In the turbulence of leaving school, setting up a new home, and beginning a new profession, my spirit is continually challenged. And in my serendipitous coming to Ashland, Oregon, I've found a locale with history and geography conducive to healing through the reunion of body, mind and spirit -- key in Chinese Medicine to continued good health. Just before Ashland's flood of New Year's 1997, I chose it as my new residence and place to practice Chinese Medicine. Little did I know that the place not only had a long history as a healing site -- local tribes used the area for healing, and several sanatoria were in operation at the beginning of the century -- but had also been host to a Chinatown (in the Historic Railroad District, for Chinese railroad workers in the 1800s). Shortly after my move here, I discovered a significant number of patients reporting emotional and psychological complaints, ranging from simple depression over a change in life to forms of dissociative disorder. It seemed a sort of synchronicity to me that Ashland's use as a healing resort came about partly because the water here contains lithium -- a nonorganic mineral which is used as the medication of choice in bipolar (formerly manic depressive) disorder.

I watch from my window the marriage of wind and water ("feng shui") in fogs over the grassy, sun-swathed yang dragon Cascade mountains that include Grizzly Peak as it stretches down to Pompadour Butte. The two are reminiscent in form of the dragon guarding the pearl. The Butte itself, when I drive by it, appears to contains the rocky image of a legion of elders watching over Dead Indian Memorial Road. When I walk through town I ponder the western sun devoured especially early in the winter by the yin dragon Siskiyou mountains swathed in evergreen that abut the southern edge of Ashland and contain Mount Ashland (considered by some locals to be an energy vortex). Siskiyou is an Indian word which means "moving mountains;" some authors have observed that, with regard to movement and stillness, many Western translators of Taoism may have gotten it reversed--that it's the yin principle that creates movement (think of gestation, a movement from embryo to viable birth) and the yang principle that creates stillness (think of architectural monuments rising from earth toward heaven).

As I observe the collision of heaven and earth in the atmosphere, manifesting in the dramatic changes of weather on the mountains, I see in real space and time the imagery described by Chinese philosophers and artists -- the meeting of yang (heaven) and yin (earth), which in feng shui is regarded as an auspicious location. I rest assured that the qi of this place moves people to healing; it has prompted healers to move here to do their work; and it prods people to search their souls and hearts to relieve the troubles that plague their spirits.

Discovering that the Native tradition was to not live here permanently, but to stay for healing ceremonies, underscored my intuitive hit that this area prompts changes in people's lives -- changes toward healing the disunity between body, mind and spirit prevalent in the predominantly spiritually bereft culture of the 20th-century West. Unfortunately for all of us who suffer under this spiritual burden (for I count myself as one of the suffering since I'm a product of this culture, despite being a student and practitioner of healing arts from the East for the last one-third of my life) staying here for healing may be a long-term proposition. It's a moving energy that creates change and metamorphosis, which seems at first to be unstable. Given the Taoist premise that change is the nature of things, the nature of the land surrounding Ashland may simply accelerate processes already underway in the spirit and energy of all who live here. In fact, an acquaintance of mine who is currently working on a doctoral thesis on Taoist Internal Alchemy pointed out that this landscape would be the kind that Chinese immigrants would travel to find, because the mountain ranges lend themselves to such energy work.

Whether a Taoist practicing esoteric qi gong, a patient seeking health care for a specific problem, or a resident of this area, healings of body, mind and spirit are bound to take as many mysterious forms as the network of ley lines hidden in the foothills which, if you're lucky, you may discover by accident when driving down a side street on the outskirts of town.


About the author:

Isabeau Vollhardt is a 1996 alumna of Samra University of Oriental Medicine, an NCCAOM Diplomate in Acupuncture and Herbology. Her clinical focus is chronic illness, stress reduction, multiple sclerosis, repetitive motion injuries, and women's health care. Over the past thirteen years, Ms. Vollhardt has continued studies of T'ai Chi Ch'uan and Qi Gong history and theory, which led to Tibetan Buddhist Feng Shui (non-compass school).
A published author in both fiction and non-fiction, Ms. Vollhardt is currently compiling her studies on the relationship between Kuang Ping style T'ai Chi Ch'uan and the I Ching hexagrams. An 8th-generation Cherokee/mixed blood, she is researching the use of Native American herbal remedies in TCM polypharmacy.

Also of Interest:

• More articles at the Feng Shui Directory.