My babushka Inna was born on September 11 over 80 years ago in Minsk, Belarus.  She passed away in February of 1997.

She is my inspiration and my hero, and I have always tried to take Sep. 11 to honor her and reconnect to my own purpose and direction in life. 

She was a strong, beautiful woman. 
Two days after her high school prom, WWII was declared, sending her prom date to the front.  She, along with her mother and later her little brother, was forced to evacuate, partially by foot, to the Altai mountain region in central Asia.  There, the small family survived the immense hardship and returned to Minsk after the war.  Her high-school sweetheart, twice wounded in the war but a survivor nonetheless, became her husband and my grandfather.  (If anyone is at all interested in the fate of Belorussian Jews during that time period, this article provides some striking history and statistics).

She raised two healthy, intelligent, and well mannered children, one of whom is my father (lucky me!) while working full time as a high school math teacher.  Shortly after we moved to the United States, she moved here, in her mid-60's with her own mother, my great-grandmother.  She took care of her mother until her own passing.

In the US, she lived with us and it was this time that I was truly blessed with her love and attention.  She had suffered from breast cancer in Belarus, and it had come back and metastasized when she was in the US. 
Here is a woman who survived WWII, survived breast cancer, was battling another round in a new country with a new language.  What did she do? 
She taught me math. 
She taught me how to cook. 
She spent time walking with me, talking with me, feeding me, loving me. 
Asking me questions, communicating with me verbally and non-verbally in so many ways. 
Even towards the end, when her cancer took over her body completely, she never shared the pain with me. 
She only shared love. 

She was a natural, beautiful woman. 
I was 14 when she passed away, and I vowed that I would do something with my life to honor her, and to not let people like her slip away into the clutches of such a grotesque disease.  I would try to emulate her, to be simultaneously strong and compassionate in light of hardship. 

I'm quite sure I haven't lived up to those standards.  But on every Sep. 11, I remind myself of how important it is to try. 

In the past year, I have left the biomedical research community to embark in training and a career in Traditional Oriental Medicine, where I truly feel that my life's purpose and goals will be better carried out. 
Am I honoring my babushka? 
I don't know, but I try to remember and understand that love, intelligence, and pain are all necessary to carry out a fulfilling and honorable life.

Babushka, ya teba povny e ochen lublyu. 
Z'dnom rajdenyam!
Ya teba derju v sertse, e starayus shtobe te bela shastlevaya st'vayoy semyoy.

I just woke up from a lucid dream.  It's been several years since I had one.  Lots of walking around in an alternate world.  At school and smiling.  Slippers and tickling one's feet.  An incredible sense of wonder.  I was awake.  And in a very real sense, when my alarm went off, I felt one set of eyelids close and another one open.  That was a physical, real feeling.

Now, I know about circadian rhythmes, brain waves, REM sleep.  So this all has a biological explanation.

But still, how wonderous, how extra-sensory, how multi-dimensional.  The child in me does not want to reduce this to neurotransmitters. 

Awesome.

An ode to my current best friend: My HEPA air purifier. 

I have lugged it, lovingly, with from Montreal, to Berkeley, to LA. 

It not only cleanses the air (the places I live, unfortunately, have rugs that emit toxic substances from previous owners) but makes a soothing white noise to combat TV, boomboxes, breakups, makeups, and whatever my nearest 10 neighbours may be up to. 

Right now, it hums peacefully next to me, filtering out the cigarette smoke from the patio next door. 

This is what happens when a nature girl lives in the city.  She falls in love with air filters.  Go figure.

I am currently reading Kafka on the Shore by H. Murakami.  It is a long, well-written story where dreams and reality and words and thoughts are often intertwined and indistinct.  Dream and real worlds truly become indiscernible

As per usual, when I become engrossed in a novel, my inner language and outlook becomes infused with the flavor of the novel.  I have currently moved to a new apartment, and things are not going well here, forcing me to again look for a place to move to as soon as possible.  My roommates are unreal in a sense: one uses Tide to wash dishes, pours bleach over everything,  and yells and manipulates us all.  The other roommate drifts between sleep and mind-numbing video games and TV.  And me: sleepless (TV everywhere), sneezing (too much bleach everywhere), trying to find a safe place to live.  It is unreal.  Thankfully, I am not reading Dostoyevsky, as I would probably have a very different mindset right now.

This brings me to a thought on the nature/power of written and spoken language.  After speaking, seeing someone for a long time, do you not feel the echoes of his/her voice?  Isn't it similar to the experience of the novel above?  Our brain is always processing incoming information, and very physically reacting and remembering it.  These voices and words truly become us not in some metaphysical sense but in a very real neurotransmitter sense.  This is why I strongly react when I have to hear TV in the background for a long period of time, it worms its way into my brain.  On a more severe level, an individual with negative speaking/acting habits will leave his/her mark on another.  What is the saying - that married couples grow to look and act like each other?  It is true, just as the food we imbibe becomes us, so do the people and language we surround ourselves with (including political and media language).  This is why I am trying so hard to find an environment where the words of those around me will be nourishing.  At present, I have found few such live resources.  I just hope for the time being to find an environment that is, at least, not toxic.  Not toxic enough to keep my hopes/dreams/realities moving in a positive direction.

I read a long time ago that prana (energy) comes not only from the food we eat and the air we breath, but also from our relationships.   If doing yoga gives one more prana and sitting on a couch takes it away, then being around and interacting with great people can give one more energy than could ever be thought possible.  Of-course, in the opposite sense, there are people who are masters at taking this prana away. 

But today I have had the great honor to have received a plethora of prana from so many.  I just have to name names...

My father.  His advice and love always carries me through good and bad, but today he yet again demonstrated to me why he is the best, ever.  I have had problems finding a good part-time job as I settle into Oriental medicine school and I told him that my current position (with a popular retail chain) might not be good for me - my intellect, my health.  With no doubt in his voice, he told me to leave that job.  He reminded me that I am intelligent, resourceful, and energetic.  My health, though, needs more care, and if anything takes that away, it needs to be dealt with immediatly.  Spasibo papa!

My current roommate.  He is helping me move (tomorrow) yet again to another destination (only a mile away this time, thankfully).  Well, it is in his best interest, but still.

My good friend from Berkeley.  He keeps calling me even if I don't answer for several days.  He's good, smart, funny - needs to believe in himself a little more - but that will come. 

A new friend I have met who is also moving to SoCal to shuffle up life a bit.  New, interesting, intelligent connections always make me see myself better and open my eyes to different ways of viewing the world around me.  And are great to communicate with.

This prana is very good today.  Very nourishing.  It sheathes me for what tomorrow will bring.

Good night!

Two excellent articles fromo this weeks' LA City Beat:

Zen and the Art of War Repair reports on how some Iraq-war veterans have found healing in the practice of Zen Buddhism.

Arnold Schwarzenneger has just signed the "Million Solar Roofs Initiative".  Read all about it!

Can you believe it?  Peace and light in the news. 

An excellent article on the reality facing many students as they leave the halls of their chosen higher educational field.

I shamelessly quote, for my own benefit and others, a posting from Incognito at MySpace.com with regards to increasing business as an Acupuncturist.

"I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I am blessed to be where I am today and truly want to share with others what has worked for me to build a successful and rewarding practice.

As for building things up -- first and foremost, be good at what you do. Word of mouth referrals account for most of my patients. I currently am blessed to have a 4 week waiting list, and am actually looking for an associate to help me because my practice has grown larger than I can handle alone! This began to happen when I started using Dr. Tan balance style acupuncture (www.drtanshow.com) and has snowballed from there. No, I do not work for or have any stock in his clinic -- I just have experienced first hand what this style can do, and will only hire someone who practices the same.

Next -- once you have the patient there: In my new patient education "spiel" I always tell them, at the end of presenting the treatment plan and what to expect, that "my goal is to get you better as fast as possible so that you no longer need me, and go out and tell all of your friends about me." I guess this is basically my mission statement :)

Letting them know this serves to A) give them confidence in the treatment plan, B) impress upon them the need to come in frequently, and C) remind them that referrals are how I exist. While I offer a 50% next-treatment discount if the friend writes their name on the "whom may we thank for this referral" line, I have had many patient say they don't even want the credit, they just want their friends to experience this wonderful medicine.

Another thing is, become a businessperson and networker. You say you networked before -- but what did you do? Every time you meet someone and they ask (as they always do) "so -- what do you do??" this is an opportunity to promote yourself, your business, and your profession as a whole ( I actually advertise my business on my vehicle, so I have people approach me with questions). Join the Chamber of Commerce and go to its meetings! Send out an introductory letter and brochure (but not business cards yet -- I personally find this presumptuous) to other medical professionals in your area (Do a zip code search!) -- offer a free sample treatment to the medical professional, and an initial visit discount to his/her staff -- many will take you up on it. In speaking with other practitioners in the area (MDs, DOs, chiropractors, NDs, and others) I have been able to build an extended network of people to whom I feel comfortable referring my patients as necessary (and this is Necessary!) -- and they send people my way as well. Ask your patients who they use, and their experiences good or bad. To the ones who get consistently good reviews, send a lunch invite to talk about what you each do (for example: "I have been hearing about the wonderful things you are doing for several of my patients; perhaps we can get together so I can learn more about your methods. . . " Give time at this meeting to the other practitioner to put forth his/her area of expertise, and yours too! Exchange or arrange to exchange business cards at this time.

Look up all of your locally active charities, and send out gift certificates for their fundraisers. This can be for one treatment, or a series of 10 -- make sure to specify what is covered. These days, I send out a series of 10 with initial intake and re-evaluation included. I actively seek out these organizations through the chamber of commerce and just by calling around to various volunteer organizations in town. (try www.volunteermatch.com). It's a great tax break, you're doing something positive for your community, and you're promoting yourself. Especially if you don't have a waiting list right now, you lose nothing, and can gain a huge number of referrals just by helping one person to live a better life.

Get your name out there. You want other professionals and potential clients to be able to say "I've heard good things about him/her" even if they have never met you.

An important message on the implications of distorted photographs from Lebanon can be found in Tim Rutten's article "Lebanon photos: Take a closer Look".  To quote him:

"It's worth noting in this context that there is no similar flow of propagandistic images coming from the Israeli side of the border. That's because one side - the democratically elected government of Israel - views death as a tragedy and the other - the Iranian financed terrorist organization Hezbollah - sees it as an opportunity. In this case, turning their own dead children into material creates an opportunity to cloud the fact that every Lebanese casualty, tragic as he or she is, was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel's pursuit of terrorists who use their own people as human shields."

As you can see, my views may not be of the lovey-dubbey variety of peace for all.  There is something known as purpose-full anger, and yes, I have it.  I try to be a good, unbiased, caring individual.  But the fires of my purpose-full anger are certainly burning well now.

For those of us following the current state of affairs in the Middle East, it is most unsettling to be reminded, once again, about the biased nature of news today.

Please read this article "Reuters' Image Problem" that describes how Reuter's news feeders from Lebanon have been doctoring and manipulating photographs. 

You can check out the original visual evidence at the LIttle Green Footballs site.

We all call for trust.  But who to trust?  Who is left?