Buttercupchappati Chronicles

just one more drink

hhmm, am starting think I have a problem.

I can't say no to clients. It will be alright, I'll just fit one more booking in, I'll have an early night.

Trouble is I am seriously overdrawn on rest and solitude (hey, they sound familiar, something about a new years list), and time without responsibility for anyone or anything.

What to do?

It is a perennial problem for anyone who is self employed, you just don't say no to work when it is coming in, because you don't know what next month will be like.

It's a bit of a self confidence issue too I suspect, not trusting yourself and the quality of your work.

And, last but biggest, my first instinct is to help, to heal, to get them better.

But here's the thing, I have all the signs that I am run down and don't need to get sick to prove myself right. Last year was a shocker, for lots of people not just me. Everyone seemed to have hoops to jump through, more than one obstacle for every endeavour, bad news, hard times, no money; it just kept coming didn't it.

I think we all need a holiday. We need to turn the whole planet into a giant galactic cruise ship for a few days and the whole world sit back, drink Long Island Iced Teas, and relax, (just like the Deathstar, but good rather than evil).

Naturally all this ruminating is not going to stop me fitting one more person into the week, but I may go and block out a few days for my own healing.

ps: 9 days into the new year and I have not bought a book yet, is everything alright I wonder?

a new one

Two thousand and eleven, a year well launched with friends and family, laughter, dancing, singing, momo's, Texas chili, margaritas and The Rocky Horror Picture Show on dvd.

I suspect the horror part was all of us doing the time warp some time around midnight, but anyway...

It was cozy - and that is one of my main words for this coming year. I want to snuggle in and read, study, work, create, be myself; with occasional outings for travel where I do all that, just in a different place.

Key words for 2011:

reflection

meditation

mantra

reading

study

music - really listening, not just playing in the background

healing - myself and my patients

art

writing

solitude

gratitude

poetry

a dharma year
a catching up year
a year where I return to Amdo - always!
a year where I say hello to myself, everyday

well - resolution comes from resolve, so let's just see.
Intention is everything, I tell everyone else that! Best listen to my own awesome advice.

Happy new year everyone!
Peaceful, safe, prosperous and brilliant.

how beautiful are these women

I love this picture.

I could stop right there really.

These remarkable women are such an inspiration to me on so many levels, I was looking at this photo today and wishing them well from the bottom of my heart.

They are both Tibetan Doctors at the Men-Tsee-Khang in Mcleoganj, India. So quite apart from all the other things they have to do and have done in their lives as women and wives and Tibetans living in exile in India, they have studied Tibetan Medicine for six years and then done another year as intern. And now they work all day for the good of all sentient beings, especially the sick ones!

They have both been very kind to me whenever I have visited Mcleodganj, spending time, answering my endless questions about TTM and how they practice it there. The MTK does not admit Westerners to its TTM course, so it is especially kind that they would find the time to help me when they can.

Dr Wangmo and Dr Sonam, may Yuthok bless you many many many times, and I am looking forward to the next time I sit in your clinic and we laugh together about my life as an injie  studying TTM.

Tibetan Medicine adds another leaf to its newly planted tree in Australia

In 2009 we were blessed to have the first intake of students for Traditional Tibetan Medicine studies here in Australia. At the end of that first course, our teacher Dr Nida Chenagtsang said it had long been a dream of his to teach TTM in Australia.

So coming back for our second year of studies felt like a real consolidation of that dream into a very real reality. Our TTM family had grown with the inclusion of some new students who had completed studies during the year to enable them to join the current group.

As always it is with great anticipation and excitement (and some fear – what have I forgotten!) that we start our classes with Dr Nida.

TTM is such a vast and rich subject, with it’s history going back thousands of years; deeply embedded in the indigenous Bon culture of the Tibetan people and then later entwined with Buddhism, as it became the predominant religion of Tibet. Tibetan medicine can encompass not only the things we expect from a healing system such as medicines, external therapies, suggestions for diet and lifestyle; it can also include dream studies, astrology and an understanding of Sa Che or geomancy or more esoteric techniques such as healing with mantra. So it’s no wonder that we feel a little daunted as westerners embarking on this journey.

We don’t need to worry, Dr Nida makes sure we don’t get lost, don’t feel left behind in the cultural or historical differences. The fundamental thing we all need to practice any kind of healing is compassion and he shows us that in so many ways. We laugh, cry, and learn a lot!

As our nine days fly by we learn more about pulse reading, urine analysis – everyone is used to coming to class with their small yellow jars now. We look at tongues and hear about leeches. We try not to set each other on fire as we practice moxibustion. We face the prospect of bloodletting – what is worse, giving or receiving?

We learn about the amazing infinite, internal journey of the fetus. Long before the advent of x-ray or scanning, Tibetan doctors had a clear understanding of the way a woman’s body becomes a whole universe for every child that is born. And of course the mysteries of the end of life journey, with its dissolution of the body back to the five elements from which we all are formed.

We find out there are 72,000 internal channels in the body (and I hope we are not expected to learn them all by next year!) The three humors become more detailed as we go further into the subtle energies at work in us all. Pathology studies begin, and understanding the systems of our amazing bodies.

We all so enjoy having the gentle energy of our Tibetan students with us in the classroom, and the opportunity to hear Tibetan spoken each day is lovely.

(And we learn that an orgasm every day is good for your health…)

And it’s here in this room in a hotel in Melbourne that we have taken another step forward on our TTM journey; and started to really comprehend how connected we are, to each other, to our chosen subject, to our teacher, our patients and everything in and around us. That seems to be the most important thing anyone who wants to work as a healer can learn; that there is no separation.

To Write Love On Her Arms

I can't say it any better than they can, so:

"MISSION STATEMENT:

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.  TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

VISION:

The vision is that we actually believe these things…

You were created to love and be loved.  You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known. You need to know that your story is important and that you're part of a bigger story.  You need to know that your life matters.

We live in a difficult world, a broken world.  My friend Byron is very smart - he says that life is hard for most people most of the time.  We believe that everyone can relate to pain, that all of us live with questions, and all of us get stuck in moments.  You need to know that you're not alone in the places you feel stuck.

We all wake to the human condition.  We wake to mystery and beauty but also to tragedy and loss.  Millions of people live with problems of pain.  Millions of homes are filled with questions – moments and seasons and cycles that come as thieves and aim to stay.  We know that pain is very real.  It is our privilege to suggest that hope is real, and that help is real.

You need to know that rescue is possible, that freedom is possible, that God is still in the business of redemption.  We're seeing it happen.  We're seeing lives change as people get the help they need.  People sitting across from a counselor for the first time.  People stepping into treatment.  In desperate moments, people calling a suicide hotline.  We know that the first step to recovery is the hardest to take.  We want to say here that it's worth it, that your life is worth fighting for, that it's possible to change.

Beyond treatment, we believe that community is essential, that people need other people, that we were never meant to do life alone.

The vision is that community and hope and help would replace secrets and silence. 

The vision is people putting down guns and blades and bottles.

The vision is that we can reduce the suicide rate in America and around the world.

The vision is that we would learn what it means to love our friends, and that we would love ourselves enough to get the help we need.

The vision is better endings.  The vision is the restoration of broken families and broken relationships.  The vision is people finding life, finding freedom, finding love.  The vision is graduation, a Super Bowl, a wedding, a child, a sunrise.  The vision is people becoming incredible parents, people breaking cycles, making change. 

The vision is the possibility that your best days are ahead. 

The vision is the possibility that we're more loved than we'll ever know. 

The vision is hope, and hope is real.

You are not alone, and this is not the end of your story."

http://www.twloha.com/vision/

a massage week

Lots of massage clients this week (it's not the only treatment I offer), which is great. I learn more and more about Ku Nye (Tibetan massage) with every one I do.
It is a wonderful therapy that really is so much more than just massage, that is selling it short I reckon. It is a really very comprehensive bodywork.

Anyway, back to what I was going to go on about before the free Ku Nye add manifested, lots of massage.

Massage being given by me, not received by me. And this is in a week where I have through other commitments been welded to the computer, and I do mean welded! So what's the problem, I can find a therapist and make a booking for myself. Yes, although I am fussy about who I let work on me, but that's another story.

The interesting thing for me has been that while my neck and shoulders should be kaput from all the screen time, working on other people has been as healing as getting massaged myself.
Bonus.
Because Ku Nye is such a dynamic form of massage, the therapist is not just standing and patting muscles, it is incredible the benefits that you receive in the process as well.

And it's always good to send people away feeling so much more relaxed and un-hooked from all their stresses as well as their physical pain. It works so well on the energy and emotional bodies as well as the physical.

Okay, I'm done with the self-promotion.
For now!

(Try Ku Nye, it's great mate!)

Back to work

We put Dr Nida on his plane to Singapore yesterday, so sad to see him go but it has been great; now its someone else's turn to receive these wonderful teachings.

Then straight back into "normal" life with the family, house and healing centre. Jumped into work with clients from first thing this morning. I miss my healing room when I'm not there, it has become my room of my own.

Not even thinking about looking at all my class notes for at least a week, well maybe a few days... I am a nerd after all. (Actually I lie, I already looked at them today, but I was just looking something up, really.)

Beautiful day to study Traditional Tibetan Medicine

We had a wonderful first day for our TTM course. To read posts about it as the course progresses visit:

http://buttercupchappati.typepad.com/travels_in_tibet/

That's where all the news will be!

One week, many lifetimes

One week, one phone call, much more than twentyfour hours in each day since then.

Last Saturday when we were just finishing dinner, the phone rings, my Mum telling me that she thought Dad was having a stroke and they had just called an ambulance. (PRS tells me later I put down my knife and fork, got my bag and was at the door before he had picked up his keys - I don't remember).

So, at emergency an hour later (we don't live in the city) and for many hours after that. It is extraordinary in our very affluent society that a 77 year old man has to wait nearly 24 hours in emergency because there were no beds available on the wards upstairs. And we all know that due to lack of staff, there are probably heaps of empty beds and wards.

Mum and I were sent home at 4.30 am to get some sleep, we get back mid morning and it is much much later he is moved. And moved again(?) but on the same ward which is something! It turns out not to be a stroke but a hypoglycaemic attack - he has type 2 diabetes; but the symptoms are very similar to a stroke.

Since then it has been driving up and back to Melbourne, or training it, and asking asking asking questions. It has taken quite a few days to stabilise his blood sugar, and all his other ailments have their part to play, and the fall he had the week before, (we finally get x-ray feedback and he has a stable fracture in his back. Well that makes sense of the pain he gets when moving).

The nursing staff are all wonderful, very caring, showing him respect, but it is still very hard for all of us. My Dad has always been a robust person and while he has been hard on his body over the years; the health problems he (and Mum, who is is carer) faces now have altered that aspect of him dramatically. He is being moved to rehab as soon as a bed becomes available, and Mum and I will start finding out what help is going to be around for them to tap into.

My darling friend in India, rushed to the temple in Mcleodganj and made sure prayers were said for Dad just before the Dalai Lama flew out to Europe, such a blessing.

Now we wait and see, it sucks getting old...

Back from many different places!

What a roller-coaster the last 3 weeks have been! I have been home for a week and this is the very first chance I have had to sit down and put some thoughts out there.

Forwards or backwards? I'd like to start where I finish with the Dalai Lamas' five days of teaching in Sydney, but once I get started on him, it is hard to stop.

So start at the start.

Seven day retreat with my Tibetan Medicine teacher, Dr. Nida. We were at a beautiful retreat centre in Healesville - Maitripa, it belongs to the Kaygu Evam group from Melbourne. Is always lovely to stay here, we are fed and looked after so well by the lovely Sue Ellen and it is a comfortable funny old building with little rooms everywhere in a beautiful bushland setting, wombats and lyrebirds everywhere.

The retreat itself was a profound and amazing week. We were embarked on the Yuthok Nyingthik Ngondro, a seven day preliminary practice taught by Yuthok Yonten Gonpo (the father of Tibetan Medicine). It is the spiritual side of Tibetan medicine and is a wonderful purification practice for any one who works as a healer. And it is a complete ngondro done in 7 days - that is unbelievable! Most other forms of ngondro take at least 4 to 6 months as a full time retreat, or 3 years plus fitting it around your normal life. There is more information here if you are interested: Yuthok practices.

Yuthok Yonten Gonpo - The Younger - lived in the 12th Century, and is known as the Father of Tibetan Medicine. It is said that Yuthok The Younger left a legacy of ‘two jewels’, namely the Four Tantras (the Classic text on Tibetan Medicine) and Yuthok Nyingthig (a very important - and the most compact - spiritual practice for practitioners of Tibetan Medicine). Yuthok The Younger predicted that ‘in the future, doctors would be so busy that they would have no time for spiritual practice’. So saying, he composed a very concise practice - the practice known as Yuthok Nyingthig, taught it to his one best student, and also passed onto him the transmission. This practice has subsequently been passed down from one generation of Tibetan doctors to the next, in an unbroken lineage.

Now, Dr. Nida was off to Sydney after this week to teach Ku Nye level 1, Tibetan massage. I had been going to study this last year, but the course was cancelled and after finding out that it was part of the fourth year module of TTM - Traditional Tibetan Medicine - I had decided not to take it further. During a conversation we were having after diner one night when I when I was doing some work on the computer for him he made some comment about oh we can do that next week in Sydney. Well, we could if I were going! But of course Dr. Nida is hard to say "no" to and I got home late that Saturday; on Sunday washed my knickers, re-acquainted myself with the faces of my family and was on a plane to Sydney early Monday morning!