.

Where do we begin? We begin by putting our heads back on. Last thing we want to do in Year of the Rooster is to run around like chickens without heads. This may be hard as our fears are being triggered and setting off alarm bells inside our guts. Try not to panic and locate your head. In so doing, we may begin to see that there are logical systems and steps to caring for ourselves and our community that can establish peace and harmony.

Rooster is about structure - early to rise, early to bed. This year, it is critical to establish healthful regimens that ensure adequate rest, movement and nourishment. Prioritize eight hours of sleep, regular exercise and eating well. Additionally, organize your work and living space to increase order, cleanliness and efficiency. Care for yourself with thoughtful and established routines and your fear will eventually transform into empowerment.

Then turn your attention outwards and extend that empowerment to your communities. Connect with others to brainstorm systematic ways to realign our Nation with the Natural Order. Make alliances with those who are doing similar work. Harmony is the rule of Nature. In order to reestablish the Natural Order, we ourselves--through our living, through our being, through our conscious connection--must align with harmony. In the Year of the Fire Rooster, it is through careful, thoughtful and systematic action on both an individual and collective level that harmony and peace will prevail. Join me in this work. Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!!!!!

-Thuy

How will the fire rooster show up for you in your life this year?

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The gift of loss

Driving to work this morning, I saw birds in the sky, their V and M silhouetted shapes against billowy clouds of grey and white. They were commonplace birds - seagulls, ravens, pigeons - but today I was struck by them, like a visitor in a new land.  

Reflecting on the past year I have, as with many others, been filled by a deep sense of loss. The passing of leaders and creators that have helped shape me. The seemingly endless and senseless police brutality and violence against our Black brothers and sisters. The threats and violence at Standing Rock against Native Americans and mother Earth. Our local community devastated by the loss of bright young men and women in the Oakland fire. And a president elect who seems completely disconnected from his constituents. As such, it has also been a year of profound healing, enabling me to reconnect with life in deeper and simpler ways. The idea that loss leads to deeper connection feels like a paradox and like all paradoxes, its understanding cannot be grasped by the mind. It must be realized by the heart.

The term “at a loss” comes from hunting and is used in reference to hounds losing the scent. This past year I have been struck by that very feeling, a sense of bewilderment and confusion. To lose a scent is akin to losing a dream, the destination is no longer apparent and cannot be reached. I’ve had this feeling before when the rug is pulled from under me or I am unexpectedly thrown off track and have to quickly change plans and reconfigure. There is panic, anxiety and sometimes depression and paralysis but then I regroup and redirect.

This year I still can’t seem to find my footing, the feeling of loss is strong. And I actually feel this as positive and awakening. Being at a loss is like a short circuit to business as usual. Like a Zen Master slapping you upside the head, it hurts, it’s humiliating, it’s uncomfortable but it is exactly those things that wakes me up to challenge my own mind games. For many of us including me, our usual mind games are not mindful at all. We are running around like chickens without our heads (and hearts), obsessed with the busyness and trivialities of living but not feeling connected or alive. Much of life goes unnoticed when we are mindless like this. Put your head back on and your heart in its rightful place. Loss re-minds us of the uncomfortable fact that there is nothing permanent. As such, there is everything precious. For that may be the gift of loss.

A New Year has begun and life is short. I wish simple and beautiful things to take root in your life this year. There is much love and healing to cultivate in the world and in ourselves. May we locate all the loss and inspiration of the past year in our own hearts and in doing so may we ourselves give off the scent of love and healing so that none of us will be at a loss for very long.

Happy New Year BCA Community! All my love and blessings in the coming year.

Thuy

Some words to share

““Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you. Your feelings need you. Your perceptions need you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things.” ”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

I ’ve been having a hard time finding the words this month. Words give shape and meaning to my experience and create a bridge from my internal world to my external world. The recent turmoil has left me searching for the words I want to say.

On the morning after the results from the election came out, I arrived to work feeling fragile and raw. One patient was in shock and disbelief and asked for some words, “a sentence or two”, to help navigate the difficult news. I searched my mind, but what welled up inside had no words, just waves of grief and emotion. Throughout the day, there were a lot of tears shed between my patients and I.

In the days following, I put all my energy towards showing up. It was very difficult, but it is my medicine to show up as I am. I’ve traveled from grief to rage to cynicism to despair to exhaustion. In these states, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other without denying or acting out my feelings. I sat with my patients and listened. I saw my emotions reflected back at me through the tears, the disillusionment, the anger, the fear, the hopelessness.

Many people were compelled to leap into action, organize, protest, strategize. Others found it hard to get out of bed and felt guilty for feeling defeated. We live in a culture that is fixated on action and doing. The desire to fix something and do something is so reflexive in us, that we barely feel the edges of discomfort before we are off to find solutions. It is not so easy to sit with confusion or fear or pain or despair and not impulsively shut it down, run away from it, hide it or do something about it.

We think that through action we can put out into the world peace, justice and wholeness despite feelings of anger, fear and disconnection. We fail to see the impossibility of the situation, that we cannot give what we do not have.

We can’t wallow and let hatred take over the world. What is to be done?!” When I’ve been asked these questions, I can feel the fear and the anger behind the insistence on action. And I think it’s best to pause. And that pause, that willingness to acknowledge and sit with the discomfort of our own fears is the best “action.” Because in that pause, we’ve refrained from putting more fear and anger into the world and then perhaps there is a space for true healing to take place. Healing takes into account the whole picture, the shadow and the light and integrates and connects into our personal and collective beingness. It takes intentional presence and patience to acknowledge all the disconnected parts and to allow the healing process its due course.

The healing process may not look like what we pictured.  It may look like tears and confusion and anger. It may feel like pain and despair. It may be without energy or words. But in our willingness to be compassionate with it, to acknowledge and affirm our own suffering, we are affirming ourselves. We are giving ourselves the love, the patience, the confidence, the wholeness that we want to see in the world. When we can give that to ourselves, then it becomes a true and natural extension to others.

My gratitude is extended to you, my community, for showing up for me, for doing the work of healing with me, for sharing in the collective grieving that acknowledges our wholeness and our resilience. May we continue together on this path of healing and may we meet any form of anger and fear with compassion for ourselves and for one another. And if in our grief, we find no compassion, may we walk away, seek help and care for ourselves until once again our strength returns and we can give and receive love and healing.

Heal Yourself, Heal Your Community.

Thuy