Holistic Beginnings and Endings

Holistic Beginnings and Endings October 30, 2007

Posted by Geoffrey Wilson in : Diary , trackback

Ummon said to his monks:
“Medicine and sickness are mutually dependent.
Look!
The entire universe is nothing but medicine.
Now tell me, what is your self?”

‘Take This Pebble From My Hand’ was actually the name of one of my earlier publications. It comes from the television series “Kung Fu’ – about the adventures of a Shaolin monk in America. One day my own teacher informed me that when I could take the metaphorical pebble from his hand it would be time to leave.

The day finally arrived and after training as a barefoot doctor in the traditional oriental healing arts for several years in various environments conducive to developing the necessary skills, I was told that it was time for me to leave and go solo.

I joined a unique agency whose function was to provide suitably qualified practitioners capable of providing specialist health care services – specifically in my case, for the terminally ill. My job was to serve those families in health crisis and prepare family members for the death of their loved ones – incorporating my skills as an oriental medicine practitioner in the arts of acupuncture, Chinese herbs, food cures, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, meditation and so on.

My vision was for them to clean up as much of their mess as possible in order to pave the way for them to let go – and in the process invite and attract more love and acceptance.

Once, I stayed with a family for 3 months assisting the mother and members of the family to prepare for her death. She suffered from terminal lung cancer. She was very sick – had had several courses of chemotherapy and found that her strength was seriously on the decline. Despite the efforts of a loving husband and two sons, I determined early on that they were all in denial and that the way forward was to embrace the actual situation rather than run away from it.

I gave her acupuncture every day. It eased the pain and helped to clear her head. We also cultivated an approach to meditation that worked for her – a variation on the theme of vipassana – and she found that it supported the acupuncture rather well. She had more energy and recovered some of her enthusiasm for life.

I cooked for them all, introduced them to more nourishing kinds of foods, and got the kids involved. We played games together and learned to accept the difficulties of the challenge with inceasingly less resistance. I sat down with him to talk now and then. It was obvious that he felt isolated and alone and bottled up his emotions as some tend to do when faced with unsavoury predicaments the outcome of which cannot be changed.

After she died, he seemed relieved that the ordeal was finally over and that he could get on with his life. I took on my next mission moved by an experience that had strengthened my connection to the heart spirit and to the reality behind discovering some of the more important things in life.

Living and dying go together. They are not separate. In other words, they are part of the same process.