week one quiz

1. What attracts me to Chinese Medicine?

I left my new york city "western" life when I was 17, and took on many things of a more "Alternative" nature. I started working on organic farms, became very aware of a great life other than the only one way I was taught to live mine. I loved making tinctures and natural medicines, eating healthy and expanding my mind. A chronic illness surfaced more during this time, and became completely debilitating when I moved to California. I tried all things "eastern", including chinese medicine, and unlike most success stories, I had to make the choice to go on western medication. I think it saved my life, in a way, and I will never forget how useful it was to me as I am immersed in eastern medicine. Once I found the strength to be on a healing path, I engaged in heavy doses of acupunture and herbs, and have found an amazing balance between the two spectrums. I am thrilled to be learning chinese medicine, as it is a privledge to force my brain to expand in ways that I never knew possible. I hope to work with a population that may need western medicine, but would like to find more balance with chinese medicine. I look forward to all I have to learn, and know in this path I will be learning for the rest of my life. What a gift!

2. What do I honestly think of physics, really?

I never took it, so I don't really know that much about it. I love math, as numbers comfort me in a world where there are so few answers. I will try to be open to learning physics without too much focus on math, and I think this is another gift as I try to step out of my comfort zone in education. I'll let you know after the semester.

3. Now that I think about it, have I ever experienced time "slowing down"?

Often. The clock seems to go backwards during herbology class ;-). My most vivid thought on this is when I worked in the field on veggie farms. I have managed one farm for three years, and felt much stress from the time crunch of each day. Every plant is very time sensitive, mostly having to do with the sun. On harvest days we had a strict order that things needed to be done in, and it required fast pace and many details. On those days, I would wake up stressed, and head down to the garden. Everytime I kneeled down to touch the earth from where all our crops grew, something would shift in the time. It is hard to explain, but as stressed as I was, the second I touched the moist soil, I was at peace, and a chore that needed to be done in twenty minutes, always got done, but it felt like hours would pass. The earth has a calming effect in so many ways, and soon I learned to trust it as on most mornings in my last year on the farm, the stress was not there. I knew it would all get done, and I would enjoy the slowness of the fast paced day.