Had a tremendous experience one recent Saturday morning while in the woods at Mt. Bijia Park near our school here in Shenzhen, China. A few days before I had discovered this power spot for birds. It’s along a foot trail up the mountain where a few different habitats merge. The travels and habits of a number of different species converge here and I decided to check it out more thoroughly Saturday morning. It’s a kind of ley line intersection for birds.

One reason I returned to this spot was that I thought I glimpsed an orange-bellied sunbird there the previous week. It is one of the most colorful local birds and a real gem of the forest. Spotting and communing with these things really takes you into a deeper relationship with “place.” I think birds connect our inner qi with the outer qi. Somehow they link our microcosm with the macrocosm. Their songs, when listened to receptively, help reshape our jing and align it with the external jing, or essence of the place. This is why bird language and concentric rings (the behavior of birds in response to changes in their surroundings) were so important to the Native Americans, and other primitive cultures around the world. It is how we communicate with nature, just as internal alchemical cultivation enables us to communicate with nature.
Continue reading ‘Birds Sing of the Tao’

(Names of the questers and guides have been changed for privacy)

The journey begins before the sojourner might anticipate—at a luncheon in Minneapolis, a fundraiser for some young women who completed a year’s worth of training in a Women’s Rite of Passage. They are raising funds to complete their final ceremony in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Still on my juice fast in preparation for my Vision Quest, I enjoy meeting these young women, and touching on a piece within me that calls me to be a teacher or mentor to more women coming of age, to look inside themselves for their power, not without themselves into pop culture.A potluck dinner follows that evening.
Continue reading ‘Living the Sacred Dream of Life: The Journey Shield Vision Quest’

An edited version of this interview was published in Sacred Fire magazine.

Ken Cohen is one of my heroes. His book, Honoring the Medicine: The Essential Guide to Native American Healing, is one of the best books on Native spirituality that I’ve come across, and I’m an avid reader. In addition to his knowledge of Native American wisdom and healing, Mr. Cohen is also an initiate of Filipino oracion, had studied with Zulu shaman Ingwe, and is trained as an Igbo priest/shaman. Did I mention he is widely renowned for his research, writing and work on Qigong? He has studied with numerous Qigong masters and apprenticed to Dr. K.S. Wong, from China’s sacred mountains. And he’s Jewish.

These are mere footnotes in Ken Cohen’s complete litany of experience, and so I was understandably nervous about picking him up at his hotel in my barely functional vehicle. I should have known from Mr. Cohen’s smoothness during the qi gong that it would be okay. He lit up the room with his funny jokes and thoughtful stories. We met one morning in early November and I had the pleasure of introducing Ken to Seven Cups, where he had never been. It is a beautiful traditional tea shop. An enthusiastic tea lover, Ken was in heaven! He recited poetry in Chinese to the beaming owners, who brought out choice cakes of tea to show us. We shared three small pots of tea and a huge variety of mooncakes and mochi treats, with me asking questions between beautiful conversation. I know that Ken is not fond of the internet, where most of you are reading this interview. Please keep reading. Here it is:
Continue reading ‘The Tao That Can Be Spoken Of’

Karen, my wife Lynn, and I shared an apartment over two decades ago in the San Francisco east bay. Karen was completing her degree in nutrition while Lynn and I were beginning our lives as newlyweds.
Living with a nutritionist was much like having two winos living with a reformed alcoholic. This was in our white flour phase of life, and Karen never let us forget the dangers of Wonder Bread and red meat. (Twenty plus years later I was sitting in Karen’s kitchen watching her gulp down black coffee, smoke cigarettes and eat Pop-Tarts…but that’s for another column.) One of the few dishes we agreed on and actually shared was guacamole. A week hardly passed when, stained with avocado goo, we did not indulge in a high caloric orgy of tortilla chips and guac. Though we all knew how fattening avocado can be, we just didn’t care. There were very few gratifications for us in those days. We refused to give up guacamole.
Continue reading ‘Avocado: Not Just for Guacamole’