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If change is the only constant, why is it so hard to change one’s mind about things? Witness the ill effects inflexible thinking is having on many aspects of our society. But sometimes, some special times, taken separately or together, compassion, modern research and aboriginal wisdom prevail, resulting in change that is for the good […]

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In the coming weeks, you should refrain from wrestling with problems that resist your solutions. Be discerning about how you use your superior analytical abilities. Devote yourself solely to manageable dilemmas that are truly responsive to your intelligent probing. PS: I feel sorry for people who aren’t receptive to your input, […]

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): It’s impossible to be perfect. It’s neither healthy nor productive to obsess on perfectionism. You know these things. You understand you can’t afford to get bogged down in overthinking and overreaching and overpolishing. And when you are at your best, you sublimate such manic urges. You transform them into the elegant […]

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Indian Summer is Earth element time. Earth includes the stomach and its partner meridian, spleen-pancreas. This is the energy of ripening. Think fruit. People with chronic Earth imbalances frequently have fruity breath and tend to worry or overthink, hence ulcers. Our anatomical stomach knows all about the bodymind connection, its complexities, […]

Dear Dr. Jane, My wife has some severe hangups about touching herself, me touching her, and generally anything that isn’t traditional intercourse. Unsurprisingly, she’s never had an orgasm. We talked about it one night last week in our tent when we were camping at Elk Lake. For the first time in our relationship, she told […]

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): It’s impossible to be perfect. It’s neither healthy nor productive to obsess on perfectionism. You know these things. You understand you can’t afford to get bogged down in overthinking and overreaching and overpolishing. And when you are at your best, you sublimate such manic urges. You transform them into the elegant […]

Joy must transcend our day-to-day lives. It is a choice. Maybe the most important choice we ever make. The son of a friend of ours was recently killed. Shot down in public. Life cannot get much worse for a parent. Pause for a moment, please. These words are infinitely more than words. They are lifetimes […]

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Blogger Scott Williams writes, “There are two kinds of magic. One comes from the heroic leap, the upward surge of energy, the explosive arc that burns bright across the sky. The other kind is the slow accretion of effort: the water-on-stone method, the soft root of the plant that splits the […]

Traditional Chinese Medicine associates summer with Fire. One of five elements, Fire includes the Pericardium, Triple Warmer, Small Intestine and Heart meridians. The pericardium protects the heart from shocks and Triple Warmer balances the thoracic, digestive and eliminative organs. In TCM, Small Intestine separates the pure from the impure, a metaphor for what it actually […]

On a recent hot (triple digit) summer evening at Bend’s Midtown Yacht Club, my friend and I were thankful for the icy-cold mist spritzed from tiny nozzles suspended above our heads. The only two at a large wooden spool table, we welcomed a middle-aged man and his two teenagers who asked if they could join […]