Where there's life

Back on the mainland for a month with the sun still in my hair and on my skin, wondering why life seems so different now. Noticing the air becoming cooler, the sun seeming further and further away. A Ted Talk on why we should smile at strangers pulled me back into Hawaiian life for the briefest of moments and I found myself wondering if this is the reason why things seem so much closer and warmer there. Acknowledgment of another life, the validation we exist and are here to love one another - this should be pervasive and unavoidable in a hospital. Why then do I find such sadness, such alienation, so many alone and crying, so much pain and isolation? A different Ted Talk I saw a while back talked about the amazing power we have as physicians - as people- to heal one another. Not though any extraordinary training and years of education, while this helps us make medical decisions, but through reaching out to one another. Though listening, loving, supporting and simply acknowledging someone's pain. So often acknowledging a feeling, validating it's authenticity and it's normality is all we need to feel healthy again. We should, as physicians, and as people embrace this power. All the time we see people wishing for super powers, admiring super heroes for their ability to save and rescue when we fail to recognize the super powers within each of us. We are capable of so much love and health, so much compassion and kindness - so extraordinary is this power and yet we fail to embrace it. The aloha spirit, namaste - these principles cross lines of religion, ethnicity, economy - the universal truth, the universal love, the core of all that is good in humanity: Hope.

                                Source: http://uthmag.com/hope-the-answer-to-a-perfect-life/

Color me purple

The rain does something delicious to fields of lavender. The drops rinse the plants clean merging the shedding flowers with the wet and renewing earth. I am better at letting go now, releasing myself into my breath and sensing the world both within and around me without judgment. We are perfect and imperfectly so and what's more we are the way we are. To love one's self is perhaps the the easiest and hardest thing for each of us to do. We are born with nothing but self-love and are conditioned to question and judge ourselves by those who question and judge themselves. The questioning can be a beautiful and eye-opening thing - a way of introspecting and analyzing one's behavior, essentially a form of mindfulness. But when we judge what we become mindful of, categorize it as bad or wrong or any of the other opinions we can have about it seems less helpful thus far.

With Light,
Michelle

Mana Mana everywhere and not a drop to drink

History pits urban against rural from the inception of civilization each with their own misconceptions about each other. Yet as with most stereotypes these misconceptions often stem from or are based on reality. Stress levels are higher in urban areas, people are less relaxed and what I find to be most interesting today is the disconnect with nature the closer to "civilization". Each island here has a personality all its own with a distinct cultural and spiritual identity. Without judgment, these are my observations. The farther from the city you get the easier it is to connect with nature, to slow down and breathe, to feel the life force surrounding you. This is not to say that peace cannot be found in the city but it is harder to come by, it is less natural (pardon the pun). We have to work harder to see it and be better equipt to handle a higher level of other people's negative energy - merely because there is more of it concentrated in one place and everyone else is also sensitive to the increasing stress levels. On Oahu, I find the traffic to be perfectly tolerable. In fact, I have been rather enjoying my drives around the island - each day to a new destination to learn something new. I hear constantly about how awful the traffic is and how terrible Hawaiian drivers are (mostly heard from other Hawaiians). Whether it is the perspective of having driven in less pleasant traffic or the grateful feeling I have for being gifted a chance to unwind on my way home from the clinic with a beautiful sun setting behind spectacular mountains these drives here please me greatly. My sister admitted to me the other day, "Yeah, I understand that everything here is beautiful - and it IS, but also... I get it already, it's pretty and I don't want to sit on the highway for hours". But it isn't the highways unnatural appearance or the congestion of people and conglomeration of energy because even on Maui on the Hana Highway which is about as scenic as it gets (insert glorious road side waterfall here) people seem to be in a hurry to get where they are going. We are all in so much of a hurry that we barely see the beauty around us. What is it about an over-active mind that seems to cloud our vision? How can we be surrounded by such magnificence and still be spiritually dehydrated? The Mana is flowing, open your mouth and drink it in.

With Light,
Michelle

A haiku for Haiku

seeking who I am

through waves the sand scraping rough

fresh skin emerges

Photo Credit: Lockwood DeWitt

http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/

The Universe Within

I am a universe. Like nesting infinities we each are a microcosm living, breathing and expanding within each other and within a larger world. Laws of nature that apply to the universe also apply to me. When something is out of balance the plates shift and an unsteady milieu prepares to devolve into disorder. This is my internal state. I know that when cleaning the house things must get messy before a new order can set in. As things shift and move and redefine themselves it appears though chaos reigns supreme. Is there method to the madness? 

Step 1: Notice that something is off. 

Step 2: Figure out what that something is [this is the hard one].

Step 3: Adjust.

the-enlightened-mind.com

Right now I can feel it bubbling and boiling. I am aware of the sensation and I do not judge it - I accept the situation completely. However, I would like to understand where it comes from. What is it that I need to express? I feel the pressure in my gut and in my throat but I cannot identify it's source... or perhaps trigger. I awoke with it this morning and have been unable to shake it all day despite a glorious hour long meditation in the park under the sun. For that hour I felt incredible. Light and free, breezy blowing through my hair and the warming sun soaking into my skin. I am hoping that a reset push will wipe it clean. After all tomorrow is a new day. 

With Light,

Michelle

Tranformation and Balance

With light,
Michelle

Photo Credits to Jamie Cohen Breneman
Art credits: drramaenlightenmentmd.com; giorjoe.deviantart.com; 

Rising

A practitioner's lament on the status of our collective connection and intuition. Not mine and yours per se, but humanity's. Those in tune with the ebb and flow of nature and the life force can detect shifts that most of us don't see. Perhaps feel is the more accurate sense. Or perceive. Subtle shifts in the weather, the atmosphere, the pressure. Changes in the movement of energy.

Photo credit: Jamie Cohen Breneman

During an acupuncture session today I noticed an interesting sensation. It occurred as the second to last needle was placed on the top of my left foot - a lump formed in my throat. At first I thought maybe I was too relaxed and had just tilted my head forward too much, but after focusing on the feeling for a moment I noticed the lump was moving. It rose through my throat and into my jaw, swirled around in my mouth and into my nose. Warming, moving through every fiber and every bone, a light behind my eyes, then up up up up - a whirlpool at the apex of my skull bubbling and ready to beam from the core.

Photo Credit: carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com

With Light,

Michelle