Eric Grey

About Me

I mostly blog about Chinese Medicine over at http://deepesthealth.com, but I needed a brain overflow container, and this is it.

On a daily basis, I think about (mostly) the following: Islam and spirituality in general, small business ownership, raising kids, veganism, gardening, discipleship in an age of capitalism, computers and the appropriate use of contemporary technology, where did we come from, where do we go when we die, what is the meaning of life and also sometimes basketball. But, I can't really guarantee you'll see any of that in any given period of time. It's OVERFLOW, ok?

Also: I run a natural medicine clinic, Watershed Community Wellness, with my partner Amanda Barp. I think you might be interested in what we do there. You can find us over at : http://watershedcommunitywellness.com - visit us!

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So, this is my life?

Above is an image of the Columbia River Gorge. I drive through it on the way to one of my "obligations" every week.

 

Ok, here it is.  I wake up at 5:15ish am.  It's dark.  It smells like woodsmoke, and a messy bed and too much laundry and happy animals.  I have tea.  I have some more tea.  I eat a breakfast concoction that would sicken some of you with its utter healthiness and heartiness.  I go for an absolutely splendid walk in the dark.  People are just waking up.  There are fires being lit.  The trees drip with the mists they snatched from the sky.  I hear things moving - flying things.  Crawling things.  I walk fast.  I see the first hint of sunrise.  I get my blood moving. I get home - noone is awake.  I spend the morning reading about Qing Dai (Indigo) a Chinese herb that I am quickly learning to love.  I realize that my day consists of the following:

(1)  Heading to my mentor's house where I will soak in intense amounts of immediately useful and enlightening information.  This activity will be preceded by a leisurely drive through some of the prettiest country of which I am aware.

(2)  Coming home to eat a homemade lunch with my sweetheart.

(3)  Getting some material ready for the herbs class I'm teaching in the afternoon - consists mainly of doing what I love best - reading about herbs and thinking about herbs.

(4)  Going to teach said herbs class, which is riotous fun.  But first, I go pick up some herbs and talk to one of my favorite people in the world - Michael Givens - friend and colleague, who will give me a hard time about the Qing Dai thing.

(5)  Heading home to study some herbs, make some dinner, and do some building of my clinic's online presence.

Yesterday, I was talking to Amanda - we were feeling a little put upon about one thing or another.  Then I said, "You know what, here's the thing - we're living the life we wanted to live!"

We may not be rich (or even, you know, totally paying the bills), we may not always love every single thing we're doing.  But we are doing it.  We chose a path, and now we're walking it.

It brings tears to my eyes to think of how lucky I am.


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Posted 1 day ago

Autumn morning finds in Oregon

I love my morning walks. Whenever I need to remember the subtle magic of this planet, a friend pops up to help. Autumn is especially ripe with these opportunities. Yesterday? A coyote in the middle of the city stopped to watch me watch it. Messages...

Filed under  //  autumn   fall   nature   walks  
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Posted 8 days ago

Life! It blows me away!

I'm consistently amazed and fascinated by the human body.  I mean, sure, animals in general - nature in general - but really, my experience of my body is a source of endless "wow!" moments.  For instance, just now, I was working hard at my computer.  Unbeknownst to me, my dog had taken up residence directly behind me, sleeping soundly.  I had to get up to grab my wallet to make yet another painful business purchase.  Perhaps lost in thought, I just stood up as I've done countless times, with the intent to head towards the kitchen.  

I moved a little too fast, apparently, because the dog couldn't move.  For the next five or six seconds my body did incredible things.  It DID NOT FALL, amazingly.  I engaged in a completely unconscious dance of limbs, readjusting joint angles, shifting weight this way and that and - I noticed - not breathing much.  There was no thought in this.  If I had stopped to think, I surely would have fallen.  As it is, I have no idea how I didn't.  I do know that my dog thinks he's in deep trouble, my slippers somehow ended up on the other side of the room, and I STILL had to make the painful business purchase.

Only now with the added fun of adrenaline.

It occurs to me that this is why watching basketball highlight reels really and truly brings me to tears sometimes.  It's why I like to watch basketball and other fast moving sports in the first place.  It's why I find myself staring at pregnant bellies.  It's why I am floored every year when the cold hard sticks on my trees and bushes burst to luxuriant life.  Not the adrenaline part, but the utter amazement I experience every time I am in the presence of this beautiful world and the things in it.  Just to see how the life in this world continues, to see how it adapts to changing circumstances, to engage with it all...

It's worth almost falling down once in a while.

---
Oh, and go Blazers.




Filed under  //  anatomy   life   trailblazers  
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Posted 10 days ago

A secular song that somehow encapsulates my religious sensibilities

All vulgarity and silliness aside, this song has always uniquely captured my spiritual essence, at least as I understand it, at least now.  :)  I love the asceticism, the apocalyptic yearning, the witnessing of degradation but with the eye of beauty.

Beck - We Live Again (from Mutations)

These withered hands
Have dug for a dream
Sifted through sand
And leftover nightmares
Over the hill
A desolate wind
Turns shit to gold
And blows my soul crazy
The end
O the end
We live again
O I grow weary of the end
O hungry days
The footsteps of fools
Gazing alone
Through sex-painted windows
Dredging the night
Drunk libertines
Stink like a colognes
From the newfangled wasteland
The end
O the end
We live again
O I grow weary of the end
Love is a plague
In a mix-match parade
Where the castaways look so deranged
When will the children learn
To let their wildernesses burn
And love will be new never cold and vacant
These withered hands have dug for a dream
Sifted through sand and leftover nightmares
The end
Of the end
We live again



Filed under  //  beck   music   religion  
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Posted 11 days ago

What counts as recreation?

I get a hard time from my friends and family for being too serious. I'm actually a bit of a ham, so it's not a personality thing they're (mostly) talking about. It has more to do with my habits. I do work a lot, and when I "play" it doesn't look like play to most people. Right now, my free time is devoted to projects around the house (garden, etc), blogging (at Deepest Health - been really slow lately and it pains me) and spiritual education (mostly through watching video, listening to audio and reading). I can't imagine what else I would want to do with my time. Except other, similar, activities.

I tried to get into D&D again. It was fun, for sure, and I'm always happy to meet new geeky folks. However, I just couldn't mentally make space for it. Why? Because I don't like to have fun? No. Partly it's that the business is in a growth stage (or, at least, I hope it is) and demands a lot from me. This isn't a forever thing, it's a right now thing. But additionally, whenever I was playing I found myself thinking about other things I could/should be doing. Like the above. But, also learning Chinese, reading the Classics, working through old material that I haven't digested yet (in the realm of herbs, Chinese medical theory, etc).

Am I too serious?

I don't think so. I just find different things to be fun than most folks do. I like to advance my understanding of my profession. I like to work through difficult aspects of patient cases. I like to go on walks listening to prominent spiritual educators. I like to dig in my garden. I like to fix my gutters. I like to spend time digesting and distilling my life experience and writing interesting blog posts. I like figuring out how to make my podcasts better. I like to research how to increase my earnings from blogging and elsewhere.

I don't like television. Not even when it's on the computer. Do I sometimes watch shows with Amanda? Sure. Often? Nope. I don't like to read fiction much, I don't find myself pining for the latest movies, etc... I do like games sometimes, but only with family, and only because it's fun to hang out with them. Solitaire? Not so much.

So, yeah, maybe I'm too serious - but I'm having a great time. I question why people seem to think that you can only be having fun if you're wasting your time. It's weird, ok?

One note: I do have one entirely frivolous pasttime - watching basketball. So get off my back! ;)
---

Filed under  //  fun   personality   trailblazers  
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Posted 16 days ago

Why I'm going to be blocking out my schedule
via calnewport.com

I've read this blog article many times (Cal Newport is one of my favorites) and even though I'm not in school anymore, I think the advice in this article is what will ultimately save me. It's in some ways directly contradictory to GTD, but in some ways not.

The fact is that I just have too darn much to do and too little time to do it. Because I have so many things of apparently equal priority, it makes choosing what to do in any moment pretty difficult. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is that things that give me anxiety (making money, keeping commitments to friends/family/others) get all the attention and things that are quieter, but maybe more important in the long term (learning Chinese, studying herbs, making my herbs class better and better) get short shrift.

In actuality, this is even MORE anxiety producing because I have this lingering feeling that I'm not advancing in very important areas of my life.

Look - I rarely, rarely, rarely miss an appointment, drop the ball on some current commitment, etc. The business is rolling along nicely, systems are being developed, grant money has been applied for and is coming and so on. But, those sneaky little places where MEANING truly resides in my life are becoming empty. It gives me palpitations.

So, I'm going to try the Fixed schedule productivity method combined with "Technique: Limit." Limit what? Computer usage to only what is necessary, and only in bursts. This doesn't mean I won't be blogging, in fact I will probably blog MORE. It means I cut out all the chatting, the internet research, the endless looking for new and better techniques, the obsessing over my blog/sales/Facebook page stats, the fiddling with things.

I'm also limiting new commitments and finding the most essential parts of my profession to study and work on. For now, for me, that's herbs and Chinese language. Everything else is just going to have to wait.

I think this will work, but we'll see.

Filed under  //  eric's habits   getting things done   GTD   productivity   schedule  
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Posted 22 days ago

Just can't seem to get caught up!

It's all good things! Everything I'm doing is totally awesome! I'm utterly slammed, and utterly happy. I just can't seem to get on top of my workload in the way I'm accustomed to - but I do feel that this state is on the horizon. The main things I am missing? Blogging! Soon, my friends, soon!

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Posted 26 days ago

Autumn

October opens my heart utterly to the majesty of the Divine.

Sent from my iPhone

Filed under  //  autumn   fall   God   religion   walks  
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Posted 1 month ago

Carl Sagan Auto-Tune (feat. Stephen Hawking)

via kottke.org

Amazing.

Filed under  //  autotune   awesome   science  
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Posted 1 month ago

Do you really want to say that?

I've always been a bit of an opinionated person.  When I see injustice or inefficiency, it bugs me. I want to fix it.  I have ideas about how to fix it.  I also have a tendency to be pretty sarcastic, which some people (read: my whole freaking family) think is pretty hilarious (positive reinforcement!).  So, over the span of my life I've spouted some pretty biting, negative, opinionated stuff.

Sometimes, I know a lot about the topic I'm talking about - sometimes I don't.  The "I don't" pile usually involves politics and world events.  I vote, I read things, I listen to NPR.  I know some stuff.  But, certainly not enough to qualify my opinions as worthwhile on those topics.  Those topics I do know something about, well, maybe my opinions have some weight and maybe they don't.  Because I'm so young, and have had comparatively little time to study anything in depth, my opinions are probably not the most reliable.

Sort of like yours.  Sort of like the opinions of the vast majority of people I know.

But, hey - I have nothing against people sharing their opinions about various topics.  I'm a big boy, I can more or less tell when someone is worth listening to and when they're not.  Of course, not everyone has that capability - something I'll talk about in another post.

What really makes my heart clench up is the degree to which the overwhelming amount of these shared opinions are negative.  I don't like this.  I won't do that.  I hate this.  This person doesn't desrve this.  NASA shouldn't bomb the moon.  So on and so forth.  

In my experience, information like this shared in this manner encourages one of three responses:

  1. Nothing/silence
  2. "Me too" kind of shared grousing - amplifying the intensity of the original comment
  3. "No way" kind of comments that almost invariably create a cascade of (more or less intense) arguing and oneupsmanship.

None of that does anything for anyone.  Now, the hidden assumption in this whole blog post is that I believe wholeheartedly that everything a person does should be productive of something good, preferably for the world, society, or the soul of the person involved.  So, if you disagree, stop reading and forget you ever saw this post.

My point is, essentially, this : if you don't have something that makes a positive contribution to say, don't say anything at all.  You may be wrong, it may do nothing, you may be fooling yourself.  But, at least make an effort to do this.  

To say it positively - I believe that you must be the change that you want to see in the world, in every minute.  So, in every action, every sentence, every relationship, seek only to stoke the positive qualities you want to see blazing eternally in humanity at large.

I am seeking to do this in my own life - eliminating sarcasm and always considering what I say before I say it.  If it doesn't seem like it is likely to make a directly positive contribution to the relevant conversation, I remain silent.  I'm not perfect at it, yet, but I'm working as hard as I can.

When in doubt, remember these words:

"Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent. "

Filed under  //  li   opinions   right speech   virtue  
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Posted 1 month ago