A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond

Chinese medicine practitioners are all too familiar with the common pathology of "Liver Qi Stagnation/Constraint." Partly related to feminine gender norms in both China and the West that force women to suppress and deny their anger, it results from the inability to let the liver Qi flow freely. In light of the palpable tension in the air these days, which is erupting into violence all too often, whether locally, nationally in the US, or globally, Leo and Sabine consider the root causes and possible treatments. From a slightly different angle of cultural norms preventing men from accessing and expressing grief, how can we prevent such broken-heartedness from turning into violence or despair, and instead redirect this energy in righteous action, strength, and constructive acts of creativity? How can we stop the vicious cycle of trauma and violence in service of a better, kinder, and more tender world where we have learned to harness the power of our emotions constructively, instead of destructively?

What do we (as in Leo and Sabine) mean when we say with great urgency and earnestness that postpartum care can heal trauma for multiple generations into the past and future? Why is there such a gaping hole in our modern culture's attention to the deep exhaustion, isolation, dangers, and need for intentional recovery from childbirth? How can medical professionals utilize the many tools offered by Chinese medicine to address this hole, from diet and medicinal formulations to acupuncture and moxibustion, massage and sound healing, as well as by educating and empowering the patient and their supporters? What can each of us do to help the world rediscover the magic and bliss of childbirth and the precious first moments, days, and weeks of a newborn baby's life? And last but not least, what is the significance of Leo's insistence on "pampering," as opposed to just "care," and why does this phrase bring up painful emotions for Sabine and many of the participants in our info sessions that we have been running this past month?The deeper we go with this project of "postpartum pampering," the more aware we become of the importance of this topic. Please take a listen and then join us in thinking about it, talking about it with your communities, and, if it touches you as it did us, do something about the current lack of it in global culture but in the US in particular.Thank you!And if you care to learn more, join us for our course on Postpartum Pampering starting on June 1! FInd out more ON OUR PUBLIC INFORMATION PAGE HERE.

Today's episode, which could also be called "the mother and child within each of us," explores the healing power of the heart through the joy that Sabine experiences when caring for her fluffy baby ducklings and goslings, or when sharing them as a healing tool with her community, old and young. Leo's direct observations and questions pierce right through to the heart of the matter, past any rationalizations: Why and how can we facilitate healing in ourselves and our communities? In this case, the answer is delightfully simple, at least for Sabine and for those human beings who, like her, melt at the sight and sound of a baby falling asleep when enveloped by protective mama energy. And truly, it doesn't matter whether that "mama energy" is produced by the actual mama or by any human (or non-human) with a parental instinct.

Let's talk about exercise, strength training, aging, and, yet again, the need for careful calibration. In today's conversation we explore the sweet range between taxing the body, enabling it to work harder, and building strength, on the one hand, and resting and honoring a more Yin approach to life, on the other. As the counterpoint to our dominant culture, which celebrates productivity, youth and physical prowess, and caffeine-fueled Yang-type accomplishments, many Chinese medicine practitioners tend to advocate for more of a Yin approach, in the tradition of the historical scholar-physicians' writings. But that is not all there is to Chinese medicine, past OR present! Listen in as Leo Lok and I discuss traditional Chinese perspectives on strength training and exercise...Additional InformationSun Simiao's Gifts — Happy Goat ProductionsDr. Vonda Wright on the Mel Robbins podcastSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)

For this episode, Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms explore how to find joy, practice self-care, and show up in meaningful ways during dark times. Starting with learning from animals and babies, somehow they keep coming back to resonance, rhythm, and movement, as the key to avoid getting stuck and immobilized by overwhelm. From dancing to drumming and swimming to swirling, they try to bring some lightness to the conversation, in addition to some useful tools, like the gentle life-giving penetrating breeze that showed up in Sabine's Yijing reading the night before. So they invite all of you to be curious, conscious, and perhaps a bit more cautious about the effect that the information you consume has on your precious life energy. Speaking from her personal experience, Sabine questions the usefulness of exhausting her Qi by pouring it into holding tension in her shoulders. Let's just say: It’s time to shake things up a bit around here and approach life with the irresistible smile of a babe in a game of peekaboo…Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where Season Four explores the Power of Kindness to bring you medicine from the sweet spot between Heaven and Earth, inspired still by old and new stories from China's healing traditions but really going wherever... Your hosts are Dr. Sabine Wilms, philosopher-poet, nerd, and goat herder, and Leo Lok, Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives. Additional InformationSlack Tide with Sabine on SubstackSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)

What do kindness and joy, swimming in cold water and sharing food, euphoria and resilience, coping mechanisms, COVID, community, compassion, and connection have to do with each other? How do we sustain our work and find joy in the face of suffering? Is it possible to make suffering lighter, without making light of suffering? What is the role and meaning of celebration when LA is burning and the roundups have started? How do each of us find the strength to keep going?Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we now, in Season Four, explore the Power of Kindness to bring you medicine from the sweet spot between Heaven and Earth, inspired still by old and new stories from China's healing traditions but really going wherever we feel pulled. We are Dr. Sabine Wilms, philosopher-poet, nerd, and goat herder, and Leo Lok, our Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives. We start out this new season with what might strike you perhaps as an oddly celebratory offering, given the dark times we are currently experiencing at least in the US, if you follow the news. But it is the New Moon and the New Year of the Yin Wood Snake, of medicine and poison, of shedding skin and old self to make room for growth, of going deep into the mysterious darkness underground, of transforming and healing and honoring rest in cold Yin stillness until the Yang heat of the rising sun and spring Qi shall empower us to rise up, like bread, like singing, like kundalini energy. This episode is on “Love, joy, cold water swimming, and resilience.” Don’t blame me for this one. It was Leo’s idea to record right after I come home from one of my bitter cold naked ocean swims, to catch the euphoria flooding my system, share it with you, and explore it a bit. I have no idea if any of this makes sense to you, but if it brings a smile to your face, like swimming does to mine, and makes you want to pursue your own ways of lowering your stress level, finding joy, and restoring your equilibrium, heck yeah, it’s worth publicly exposing my quirkiness here. Desperate times call for desperate measures! My love goes out to my friends in the fires of LA, in the immigrant community in Tucson, and in all the other places where the doodoo is hitting the fan and where some of you are doing the damn hard work in the trenches. May this conversation somehow make a tiny bit of difference in your healing work by lightening your load! Let the tears flow and then crank the music and dance your heart out, not in spite of but because of it all!Additional InformationSlack Tide with Sabine on SubstackSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)

In today's episode, Leo Lok and I are joined by Jack Schaefer, a practitioner of both Chinese medicine and Daoism as a living practice. In his role as one of the most active, passionate, and committed transmitters of Daoism in the West, he is the cofounder of Parting Clouds Daoist Education, along with his partner Josh Paynter. With Jack's help, we explore the connections and differences between the material compiled by Sun SImiao in the seventh century under the heading "nurturing our nature" yangxing 養性, and the living engagement with contemporary Daoist teachings in Jack's community of practitioners.Here are just three of my personal take-aways from this conversation (and I sure hope my simplification here is not misleading!):The meanings of "xing 性" and "ming 命" were never static and changed depending on the time, place, author's background, and rhetorical context. While Westerners always look for single terms to translate deep Chinese concepts like these, we may be better off just leaving them in Chinese to avoid misunderstandings.Compassion and the effort to alleviate suffering and be of service are the key to ethical cultivation and thereby transforming our karma.Wuwei does not mean sitting by the river meditating or "anything goes," but rather, if I may try to summarize here, spontaneously aligning with the Dao, which is the outcome of a lifetime of conscious and intentional cultivation, both ethical and physical.You will have to take a close listen to see if this shallow description correctly represents Jack's and Leo's deep pearls of wisdom.Enjoy! And thanks for listening. And then please share this podcast and episode if you liked it, and join the conversation over on our Facebook page.Additional Informationjack schaefer's websiteParting Clouds Daoist EducationSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)

How do you not only treat somebody successfully in the moment, but truly alleviate their suffering and get the effect of your action to stick, whether you use herbs or diet, needles or touch, or whatever? In medicine, farming, cooking, or any other area of expertise, how do we balance the need for detailed technical know-how with the cultivation of intuitive wisdom, embodied sensitivity, and even personal growth? In the midst of the plethora of tools offered by Sun Simiao in his writings on longevity, from diet to alchemy, breath work to movement exercises, sleeping positions to seasonal prohibitions, and ethics to sex, can we find an underlying principle, and if so, what is it? How do we train ourselves, our colleagues, and future generations to dance the dance of Yin and Yang and find the sweet range between too little and too much? How do you learn, apply, and teach self-calibration, and why is compassion essential in all of this? Ultimately,what is Sun Simiao’s secret to personal cultivation in the pursuit of health and healing, or in other words, to “nurturing life” (yangsheng) or “nurturing our heavenly/innate/true nature” (yangxing)?Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we share old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between. I am your host, Dr. Sabine Wilms, and I am joined, as usual, by Leo Lok, Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives. With this final episode, titled “Sun Simiao’s Secret to True Healing,” we now officially finish up Season Three where we have been considering a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性, to explore cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today on the basis of Sun Simiao’s writings. Stay tuned for what comes next!Additional InformationSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)

Are you feeling the turmoil of the world reflected in your own internal storm of emotions? Do you feel like you are drowning in grief or exploding in anger, tired from rumination, rattled by fear, or giddy with joy? Do your emotions sometimes keep you from being the powerful force for peace and justice and love and beauty in the world that you want to be?Or do you simply sense the potency and urgency of the current moment and want some company in riding this wave?If you are a sensitive person and have access to news, no matter where you are in the world, it may be a bit of a challenge right now to maintain a steady state of calm centeredness. Join us as we explore how to not drown or explode in our emotions but channel them into action. And as a special treat, if you listen all the way to the end of this episode, let Leo's beautiful healing voice wash all over you and cloak you in a mantle of support and compassion. Note: This is a spontaneous offering, not following our regular monthly schedule. We just feel an urgency to try and perhaps ease a bit of suffering with this conversation.

At the end of the day, what does it mean to “nurture our true, innate, genuine, heavenly nature” and how is that related to healing and personal growth? When is the last time you have consciously savored each breath as an opportunity for transformation and restoration? How does fear hold us back from health and joy by literally tying up our precious Qi in knots that impede its free flow and healing power? And how do we untie those knots and encourage flow when we get to the end of our rope?Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we share old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between. I am your host, Dr. Sabine Wilms, and I am joined, as usual, by Leo Lok, Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives. With this last episode, titled “Every Breath We Take,” we conclude our Season Three where we have been considering a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性, to explore cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today on the basis of Sun Simiao’s writings.Today, we contemplate the different elements of healing, from intellectual knowledge to intuition, to laughter, to surrendering and adapting, and to calling in the support of our family lineage, community, and even divine and celestial forces. In this challenging time full of tension, discord, and instability, we hope that this episode brings you joy and laughter and encourages you to let your Qi flow a bit more freely. We are all in this together, after all!Additional InformationSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors