Chinese mythology has it that at the very top of a waterfall in China exists the “Dragon’s Gate.”  Many carp known as Koi fish attempted to swim up and over these falls. Only one carp made it and upon entering through this gate was transformed into a dragon. This legend represents courage and perseverance, failure and success as well as excellence in this arduous journey.  This is the legacy of recovery from addiction.

In ancient China symbolically the multiple shedding of the shell of the cicada symbolizes the many stages of transformation required of a person before all illusions have been broken and one reaches enlightenment. Healing can take place in many different forms, physically, psychologically and or spiritually-often manifesting in ways far different then what had been expected or even imagined.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh

MEDITATIONS FOR HEALING in Chinese Medicine

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WILD GEESE

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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“SERENITY IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF EMOTIONS,
BUT RATHER HOW WE DEAL WITH OUR EMOTIONS.”
CLAUDE LARRE