On Friday we had a midterm for our class on the Five Elements — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. In some ways it has been a turning point, or a point of realization for me.

School, for a long time, has meant essentially one thing: Working hard for something that is ultimately irrelevant to my life. Life, on the other hand, has long meant working according to my real self and my true passions regardless of what other pressures or expectations are brought to bear on me. The division was necessary and seemed permanent.

When I was at Stanford, I took the easy way out, mostly the easier classes that let me slide by. On rarer occasions, I took classes that interested me more; but for the most part, I found my fulfillment in extracurriculars such as martial arts and nature awareness.

Since starting school for Chinese medicine, slowly I’ve come to experience more of a bridging of this gap between my real self and academics.

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I’m really enjoying my Alexander Technique lessons. I’ve been going every other week for about two months.

The best thing I can say about it is that it feels both natural and strange. It feels natural in that it really does nothing more than empower me to feel and experience my own body. It’s sort of a way of helping the mind to rediscover right relationship with the physical body.

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Recently I came across a short bit of correspondence by Hermetic practitioner Rawn Clark regarding the nature of karma. I enjoy the way he puts it, so I just thought I’d share.

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Here’s an interesting self-observation, that I’ve never really noticed before this year: I have a much more difficult time processing auditory information than I do visual. I have a very easy time with absorbing written and pictorial data, and when I think, my thoughts tend toward abstract forms that are more visual and spatial than anything else. This has served me pretty well and it fits right in with the general vision-dominated culture.

But since starting to pay attention to exactly how I process information with my senses, I’m realizing that I can’t fit things together very quickly when I hear. I sort of have to translate spoken words in my mind; it’s like a different language. When I listen to a teacher lecture, my mind tends to wander unless I actively translate.

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Overheard in New York:

High school boy #1: Okay, who’s Pavlov?
High school boy #2: I don’t know, it doesn’t ring a bell.

Autumn is here.

In Wisconsin it would have felt this way in late August — temperatures cooling, a crispness in the air, a sharpness to the step. Here in Florida, it waits until October.

There’s a plethora of wildlife where I live. Not ten minutes ago, while opening up the blinds for the morning, we scared up some sort of hawk. We regularly see alligators and ducks cruising the lake, and various herons or cranes stalking the edges of it.

And I sit at a safe distance from it all.

Quite honestly, I haven’t felt particularly connected with my environment since I finished my year in the woods over three years ago. Each passing year I’ve become more and more apathetic about noticing what’s happening.

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An old man and a young boy were traveling through their village with their donkey. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked.

As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking and the boy was riding.

The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed positions.

Later, they passed some people that remarked, “What a shame, he makes that little boy walk.” They then decided they both would walk.

Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So, they both rode the donkey.

Now they passed some people that shamed them by saying, “How awful to put such a load on a poor donkey.”

The boy and man said they were probably right, so they decided to carry the donkey.

As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal and he fell into the river and drowned.

The moral of the story?

If you try to please everyone, you may as well just kiss your ass goodbye.

How do people do it? I know people who love being in their bodies. They really love going out and playing hard, getting roughed up on the soccer field, really working themselves. It feels good to them. I have a hard time feeling good in my body. I wish I could, but I’m not sure how.

I guess it’s attitude. I approach it in a “hard” way and so it’s hard. It’s difficult to lighten up about it when it’s been a tough thing for such a long time.

I’m taking Alexander Technique lessons right now, one every couple of weeks. It’s a slow pace but a good one for me, immersed as I am in Chinese medicine. Just frequent enough to get consistent reminders, not too frequent to overwhelm me. So far I’ve had two lessons and they are gradually helping me to open up to a freer and easier relationship with my body.

But it’s still a contentious one. Maybe that comes from many years of “sit still, be quiet, do your work.” I happened to be better at it than most. I can concentrate my mind to a fine point. But now I’m learning that it comes at a cost. I’ve conditioned myself to ignore my body to the point that it no longer brings me much pleasure. What a loss.

So I’ve been taking this decoction of astragalus and angelica for a few days now, and it actually works. I’m starting to experience an increase in my energy. It’s kind of surprising; I guess deep down I’m still conditioned to believe that anything but drugs and surgery just don’t work. (I know, I know: “If you believe that, go eat some poison hemlock.”)

Funny thing, though: The increase in energy is reactivating old self-sabotaging patterns. It’s like getting a raise, I guess — If you don’t have the money to buy things, then you just can’t buy them. It’s when you have money that you start buying things you shouldn’t.

I guess I’m too familiar with what it feels like to not have that much energy that I tend to want to keep it that way, through habits like eating sugar. So the healing process now involves not just the physical recovery of energy, but the cessation of those emotional and mental activities that drain that energy, and replacing those bad habits with good ones.