3-month Program of Spirit Medicine

Posted on February 7, 2012 by admin

Women at the Well

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.  

 

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Astrology, East and West; an interview with Narrye Caldwell

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Narrye Caldwell

One late winter afternoon I sat in my kitchen with a good friend, downing multiple cups of oolong tea and discussing important things like life and fate. That conversation turned into an interview about the differences between Chinese and Western Astrology. Here is a summary.

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.” Continue reading →

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2012, Year of the Water Dragon

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Narrye Caldwell

The Chinese Year of the Water Dragon, which arrives on January 23, 2012, promises transformation and good fortune.  Of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, the Dragon is the only one that is not encountered in “real” life. It is a mythical creature, considered to be the ruler of Heaven, mists, and rain, and is thus associated with the Emperor. It is also the guardian spirit of the East, a symbol of luck, power, and passion.  Continue reading →

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How to Eat for Good Sleep

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Narrye Caldwell

It’s all about breakfast, actually. I know, after an anxious night of tossing and turning, breakfast is probably the last thing on your mind. In fact, you’re often so tired, cranky, stressed, and late, that you only have time to grab coffee and a bagel on your way out the door. And therein lies the problem.

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.

 

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In honor of the UC Davis students

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Narrye Caldwell

Today I’m supposed to be writing about some health topic or other. But just before starting, I glanced through my Facebook wall and caught a video of the brutal police action that took place yesterday against a group of peaceful student demonstrators at UC Davis. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The police just calmly and deliberately walked up to these people, who were sitting on the ground with arms linked, and fired pepper spray directly into their faces, over and over again. It was like watching torture. These courageous students continued sitting there–crying in pain, but still just sitting there, arms linked in solidarity. I started to cry and couldn’t stop for an hour.

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.

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No Practice

Posted on October 12, 2011 by admin

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.

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The hCG Diet: Don’t Be Fooled….

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Narrye Caldwell

When I first heard about the popular “hCG diet” I didn’t pay much attention. I figured it was just another fad. But then I noticed otherwise smart and reasonable people raving about it. So I checked it out. Maybe there was really something to it, otherwise how could  sensible intelligent people be taken in?

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.

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Qigong Healing

Posted on September 24, 2011 by admin

Qigong is getting popular. That’s good. It’s not quite at the level of yoga or pilates, but at least most non-Asian people have heard of it, though they may not be sure exactly what it is. I’m both happy and worried about this. As a life long martial artist, I understand qigong in the old fashioned way; to me it’s a type of kung fu, a whole way of life, a self cultivation practice. But its emerging popularity in western culture puts it at risk. I’m starting to see qigong classes pop up in gyms, community recreation classes, and yoga studios. Don’t get me wrong. I think this is wonderful. Qigong is a treasure that should be available to everyone. The problem is that many people are starting to view it as a pill they can take to fix some problem. Qigong is not a magic pill, and if treated that way will only disappoint.

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.”

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Simple Medicine

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Narrye Caldwell

A recent article in the Sunday New York Times reported about a school district in Arizona that has sunk 33 million dollars into technology in the last six years. The idea was to modernize every classroom with the latest computer technology, putting every student on the fast track to academic brilliance.

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.

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Practicing…

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Narrye Caldwell

Every morning I walk to the park near my house and go through a particular routine. Though there are variables in the routine, it always contains the same basic building blocks. I start with some simple qigong to warm up. Then I walk in circles.  That’s right, circles. After I’ve worn a groove in the wet grass, I add a series of complex directional changes.  These probably look quite dazzling and strange to the dog walkers passing by.  I’m sure they have absolutely no clue what I’m doing.  For the most part, they politely ignore me.  Every once in a while an over friendly off leash dog will bound up and shove a wet face up against me, knocking me out of my circle.  This is all part of the practice.

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……

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