with Narrye Caldwell, L.Ac.

A 3-month program of shamanic journeying, dream work, ritual, divination, poetry, and qigong, to help you tend your soul, gain clarity, and reclaim your original medicine.

Life is filled with challenges, difficult transitions, and murky places where we feel lost and unsure of the way ahead.  Whether it’s in the area of our health, relationships, work, family, or life purpose, we wish we had a personal sage or wise counselor who could just tell us what to do.

The good news is that this counsel is available to us through the ancient tools of shamanism and other divinatory arts. But it takes some practice to learn to decode the messages we are given.

In this series of weekly sessions we will practice ancient techniques to connect with the guidance of our helping spirits and ancestors, share poetry, story, and ritual, and learn qi gong exercises that will help us attune to our body’s wisdom.

By cultivating these skills, we create a set of lifetime tools that will help keep us on our heart’s path.

WHEN: Monday evenings March 5, through May 21, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

(a total of 12 two-hour sessions.)

WHERE: Cold Spring Healing Arts, 6892 B Soquel Ave. Santa Cruz

COST:  $360 before Feb.27; $385 after Feb. 27. REGISTER EARLY! Space is limited.

CONTACT:  phone or email Kim Pfister at 831-234-7914, kimpfister@gmail.com.

Narrye is a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, shamanic counselor and healer, feng shui consultant, martial artist, astrologer, teacher, and writer. The process she teaches in this group is an outgrowth of her lifelong inquiry into the divinatory arts. To learn more about her work, go to her website at www.narryecaldwell.com.  

How is Chinese Astrology different from Western Astrology?

Well, the first thing is that fate calculation in Chinese Astrology is largely numerological. A personal chart is not based on constellations or planetary movement, but on counting out cycles of heavenly and earthly influences. These cycles are called Stems and Branches. In Zi Wei Dou Shu, the system I use for personal charts, each person has certain “stars” that rule over various aspects of their life, based on the time and place of their birth. But the term “star” is really symbolic for what I would call “qi influence.”

So how does that affect the individual’s chart?

The way it works is that the qi of heaven and of earth are continually cycling and combining in unique patterns. Each of us is imprinted with the unique pattern that is present at the moment of our birth. This flavors our entire life story. Because the Chinese have studied the cycling of qi for thousands of years, their astrology systems are capable of fairly specific commentary on how you are most likely to express yourself as you go through life.

Qi is supposed to be intrinsic energy. Is it the same qi as in qi gong that we hear about?

It’s the same qi, but specialized according to function. It’s not the qi of the body that we work with in acupuncture. It’s not martial qi or the qi of painting or calligraphy. It is the manifestation of heaven and earth qi as they combine in your human character. It is the qi of your human character and fate.

What do you mean by fate?

I like to describe fate as the template of limitations in our lives. It’s like the hand you are dealt in a card game. Sometimes you get great cards and feel lucky. Other times you don’t have much to play with. But none of this determines whether you win the game in the end. That depends more on your skill and character.  In astrology, your ability to live your life story with skill, grace, and authenticity is called happiness.

So can anyone be happy, no matter what kind of chart they have?

Yes. Happiness is the art of being your True Self, and appreciating your life.

So is fate the same as destiny?

I don’t think so. My feeling about the difference is that fate is what you are given to deal with in life. On the other hand, destiny is how you become a hero in your own journey. Destiny involves the exercise of free choice within your fate. For instance, one could say it was Ulysses’s fate to get lost on the journey home to Ithaca; but it was his destiny to make it home and become a hero in so doing. He had to exercise his character to work within that fate and achieve his true destiny.

How does astrology help us with our personal, daily problems?

The chart shows both your strengths, and also those places where you tend to keep falling into the same hole over and over. So, understanding the chart is like that story therapists tell, where you walk down a street and fall into a hole. You keep doing this with slightly better results, repeating the action and getting out. Then one day, with guidance, you walk down the street and AVOID the hole.

The beauty of the astrology chart is that it can show you where the hole is. It brings in information from outside your loop.  In most cases you will probably have fallen into that hole at least once in your life because it is your fate, but knowing your chart means you can walk around the hold for the rest of your life. The chart helps you play to your strengths. Ultimately, Chinese Astrology is about longevity. If you are able to live authentically—not fighting your true nature—then you can live a longer life, instead of swimming upstream all the time against your own qi.

What about catastrophes? Can Chinese Astrology predict them or help you avoid them?

You can see clearly in a chart when times of potential danger are coming. I wouldn’t say you can predict a specific catastrophe, but you can see when periods of potential accidents and danger are imminent. Then you counsel caution. For instance, this year I’m not traveling extensively because I have a cluster of “accident” stars in my Travel Palace. I’m not locking myself away, but I am reducing my discretionary travel, keeping my car well maintained, and wearing a travel talisman.

What about relationships?

I think Chinese Astrology is a very powerful way to understand one’s tendency in relationship. For instance, are you fated to have an easy relationship with great continuity, or will you tend to have more ups and downs in relationships? Astrology can point to possible ways to smooth out relationship troubles.

What about money and success?

A person’s ability to create wealth can be seen pretty clearly in a chart. There are certain stars that specifically point towards wealth. Remember, none of that has anything to do with whether you are going to be happy. And when a person’s chart indicates some difficulties with money, there’s always a way to look for key strategies; their best way of making money in life, their best way of achieving security, even if they won’t necessarily be wealthy. You can also look to the timing built into the chart–the one year and ten year cycles– to find those times when money will be coming in more easily.

Are there different styles of Chinese Astrology?

Yes. There’s a system called Ba Zi meaning “Eight Character” astrology, sometimes referred to as Four Pillars. And there’s Zi Wei Dou Shu, sometimes translated as the “Purple Emperor’s astrology.” These are the two primary ones used for chart calculation. I would say the difference is that the Four Pillars is very specific for analyzing a person’s character. The Zi Wei system can do that too, but I think it is much more specific in its ability to make predictions about life events.

Which one do you use?

I use primarily Zi Wei, though I usually do a Four Pillars chart for a client when I am doing Feng Shui, because it provides important information about their five element balance.

The Chinese Year of the

The Dragon is a pervasive image in Chinese culture. When I was a student in Chinese medical school, I memorized several herb formulas that included the name Qing Long which, roughly translated, means green dragon, blue dragon, or blue-green dragon. I once asked my Chinese teacher for an explanation of the color Qing, which doesn’t seem to have a Western correlate. Was it blue, or green, or bluish green, or what exactly, I asked?  “Oh Qing,” she replied blithely, “is the color of the Dragon’s scales when it rises out of the sea and catches the sparkle of the morning sun through the mist.” Get it? If you can take in this mystical image of blessing, and make it part of your consciousness this year, things are likely to go well for you.

With the coming of the Water Dragon in 2012, a two year cycle of conflict ends. One of the most auspicious of the five astrological dragons, the Water Dragon carries the stability and abundance of the Earth element, the penetration and creativity of the Wood element, and the depth and immensity of the Water element.

So how will this powerful energy play out this year? Well, transformation is certain. The details of how you do with that depend largely on your own animal sign, your personal fate, and your ability to digest this larger than life, and somewhat unpredictable, energy.  Below are my personal comments on what each zodiac sign might expect.  Please note that Chinese astrology is far more complex than what can be said regarding your animal year, so these are only imprecise generalities. But for what it’s worth, see below.

Rat: Last year was full of misunderstandings and wrong turns. But the Dragon is your team mate, and your natural analytical and strategic abilities will actually produce results this year. Follow your heart not your ego, and things will go well. Finances and career should improve, and this is an excellent year for relationships.  Remember your mantra though–abundance, not avarice.

Ox: The Dragon’s charismatic panache is not your style, and the ups and downs that characterize this year (the Dragon’s natural movement is mercurial,) will make you irritable. You prefer slow and steady. Best use of the year for you is to lie low and store up your considerable energy for next year when the Snake will need you and put you to work.

Tiger: You have an alchemical relationship with the Dragon. While Dragon reigns over Heaven, you reign over the Earth. The year will be full of opportunity and energy for you. Just don’t get too carried away with it all. The chief danger for you is exhaustion. Go get your calendar and mark off several weekends for quiet retreat. Do it now, before you get swept up in the Dragon’s dazzling display.

Rabbit: You were on stage all year in 2011. Time for a break. You may be feeling a little thin skinned right about now. You can benefit from the luck and prosperity of the Dragon year from the comfort of your elegant warren.

Dragon: Lean on your Rat friends for strategy, and your Monkey friends for marketing. Remember, you are a symbol of the benevolent ruler, not the autocratic tyrant. It is up to you to inspire us and be a leader. Be your mystical, elegant, passionate self, and show us again how alchemy works.

Snake: You are like a quiet, yin Dragon–wise, artistic, and mystical. You should be gathering your energy this year, observing where the power is concentrating, so you can slip in next year and take over.

Horse: You’ll love all the action this year, but the ups and downs may make you unsettled. Your best bet is to team up with a Tiger, who knows how to negotiate this terrain. Your usual friend, the Dog, won’t be much help this year, as he/she will be laboring under a host of complaints.

Sheep: Probably a good year to step onto the sidelines. Hopefully this won’t be hard since the Rabbit year was so comfy. The problem is you’re a born diplomat and manager. But your fussy win/win approach doesn’t fit the Dragon’s agenda and you’ll just be dismissed as ineffectual. Please, whatever you do, don’t try to manage the Dragon team. Wait this one out.

Monkey: Well, it’s about time. This should be one of the best years in the whole 12 year cycle for you.  Your resourcefulness, ingenuity, and clever slight of hand, will be much appreciated. The Dragon is one of your comrades, and will welcome you as part of its legendary team of magicians. Have at it.

Rooster: Last year was a test.  If you survived without serious injury, you can now forge ahead. Of all the animals in the zodiac, you are the one most capable of delaying gratification for a long term goal. So having done that throughout the Rabbit year, you get to reap some rewards. For the next two years, the force is with you. You should be able to make tremendous strides towards your goals.

Dog: All I can say is, “sit, stay.” If, during the last two years, you were able to arrange a comfy bed by the fire for yourself, you should go to it now and stay there. Trying to contend with the Dragon’s drama and charisma (which you see as self-serving,) will only make you irritable and prone to growling and biting. Don’t do it. Retreat is advisable.

Pig: Well haven’t you had a jolly time lately! Last year you got to be wine steward at the Rabbit’s elegant dinner party. Everything was just so lovely and there was so much good food. You’ll do fine in the Dragon year, since you can digest just about any kind of chi and turn it into something useful. My only piece of advice is to make sure you lay your plans now for 2013, the Year of the Snake. That’s when you’ll need to retreat, and surround yourself with your most loyal friends.

The quality of your sleep is very much affected by what you ate for breakfast 12 to 16 hours earlier. This is because your morning meal sets a cascade of hormones in motion that regulate your energy and biorhythms for the whole day. By evening, you’re still under the influence of these hormonal patterns.

For instance, a high carbohydrate breakfast (we’re talking pancakes, toast, muffins, pastries, cereal, and yes that old standard the bagel,) send your insulin levels sky high. This is true even for so called “healthy carbs” like oatmeal and fruit. The inevitable blood sugar crash that comes two hours later triggers a stress response from your adrenal glands, which then secrete high levels of a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol, your “fight or flight” hormone, can stay excessively high all day, and interfere with your sleep at night. You may feel exhausted but your body still thinks it’s being chased by a tiger; so you stay restless, anxious, and mostly sleepless, all night. Then you unwittingly repeat the same breakfast mistake the next morning.

Here’s how to do it differently: Your body is hardwired to digest protein and fat in the morning. So if you emphasize these foods for breakfast, you avoid insulin/cortisol spikes and benefit from more even energy throughout the day. My favorites breakfast foods are eggs, nitrate free sausage and bacon, raw cheeses, butter, full fat plain yogurt, well, you get the picture. And please stop worrying about fat and cholesterol. There is no evidence that cholesterol from eggs or fat from grass fed meat contributes to heart disease. I don’t have room here to go into that discussion, but there are articles on my blog about this. For now, we’re just talking about the effect of food on sleep. Eating protein and fat at breakfast sets the body clock up so that you have nice even energy flow all day, which tapers off gradually so you can relax and unwind at night.

And if you also refrain from sugary snacks during the day, which you probably won’t crave because you ate what your body needed in the morning, then your insulin levels will stay low, and your cortisol levels will settle down where they belong at night.

Of course there are many other tricks to getting a great night sleep. But this nutritional aspect is crucial. Give it a try, and call me in the morning.

I thought about how I spent my day yesterday while this was going on. I did good things, I think. I spent the whole day at my acupuncture clinic seeing patients. I hope I helped people. I came home tired. But I was relatively safe and comfortable all day. Now I think about these students, most of them probably younger than my own sons, and marvel at their courage and conviction. They put their bodies on the line and risked severe injury. They did this for all of us. They didn’t budge. And the world is a better place because of them.

Sometimes my morning qigong practice consists entirely of sitting and gazing out the window.  I used to feel guilty about this, as if I were dodging my commitment, succumbing to laziness, just plain goofing off.  But my dog, a Chinese Pug whose ancestors lived in Tibetan monasteries and who knows a thing or two about these matters, is teaching me the value of simplicity. She is a master of the Taoist meditation practice called “sitting and forgetting.”

With the quietude of an old monk, she spends some portion of each day sitting by the window watching life unfold in the yard outside. One morning I took my tea and joined her instead of immediately starting my daily qigong exercise. We sat on the landing halfway up the stairs (her favorite spot,) where there’s a view of the garden from two corner windows. Squirrels dashed about; the neighbor’s black tabby cat sat quietly watching the fish pond; woodpeckers dived at the feeders; a few falling leaves, harbingers of autumn, traced a lazy path through the air. We just sat and watched. I sipped my tea. I thought maybe I should get on with my morning practice instead of wasting time staring out the window. But then I poured another cup of tea, my gesture as simple and natural as the drifting autumn leaves.

Sometimes our practices become self-improvement projects. It’s not easy to notice when this happens.  At what point does commitment become drudgery, discipline a lifeless and repetitive routine? How do we stay true to the living moment, the ever fresh and spontaneous movement of the qi?  Surely daily practice is important, you argue. We couldn’t just go along doing whatever we want like children at play. After all, we have to show up for work every day. How will we make progress, stay healthy, achieve our goals, if we don’t practice every day?  Well, yes. I know these arguments well, and I agree. My daily practice creates a sturdy vessel for me. Anchored by the consistency of that container, I’m better able to handle life’s unexpected and unpredictable events with some measure of grace.

On the other hand, perhaps the ultimate mastery is the practice of “no-practice,” just doing each thing as it comes up. Yes, like a child. Right now, I’m gazing out the window.  My dog leans peacefully against me. I reach for another cup of tea.

If you’re unfamiliar with this diet, here’s how it works: hCG is a hormone produced by women in the early stages of pregnancy. It stimulates the hypothalamus (the master hormone regulating gland in the brain) to move fat and nutrients to the placenta. This mobilization of fat into the bloodstream is what caught the eye of the weight loss industry (read sharks wanting to make a quick buck from people desperate to drop a few pounds before beach season.)

The diet plan is to take hCG along with a starvation diet of 500 calories a day. You can get the hCG from health food stores in the form of sublingual drops. Do people lose weight? You bet they do, and rapidly. If you want to get into your high school prom dress in two weeks, success is practically guaranteed. Is this smart, or even a successful way to manage weight in the long term? Absolutely not! I consider it misguided, crazy, and downright dangerous.

First of all, everyone will lose a lot of weight quickly on a 500 calorie diet. But the crucial factor people are conveniently ignoring is that this calorie level will put your metabolism into starvation mode. In other words, your metabolism will slow down significantly to keep you alive, then when you begin to eat normally again, even a very healthy diet, your body will cling to every calorie you eat and store it. The result–rapid weight gain. Back where you started and probably fatter.

Meanwhile, you’ve done nothing to change your lifestyle, your eating habits, or your unhealthy relationship to food. Also, I’m not a fan of putting exogenous hormones into the body, even if they are bio-identical. This practice suppresses our body’s own regulatory system. There’s just no way to predict the possible downstream effects of upsetting this complex and delicate system.

So please! If your friends rave about this diet to you, and brag about the 10 pounds they lost in 10 days, please don’t be taken in. There’s no way around what it takes to achieve healthy weight loss–a lifetime of sound food choices, a conscious relationship to food and eating, and regular exercise that fits your needs.

Enough said.

I recently spoke with a friend who is struggling with a mysterious chronic illness. She had heard about qigong and even taken a class at her local yoga studio. She asked me if I thought qigong could help her get better. I found myself dithering. Well yes, I wanted to say. But are you willing to change your life? Are you willing to delve deeply into the heart of qigong, and discover the ways in which it can nourish your spirit and regulate your life? Or are you hoping for an exotic magic bullet?

What I ended up saying, after stammering a bit, was rather strange. I said, “Well, it depends on whether you fall in love with it. If you’re really engaged with it, if you can allow it to change you, to lead you to knew places, then yes it will help a lot. It might even heal you.”

But the results so far have been underwhelming. Though every six year old now has a laptop and can whip up a power point presentation on Shakespeare, basic reading, writing, and math skills have stagnated, and teachers have not received a raise since 2005. The obvious point is that gadgets don’t necessarily improve learning, and perhaps simple human interaction between kids and creative, committed teachers could have better results.

When I graduated from Chinese medical school 20 years ago, I was surprised to discover a software program that recommended treatment plans, herbal prescriptions and point combinations, based on your input of the patient’s signs and symptoms.  I was shocked. Wasn’t this what I had just gone through four rigorous years of training to be able to do? What was the patient seeing me for if all of this could be done with a computer program?

In Western medicine, the physical exam is almost a lost art. Instead, doctors order lab tests to determine the patient’s diagnosis. Indeed, even among Chinese medical practitioners, it’s very common to order up a battery of functional lab tests to determine such things as digestive system health, adrenal function, etc. I love these tools and make ample use of them myself. I’m all for accuracy in diagnosis, and happy to have assistance from technology to help my patients get better. But often I wonder if we, like our western medical counterparts and that Arizona school district, have forgotten about the power of simple human interaction.

There is a magical exchange that takes place between a caring doctor and a patient, or a dedicated teacher and a student. It’s not so much a transmission of information, or a cure. It’s more a recognition. It says, “ah yes, we are both human; let’s walk a little way together. Let’s keep each other company for a while on this journey.” Simple, and powerful.

Some of you may recognize what I’m doing as a martial art called Bagua Zhang.  Not that it matters.  It could be any type of practice that one takes up in life. The point is what it gives to your life.  A kung fu practice (and by that I mean anything to which you devote yourself for a long period of time with commitment, fascination, and dare I say love, in order to develop your skill,) hones your character. Kung Fu is uncanny in its ability to both delight and frustrate you. You can continually improve, but like a mirage that keeps receding as you trudge longingly towards it, you can never seem to get where you’d like to be with it.

So you keep going to the park every morning. You keep walking that stupid circle.  Even when you didn’t get enough sleep, or feel grumpy, or stiff, and would rather be doing just about anything else.  Because you know now how much you’d miss that morning session.

And when all hell is breaking lose in your life, when it’s really hard to keep it together because lots of crazy stuff is going on, and you just don’t know how to deal with whatever big boulder is coming at you…..well at least you know you’ve got your practice, and your practice will always be there for you.  And somehow, you’re not even sure how this happened, the fact that you got up every morning and showed up, and dealt with the crazy Labrador retriever that kept knocking into you, and did this day after day for who knows how long….somehow this has made you strong.

So you keep practicing……