Desert Magnolia

 As I settle into my second year of practice, I am becoming more comfortable with the medicine overall, and am feeling continually blessed to be in a place where I can participate in journeys to better health and well being. Each day brings challenges, opportunities to test my abilities as a practitioner, and conversations about life, love, health, wellness and managing obstacles along the way. I am continually impressed by how patients cope, how they overcome their unique health issues, and how the medicine seems to support their efforts to improve. Some days the intensity of multiple patients with intense back stories or clearly nuanced and complex lives and circumstances leaves me exhausted, emotionally.  Therapeutic distance is a beautiful ideal that we're encouraged to employ; the reality is sometimes, often when I 'm physically taxed at the end of a long day or week, applying that ideal of distance becomes a challenge.  When the energy that fuels my barriers is...

Yesterday I went to say goodbye to another amazing human being. He had fallen to his addiction,  in spite of a sterling intellect and absolute certainty that he would prevail. He was wrong. As I look back at his lovely service, and the people who spoke lovingly of him, I felt incredibly sad, but also proud for him. Some people are not stellar humans. They are selfish and idiotic and really, at times one wonders at the universe's wisdom, 'What the hell? She's an IDIOT! What is the point, here???" Onward. He was kind, he was generous, he was brilliant. And he was sensitive. Very. Deeply. Which, as we all all pondered yesterday, created a perfect storm in which his addiction was able to prevail, at last. There is a strange bittersweetness to services. We are there to bid adieu to a dear friend or loved one. In the process we reunite with those with whom we've lost touch, with those we appreciate after many years in spite of miles and time separating us. ...