Jan 18-Feb 15, 2007
Thursdays 7:00 pm

Workshop:
Cultivating Well-Being

Jan 19, 2007 at 6PM
or Jan 20, 2007 at 11AM

The Mindful Gardening Project

November 15, 2006
Wednesday, 7:00 pm

FLOW

SunRaven Book Club

Michael B. Finkelstein, MD., F.A.C.P, A.B.H.M.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, College of Arts and Science (BA), and the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine (MD).He is also a graduate of the Associate Fellowship Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, School of Medicine, a program founded and directed by Dr. Andrew Weil.

Autumn:The Season of Letting Go

In a beautifully written synopsis of this season from a Chinese Medical perspective, Neil Gumenick states the following: “Nature instructs us about our own cycles of creating and letting go: Trees in autumn don’t stubbornly hold onto their leaves because they might need them next year.” He goes on to say, “. . . how many of us defy the cycle and hold onto what we’ve produced or collected—those decayed leaves, that old negativity?”

In Buddhism and many other “eastern philosophies”, it is indeed these attachments that prevent us from moving forward in our evolution. On the level of “the now”, if we don’t allow things to fall away, we wind up carrying an ever heavier load.

Interestingly, one of the most common physical manifestations of “holding on” is constipation. And not surprising, then, all throughout Asia, medical practitioners understand that one of the major organs associated with autumn is the large intestine. Here we are familiar with the colon's function to eliminate undigested food.

Age is a Voluntary Evil

Age is a voluntary evil which is not at all inevitable.

It is not a question of dates and birthdays.

It is a matter of natural tendencies and dispositions.

The age of the body is irrelevant so long as the intelligence, the emotions and the instincts remain young.

Youth is not a time of life; it is a quality, a trait
of character, a mental condition.

Old age is nothing more than a form of ignorance and egotism.