Various thoughts...
I mentioned before that Steve Brown, a friend since my time at FSG, has been sending for 10 years, from time to time, "Steve's Questions" to a group of people who all met at FSG and of whom some are still there and others are somewhere else but who are all still linked by "Steve question". Recently the question involved an "original thought" that the participants may think of and some people replied with some really great original thoughts. The most interesting to me was the idea of the USA buying Canada. The reason for such purchase was as follows: the climate is changing and soon the terrain of the USA will become a barren land, a desert, while Canada will become a moderately warm place. (I would just add to that that the USA would have to kindly ask China if they would lend them more money for the purchase.) Further, the USA should sell Hawaii to Japanese because with snows thawing at the poles, it will soon disappear under water anyways. Isn't that a very interesting and original idea? The reason why the USA will become a barren land is not only due to climate change. I was reading a magazine devoted to nature of the US and its national parks and it seems that great majority of the "wild West" and the national parks is dying of pollution and toxic radioactive waste that is dumped there. This isn't an original thought but came to my mind when I was reading Steve's compilation of responses to his question.
And another idea came to my mind that has to do with my class at the school's acupuncture clinic. The last two weeks at the clinic were very interesting because some new walk-in patients came and we had very new cases to discuss. The way it work is that I follow an intern Ann who is in her 8th semester so is pretty advanced in her skills. She does the intake, checks the pulses and the tongue, and then I get the chance to ask any additional questions that I might think are relevant, and also check pulses and tongue. Then we discuss the case and Ann presents it to our supervisor (a licensed acupuncturist) and he approves or suggests changes to our treatment plan and then we go back to the patient and Ann does the treatment and I help her if I can (doing moxa or guasa since I can't needle patients yet). We had, this semester, various people of various ages, backgrounds and ailments. However, what came to my mind recently is that all these people have one thing in common - they all live in a culture that promotes what we call "excess". Basically it's a culture that promotes habits of wanting more, eating more (or none at all, which is also excess or the other extreme), getting lots of stimulation of all kinds all the time, excessive desire, excessive expectations, etc. They come to the clinic and they tell us they are constantly tired. Why are they feeling so tired? They have been running around all the time all their lives, doing so many things, sleeping 5 hours per day, having fun, and now they feel this fatigue all the time. What happened? - they ask us. Well... it's not so hard to understand... after 20, 30, 40 years of this excessive running around the body gets tired and it just shows the person to slow down, recharge, recover, rest... Some people don't eat, they just don't eat... They basically starve themselves or live on coke or other soda and sandwiches grabbed here and there and eaten in haste. They poop twice a week and consider it normal... but they ask why they have digestive problems... It's not possible for the body, and mind, to be healthy with that kind of abuse. The body is like a flower - you have to constantly water it, put it out to get some sunlight, nourish with some plant food, change soil from time to time, delicately clean the leaves... But the culture they live in approves of such lifestyle so how do you tell them that in order to get healthy they need to change their lifestyle... It's very difficult. It's so easy to take a pill or two but so hard to change habits which were ingrained early on. For some people the idea of resting and relaxing is strange (you do that on vacation - two weeks per year). Time has to be filled out entirely, to the last minute, with some kind of stimulation of the senses. I don't have a tv at home but when I get a glimpse of it when I am at someone else's home, I see how the mind is "trained" to thinking this way - the programs change with amazing speed, the advertisements are trying to pack so much in a few seconds - my mind feels violated by this speed and amount of information... It seems the real tragedy happens for the people who get retired. They suddenly loose that need to run around (and wouldn't have the strength to do it anyways) but haven't developed any peaceful activities which would fill their time. I am thinking of these old grandpas and grandmas in South America and some places in Europe who just sit in old market squares, or cafes, among other grandpas and grannies and sit and sit and just talk or don't talk but look content as fat cats warming up on window sills. The granpas and grandmas who come to our clinic have a very different state of mind: it seems they are in panic - so much time and nothing to do. A lot of this has to due with the fact that people don't build communities here so they are really on their own. They have few friends, they don't know their neighbors... In the end it creates emptiness. If you have friends and neighbors you spent your entire life with, you can sit in a cafe and not even say anything - you just feel good in their company and you can "just be".
Speaking about friends we had a very nice Easter celebration this year. Last year I spent Easter on a plane, coming from Poland to NY, and this year I was blessed with spending it with friends. It was supposed to be a small party but then it turned out there were many immigrant souls without families to celebrate Easter so we ended up celebrating it in a 14-people group at my small apartment. Everybody brought something, Gosia and two Patrycjas cooked some delicious festive specialties, there was wine and herbal tea, babkas and kekses, and lots of nice music and calm energy. Marta, our rising star of opera singing (who just got into Manhattan School of Music so we can let go of fingers which we were crossing all the time) sang for us parts from Carmen and other operas and it was beautiful and very emotional. We went for a walk looking for some green but in Jackson Hts. where I live there are no public parks, unfortunately. We just encountered a garden adjecent to an Anglican Church and longingly looked at irises and grass from behind the fence. We decided we will have to find time this coming semester to go to the beach because it's really hard for us to live without nature and the only place you can really feel space and see the horizon in NY is at the beach.
Today I, hopefully, passed the first final exam in this semester. I have 4 more to pass, one next week and three the following week. I am glad the semester is almost over and I will be able to go on vacation and spend time walking in the forest with my dogs - which, as I mentioned before, is my absolute favorite activity of all activies.
And another idea came to my mind that has to do with my class at the school's acupuncture clinic. The last two weeks at the clinic were very interesting because some new walk-in patients came and we had very new cases to discuss. The way it work is that I follow an intern Ann who is in her 8th semester so is pretty advanced in her skills. She does the intake, checks the pulses and the tongue, and then I get the chance to ask any additional questions that I might think are relevant, and also check pulses and tongue. Then we discuss the case and Ann presents it to our supervisor (a licensed acupuncturist) and he approves or suggests changes to our treatment plan and then we go back to the patient and Ann does the treatment and I help her if I can (doing moxa or guasa since I can't needle patients yet). We had, this semester, various people of various ages, backgrounds and ailments. However, what came to my mind recently is that all these people have one thing in common - they all live in a culture that promotes what we call "excess". Basically it's a culture that promotes habits of wanting more, eating more (or none at all, which is also excess or the other extreme), getting lots of stimulation of all kinds all the time, excessive desire, excessive expectations, etc. They come to the clinic and they tell us they are constantly tired. Why are they feeling so tired? They have been running around all the time all their lives, doing so many things, sleeping 5 hours per day, having fun, and now they feel this fatigue all the time. What happened? - they ask us. Well... it's not so hard to understand... after 20, 30, 40 years of this excessive running around the body gets tired and it just shows the person to slow down, recharge, recover, rest... Some people don't eat, they just don't eat... They basically starve themselves or live on coke or other soda and sandwiches grabbed here and there and eaten in haste. They poop twice a week and consider it normal... but they ask why they have digestive problems... It's not possible for the body, and mind, to be healthy with that kind of abuse. The body is like a flower - you have to constantly water it, put it out to get some sunlight, nourish with some plant food, change soil from time to time, delicately clean the leaves... But the culture they live in approves of such lifestyle so how do you tell them that in order to get healthy they need to change their lifestyle... It's very difficult. It's so easy to take a pill or two but so hard to change habits which were ingrained early on. For some people the idea of resting and relaxing is strange (you do that on vacation - two weeks per year). Time has to be filled out entirely, to the last minute, with some kind of stimulation of the senses. I don't have a tv at home but when I get a glimpse of it when I am at someone else's home, I see how the mind is "trained" to thinking this way - the programs change with amazing speed, the advertisements are trying to pack so much in a few seconds - my mind feels violated by this speed and amount of information... It seems the real tragedy happens for the people who get retired. They suddenly loose that need to run around (and wouldn't have the strength to do it anyways) but haven't developed any peaceful activities which would fill their time. I am thinking of these old grandpas and grandmas in South America and some places in Europe who just sit in old market squares, or cafes, among other grandpas and grannies and sit and sit and just talk or don't talk but look content as fat cats warming up on window sills. The granpas and grandmas who come to our clinic have a very different state of mind: it seems they are in panic - so much time and nothing to do. A lot of this has to due with the fact that people don't build communities here so they are really on their own. They have few friends, they don't know their neighbors... In the end it creates emptiness. If you have friends and neighbors you spent your entire life with, you can sit in a cafe and not even say anything - you just feel good in their company and you can "just be".
Speaking about friends we had a very nice Easter celebration this year. Last year I spent Easter on a plane, coming from Poland to NY, and this year I was blessed with spending it with friends. It was supposed to be a small party but then it turned out there were many immigrant souls without families to celebrate Easter so we ended up celebrating it in a 14-people group at my small apartment. Everybody brought something, Gosia and two Patrycjas cooked some delicious festive specialties, there was wine and herbal tea, babkas and kekses, and lots of nice music and calm energy. Marta, our rising star of opera singing (who just got into Manhattan School of Music so we can let go of fingers which we were crossing all the time) sang for us parts from Carmen and other operas and it was beautiful and very emotional. We went for a walk looking for some green but in Jackson Hts. where I live there are no public parks, unfortunately. We just encountered a garden adjecent to an Anglican Church and longingly looked at irises and grass from behind the fence. We decided we will have to find time this coming semester to go to the beach because it's really hard for us to live without nature and the only place you can really feel space and see the horizon in NY is at the beach.
Today I, hopefully, passed the first final exam in this semester. I have 4 more to pass, one next week and three the following week. I am glad the semester is almost over and I will be able to go on vacation and spend time walking in the forest with my dogs - which, as I mentioned before, is my absolute favorite activity of all activies.
posted by Asia Kabat at 7:57 PM
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