Connecting the Pieces of Asar

My family and I are investing so much to be here at Bastyr -- money, money, study, study day after day, year after year. I am exactly where I need to be. I know this. Even when I don’t see how my tuition will be paid. But sometimes I wonder “am I just one more person sharing their opinion on how to be healthy? “do I just fall into the over-played category of ‘self help’? Surely I don’t need to be investing thirty grand a year for that!

This morning I started going through some old notes along my journey. I was reminded by one of my Kemetic Yoga teachers Aunkh Aakhu that “we still are just scratching the surface of what health really is.” It is in this uncertainty where the clarity came.

We think we know it all, right? Green juice, yoga, positive thinking and BAM we are healthy and enlightened. right? Gosh, no. If it is one thing I am truly learning here is that the Vis Medicatrix Naturae, the life force of nature that truly directs our healing, that is the undercurrent of all bodily functions, remains such a mystery, but one that we are just learning how to form an alliance with. In my opinion my education is this grand unfolding of biochemical, nutritional, anatomical, environmental, psychological, physiological and spiritual ANSWERS into more biochemical, nutritional, anatomical, environmental, psychological, physiological and spiritual QUESTIONS. And we must be so, so humbled by that continual process. We must align with the Questions and the Process so that the answers have space to reveal themselves. This is how we be good doctors. This is revolutionary: we are not good doctors because of how much we know, but how many times we can go through the process of finding answers that lead to more questions, with humility. 

One of the underlying principles of naturopathic medicine is to “Treat the whole person”, (as opposed to the disease). This is also what we do in yoga. 

"The piece of “right” that we hold on to (knowing the answer) is just that...a piece. Only when we can connect the pieces of Asar will the Divine Oneness resurrect". In medicine, it is in connecting the questions - the pieces - that the answers come. In the system of Kemetic Yoga that I teach, the Thef Neteru Sema Paut system, the pose of Asar is in last phase, The Establishment. By the time we are at the end of our practice we have explored all the pieces separately and are ready to integrate them into the WHOLE. This is where we find healing. 

“When you are born you are a whole being -- you are not part spirit, part body, part mind. It really functions as one. As we come into a culture that de-emphasizes that aspect of our being it seems more strange. We separate everything in this culture, and that is part of the problem. As people become more whole brings they can see the truth more clearly and are harder to control.”

The journey continues...