Liv's Journey

I’m developing a presentation from my life experiences, as a person and a parent. Why am I doing this? Well, because I’ve felt the call for many years, and I’m just now getting enough courage to go ahead with it. I’ve a few forums to contact. In any case, I’ve decided to go ahead and do this so I can get on with my life.

So first things first, there are a few natures of life to get to make things easier. A very important one is that life is work in progress. Change is the only constant. We, humans, are animals. Something is constantly “anima”ting and creating. Therefore, things are always changing in and around us. The only time when we don’t move or change is when we’re dead. And even then, the moving and changing still goes on. Our heart is constantly beating, blood circulating, brain dreaming or converting short-term memories into long-term memories… Millions of movements happen in and out of us without our noticing.

In our modern life, we are so used to get somewhere quick. We are often rushing to get things done, getting over the process fast. What’s at the end of our process? Having a meal, eating an ice cream, all of that is the process that we enjoy. When we’re done, there’s only the full feeling in the tummy and burps. We want to quick watch a movie. It’s the process we really enjoy, not so much of the discussion afterwards. My yoga teacher always says, don’t be in a rush to get down. There’s only dirt when you get there. In Western Yoga, we ignore our bodies’ messages, our held or belaboring breath. We skip through the important stuff to get our limbs to where they “should’ be and forget that the process of getting there is where the gold lies.

The Chinese I-Ching based its entire premise on “change.” The character “I”, in the title, means change. Hence the Yin-Yang symbol. The white-and-black represents light-and-dark. It can also represent good-and-evil, happy-and-sad, empty-and-full, rich-and-poor, etc.. The white starts as a dot on one end. It grows and grows to it’s fullest. As the famous Chinese saying goes, “A thing that goes to its extreme, must become its opposite.” The black goes through the same cycle until it tuns over to white. Also, since nothing is absolute, there’s a dot of black in white and a dot of white in black.

Knowing that nothing will go on forever, or is absolute, we feel less surprised and more able to accept the changes when they come. At times, we can even expect the changes. Thus, in stead of reacting to the changes, we incorporate them as part of our life process.

My mother’s father was a doctor. My mother recalls vividly of her father’s practice. My mother was born right around the end of the Japanese occupation in Taiwan. The war ended when my mother was one. Her family was one of the few that were well off. My grandfather became a politician after the Japanese left. He was a senator, representing the Taiwanese people, until the day he passed away. I have seen very few pictures of him. Most of which were static and formal. There was one newspaper clip picture that I remember seeing in grade school. He was speaking in public on a podium. The headline reads something like “The canon ball senator, fires again!” My mother said grandfather was able to speak his mind because he made his own wealth. One of the few lucky ones who didn’t have to pay attention to sponsors. I suspect that he spoke his mind, partly because he’s got “hot blood,” which run in all of our veins today…… Maybe that’s why I have a blog…

In any case, I grew up hearing stories about how the kids helped out in grandfather’s practice. Mother’s learned to mix herbs, heat them over small coal-burning oven, and spread the black substance on papers ready to be applied to patients. She recalls people coming in with sprains, back aches, dislocated shoulders, broken bones, broken bones that had been misaligned… When mother was older, her best friend was dating a man who studied Western medicine in Japan. He was very amazed that Grandfather was able to break a misaligned bone and realign it without the aid of x-rays.

My grandfather and grandmother passed away before my mother married. We never had the good fortune to meet them. Since he was a great provider of many, and by that, I mean more than much more than his own families of 18. Many stories were told of him. But they had always been just stories to me, since I didn’t have a real connection to him. It wasn’t until after my son was born, in the span of a few months, my angels have spoken through two people at different times in very different settings. They pointed out that I carry my grandfather’s blood in my veins and I’ve inherited his gift of healing. (Now that I’m writing this, I wonder what else I’ve inherited from him.)

Since I was always warned about the danger of being a healer with an unseen eye, I spent most of my life denying the healing energy I carry. The times I can feel the body sensations of strangers next to me. My hands roam automatically to massage where it’s most needed. My presence of a healing space. The thoughts that come into my mind as messages for others… It wasn’t until then, that I see the good in allowing the healing side of me to breathe and live. My grandfather helped and was appreciated by so many. The stories about how farmers would leave fresh produce at their door step in early mornings, about how many people waited and even kneeling beside the road of Grandfather’s funeral parade… There was lots of good in being a healer. And if I inherited that, it wouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t be bad at all. In fact, it’s great, isn’t it?

I am thankful for the people (healers for me) who spoke to me, out of the blue no less. I am glad I didn’t ignore their message, angel only knows how many times I did in the past. Today, I write with gratitude for the healers who came before me. I am riding on their love and devotions for themselves, others and me.

Yesterday, I went to court to fight a traffic ticket from a few months ago. A friend asked, what do you hope to happen? You broke the traffic law, right? Yes, I did change lanes across a solid white line, which(I was informed by the officer) is supposed to represent a wall. I was hoping for the police to not show up, then the ticket will be waved. I know I want to fight the ticket, because I didn’t like that the police was hiding under a tree in a gas station, staring at the solid white line, waiting for some unlucky person to cross it.

My mind wonders to the many times I fought tickets. I haven’t gotten that many traffic tickets in my life time. I have pretty much fought every ticket I got as an adult, including one parking ticket. Every time I sat in court, I wonder, is this really a good use of my time? I used to freelance, so I was well aware of my hourly rate. But the thing is, my time almost is irrelevant. It’s the idea of having the chance to express what I think is fair that brings me to court.

As I sat at the court, watching all the people defending their cases before me. I wonder what percentage of traffic tickets were fought in court. I realized, it takes a certain kind of people to want to fight their tickets. There were lots of police present, which hasn’t been my experience in the past. Despite of the police convincing evidences, people still fought for their innocence. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t break the law, it was that the police wasn’t being very fair. One guy said the police started to pull him over before he even ran the stop sign put out by a school bus. Another Spanish speaking woman, who had her niece translating, said everything the police officer said was not true. I think it take a person with a judge in his or her core to want to fight their tickets. (I wonder how many judges fight their traffic tickets. If you asked me, I think judges just aren’t given traffic tickets.)

In any case, here’s a write up by Caroline Myss on Judge Archetype.

-Seeks to balance justice and compassion (this is definitely why I was at court)

-Manages the fair distribution of power in any form, from military codes to marriage vows.

-Look for a history of mediating between people, and a lifelong learning process of developing high standards of justice and wisdom.

-Shadow Judge manifests as destructive criticism, judging without compassion as misuse of legal authority, or threatening others through association with the law.

All these speak to me, I can see the “judge” tendency all over my life. It’s serve me well. I am a fair and responsible person. I’ve also been hard on myself and others for no good reason. Fairness is a very important element in my life. Here it is again, sitting with me in court was the Judge within. I am happy that I express that side of me. It can’t be avoid. However, I’m happy that I know the judge within and can be relaxed about some of the things I held with rigidity.