I was supported and emboldened in my work by my connection to you

Dear Friends, Colleagues and BCA Community,

Thank you everyone for your support and donations towards my recent trip to Navajo Lands to aid in the current pandemic through Traditional Chinese Medicine. Through your donations, I was able to get masks, gloves and other supplies to 4 Medicine People so that they can be protected as they continue their work. I was also able to provide substantial preventive and first stage treatment in the form of herbs and supplements to 3 separate elders to distribute within their communities. And I was equipped best I could with raw herbal formulations and instruments to treat the current family that I am working with who are in the more advanced stages of the virus. Perhaps most importantly, I was supported and emboldened in my work by my connection to you, my community, in all forms, through prayer, donations and positive regard.

For TCM practitioners, you know that our medicine, especially here in the US, is not cut out to be emergency medicine. It’s best suited for prevention and early stages. Yet even then, it can play a strong role in inhibiting the virus, blocking the infection, regulating the immune response, cutting off the inflammatory response and promoting the repair of the body. With TCM’s tool set of herbs and acupuncture, the best practice requires differential diagnosis, ongoing care, supervision and raw herbs. I knew I would not be able to provide the optimal care of standard practice to the treatment of the family with only 4 days in Navajo country. There would be further difficulties like treating in full PPE, no tongue diagnosis through a mask and pulse is sketchy through double layered gloves. With distributing preventive and first stage herbs, there would be the obstacle of making sure clear instructions are communicated as well as encouraging patient compliance. Even with our own patients who are familiar with the medicine and with full access to herbs, compliance is an issue.

It was a huge task before me and I had to take some time to meditate upon Medicine and Healing in the biggest sense, not limited to our fears and desired outcome. I had to remind myself that our medicine is one in support of Life, not really the prevention of death. That is modern medicine’s realm.

What does it mean when a Medicine is in support of Life? To understand what that means, it is crucial we understand what Life is--what is this existence that we are gifted with? Perhaps this is the contemplation that many of us are confronting as we navigate this era of uncertainty wherein death and disease are front and center in our collective consciousness. Perhaps we are figuring out for ourselves what is important to us, what our Life is for and how to cultivate that life.

To understand what that means, it is crucial we understand what Life is--what is this existence that we are gifted with? Perhaps this is the contemplation that many of us are confronting as we navigate this era of uncertainty wherein death and disease are front and center in our collective consciousness. Perhaps we are figuring out for ourselves what is important to us, what our Life is for and how to cultivate that life.

My work with the Navajo community began with a chance meeting with former Chief Justice of the Navajo Nation Robert Yazzie. He attended a talk I gave on TCM as a medicine that rests on a different outlook and understanding of Life than modern medicine. TCM rests on a worldview of connection and relationship, harmony and balance. What I spoke about in that talk resonated with his Navajo worldview of Life and Peacekeeping and a friendship developed as we continued the conversation through long phone calls, visits and medicine exchange. We understood and recognized that our work rests upon the same Truths. Through him I developed other relationships in the community where this mutual recognition is supported. The relationships themselves give life to the Medicine.

I understood early on that what I was attempting to bring to Navajo country would not be effective if I didn’t go deep enough into the medicine to discover a common root that respected Life in both traditions. The common root is the affirmation of Medicine as connected to all our Relations on earth (human, plant, animal) to Nature and to spirit and to the Creator. In the worldview that TCM rests on, we acknowledge this as the Tao. Living in harmony with all these things is what is healthy. A disconnect from these relationships can weaken us and make us susceptible to illness and disease. Medicine therefore is a restoration of sacred connection. To understand fully all our connections, we must step back from putting our personal selves front and center in this picture. We are just one small part in the miraculous universe, like the ancient Chinese landscapes where the human beings are small specks within the majesty of Nature. small and great in our inseparable connection to all that is. We do our work from this place, our small efforts in understanding our great connections.

There is a growing disconnect in modern times that calls for the restoration of our greatness through our Connection to one another and all that is. Through our small acts, may each of us one by one, rebuild and restore the lifeline to Oneness with one another. If we give medicine without understanding that connection and the inseparable connection between who we are and what we give and who we are giving to, then it will be ineffective. At best, it may prolong a life of disconnection for a little while, but it can’t restore the true essence of Life itself. If, however, we bring to what we do this understanding of Connection and Love, then even if life is lost, Love and Connection flourishes for all of us. In that sense, we all must become the Medicine in our lives for the people and relations we are connected to.

And so when I bring Traditional Chinese Medicine to the Navajo people, for it to be effective, I must bring it with prayer and Connection. I must acknowledge all the hearts and prayers and people who infused it with a desire to restore Healing (you). I must acknowledge the plants that offer their very beingness for the medicine and I must acknowledge the sun and the rain that grew those plants. And most of all I must give praise and acknowledge the Divine Great Mystery, the Tao, the Creator that orchestrated all this, that connected me to you and to all the wonder of this Life and I must Trust in that orchestration to be Perfect and Complete. When we do this, Medicine in whatever form we may bring to our communities will take root. It may take time but I know TCM will take root in Navajo Nation for the benefit of the people as what is there is already taking root inside me.

In Community,

Why Traditional Chinese Medicine is Needed during this Time

These are hard times. On varying levels, we are being confronted with deep questions about death, health, family, community, livelihood, and our responsibilities towards ourselves and to one another. We are stripped from our usual comforts and diversions and we are living into these questions at a distance from one another. 

What does Traditional Chinese Medicine have to offer at times like these? While most of us think of TCM as needles and herbs for ailments, there is a value to TCM that runs deeper. The depth and breadth of TCM is immense. As prevention, TCM works with the present moment to understand where we are in relation to things. It brings our attention to what we do daily, to the foods we eat, to our day to day movements, to the feelings we have, to the thoughts we think, to the rest our bodies crave and connects the day to day things to a greater cosmology. This is a powerful step to recovering the integrity of our body and our place in the world. TCM points the way to yourself and to the world around you to find the ground beneath your feet.  Its great wisdom and power lies in the understanding and cultivation of connection and relationships that optimize health, integrity and resiliency. TCM is a medicine more focussed on living and thriving than on the prevention of dying, although it has powerful medicine and guidance even for the last stages of life.

How are you feeling this very moment?  If you are feeling scared, take a deep breath and gently hold the area that feels scared.  Nourish yourself with good food, good thoughts, good company and good humor. If you are feeling anxious, take a warm bath, listen to relaxing music, take a nap. If you are feeling angry, vent, run up a hill, sing loudly. If you are feeling sad, cry, share, hug. If you are feeling lonely, reach out to a friend. While these things may seem basic, almost too common sense, the often overlooked key here is to check in with yourself. Feel into and trust what is real for you now and have a willingness to take that seriously. Then empower yourself to shift it with the tools you have within yourself. 

Yes, TCM has more sophisticated tools and guidance about what to do as well. That is where the needles and herbs come in. But if you learn how to do the very basic things regularly, it may be enough to take care of yourself. If it is not enough, you can avail yourself with a TCM  practitioner who can guide you back to balance and harmony. 

TCM evolves from an ancient body of knowledge that emphasizes humans as inseparable from the natural world. Living in harmony with Nature and the environment is essential for health and healing. Harmony and balance are emphasized to cultivate strength, flexibility and resiliency. TCM, by its very nature, is adaptive and capable of giving guidance and remedy at all phases of illness and in every situation. 

Keep an eye out for self care video #2 on diet and qigong!

Many Medicines, One Healing: BCA Navajo Healing Project

“Hozhoo bae nana dolthdoo: With this (healing) may you go forth in the world in beauty.”

On the first morning of the second annual Navajo Healing Clinic, Justice Yazzie summoned us to an opening prayer. We pulled ourselves from our tasks --food prep, organizing clinic space, setting up outdoor intake--and collected ourselves in front of the large metal broiler that was heating the rocks for the morning sweat lodge. It was cold that morning and we were gathered around like children, hugging ourselves, shaking and marching in place to warm ourselves. The sun had broken the horizon not long ago and I was enjoying the serenity of the desert plants in the morning light.

Justice Yazzie started by asking us to repeat a blessing in Navajo. We didn’t know what we were repeating, but tried to keep up the best we could. We had already spent the earlier part of the morning trying to commit to memory a simple blessing in Navajo to say to our patients after we treat them. At the time, it seemed easy enough. But it’s amazing how quickly forgetfulness and confusion descends. Throughout the morning the simple one line quickly devolved into nonsense mumbling, mnemonic silliness and conflicting corrections between us. So when Justice Yazzie again started with more Navajo for the opening prayers, I felt defeated before I began. After what felt like a long time of speaking and repeating Navajo, he finished the blessing in English. He said all things are medicine, even hardship is medicine and that one medicine speaks to the other medicine so they know what to do.

As I thought about what Justice Yazzie was saying, I realized that it was a succinct articulation of our entire project from the beginning. It’s hard to say how something like the Navajo Healing Project gets birthed and grows. Perhaps projects begin with an idea. But where do ideas come from? Marley Shebala, the journalist of the local newspaper, led me to trace the project as far back in time as I could go when she came to interview me about the Navajo Healing Project for the local paper.

She began with basic questions: where were we from? What were we doing there? After some time explaining my chance meeting with Justice Yazzie and telling her about our project, she directed her questions to me personally. Tell me about you, she kept insisting. I gave her my usual professional answer, I’m the owner and director of BCA, etc. She stopped me mid-sentence. No, she pressed, tell me about you. I paused, not sure what she was getting at. What brought you here? Where did you come from? Why are you doing this work? How do you know what you know? I saw from her direct and insistent questioning that she wanted the whole story, my real story. And I could feel from her presence that I could tell her the real story and she would get it.

I began the story with me as a baby being born in a time of war, of the impact of forced and violent displacement, of the incessant search for home, community, healing and the search for who I am and what was taken from me. I emphasized that to me, re-claiming myself is not just learning about where I came from, but actually starts from affirming all the things that make me who I am in the present moment. In the present moment, I am a Vietnamese-American woman and I find myself on Navajo Lands, with my Navajo family offering healing with Traditional Chinese Medicine to the Navajo community. While there is a different kind of displacement that perhaps I cannot understand--the trauma is familiar to me. As I spoke an unexpected torrent of emotions came through me as Marley held my hands. Through my tears, I could see tears in Marley’s eyes too -- a shared springwell of tears and recognition emerging from our eyes.

After that interview, I thought about the medicines that we all carry inside us talking to the medicine of another. I wondered how everyone’s journeys brought them to Window Rock, Arizona that weekend and I thought about the medicine each of us gives and the medicine each of us receives. I felt that healing is the alchemy of medicines informed by stories. I saw everyone with new eyes and marveled at every interaction, including my own. I saw a medicine man give our bodyworker a healing before she gave him a treatment because he sensed she picked up a pain from a patient the day before. I saw people approaching the clinic with the traumatic reflex of suspicion and caution and leave with openness and trust. I saw a small child eager to step in and perform massage on our team members in the way she experienced and watched us through the weekend. I saw elderly men emerging from the adjacent sweat lodge relaxed and joyful like children and people emerging from acupuncture and body work in the same way. I heard laughter all around, broken Navajo from our team members, words of gratitude and encouragement, greetings of kinship, offers of help and support, all carried by the tones and sounds of the healing instruments our sound healer brought back from her own healing journey to Tibet. I saw people magically appear and volunteer for crucial roles to help the clinic run smoothly-- a local bodyworker to take the place of our BCA bodyworker who couldn’t make the trip, an elder to run the women’s sweat lodge when the person who was supposed to do it had to leave, relatives to gather sacred wood in the mountains late at night to run the sweat lodge, and our last minute addition to the BCA team who had a knack of knowing exactly what each person needed at the right time and was there to offer it. I saw everyone working in magical synchronicity, naturally as things are intended in Nature and I thought of my BCA community at home, people there stepping in to keep the clinic running smoothly in our absence and the support of all kinds that made our trip possible. In this flow, give and take is blurred, your medicine or my medicine is blurred, each person’s story becomes the other person’s story and we merge into one medicine, one story of healing.

By the end of the weekend, our team had treated almost 80 people of all ages. Most received both acupuncture and bodywork. We offered healing medicinal balm that one of our patients from BCA made and donated, educational materials and instructions on self-care, food that we prepared with our Navajo family and offered to everyone who came through the clinic, and a final blessing that by the second day of clinic we more confidently spoke to our patients (perhaps because we came up with the idea to tape it to the wall): Hozhoo bae nana dolthdoo: With this (healing) may you go forth in the world in beauty. Upon hearing our linguistic attempt, some people thanked us, some laughed, some were confused. But I think everyone understood the underlying intention we all had in common, that of healing.

In community.