The best lessons keep teaching. And good teachers leave a lot of space in their words for thought and meaning.
When I was about to complete my masters studies, my teacher Hong asked what I would be doing next. I told her I would be traveling around SE Asia for a few months, and I planned to bring a large textbook with me - one of the most important texts in Chinese Medicine - to read and memorize.
"No," she said. "You need to spend time watching the blue sky."
This lesson has come to mean several things to me in the years since:
A college degree takes a lot of life - from brain, eyes, blood. My health was worse for it, I'm sorry to say. My great school expenditure would require an even greater post-school restoration. Doing nothing. Watching the blue sky.
The blue sky, and other colors of Nature, have the power to heal us.
The essence of Chinese Medicine is Follow Nature's rhythms and rules. It was created through a long process of ritual observation of Nature (watching the blue sky), and the best way to digest its teachings is to enroll in the same. I was not surprised, some time later, when I asked Hong, "How did you come to know what you know?", and she responded, "As a child, I had a lot of time to stare at the blue sky."
Spaced study beats continuous study. Taking regular breaks (as to stare at the blue sky) between rehearsals of knowledge and skills is the best way to retain the information. World renowned Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie takes breaks every 20 minutes.
We often miss opportunities for understanding and solving problems when we look at them through our usual lens. "Watching the blue sky" is a metaphor for "thinking outside the box" and viewing situations (in my case, life and Chinese Medicine) from new perspectives to glean insight. Former NYT journalist Gay Talese used to pin his drafts to his wall, walk across the room, and look at them through binoculars to get a fresh perspective. Legendary composer Robert Schumann flipped pages of his music upside down to search for new patterns. These examples come from David Epstein's blog, Range Widely.
"Watch the blue sky," she said.
I've mostly done as I was told.
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