Cara Conroy-Lau, a Kiwi with Chinese roots practicing Chinese medicine, discusses approaching healing and spirituality with light-heartedness. She emphasizes transmitting joy and confidence through a relaxed approach, highlights the healing power of traditional comfort foods, and addresses the emotional struggles of caregiving women. The conversation touches on integrating ancestral wisdom into Western medicine, balancing caregiving roles, and exploring lineage transmission in traditional practices.

Cara Conroy-Lau, a global border-crossing practitioner of Chinese medicine and Buddhism, shares wisdom on identity, cultural heritage, and healing. Topics include reconnecting with maternal lineage, overcoming racism, and exploring intersecting identities. The conversation also touches on Chinese culinary traditions, challenging dating stereotypes, and biases in healthcare. Reflecting on emotions, biases, and the power of Yin in healing traditions.

For today’s episode on “Living and Teaching the Way of Yin,” Leo Lok and I are once again joined by Kris González, Chinese medicine practitioner and herbalist, whose personal experience of motherhood has been influenced by her Korean mother and her Mexican mother-in-law. In addition to her clinical practice, she is also an educator offering evocative courses on topics like embodied menstruation, holistic breast care, the alchemy of perimenopause, spirit-heart-womb transformation through the somatic womb path, and sacred vaginal ecology, to name just some of her juicy offerings. Check out her gorgeous website “Thewayofyin.com” to get a sense of the beauty she weaves into being in her corner of the universe. In this second half of our conversation with Kris, we considered a Yin approach to Chinese medicine. How do we shift out of the heady, Yang space and the intellectual models of Chinese medicine as currently practiced and taught in the West, into the sensorial, embodied experience that serves as such a potent alternative doorway to healing? How can we manifest a more expansive, softer, deeper, gentler, and less rigid healing practice that aims to lean into and support what feels good rather than fighting what is wrong? How can we express the Yin way of weaving community and nurturing health instead of the Yang way of solving problems? Ultimately, how can we change this extractive culture of ours through the authority and power of our medicine, to restore the valuation of Yin in all aspects of society, from menstruating and giving birth to cooking and caring? What a conversation! Oh, I am really happy that I get to share it with you and hope that this will in turn inspire you to engage in similar conversations with your community of family and friends.Additional InformationThe Way of Yin - Nourishing Life WisdomTraditional Chinese GynecologySubscribe to my newsletter!Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

Welcome to Season Two of “The Pebble in the Cosmic Pond” where we focus on 2nd generation immigrant Asian voices by, for, and about women in that sweet spot in between traditional Asian wisdom and contemporary Western embodiment. Joining Leo and myself for our third episode on Season 2 is Kris González, Chinese medicine practitioner and herbalist, whose personal experience of motherhood has been influenced by her Korean mother and her Mexican mother-in-law. In addition to her clinical practice, she is also an educator offering evocative courses on topics like embodied menstruation, holistic breast care, the alchemy of perimenopause, spirit-heart-womb transformation through the somatic womb path, and sacred vaginal ecology, to name just some of her juicy offerings. Check out her gorgeous website “Thewayofyin.com” to get a sense of the beauty she weaves into being in her corner of the universe. I first crossed paths with Kris when she consulted with me on the classical Chinese perspective on women’s health and on yangsheng, so that is naturally where our conversation with Leo started. It was really interesting and moving for the three of us to explore the fertile intersection between Kris’ personal lived experience and her professional training in Chinese medicine. I feel like this has given her a special angle that is rooted firmly in a traditional Asian perspective, emphasizing dietetics, living in harmony with the external cycles of the seasons and internal cycles of the female body, and yangsheng (“nurturing life” or, as she put it “providing wellness instead of treating disease”). Kris is such a beautiful spirit, internally and externally, and Leo and I walked away from this conversation feeling very lucky that she so generously shared her way of being in the world with us, and through this podcast also with all of you, our dear listeners. May her deep commitment to helping women experience the cycles of their bodies fully and with ease, in harmony with the cycles of the seasons and the cosmos, inspire you as well to explore the power of this approach in your own life and clinical practice!Additional InformationThe Way of Yin - Nourishing Life WisdomChanneling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologySubscribe to my newsletter!Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

Ramona Deonauth, a Chinese medicine practitioner of Indian heritage, discusses the importance of improving menstrual education for all genders. She explores the intersection of traditional Asian cultural wisdom and modern experiences in the US. Topics include tackling menstrual pain, empowering young women, and addressing societal perceptions around menstruation.

Once again, Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms are here to bring you old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about Medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between. In a special twist for Season 2, evocatively titled "Over the Moon?", they focus on second generation immigrant Asian voices by, for, and about women's health, as the sweet spot between traditional Asian wisdom and contemporary Western embodiment. And yes, they do realize that they need help with this theme since both Leo and Sabine are first, not second, generation immigrants in the US (he from Malaysia and she from Germany), and he is a guy and she is not Asian. That’s where the interview partners come in.For this first interview, Leo and Sabine get to chat with Ramona Deonauth, a Chinese medicine practitioner of Indian heritage in San Diego who is finishing up a doctoral dissertation on menstrual education at Yo San University in Los Angeles. Sabine has had the great honor to serve as one of her advisors for her super fascinating research project, which involved her interviewing young menstruators and professional providers of menstrual education from the worlds of nursing, public health, and Western and Chinese gynecology. For the last year or so Sabine has been so enjoying her monthly mentoring sessions with Ramona because Ramona has really powerful stories to tell and insights to share, sad and beautiful and inspiring. Doing a ton of listening and learning, she has been contemplating how to improve the experience of bleeding with the moon for young American menstruators. Truth be told, Ramona is actually the reason for this theme for Season Two because the three of them had such a wonderful conversation, in perfect alignment with each other on the huge potential and power for this subject, that they knew at the end of three hours that they couldn’t stop there. And since Ramona has to focus on finishing up her dissertation, Leo and Sabine have simply found other second generation immigrant Asian women to interview until Ramona is done with her doctorate and can join them again. You will be able to tell from the first time Ramona opens her mouth that she is one of those human angels, motivated by her deep care for the young menstruators she has been encountering in her research and clinical practice. Leo and Sabine are delighted that this podcast might help get the word out about Ramona’s work and about the significance and potential of menstrual education from a Chinese medicine perspective, along the lines of Leo’s beloved “Bodhisattva Math.”Additional InformationChanneling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologyRamona Deonauth's bio and websiteSubscribe 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

In a special twist for Season 2, we feature second generation immigrant Asian women’s voices on female health. We explore the creative sweet spot in between the traditional Asian kitchen table wisdom on women’s health that they have inherited from their mothers and aunties, and their personal and professional experience in contemporary America. Before we get to interview these women in our official episodes, here is a little introductory conversation where Leo and I explore this topic and ask questions like “Where does traditional women’s knowledge on female health come from and how is it transmitted? How is it reflected, if at all, in the traditional literature of Chinese medicine, written largely by and for men? How do we plug the gaping holes in the male-dominated traditional literature as modern providers of medical education and medical care by and for women? Whether in the context of advanced clinical practice or daily yangsheng, how can we make space for the female perspective of the nurturer versus the technician?Additional InformationChanneling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologySubscribe to my newsletter!Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

Exploring the impact of personal practice of Yangshan on clinical effectiveness in Chinese medicine, and the challenge of meeting depleted patients without depleting oneself. Historical context of occupational hazards, harmonizing practitioner-patient interactions for effective healing outcomes, the art of gentle treatment in Chinese medicine, exploring misconceptions in acupuncture, and the risks of fixating on Chinese medicine while highlighting the value of deep understanding.

Today’s conversation is inspired by Leo Lok’s ideal of “Bodhisattva Math,” which is a great reminder for us to focus on topics in Chinese medicine that have the most impact on alleviating unnecessary suffering with the least amount of effort! In this context, Sun Simiao reminded us already in the seventh century that food is essential for human survival but can be medicine or poison. As he put it: “Anything that contains Qi without exception has the potential to provide food and thereby safeguard life. And yet, if we eat it without awareness [of its specific effect], it can mean thriving or ruin.” In this episode on “Eating for Old Age: The Lost Art of Chinese Food Therapy,” Leo Lok and I explore the potential and power of food in the contemporary clinical practice of Chinese medicine. To cite Master Sun again, dietetics is “...the special method of lengthening the years and ‘eating for old age’ and the utmost art of nurturing life. Any practitioner of medicine must first thoroughly understand the source of disease and know what has been violated. Then, use food to treat it. If treatment with food will not cure [the patient], afterwards apply drugs. The nature of drugs is harsh and unyielding. This is just like managing soldiers. Soldiers being fierce and violent, how could you allow them to recklessly set out!” You will see, there are some real gems that Leo shares with us in this episode, such as how to have your ice-cream and eat it too…Additional InformationLeo's course on "Weight Loss in Chinese Medicine"Leo's course on "Shen Nong's Secret Sundae"Dr. Wilms' free course: Introduction to Classical Chinese — Translating Chinese MedicineSubscribe to my newsletter!Translating Chinese Medicine: Dr. Wilms' website for learning classical ChineseImperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

Medicine, like any other skill or knowledge system, needs to be rooted in both subjectivity and objectivity. By valuing either one over the other, we deprive ourselves of an essential part thereof. Can traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy help us find a more balanced way of making sense of the world than the cold, rational, evidence-based cause-and-effect thinking of biomedicine and modern science? As Greg Bantick, our special guest on today’s episode of A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond puts it with his wonderful clarity: The act of failing to examine our filters is not benign, but dangerous, and results in problems like racism, cultural appropriation, and orientalism. When we encounter perspectives of the world that make us squirm because they challenge our own beliefs and experiences, we have three choices in how we respond: We can deny their value and write them off as “barbaric” or “superstitious”; we can orientalize or exoticize them as “other” and then creatively interpret them in such a way that they ultimately confirm our own beliefs; orwe can accept the discomfort and embrace this challenge of getting our own world rocked as a chance to learn something new, and then we grow in that process. The choice is ours! For today’s episode, titled ““Questioning our Filters,” our special guest is Greg Bantick, a leading practitioner and international teacher of Chinese medicine with almost half a century of experience, who also happens to be a deeply committed practitioner of Buddhism with a beautiful kind heart and a deep well of wisdom.I should warn you though: We end a bit abruptly and sadly, with us sharing a sense of grief at the huge loss of so many centuries of information and experience that can be found in the treasure house of traditional Chinese medicine. As our conversation explores, the misunderstandings and ignorance that affect the transmission of Chinese medicine into the West are due to two key factors: The lack of an open mind, and the linguistic barrier that prevents the vast majority of Chinese medicine practitioners in the West from even knowing what is out there.Additional InformationOrientalism, Cultural Appropriation, and Critical Thinking — Happy Goat ProductionsGreg Bantick's websiteDr. Wilms' free course: Introduction to Classical Chinese — Translating Chinese MedicineSubscribe 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