A day in the life of Kat Lui, healer. January 2024

In meditation this morning I was uplifted and fed by a blossoming experience of jing vitality, like the time-lapsed blooming of a gigantic Chinese peony. Images of the past week effortlessly floating by - the sound of children's laughter at the clinic, the feel of sun on my skin during qi-gong practices in clinic gardens, the patients - their eyes, their hearts, their hopes and aspirations, the way the medicine shop smells when you first walk in. It was by the grace of all the healers before me whose business models helped pave the way for this one, the one I call mine. Portland was good to me - it was generous with good teachers, good colleagues, good people, and fantastic concepts. Creativity was welcome and I am grateful.

Being a healer is just that - a way of being. Not measured by the number of patients, but the quality of care; not by the number of hours, but the rigor of diagnosis and manipulation of energies back towards health. The years of learning, doing, studies and practices at NCNM created a network of structure, this download and cultivation of intellect, intuition, archetypal knowledge and know-how. And yet, it's not about the doing. It's about the being.

And I am still learning, always will be.

Funny, NCNM asked me to write what I expect to be doing 5 years after graduation. I could have told them about my plans to build a healing center - modelled after my mentor's on Maui. But it would be better - it would somehow integrate life AND death, the beauty of birth and dying, coming full circle, a sacred space for threshold work. I would use my time at school to network with all the amazing healers who had already built innovative models, no need to recreate the wheel! I would harness enthusiasm with will, find the joy of seeking out my place, the city that needed me, and with the help of the gods, root myself. Or maybe it would be a center where youths could be involved somehow - I love to teach, I will always teach at some capacity, and our youths need good role models. Our elders are still alive, and they need to be seen. How could I integrate them? Wherever I root, it will be a place where meditation and Chinese Medicine provide a grounding backbone for something greater for the community to rest on. What will that look like?

I could have told them all that. But instead, I decided to write about this...the capstone day of my life as a healer. A way of being, breathing, sipping that second-pour cup of green tea and integrating that precious sense of contentedness from a week of good work and good living.

It is a gorgeous day, one of those blue-sky mornings where the light and the leaves hint at some sort of profound harmony, making itself known to me through subtle layers of knowing. Contentedness is writing on a morning like this, a sense of  completion resounding from the previous work-week's accomplishments, unravelling like the steam from my second steeping of green tea.

I remember nearly a decade ago, the morning I woke up and took myself seriously as a healer. Like one of those quiet epiphanies, where doubt and unrest took a big step backwards. I no longer felt like a child playing 'let's pretend'. I sat down and crunched the numbers and finally took myself seriously. I'm not dabbling anymore, this is for real. I finally owned who I was, who I am.

Funny, how manifestation works. Waaay back in 2009, I painted the picture that I have before me now. A home where the smell of the woods and the clarity of limpid streams is close at hand. Four seasons, none too harsh. A walk or bike ride to work through landscapes that speak to me, teach me, remind me of my humanity and my immortality - the tiny mushrooms, city greens, the neighbor's yards, archways of knitted branches shelter and protect my path.

I drink my green tea, fresh from Taiwan, bury my nose in its aroma, and feel gratitude for the love of my life partner, together building this 'we' of learning, loving, being, and growing. The lessons in love and and life teach me how to be a healer. Healing my clients teaches me how to live and appreciate life. Astral scents of rose and sandalwood link heaven to earth on this capstone day, the peak of my life as a healer. As above, so below, and so it continues, for eternity, this cycle of life and death and yet through it all, in timelessness, at this time crossing, my sense of Ego remains lit like a flame on the altar of some archetypal angel, a sublime something I've always known, but don't always see.