Photograph credit: Katherine Nagy Sita Ram, Sita Ram, Sita Ram, Jaya Sita Ram सीता राम सीता राम सीता राम जय सीता राम Sita is the incarnation of Lakshmi, Goddess of abundance. She is the embodiment of love and virtue. Her husband Ram, is the incarnation of Vishnu, Lord of the universe. He was a living vessel of effused truth, compassion and bravery. Together they symbolize the union of the feminine and the masculine energies, the powerful partnership of intuition and action. Mantras are prayers, patterns of letters, words, sounds and breath, that consecrate intention into form. By chanting the songs repetitively, we evoke the sacred energies. We can use this tool to unify the separate sides of the self and to heal the violent divisions in our culture. The intertwined energies of Sita and Ram, balance the right and left sides of the human brain and regulate the parasympathetic and…

In the haze of sleep, swimming in the place between being awake and in a dream, a thought about healing hijacks my mind. In order to heal, we have to crack open. The vessel of self has to split and then the light can get in, begin the work of restoring harmony. The space that is created, the energy that comes flooding through to guide us towards what will support us in the process of recovery. This self-discovery is not only cyclical within linear time but it is also happening on multiple levels. I have found that if it can occur in a different part of the self rather then the mind it will be more effective. If it happens energetically or physically there is more movement. If it is just in the mind or psychologically then it will get stuck in the cogs of mental process and only get…

Photograph credit: Jason Stern A month ago I sub-letted my small office to a colleague. I have worked alone for a long time and wanted to change up the energy around here, and have another acupuncturist to talk shop with. I thought if I had a really good acupuncturist working in the office next to me, I would work a bit harder in my own room. It has certainly done exactly that, in ways that I could not have predicted. He easily fit right in and filled up his one day a week with clients. Has great energy and is bringing lots of new people through the office doors. What I did not count on was that in the few minutes conversations that we get to have tucked in between clients, I have had to see myself a little more honestly… My self-esteem gets challenged really easily. I am a…

Feminine and Masculine Consciousness, The Forgotten Connection Traveling along a haphazard path, a journey through books, articles, lectures, people’s opinions and personal experiences, a theme takes shape. The forgotten. Patterns and energies, deep inner knowing from many years ago, that has been buried, disembodied, manipulated. We know of its existence, we can still perceive a remnant of this energy but we can not concretely grasp it any longer. Our nervous systems still remembers but the front of our brains can not recall. When we try to recreate it intellectually we make a mockery of the original. The new version does not function correctly, rather it accentuates the modern fractured form. It is like we are missing something so obvious and we know it and we do not know what to do about it. The texts that explained the forgotten are lost or destroyed. The apprenticeship line that passed the material…

Normalizing Differences As I parent of a gender non-conforming child. I have spent the last eight years considering “difference” and how it is viewed in our North American culture. This is one of those issues that is as big a life, simultaneously as subtle and persuasive as it can get. Sometimes the obvious fractures in the culture get less attention, because no one knows what to do with them. It feels too overwhelming to take them on, so it is better to stay in a state of denial. Intellectual, Religious, Spiritual, and Artistic communities shed some light on the subject. If we try to address these topics in what would be, the real general public of America, we usually stall out. We do not really have the tools or the training to create and foster an inclusive social model. If we try to actualize this on a big scale it…