On Vacation

It's my week to blog. If it's your first visit to this site, I recommend reading "An Open Letter to the National Leadership..." below - far more newsworthy and relevant to the purposes of the Community Acupuncture Network than my random musings.

For those who aren't holding their breath for a response from AT and/or other established stakeholders in the acupuncture world (are they on permanent vacation?), I offer a few reflections from my week:

Officially, I am "on vacation". One of the beauties of having a CA clinic set up as a partnership with one or several other practitioners, is the ability to leave the clinic behind and take needed rest while the other partner(s) takes control of the daily operations. It's a beautiful feeling of sharing and trust that grows, mirroring those same feelings we are creating in this larger CAN community.

My Vacation: I had knee surgery last Friday. For those interested in a longer story of my adventures in the hospital, please see the CommuniChi blog page:
http://www.communichi.org/blog/. In brief, I relied on my practice of Buddhist meditation and desire for no sedation (as opposed to pain relief which I did not refuse), transforming this experience into a profound meditation on life, death, and transcending pain.

One area of particular relevance to practitioners of the healing arts in general was my observation of the human qualities of empathy, compassion, and kindness, and how those were mostly present in the people on "my team", but absent in one notable instance.

The anesthesiologist was a particularly gloomy fellow. He never smiled and his eye contact was very brief. His voice was low and monotone and his complexion was pale. It was as if I had met the Grim Reaper himself and I noticed a level of anxiety creep into my mind the moment I met him.
Nonetheless, the entire procedure seemed to go well - I lived again to tell this tale, and currently, my knee is up on a pillow full of needles, restoring the healthy flow of Chi through my roughed up knee.

Lessons learned: Always smile at your patients (and non-patients). Think kind thoughts - imagining, visualizing them free of all inner and outer obstacles, full of radiant health, with particular healing emphasis on whatever problem they are having. Look at them in the eyes, with the windows to their heart where all healing begins, and project compassion, love, hope, and perhaps even wisdom. (Did Jesus know Chinese when he layed hands on people?)

Vacations, planned periods of rest, quiet, and reflection, are a necessary ingredient to any successful human endeavor.