The peculiar focusing power of the autumn

on 11/16/2012 by Eric Grey in Foundational Science

In my earliest days studying Chinese medicine, I was sure I understood the five elements.  Yet, the more I dug into them – particularly the relationship of metal and wood – the less I felt like I knew.  At this point, four years into teaching and practicing this medicine, my knowledge sometimes seems to hover somewhere around zero.

Teacher always told me there would be days like this…

I'm a little dense at times, and unlike some of my more exalted colleagues, I find that the most foundational lessons are unlearnable to me through books, translation and the like.  Instead, I just have to get my hands dirty – living this crazy life – messing up and figuring out better ways to do the things I must do.  The role of metal, and the power of autumn, is one of those things I've had to learn the slow and dirty way.

In the spring, all full of life and promise and windy heat, I started about forty new projects.

Most of them fell away due to lack of feeding.  During this explosion of activity, I started to wonder whether Chinese Medicine Quarterly were something I wanted to keep alive with my scarce time and energy.  Personally, I believe it's important to examine one's commitments and make sound decisions about their importance.  I decided to let it lie for the summer, and see what happened.

What happened is simple.  As autumn approached, and the busy commitments of the flourishing yang calmed down, new writers came out of the woodwork.  One editor gracefully stepped down and another took her place.  Things started to coalesce.  The more I considered what we'd already done with the magazine, the more I realized that it was worth continuing.

It took that focusing, simplifying energy of the autumn to get my head straight.

So – we've got another issue for you.  It's definitely the best we've produced so far.  To make things even more exciting, we've decided to drop the price on CMQ across the board – all the old issues and this new one, too.  Instead of $ 5.99, it's only $ 4.99 for the digital copies.  Paper copies are still significantly more expensive due to the expense of producing something in paper that's really worth buying.

I'm really excited about this issue and can't wait for you to get your eyes on it.  I hope you'll come back to this post and tell me how you liked it.  Even more, I hope you'll be so excited about what we're doing at CMQ that you'll want to learn more about how to get involved.

Want to learn more about the issue and maybe make a purchase?  Please just click this link to be taken to the issue page.

Join the forum discussion on this post

Did you like this post? Share it! share on facebook share on google+

Get the Free Treatise

Get email updates, discounts & the free Treatise on Engaged, Rooted Chinese medicine.

Read More @ Source