year of sagely living

my classmate eric over at Deepest Health, has proposed a year of sagely livingas not only a challenge but a way to deepen our understanding of the all important aspect of self-cultivation. I've mentioned in posts here before that self-cultivation is a crucial aspect in being an effective practitioner in Chinese Medicine. In many respects, we can only ask our patients to be as healthy as we are and the best way to lead is by example. There are a number of teachers at my school who follow this principle, and they swear that it is not only beneficial, but necessary and crucial.

So the Year of sagely living will progress beginning Jan 1, 2008 according to the lunar 12 earthly branch clock. The first month, January, corresponds to the earthly branch of Zi 子。Zi is a picture of a child or an embryo and represents the contracted nature of the middle of winter. At this time, all that goes on is internal and external movements are diminished or severely reduced. Eric has appropriately chosen Scholarship/Study as the pairing for this month. So in the next day, I will choose an appropriate topic that i will study every day for a month and post my comments on the experience here.

You don't need to be a student to do this, if you'd like to join in at any time, just post some comments about your experiences.

Happy New Year!

the dynamic duo: the moon and the earth

I was reading an interesting article about the moon's effect on the earth and came across this:

"Earth’s moon has helped stabilize our planet so that its axis of rotation stays in the same direction. For this reason, we had much less climatic change than if the Earth had been alone. And this has changed the way life evolved on Earth, allowing for the emergence of more complex multi-cellular organisms compared to a planet where drastic climatic change would allow only small, robust organisms to survive."

The moon has played a pivotal role in the evolution of man. Our systems of knowledge, observation, and activity once hinged upon the phase of the moon. Its interesting to think about what we've left behind by ignoring the phases of the moon, or more appropriately: if its even possible to divorce ourselves from its silent cadence.