Ancient Medicine Modern World

Gratitude is the first thing that comes to mind.
The splash of summer flowers spilling out into a sidewalk draped in September blue sky.
The smell of vegetables off gassing fecund fields.
Travelers and locals allowing life, for a moment, to unwind outside the their usually consensual reality.
Seasons of salmon gray rain that warp time with its incessant fall, fall, falling. And storms that blow up from the Sound with an impersonal vendetta.

Three years ago I returned to a Seattle that seemed quieter and more empty than my Asian addled senses remembered it. Pike Place Market was the only part of town that reminded me of the electric vitality that is any street in Asia. I was missing it before I even got on that plane which brought me back here. The experience of Asia has been like the fish sauce of a Malaysian curry. You don’t taste the fish sauce itself, but without it the flavors of curry don’t expand to their full dimension.

Gratitude is what I notice as books that have traveled more borders than most Americans make their way back into boxes. As a younger man, departures called forth fear and hopeful excitement. At this stage of life, it is more like admiring the  texture of a well worn shirt made of quality cloth. Its history worn into the weave. There is sadness, but more there is appreciation. These past three years in Seattle, creating a gem of green quiet in the bustle of Seattle, has been a blessing to me, and hopefully for my community as well.

.

Yong Kang Clinic will disappear. We all disappear. Disappear into something else. Water to vapor, wood to fire, heat and back to earth. All things cycle the wheel of being. Yong Kang Clinic at the beginning of Oct will become Ageless Acupuncture.

I will again fly west until it becomes east. Trusting the tide that pulls me back to the middle kingdom.