Those who are wise do not wait for illness to develop before taking care of its causes. They do not wait for affairs to become disordered before addressing the issues. To wait for illness to arrive and disorder to form before taking care of things is like waiting until one is already thirsty before digging a well, or waiting for the battle to have already begun before forging the weapons. Is this not too late?

Huang Di Nei Jing
(Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic)
Chapter 2

 

 

There are two distinct routes up the great mountain of medicine. One is long and gradual and carefully winds its way up the forested backside. Clear passage depends on good maps, experienced guides and ample internal resources. There are many diversions along the way and it's easy to lose sight of the peak. But the gardens are lush back there and it's undeniable how good it is for the children. This route is called "Cultivation of Health."

The other route is short and steep and heads straight up the cliff-face. Clear passage depends on good equipment, knowledgeable technicians and ample external resources. It can be a bit more crowded and the risk of catastrophe is quite high, but the accommodations are often well-appointed and the views can be incredible along the way. This route goes by the name "Treatment of Disease."

At the beginning and end of the journey to tip-top health, both routes are basically the same and of course there are many connector trails that lace back and forth between them. But en route, the labors they respectively undertake to gain ground couldn't be more different from each other. Cultivating health means generating holistic integrity and maintaining it, while treating disease means isolating specific dysfunction and repairing it. Thus when treating disease one must necessarily break from holistic integrity to be able to hone in on whatever particular part needs the extra attention, and vice versa.

Since this breaking from integrity is inherently detrimental to the ongoing cultivation of health, one might presume it would be done sparingly, reserved for rare occasions and extreme situations only. But at this peculiar stage in the evolution of the world that we currently find ourselves in, where extreme situations are encountered on the daily and the Treatment of Disease is a multi-billion dollar industry, well it wouldn't be too hard to forget that there even was another perfectly good way up to the top of that mountain that didn't require the sacrifice of holistic integrity.

Gratefully, the memory of this other path and how to navigate it has indeed been dutifully preserved for us by the wisdom traditions of old-growth cultures around the world. Longevity and wisdom have been friends since the very beginning. But in the West, where the schism between mind and body, human and nature, has been most pronounced, the "wisdom of the body" has long been a difficult and surprisingly controversial subject, at times even blasphemous. It's still hard to talk about today, actually. However in most Eastern cultures, where this particular trauma did not occur to the same degree, the old lore from the backside of the mountain is still highly valued and generally considered to be a kind of cultural treasure.

Thus you can think of the Falling Water School as an emissary and bridge between old-growth culture and modernity and thus a kind of backcountry outfitter, procuring and providing all the necessary maps, skills, and resources one might need for successful wayfaring out in the vast wilderness of the Cultivation of Health. Whether you're just getting started and need a little bit of everything, or you're well on your way and could just use a spot of help in navigating some new territory, please don't hestitate to get in touch.

Call, text or email at anytime to learn more or book a session:
802-349-2725 or cloudhandy@yahoo.com

 

Private Sessions
with Christopher Kiely, LAc.

WHAT'S IN A "SESSION"?

All private sessions and courses of sessions are custom-tailored to meet the diverse needs of each person on their respective journeys to complete wholeness, or health. If you are already a student or practitioner of Taichi Chuan, then the focus of the sessions would be on how best to accentuate and potentiate the medicinal effects of your taichi practice. If you are not yet a practitioner of Taichi Chuan then the focus would be on how best to apply the principles of taichi theory (aka Chinese Medicine) to whatever practice or practices you do have. If you have no current practice or simply want to learn some new routines, then the focus would be on developing an appropriate practice out of meditation, breathing and simple calisthenic movements. Any acute obstructions or impediments that might handicap a practice can be addressed as needed along the way with acupuncture therapy, herbal supplementation, dietary fasting and Yijing consultations.

It's perhaps worth noting that focusing more on cultivation of health than treatment of disease does not mean that diseases and symptoms are ignored or denied. It simply means that the burden of cure and expectation of progress is driven less by the search for temporary repairs, patches and purges and more by the facilitation of long-term processes that lead to metabolic transformation and the expansion of consciousness around the healing capacities of a thriving ecosystem rooted in balance, flow and natural grace.

In most acute medical situations, some kind of treatment of disease is usually required at first to calm the symptoms enough to be able to start cultivating health effectively, as the cultivation of health requires a state of overall calmness to be most effective. As well at any time during the ongoing process of cultivation it may become necessary to temporarily switch focus to the treatment of disease. This is simply part of the cultivation mindset: knowing how to balance the whole with its many parts. However as greater skill in cultivation is developed, its usefulness during the more acute phases of illness as well will increase, along with its preventative potency, making it less and less likely for acute medical situations to arise in the first place. Developing this skill and carefulness of discretion is one of the fundamental purposes of regular practice.

According to an old Daoist tradition, the process of internal cultivation (neigong) is divided into three distinct phases of training: initiation, purification and cultivation. Everybody must start with the first phase of initiation, which involves the recognition of the process, the learning of the routines and an introduction to the principles. This can be a relatively short phase or it can take lifetimes, depending on one's motivations, study habits and overall readiness.

However long it takes to get those basic patterns down, as soon as the novelty of learning new routines and principles starts to wear off, the second phase begins. This is the purification phase of the process and is entirely focused on the ongoing repetition and deep refinement of the practice routines over an extended period of time to fully harmonize the body and mind, deeply solidify their holistic integrity and return to one's original state of clear simplicity and open vitality. This is generally the most intensive and arduous phase of the practice and requires a firm commitment to hard work and compassionate perseverance to be able to make it through. Total fluency in the practice and complete transformation of the self are the ultimate results, however without long practice there can be no sudden understanding. Here is where we continuously remind ourselves that "one day's practice is one day's benefit."

For those lucky ones who doggedly persist and do end up making it through into the final phase of practice, you're basically up on the ridgeline now and are for the most part healed. The top of the mountain can clearly be seen and all you need to do now is keep on going, continuing to maintain and temper your hard-earned equilibrium for as long as you can. This is the less is more stage of the process and all efforts from this point on are essentially preventative. When most people think of someone cultivating health in balance and harmony they indelibly picture this last phase, as it is undeniably the most sustainable and enjoyable part of the process. However it is essential to keep in mind that it is not possible without the deep work and oftentimes unbalanced and disharmonious progress of the other two much more difficult and intensive phases. That old natural wisdom has been warning us all along that nothing good comes easy. But it also tells us that good things come to those who are patient. It's a curious twist of language where one who is receiving medical treatment becomes a patient, while one who is cultivating health must above all be patient with oneself. Either way, patience and healing are just as old friends as wisdom and longevity.

It begins with doing and hardly anyone can see a thing.
Then when it comes to non-doing, all begin to understand.
But if you only see non-doing as the essential marvel,
how would you know that doing is the foundation?

Zhang Boduan in Awakening to Reality (Wu Zhen Pian), c. 1075

 

Please feel free to call, text or email at anytime to learn more or book a session:
802-349-2725 or cloudhandy@yahoo.com

 

 

Falling water is the internal movement towards life.
It is what pours in, quenches deep and washes through.
It is our bearing on center and instinct for resolve.
Falling water both fills the cup and empties it.
All at the same time it cleans us up,
keeps us soft and takes us home.
Falling water is more than just a waterfall.
It is the settling of the mind and the memory of now.
Through everything we do the water is falling.
Flowing by following, water points the way.
Following by flowing, we drift along.

-- Christopher Kiely, summer of 2012