In With the New
I have spent much of the past two months preparing the space for my new office home. Toward the end of last year, I learned that I would have to relocate owing to the irresistible drive of Portland landlords to create more residential space for the growing city. I didn't want to move, but as Mick Jagger has eloquently reminded us - you can't always get what you want.
I have observed that when one door closes, another opens. Sometimes it might be a window, or a crawl space, or an airplane hangar, but in any event, there is always a Way for movement to translate forward. All paths lead exactly here, and now, and the choice we have - especially during the time of year when Resolutions are in fashion - is how to proceed. The trials and tribulations, the stresses and strains, the joys and ecstasy of living in this modern and irrational world all afford us a constant opportunity to create an experience. For me, I want to and will create a space in which voices are heard, healing is deep, and the Hygge is strong.
As we step into this New Year, what if the resolute question could be reframed to something utterly simple, and yet truly profound: what kind of experience you are allowing yourself to create in this life?
Grace in the Fall
On the other side of both a summer solar eclipse and the autumn equinox, we reap the harvest of actions taken or ignored. The colorful embrace of the falling leaves is one of the many ways the natural world reminds us of change. This year in general and the past few months in particular have served as a period of massive transition for everyone I know, myself included, without exception. As we enter November, I have found perspective in a quote from Hal Borland:
"October is a fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen."
There is an effortlessness to the turn of the Fall and it becomes apparent that to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose. It is a time to let go of that which no longer serves, to allow the leaves to fall where they may, and to embrace that wider horizon. Autumn reminds us that even in the middle of transition, in the depths of struggle, and in the agony of the unknown, there is Beauty in Change and there can be Grace in the Fall.
Seneca, Pantanjali, and The Philosophy of Chiropractic
When the Roman philosopher Seneca counselled Lucilius “to cultivate an asset that the passing of time itself improves,” he was not talking about a wine cellar. He was talking about employing the practical philosophy of Stoicism to steady the mind, to see things as they are, and to be deliberate in thought and action.
In a very different culture but in a very similar way, the author Patanjali of the canonical Yoga Sutras described Kriya yoga, known as the yoga of action. Kriya yoga is the practice of moving with a purpose or goal (kriya) to cultivate a calmness of mind (yoga). The active practice of moving through the yoga postures (asana) and the intentional integration of breath (pranayama) promote heat (tapas), which serves to purify the body. The meditative practice of self-inquiry (svadhyaya) encourages us to ask who and what we are and how we relate to others. The third element of kriya yoga is a quality of action (isvarapranidhana), to focus on how and how well we are acting in the moment instead of being wrapped up in the expectation of an outcome.
In yoga, avidya refers to the root obstacles that prevent us from seeing things as they really are. In many respects, this is the main challenge we all face all of the time. This is the illusion and the veil that is projected by the conditioned mind to reinforce a sense of separateness within our own selves, with one another, and with Nature. The beauty and the value of the disciplines like Stoicism and Kriya yoga is that they clearly identify the obstacle and also provide actionable steps for liberation from unconscious conditioning.
In the original chiropractic philosophy, we understand that avidya - the obstacles that prevent us from seeing things as they are - can manifest in the body as clinical expressions of dis-ease. We have traditionally referred to these expressions of dis-ease in the body as subluxations, which in the philosophical sense can be understood as “a reduction in the expression of light.”
Operating from the premise that life is the expression of intelligence through matter, we see that when there is an impediment to how this energy and intelligence is coordinated in the body, it affects how a person can move, sense, feel, and heal. When a person is disconnected from their body and themselves for long enough, they become ill. When people are disconnected from each other because they’re disconnected from their bodies and themselves, the culture becomes ill.
The beauty and the value of chiropractic, when drawing from this philosophical heritage and refined through the science and art of clinical practice, is to provide an adjustment with one goal - to entice the Innate Intelligence that resides in each of us to shine a little brighter. Just as we cannot be in growth and defense at the same time, the derivatives of Fear that currently saturate our culture cannot last when the veil of avidya is lifted.
Seneca and Patanjali were talking about the same thing. The practice of moving deliberately to cultivate a calmness of mind is an asset that the passing of time itself will improve. The disciplines of Stoicism, Kriya yoga, and philosophically-based chiropractic serve to promote and advance this practice.
