It is in Bellingham where, for the first time in 30 years as an immigrant, I am living with a sense of coherence in my heart. The cultural river of my birthplace and the cultural river of my chosen home are no longer excluding each other. They are beginning to braid through my day to day life.

This weaving is not just mine, but shared with my community in Bellingham. It happens through the weekly Tai Chi classes, through Social Alchemy, a community healing space, and many shared presence, friendship and creative plays. Here I am welcoming you, my substack community, to participate this weaving through being a witness.

On my recent birthday, my 9-year-old nephew, a second-generation immigrant, drew me a birthday card. A simple image: two flags, and a heart between them.

I was taken by surprise. I am the aunt who visits him and his younger brother once a month. We play games, cuddle and giggle. Rarely do we talk about serious subjects like this. Yet this boy intuitively reads me at a level deeper than adult language can reach.

Last year, while I was in China, a close friend asked me in a gathering:

“If the U.S. and China go to war, where would you live?”

This question pierced me like a blade. My friend cares about me deeply. He knew that cutting off any side would mean a devastating choice.

For a moment, my heart was engulfed in a blackhole of confusion and pain. The room was quiet, waiting for my reply. Then a soft beam of knowing from a field behind the blackhole came into my awareness. I found myself speaking this.

“No matter what happens at the level of nations, I choose to live from a place of connection. Of peace. Of building bridges. And I trust that if I stay true to that, the larger force of life will place me where I am needed.”

Two months after I spoke those words, I came back to the United States. The fires of wars are spreading in multiple places in the world. My friend’s question rings in my ears. Deep in my bones, I felt the time has come to live each day of my life to the fullest and embody the oracle my 9-yr old nephew has drawn for me.

I have invited my Bellingham community into the practice of cultural interweaving. And they have said yes, by holding me with friendship and offering companionship, by joining me in Dancing Tao Tai Chi, by stepping into Social Alchemy, a community healing space where world cultures from many places, play and creativity can meet in embodiment.

In this journey of weaving, I have been blessed with great friends and collaborators. Offerings like Dancing Tao Tai Chi and Social Alchemy were organically born out of deep friendships and shared passions my collaborators and me have cultivated throughout our whole lives.

Daelinar is a visionary artist, poet and musician. For the past 30 years, he has been weaving community through youth empowerment work, teaching ecology, making nature art, gardening, and storytelling. We both share a life-long passion towards movement arts and the in-between space between dance and Tai Chi. We dance not as a performance, but as a kinesthetic language to communicate with the wild and the sacred hiding in the silent unknown. Here are some videos, sword dance and self-defense.

Sara is a poet and a teacher in her humble disguise. She has 25 years of experience of weaving community and uplifting voices unheard. Social Alchemy is born out of the meeting of hers and my life’s work of cultivating a social-ecosystem of care and belonging. You may get a glimpse of our work through our song and poetry here.

As I continue to live into that tough question my friend asked me in China, I am reminded of Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerere’s words,

“The world is not something that happens to us. It is something we are in relationship with.”

May the dance in relationship blossom into fruits of a future beyond what individual mind in isolation can imagine.

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In this chaotic and beautiful time, tending to our own wellbeing matters not only to our individual self, but also to our relational field. The state of our being ripples outward into the socio-ecosystem we are part of: our friends and family, coworkers, strangers we pass on the street, the voice on the other end of a call. The state of our nervous system actively shapes the world we co-create.

In this post, I’m sharing a qigong practice that has lived with me for decades. It is simple, accessible, and deeply effective. In just ten minutes, it reconnects awareness with elemental forces, such as earth, tree, water, and celestial energy, wherever you are: at home, on a train, or in an enclosed room.

In our Dancing Tao Tai Chi classes here in Bellingham, we begin each session with this practice. It serves as a portal into a shared field of presence, nurturance, and flow, where we remember how to arrive in ourselves and with each other.

This is the first in a series that I will be sharing, along with Daelinar, the co-founder of Dancing Tao. He plays the flute in the background in this video. We look forward to offering more practices to this Substack community in the coming months.

Stay tuned.

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Sara and I brought forward the ingredients of alchemy we have each cultivated over a lifetime: creativity, world culture, play, and embodiment.

To learn more about Social Alchemy currently offered in Bellingham, Washington, please see here. A unique aspect of this offering is that it is completely free for participants, and even provides a small stipend for those who complete the four-month training. Our project is sponsored by the Mount Baker Foundation to expand access across the economic spectrum and to honor our belief that everyone’s voice and healing are essential to the community, not only those who can afford services.

Original Poem by Sara Airoldi

Opening

I opened to the Earth elements

Subtle

Tiny

Earth body movements that

Became the wild energies

Of time

And ancient beauty

And rage

And how mountain is telling

A story of “as”

Rock

Tree

Water

Fire

Embodied in the me of human

That has expression

Not yet known.

The tears are of the below,

Sacred,

A listening place

Of silence

That hugs the vast

Darkness

Glowing

With forever

Letting me know

It is time to meet

The compressed

Expanse of anguish...

The compressed

Expanse of anguish

In sound

Heaving forth into

The gift of now

In the stream

Who knows of miracles.

I hear the playful around me.

Last Friday (Feb 14), a group of us gathered on zoom where I shared photo/video storytelling of my recent 75-day trip in China with a focus on the emerging culture of ecovillage. I am sharing the video recording of the zoom event at the end of this post.

Some of the background of the journey

When China’s industrialization accelerated some forty years ago, much of its indigenous wisdom and traditional cultural heritage was pushed underground. Practices such as Chinese medicine were labeled “unscientific,” and ancestral ways of knowing—especially those carried through embodied, oral, and feminine lineages—were largely erased from public life.

In the past five years, however, a quiet resurgence has been taking place. Across China, people have begun reclaiming cultural roots and re-engaging ancient wisdom through contemporary forms.

For the past two decades, my own work has been devoted to reimagining the I Ching, an ancient Chinese oracle, through an integration of Taoist teachings and modern Western philosophy, infused with embodied play and artistic sensibility. In 2019, I published The Resonance Code. In 2020, during the pandemic, I was invited to teach this work in China via Zoom.

This journey marked the first time I met, in person, the Chinese community that has grown around The Resonance Code since then. After five years of being woven into one another’s lives through screens, we finally stood together on the same land.

This journey marked the first time I met, in person, the Chinese community that has grown around The Resonance Code since then. After five years of being woven into one another’s lives through screens, we finally stood together on the same land.

I also returned to the village where my father was born and met many relatives on his side of the family for the first time. Many of them live near the bottom of the social hierarchy, having built the infrastructure of modern development with their own hands. I visited our ancestral graves and offered the laminated cover of my book to my grandparents. My grandmother belonged to one of the last generations of women with bound feet. She never learned to read or write.

Standing there, I am embracing the full arc of inheritance—what was silenced, what endured, and what is now asking to be carried forward in new form.

Video Recording of the Storytelling

There are three segments of the storytelling, interspersed with people’s questions and discussions.

First segment: 0 - 45 min, Qixi Village of Guangdong Province, 广东旗溪村

Second segment: 45 min - 95 min, Liangzhu Village of Zhejiang Province, 浙江良渚文化村

Third segment: 95 min - the end, Xichong Village of Sichuan Province, my father’s ancestral village, 四川西充县

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Each time an old wound is touched, I descend as a pearl diver. I pry open the hardened shell that once sealed itself around a grain of pain. A stone that scraped tender flesh, or cut open the soft heart.

Sometimes, the shell holds nothing. Only emptiness or fragments of rotten death. But sometimes, through the patience of time, through the quiet waiting of the soul, the wound has done its secret work. The stone has turned into a pearl shimmering in the dark.

This song is one such pearl. The wound between father and daughter drops deeper than one lifetime. It’s a well carved by generations.

So this pearl is not mine alone. I offer it as it came to me: salt-wet, unfinished, breathing.

Recorded on a phone. Untouched by polish. Held open to you …

Falling rose

The other dad, you told me you love me

And I felt the dam I’ve built to block you from my heart

For 40 years, I’ve longed for you, I miss you and I am afraid of you

Your words once have crushed my heart, like a falling rose, frozen in the snow

Your way is strong and your heart is tough

Like a rock weathering the stormy nights

But I’ve chosen my way out of your lane, into the dark water

It’s a choice I carry like a boulder on my shoulder

Now we stand under the same roof

Reaching across but can not touch

I stretch out my arms, but can’t open my heart

I want to be close, but don’t know how

And I don’t know how

Falling rose, frozen to the ground

Waiting for the warmth of the sun

Daddy is getting old

His hair turns grey

I don’t have much time left

I don’t have much time left

[Note: I will be presenting A Daughter’s Return to the Motherland, a photo & video storytelling of my recent 75-day trip to China and its emerging culture of ecovillages. A zoom event at 10 am, Feb 14th, Pacific Time. Register here.]

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Register for the Live Call

Dear Substack Friends,

I’ve been quiet here for quite a while. Over the past six months, I was completely absorbed in what has been the most important journey of my life.

From October 2025 to January 2026, I spent 75 days in China, traveling across five cities. I taught workshops, visited family, and formed meaningful connections with people and land in two ecovillages. It was a trip of reunion, laughter, tears, songs and play, carried by the unfolding waves of emergence when an ancient culture births herself anew.

After I shared some of these experiences with a friend, she said to me:
“You were finally able to experience your true self, in your place of birth, where that self was once not allowed.”

I hugged my friends in tears. Her words rang profoundly true.

I have long known that part of my life’s purpose is to re-enliven the archetype of the Chinese priestess—a role that has slipped into the abyss of time, buried in the dark chambers under the weight of patriarchy. On this journey, I was able to reclaim that role for myself, alongside many Chinese women who are also reclaiming their own inner priestesshood.

This experience is deeply visceral and personal. The best way I know to share it with you is in real time and in my own voice. I’d love to invite you to a Zoom gathering, where I will tell more of the story and share photos and videos from the journey.

Register for the Liver Session

Some of the background of the journey

When China’s industrialization accelerated some forty years ago, much of its indigenous wisdom and traditional cultural heritage was pushed underground. Practices such as Chinese medicine were labeled “unscientific,” and ancestral ways of knowing—especially those carried through embodied, oral, and feminine lineages—were largely erased from public life.

In the past five years, however, a quiet resurgence has been taking place. Across China, people have begun reclaiming cultural roots and re-engaging ancient wisdom through contemporary forms.

For the past two decades, my own work has been devoted to reimagining the I Ching, an ancient Chinese oracle, through an integration of Taoist teachings and modern Western philosophy, infused with embodied play and artistic sensibility. In 2019, I published The Resonance Code. In 2020, during the pandemic, I was invited to teach this work in China via Zoom.

This journey marked the first time I met, in person, the Chinese community that has grown around The Resonance Code since then. After five years of being woven into one another’s lives through screens, we finally stood together on the same land.

I also returned to the village where my father was born and met many relatives on his side of the family for the first time. Many of them live near the bottom of the social hierarchy, having built the infrastructure of modern development with their own hands. I visited our ancestral graves and offered the laminated cover of my book to my grandparents. My grandmother belonged to one of the last generations of women with bound feet. She never learned to read or write.

Standing there, I am embracing the full arc of inheritance—what was silenced, what endured, and what is now asking to be carried forward in new form.

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Tune in to the podcast: Creative Medicine – Art and Health Intertwined

This podcast is produced by North Sound Voices, with Megan Stephenson, Remy Styrk, and Jason LaClair.

There was a time when people understood

that medicine was more than the extraction of chemical compounds from plants.

In fact, the very act of extraction—when done without reverence—

can sever the Spirit of the plant from its healing gift.

In ancient cultures,

health was not a commodity managed by numbers, policies, or data points.

It was a sacred relationship—

with one another, with Earth Mother, with Sky Father—

a web of connection that could not be reduced to graphs or bottled into products.

In the memories of my ancestors,

healing was not administered—it was sung.

It rose as poetry from the land and moved through us

when we listened deeply to the wisdom of wind, water, bird, and tree.

Quietly, gently,

this ancient way of healing is returning.

Will you listen?

Tune in to the podcast: Creative Medicine – Art and Health Intertwined.

Let the remembering begin.

Rooted in Taoist philosophy, Tai Chi is more than a movement practice; it is an embodied way of peace-making. Its essence permeates any effort that seeks to bridge divides and harmonize polarities.

Here in Bellingham, where my partner Joe and I live, we’ve joined with several colleagues in an initiative to build bridges across the political spectrum, a different kind of “Tai Chi”, Tai Chi in the metaphysical realm.

In a time marked by deep division, we’re exploring something simple yet bold: meeting across our differences not through debate or persuasion, but through listening, speaking honestly, and staying connected.

If you are curious, you are welcome to check out our effort here: meeting.asweare.us

This poem emerged from a creative collaboration with Sara Airoldi when we co-facilitated the Badass Poetry for Social Change workshop at Lovefest Bellingham.

Sara is a consultant, culture-making artist, and passionate poet. It is an amazing blessing that we live in the same town, separated only by a 15-min drive. One of Sara’s superpowers is asking insightful questions that unlock the flow of my creativity. This poem took shape when she asked me, “What are the components of the Chinese character for ‘bad,’ and what do they mean?”

The Chinese character for “bad” (坏) is composed of two parts: one signifies “earth” (土), the other means “no” or “not” (不).

In Chinese, the word “坏” can also mean to rot or decompose. In ancient Chinese cosmology, morality isn’t seen as a fixed code, but as something woven into the cyclical rhythms of nature. What we call “bad” is not simply evil—it is what is breaking down, returning to the soil, becoming earth again.

What parts of ourselves do we deem “bad”? What do we cast as “bad” in others? Can we stay present to the slow decay, participating in the decomposition and witnessing the rot not as failure but as a passage through which new life is born? Can we render our very being as the ground, so others may find their footing?

Earth Says No

No—

I am not a thing to measure,

not a specimen to study,

nor a ledger to balance.

Would you dissect your own eye, in an effort to understand the beauty of the sunset?

Would you dam up your own throat to stop the river of tears from flowing?

Would you bulldoze your own heart down to an empty lot,

claim ownership to occupy it,

and cast away the secret of love it keeps?

No—

I am not outside you.

I breathe within your breath,

pulse beneath your skin.

I am the Earth inside your body—

the sparks in your cells

that are 14 billion years old,

that remember being stardust,

drifting through the dark,

whirling through galaxies

to dive into this velvet blue dream.

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On December 31, 2012, I sat in my apartment in the suburbs of Seattle, talking on the phone with Joe who at the time lived in Port Townsend, where he and I met at a dance retreat a few days earlier.

“What would you feel if your worst nightmare, a total failure in your acupuncture clinic, became reality?” Joe asked, his voice calm and matter-of-fact, exuding warm confidence, like a solid guide leading the way.

This question surprised me. At the time, I was familiar with self-help and personal growth work. The books and advice I had encountered always prompted me to visualize success, focusing on what it would feel like to achieve goals. No one had ever asked me to confront failure head-on like that. But Joe’s question felt deeply honest. Finally, someone had asked the question I had been too afraid to face. I felt even a sense of relief.

If I had to be brutally honest with myself, my deepest passion lies in philosophy, metaphysics and the transformation of human consciousness. The profession of acupuncture, regulated by rigid rules of modern medicine and the mechanical understanding of human health, was too confined and narrow for me to truly express my gifts.

Furthermore, upon hearing this question, the Taoist part of me was intrigued — even excited. The Tao, the wisdom tradition indigenous to China, sees life as an ever-changing flow of interplay of the opposites. Naturally, I am drawn to exploring both sides of an experience with equanimity. I turned inward, searching for the answer.

“Devastated,” I said.

“Let’s map it,” Joe replied.

A few days before this, at the retreat, a trusted friend introduced me to Joe at the Saturday evening potluck. When Joe handed me a postcard with the drawings of what he called “feeling maps,” I was immediately intrigued. Without reading the words on the postcard, I sensed my heart leaping towards it. At that time, I was actively seeking an effective tool to transform emotional energies for both myself and my clients. I told Joe that I wanted to learn his work with the intention of collaboration. “I don’t want to be your client. I want to be your collaborator.”

Before meeting Joe, I had already been drawn to the mystery held within feeling and recognized its central role as a gateway to our essence and true being — though my understanding was shaped by a very different cultural context.

I grew up in China at the time of the cultural revolution, an era bearing characteristics a lot like what many of us are experiencing right now: fractures of societal cohesiveness, violence, breakdown of infrastructures, accompanied by an outbreak of collective drama and pain. Amidst the chaos, as a young girl with a sensitive and empathic constitution, both my physical and emotional being were suffering tremendously. Fortunately, my soul was fed and nourished by ancient Chinese poetry, a wisdom tradition that has carried the Spirit of Living Earth and the knowing of interconnection all through China’s three thousand years of written history, surviving many rounds and cycles of civilization’s destruction and rebirth.

During the cultural revolution, this tradition was thrown into the trash bin. The dominant propaganda at the time said that classical poetry was useless, or even toxic to the mind, whereas the Newtonian framework of science imported from the West was the shining star guiding us towards progress.

When I encountered Chinese poetry as an eight-year-old girl, I felt as though I was a lonely traveler in a desert who finally found a creek, a fountain of life. Poetry not only was the only source in life that validated and affirmed my feelings, but it also taught me how to feel. Poetry taught me all feelings are sacred and beautiful, not just joyful feelings, but also sadness. Not just hope and vision, but also grief and longing. And feeling is not a thing, but a web of flowing streams of consciousness that connect, infuse and enliven all conscious experience.

The poets I loved, many of them were Zen Buddhists or Taoists, taught me to speak the language of feeling, poetic language painting the pictures of feeling through the sensory experience of the natural world, such as fallen leaves painting a path with fiery red or a full moon rising behind the mountain creek with the reflections of pine trees.

When I read ancient Chinese poetry, the part of me that feels desiccated by the concrete and plastics of the modern world, the part of me that feels flattened, invisible and suppressed by the extraction-based social machine, becomes alive and rejuvenated. I can sense the mossy forest and feel the softness of flower petals by simply reaching inward to the poetry imprinted in my consciousness, even on the busiest street corner of Shanghai or Seattle.

When I first heard the way Joe talked about feeling, I instinctively knew that his work was something vital to my inner being. At the time, it was one of the few things I had encountered in the Western world that resonated with the sensibility I had cultivated through ancient Chinese poetry and my Taoist lineage.

Until then, I had never met anyone who spoke about and valued the language of feeling with the same precision, specificity, and meticulous care as Joe. Today he calls this language the proto-language of virtual materiality. It reminds me of how Chinese medicine describes qi, the life energy of the body, through the sensory experiences of the material world such as color, substance and temperature.

Through this language, I mapped the feeling state of Devastated to a space below my belly button, filling half of my abdomen. It was a solid block of lead — cold, dense, and unbearably heavy. Within it, I discovered something embedded deep inside me: the internalized voice of my father’s criticism.

Joe encouraged me to inquire further. Here are some of the thoughts that came to me.

“As a young girl, whenever I had a dream or aspiration, my father met it with harsh judgment and criticism. He urged me to be practical, to focus on survival—because that was all he had ever known. As a teenage boy, he had endured the horrors of famine, and he never truly escaped survival mode.

It wasn’t just him. Nearly every male authority figure in my life treated my dreams the same way. I absorbed their voices, storing them inside this feeling of leaden weight. Under these pressures, I felt forced to follow a pragmatic path dictated by society. That’s how I became a biologist. I was successful. But it felt like I had locked part of my soul in a prison.

Now, as I build a new identity for myself, striving to live out my dreams, I must come to terms with this voice.”

Having this insight felt like a huge relief. It enabled me to see how the oppression passed to me by parents and authorities occupies a part of my own energy, and how this “internalized oppression” continued to influence me unconsciously, even when my father had stopped doing that long ago. Moreover, I was able to penetrate this internalized oppression and feel the deep well of agony and suffering behind its iron curtain.

“What else are you feeling?” Joe asked.

“I feel a deep love for my father,” I said, my voice trembling. “A longing for his approval… and a desire to show these ‘male’ figures that my dreams are real.”

Tears welled up. Not tears of sadness, but of love. A love I rarely allowed myself to fully feel toward my father because of my long-held resentment. Feeling that love brought a huge wave of relief and gratitude.

Twenty minutes later, Joe guided me to “move” the feeling of devastation using the virtual material map we generated.

As you will learn extensively through this book, engaging this proto-language to “observe” feeling, as if feeling is virtual material occupying physical space, lies at the core of the methodology of psychotopology. This idea is not new to me. In Chinese medicine, we use a similar language of virtual materiality to describe energetic properties of the acupuncture meridians. For example, the medical literature associates “green, wood, wind” to the liver meridian, “black, water and cold” to the kidney meridian.

In modern education of Chinese medicine, east or west, there was no explanation or understanding of the kind of perceptual awareness behind this knowledge. As a curious person, I was just not satisfied by knowledge handed down by ancestors. I instinctively felt that there was a whole new way of seeing and knowing a subtle realm of reality that had been blocked by modern education. I had an aching longing to reclaim that way of knowing and find out what else I could discover! When I met Joe, I felt that this longing has led me to his work.

As I would come to learn through hundreds of experiences over the next twelve years, once a feeling is mapped using this language, the map takes on a life of its own. It becomes like a small elf — a living presence that interacts with you, navigating toward a state of wholeness, aliveness, and wisdom. This movement often feels unexpected, even magical, pointing beyond the existing map of reality. Again and again, my rational mind would be left astonished, unable to grasp the deeper intelligence at play.

To my utter surprise, Devastated transformed into a cluster of small, silver, tool-like objects attached to my hands. A quiet voice within whispered: They are your musical instruments.

I immediately dismissed the thought. I’m not a musician! I was almost 40 years old and had never learned music in my life. The idea felt absurd — shameful, even. Who was I to imagine myself as a musician?

And yet, the feeling was visceral, undeniable. A deep pleasure surged through me as I imagined using these “tools” to shape and exchange energy with the world. I called these tools My Sacred Objects. Back then, I had no idea that the potency of this experience would continue unfolding for the next decade.

A year later, my growing awareness of my connection to music led me to find my teacher, Kaija. She taught me to compose songs, sing, and play piano — not through formalized training, but through a purely organic, improvisational approach. As I unlocked my artistic gifts, I found myself pouring my passion into composing music for the Chinese classical poetry I loved as a young girl, and dove back into the source of nourishment that had fed my soul since childhood.

For nine years, I sang these songs as medicine to heal my broken soul. I sang them exclusively to myself in my living room. I never thought I would be “qualified” to perform as an artist. Then, in 2023—ten years after mapping that first feeling — through a series of wondrous synchronicities, or perhaps the blessings of my poet-ancestors, I encountered a movie director from Port Townsend, the same town where Joe and I met.

This director was making a documentary movie about Red Pine, a renowned translator of Chinese classic poetry. Through the life stories of Red Pine, the movie also showcased the mystic hermit culture that has endured capitalism in China, highlighting the men and women who have upheld this tradition through a lifetime of devotion.

The movie director had been looking for a female voice for the movie for the last two years in vain. He had given up. Then he and I met each other at a dance retreat, where I happened to feel called to sing a poetry-song at an open mic night, something I rarely did. Upon hearing my music, the movie director immediately sent over a contract requesting me to make the music score of the movie — ten songs over ancient Chinese poetry. In 2024, the documentary Dancing with the Dead was released. The same year, the music department of Western Washington University invited me to perform my poetry song concert as one of the musicultural series in their concert hall in front of a rapt audience of four hundred. (For a more elaborated story of this journey, please read Rebirthing the Lost Songs of Ancestors.)

This is the profound potential hidden within the selfhood unlocked by psychotopology. When I mapped my first feeling state in 2012, I could never have imagined where it would lead — even in my wildest dreams. Yet this gift is not just about my personal inspiration to become a musician; it is about a purpose larger than my life — serving the Spirit of the Living Earth embodied in those timeless poems. In serving this purpose, I am also reclaiming my innate ability to weave energy and activate synchronicities through resonance and vibration, bending the space of probability and drawing opportunities to empower my journey.

Along with the Devasted, Joe facilitated me to map eight other feeling states as my first constellation of fieldwork. Feelings such as Doubt, Anger and Zombie, as well as the Longing I felt towards my father. Most surprisingly we also discovered an absolutely horrific state called Hell, which contained an aberrant state of total destruction, suffering and death. This was not just a personal Hell, but a collective Hell. In Hell, I felt the calamity and destruction that had already begun to unfold in collective consciousness over the next decade.

It was not easy to move Hell. Rightly so. But after about six hours of work, as Joe meticulously teased out the intricate connections between these states, we eventually moved Hell to a state akin to a transcendent experience called “I Am Nothing and Everything”. In that moment, I had a visceral experience of an age-old truth: while the pain of loss and death is real during times of destruction, suffering often arises from our attachment to the concept of self. When we recognize the self as a flowing stream, unfolding and enfolding, ever-changing and adaptable, we cultivate the capacity to metabolize loss, pain, and death, ultimately giving rise to new life.

This was one of the most powerful, embodied experiences of ancestral wisdom from the Tao Te Ching. In Taoism, opposites intertwine and give rise to each other. Not surprisingly, the Taoist path to heaven often winds directly through Hell.

Final Words

Thank you for opening this book and reading these words. As the closest witness to Joe’s journey, I have watched him pour every ounce of his life’s energy into creating this work. The sheer dedication, the thousands of hours of deep, committed effort, often with little external affirmation, has left me in awe of my partner’s indomitable spirit.

At the same time, Joe is not a flawless guru. Fieldwork did not deliver Joe to a persistent state of enlightenment and transcendence. Nor was that his intention.

Joe’s engagement with this work reminds me of the Tibetan spiritual practice of Tonglen. In this tradition, practitioners breathe in the world's suffering, transforming it with their own flesh and soul into compassion and healing. It is a kind of alchemy of the spirit — like training ourselves to be mushrooms, metabolizing the toxins of the soil into nourishment.

Devoted to this practice, Joe is not immune to the struggles around issues such as belonging, trust, and authority. Nor does he hide these struggles. If you seek a teacher to be perfect, Joe might not be the right one. But if you aspire to embark on an inner journey to embrace yourself exactly as you are, then Joe is a tremendous companion and guide. He has the courage to lay bare his vulnerabilities, shadows, and imperfections — and the loving awareness to embrace them. Having shared twelve years of living with him, spending almost every single day working, playing and sleeping under the same roof, I can attest to this.

I wholeheartedly hope you enjoy exploring the world of psychotopology through his guidance!

Spring Cheng
Bellingham, WA

April, 2025

Forces such as colonization, hyper-individualism that exalts competition and winning and drives towards isolation, the toxic strands of patriarchy that suppress the soft, sensitive and ambiguous ways of being, and a culture of hyper-materialism that numbs and wounds our soul... The list goes on.

At the end of 2012, I met my partner Joe and his work Psychotopology. His work offered both a framework and a method for uncovering the inherent wisdom hidden within our feelings and emotions. It has helped me reconnect with my ancestral lineage and reclaim the unique gifts life has entrusted to me.

Through Psychotopology—and the journey of partnering with Joe—I’ve begun to liberate parts of myself long held powerless and invisible by oppressive forces within both Western and Eastern cultures, including colonization and patriarchy. As a result, I found the courage and source within to chart my own path—the Resonance Path —and claim an identity as a cultural architect, philosopher, and writer in social fields where voices like mine—as an Asian woman, non-native English speaker and first-generation immigrant—are almost entirely absent. I have had a thrilling ride surfing the waves of odds stacked against me —my soul has soared!

With gratitude and excitement, I wrote a foreword for Joe’s new book, Frontiers of Psychotopology, Volume 1. We will be hosting a series of free workshops to introduce a synthesis of our work integrated as one.

On December 31, 2012, I did my first fieldwork mapping (Psychotopology’s methodology) with Joe. Since then, I have learned the practice and applied it to my own journey, integrating it into my work with individuals and groups, and incorporating it into a curriculum I teach in China. Joe’s work has been instrumental in reconnecting me with the boundless, formless essence of my being—like a pure, resonant tone unfurling from a temple gong, vibrating in the crisp mountain air.

To me, Joe is a mystic hermit living in the midst of the city's hustle and bustle. To preserve the integrity and purity of his work, Joe has chosen to remain outside the established professional fields for the past thirty years, embracing a simple life with minimal material needs. His work carries a level of purity in its spiritual essence that deeply resonates with my aesthetic sense as a Taoist mystic.

Mystic hermits have been a uniquely potent presence in China, choosing to exist beyond the bounds of mundane life, cultivating themselves as a vessel for the wellbeing of the collective and evolution of planetary consciousness. Throughout history, some mystics came down from the mountain to share their gifts with the world. I am deeply grateful that Joe, after more than thirty years of solitary exploration, is choosing to emerge from his own “hermitage” and distill his knowledge into this book.

Joe amazes me that, without an external structure and tangible reward, he has been able to sustain long years of hard, disciplined work, completely propelled by an inner will and guidance. He is a rigorous scientist, meticulously tracking the research he conducted on himself, his clients and students, while staying abreast of the latest developments in mental health and cognitive science. I often joke that his office is the shell of a hermit crab. (His astrological sign is Cancer the crab.)

With brilliant ingenuity, Joe has wielded the sharp blade of scientific inquiry to navigate the uncharted realms of feeling and inner experience. He has unlocked secret pathways through what I call a wildness within, a territory in the inner landscape outside the boundary of existing maps of mainstream knowledge.

This territory lies deep within, yet it also powerfully connects us without. Adrienne Maree Brown has beautifully articulated this awareness of selfhood in these words:

“I am a cell-sized unit of the human organism, and I have to use my life to leverage a shift in the system by how I am, as much as with the things I do.”

Adrienne’s words illuminate a simple yet profound truth: Who we are at deepest core of our inner being is, by its birthright, connected to all of humanity. This inner core of being, beyond what we do, produce, or perform, is one of the most powerful yet least understood forces for systemic change.

For those of us steeped in the modern mindset, this may seem contradictory to our experience. Removed from the deep core of our being, we cannot perceive how we, as individuals, are intimately connected with the whole at all times. We have been conditioned to believe that our essence, held within the core of our being, has no inherent value or impact on the world. Without measurable performance or production, we don’t feel we deserve belonging, or that we can even sustain our livelihood, let alone become a potent presence in the system.

In reality, the fractal connection between the individual and the whole is embedded in our very biology. Each cell in our body carries DNA that holds the imprint of billions of years of evolution on this planet. Remarkably, our genome shares 98% of its information with chimpanzees, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom — a testament to the deep interconnect-edness of all life. Yet most of the time, this interconnectedness only exists as an enticing concept rather than a lived experience.

To reclaim his birthright to the full brilliance of being, Joe has trekked through this wildness without tracks and guardrails, bearing poverty, living on the edge, walking only with faith and the intimate connection he has cultivated with mystery.

This choice has enabled him to carve out a path that is unique and innovative, while preserving the integrity of this inner wilderness. Unbeknownst to Joe, my ancestors, the ancient mystics and Taoist and Buddhist hermits of the east have also trekked this inner wilderness, through pathways and methods molded by a very different cultural and temporal context.

When I met Joe, I knew for certain that the souls and visions of my ancestors have guided me to meet him and his work, so that a cross-cultural dialogue and an intimate meeting of our ancestral lineages could unfold within our relationship.

Encountering Joe in My Dream

In August of 2012, I graduated from acupuncture school and started to launch my acupuncture clinic.

This was my second career. In my first career, I worked as a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company after receiving a PhD in molecular biology. I was a “model immigrant,” earning top dollar plus full health benefits and a fat 401K portfolio subsidized by the company. My ex-husband (whose name happened to be Tao) and I co-owned three houses in prime neighborhoods near Microsoft’s campus, living in one and renting out two. I had achieved everything shiny promised by the “American dream,” yet inside, I was consumed by an intense pain associated with a deep betrayal of my inner being and ancestral lineage.

In my grandparents’ generation, China was sealed off from the rest of the world, untouched by modern technologies. The majority of the population was steeped in the traditional farming culture that had prioritized sustainability over material progress for two thousand years. My paternal grandfather was a Chinese medicine healer, the only doctor for his entire village. Hence, he also played the role of a community elder. My maternal grandfather worked for a Chinese herbal pharmacy.

Beginning as early as the start of the twentieth century, lured by the immense profit potential of China’s vast population, capitalism and modern medicine began forcing their way into the country. The Western pharmaceutical industry and its investors launched a campaign in the name of science, systematically undermining the credibility of traditional healers. Holistic practitioners were dismissed as wacky, untrustworthy, and backward, and the spirit of traditional medicine was all but crushed. As a result, today, many Chinese, especially those with advanced degrees from Western-influenced education systems, harbor a deep-seated distrust, and even shame, toward their own ancestral healing traditions.

Modern medicine, rooted in a Newtonian understanding of the physical world, focuses on concrete, measurable anatomical structures. In contrast, the holistic medical paradigm of the East perceives the body primarily as qi, a dynamic field of energy, unbound by the physical form. Practitioners cultivate their awareness as both a means of perception and a tool of intervention, using their own qi as an instrument for healing.

The relentless suppression and destruction of the traditional paradigm has been devastating to my native culture and my own soul. The gap between ancestral wisdom woven into my being and the scientist identity I adopted to make a living became a deep well of grief, sorrow, and anger. At times, it left me feeling like a brain prostitute, forced to trade my intellectual prowess at the expense of my authenticity.

In my 30s, life’s journey led me back to the deep knowing of my heart. I embarked on a series of pilgrimages to remote sacred sites in Tibet — at that time, one of the last places on Earth untouched by modernity. Blessed by the spirits of the Tibetan mountains, I discovered the will to break free from the golden handcuffs of a cushy job and set out on a path to reconnect with my ancestral lineage through the study of acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and Taoist spiritual cultivation.

However, running my first small business as an immigrant filled me with anxiety. Folk medicine used to be an integrated thread of a cultural fabric woven by reciprocity, deep attunement to nature, and interconnection based on trust and belonging, all of which was destroyed during modern development. I had grown up in pre-industrial China and spent my adult life in academia and research labs. Entrepreneurship was foreign to me, and I held strong resentment towards the traps of capitalist extraction.

On the day I was filling out the forms from Washington Department of Health to apply for a license, I was envisioning what my acupuncture clinic was going to be. I was both filled with hope and longing, and bothered by a persistent anxiety humming in the pit of my gut.

That night, I had a dream. I saw my clinic nestled on a bustling street in China, surrounded by small eateries offering the familiar, nostalgic flavors of my childhood. Stepping inside, I found its space dark and cramped. I climbed to the attic on the second floor—only to discover, to my astonishment, that it was a portal. In an instant, I was transported to the vast, high plateau of Tibet, the place where my spiritual journey first began a decade earlier.

In contrast to the cramped, noisy street below, here, an immense stillness stretched beneath an endless expanse of deep blue sky. The air was crisp and pure, a gentle breeze stirring the soul awake. Snow-capped peaks lined the horizon, their quiet majesty filling me with awe. As I stood there, happy tears welled in my heart — I had returned to a place that held the very essence of my spirit.

On this plateau, I roamed freely, my spirit light and unburdened. I thought I was alone, yet to my surprise, I encountered a man tending a small garden under the scorching sun, his focus and devotion absolute. Both shy, we didn’t exchange greetings, only a quiet, mutual awareness of each other’s presence. I watched him with admiration, moved by the care he poured into his work, his quiet humility, and his down-to-earth dedication.

To ensure I would recognize him when the time came, my dream revealed his surroundings — a hobbit-style stucco house, painted a soft golden hue, nestled within a lush garden. A wood-burning stove radiated a gentle, glowing warmth — an object dear to me, one of my most beloved household items. Months later, when I visited Joe’s home in Port Townsend for my first in-person fieldwork mapping, I saw that very house with the unique architecture style, the garden, and the wood-burning stove. At that moment, I knew without a doubt — he was the man from my dream.

This prophetic dream was not a new experience. For years, I had cultivated an awareness that allowed me to receive visions of the future in my dreams. The dominant paradigm of modernity dismisses the validity and sacredness of such experiences, along with other psychic abilities such as clairvoyance, telepathic communication and self-healing. These psychological traits are labeled as paranormal, supernatural, or even borderline “craziness.”

In many indigenous and traditional cultures, these traits are seen as innate potentials of human consciousness, natural gifts we are born with. When nurtured with openness and intention, as shamans and medicine people have done in Earth-centered cultures for millennia, they can evolve as profound expressions of evolution — manifestations of the interconnected intelligence flowing through us all.

The legacies of my native culture have allowed me to preserve awareness of my being, the inner wildness, exiled by the modern dominant paradigm. My relationship with Joe has empowered me to find the will and agency to bring the gifts and insights from this inner wildness into the dominant cultural paradigm.

For the past twelve years, I have been exploring how to live with the integrity of my being as a catalyst for transformation, while holding a loving witness to humanity. With that intention, I will offer this story as an introduction to the kind of transformation enabled by psychotopology.

(To be continued next post in “A Taoist Way to Heaven is Through Hell.”)

In this time of intensifying political chaos, many narratives are crafted to stir our deepest fears and wounds—trapping us in the old patterns of separation, domination, and conquest.

The culture of capitalism and extraction normalizes violence, conditioning us to respond to force with more force, to answer division with deeper division.

But on this Earth Day, I choose to stand for something else.

I stand for the Spirit of the Compassionate Warrior—a path rooted not in conquest, but in connection. Not in reactivity, but in presence, presence as old and enlivened as Earth herself.

Together with my colleague Daelinar, cofounder of the Dancing Tao Tai Chi School, we offer this Tai Chi sword performance as a living prayer—a celebration of the Compassionate Warrior spirit. This performance will be part of the multicultural Earth Day service at Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship.

May it be a reminder that strength can be tender, and that true courage arises from compassion.

In the ancient traditions of the East, A warrior’s journey begins with a sword—but ends with a mirror.

At first, the warrior sees their enemy as someone outside of themselves.
They train to strike, to defend, to conquer—driven by fear, by pride, by the lust for victory.

But in time, the warrior matures.
Through struggle and solitude, they begin to understand:
The fiercest battles are not fought on battlefields, but within the heart.

A true warrior learns self-mastery.
They no longer react from impulse, nor fight to dominate.
They respond—with presence.

When they face an opponent, they do not see an enemy.
They see a reflection.

Beneath the clash of difference, they feel the stillness of common ground.
Beneath the armor of separation, they sense the thread of oneness that binds us all.

The sword becomes a symbol—not of violence, but of clarity.

A warrior still fights, but not for a display of power over, but power with.
Not a call to arms, but a call to heart.

A prayer,
not to win,
but to awaken.

Not to conquer the other
But to dissolve the illusion that we are separated.

Joe and I, along with a few friends, visited a small island called Decatur in the San Juan archipelago. While hiking through a place known as the Enchanted Mossy Forest, a friend paused beside a tree stump and pointed out an unusual pattern. Several patches of bark had grown together over the top of the cut, forming a gentle dome—almost as if the stump were being embraced.

Our friend said softly,
“This tree suffered a trauma. But it’s still deeply connected to the others through the underground mycelial network. So the surrounding trees sent it energy, helping it grow bark to cover the wound. This is the wisdom of the forest as a whole being—it tends to its own, shielding the wounded and protecting the forest from further harm.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. In that stump, I saw the girl inside of me—the one who has carried the imprint of collective trauma since the age of ten, frozen in a place too deep for words.

And yet, like the forest, I had not been alone. I had been held and nourished by the unseen care of my family and ancestral lineage. Even though my parents never fully understood the nature of my work, even though no one in my family could speak the language of healing or articulate the big picture, I’ve been protected by their blessings, their presence, their quiet love.

After visiting the stump, Joe and I sat down in the soft, moss-covered forest floor. Together, we wrote this poem.

In the Womb of the Forest

A stump carrying scars,
its bones carved with forgotten stories,
wrapped in a hush of moss-green breath—
unwept tears, unheard cries,
held in its weathered silence.

Still rooted though severed,
it listens to the mycelium’s hum.
From nearby trunks, quiet love flows—
sap shared across unseen veins,
a slow stitching of bark over wound.

The girl inside remembers.
Frozen at ten,
she curled inward like a fern at dusk.
Yet even then,
the forest never turned away.
It whispered her name through the roots,
sent care in shadow and shelter.

In the womb of the forest,
a dream planted by shooting stars
takes root in the ache of sleeping pain.
Ancestors stir beneath her skin—
a longing so deep,
it echoes in the hollow rings of time.

She is not alone.
Every scar speaks in wooden grain.
Every silence is a song unfinished.
And in the soft, green hush,
a cradle forms around the wound.

Not healed, but held.
Not whole, but heard.
Always becoming
beneath the canopy of care.

We are living in a time when the world as we know it is dissolving rapidly. For those fortunate, uncertainty seeps into our daily lives through the rising price of eggs and haunting images of fire and destruction in distant lands. For others, it arrives as job loss, displacement, or even personal attack.

This is not the first time humanity has faced such upheaval. I was born during the Cultural Revolution, a period of painful chaos and destruction in China. People turned against one another, and the entire nation suffocated under authoritarian rule.

My mother conceived me in secret during a visit to my father, who had been imprisoned in a detention “shed” under false political charges. When the pregnancy was discovered, my parents were publicly denounced and shamed.

My parents named me 春, the season of spring, when new life burgeons. Because, despite the hardship they endured, they held onto hope, the hope wielded by generations of ancestors will to survive destructions and annihilation. That hope was passed down to me, woven into my very being. I know in my bones that no matter how bleak things seem now, this too shall pass. And from the ruins, something new will emerge—something we may not yet recognize, even if it stands before us today. But we can sense it, reach for it with the tendrils of our imagination, like a blind person tracing the contours of an elephant with the soft pads of their fingertips.

In times like these, my instinct propels me to learn new ways to feel, to touch, to listen, and to see. I realize that by awakening our senses, feelings and emotions, we ignite our imagination and creativity, allowing hope to take shape in reality. This is the wisdom passed down to me—wisdom that has carried my family and ancestors through chaos, helping them not just to survive, but to thrive and to rebirth.

In Bellingham where I live, my colleagues and co-workers are actively weaving strands of hope into actions and projects. For that reason, I have chosen to direct most of my energy to local work. If you are not in my local community, and want to stay connected with Resonance Path’s work, feel free to browse through our website and get a sense of the ecosystem that we are a part of, such as the Social Alchemy Lab, Dancing Tao Tai Chi School, and Echoes of the Heart Ensemble.

Meeting the Spirit of Explorer in a Norwegian Fishing Museum

In 2019, my parents and I took a trip to Norway. In Oslo, we visited a museum dedicated to the early fishing industry. The Norwegian people are renowned seafarers who have pioneered sea travel and the overseas fishing industry. One of the quotes from the late 19th century expressed this sentiment, "There is an infinite number of fish in the ocean. All we need to do is build bigger boats and more powerful equipment, as we can never exhaust this pool of resources."

Of course, today we know that this belief was not true. In just about one hundred years, the fishing industry has brought many species of fish in the ocean to the brink of exhaustion.

I was amazed by the quote; it felt deeply jarring to my intuitive sensibility. Forty years ago, when I was a young girl, I experienced the onset of industrialization unfolding in China, a country of over one billion people. Even then, without access to scientific data, I intuited the ecological collapse and inevitable climate change—both of which happened much faster than I had anticipated.

At the same time, visiting the museum gave me a visceral sense of these 19th-century fishermen who genuinely believed in the inexhaustibility of ocean resources and lived their lives testing that belief. Touching the tools they made and the ships they built, I was struck by the workmanship and devotion they poured into their craft. Imagining the hardship they faced on the unforgiving sea and the ingenuity they harnessed dissolved some of the judgment and "othering" I have carried in my heart for forty years.

As a young girl in China, the grief and pain of feeling ecological collapse were immense and devastating. Judging “others” became a way to protect my heart so I can survive. This judgment and "othering" were heavy burdens I carried for much of my life, directed against the modern, extractive social enterprise initiated primarily by Europeans.

I don’t regret carrying that judgment as it propelled me to fight against the oppression so I can discover my own voice. Nevertheless, fighting-against, by itself, does not lead to unity and healing I desire. Moreover, it is not a sustainable practice for the fighter herself.

It was when I stood in the museum, I heard a new, gentle voice in my heart whispering, “We are all human, each with an imperfect understanding of life and the universe. So is Chinese ancestry knowledge and my current understanding of life and the world.” With that voice, I felt the wall of judgment melting.

Since industrialization, we have built our civilization and social infrastructure on unsustainable practices that have damaged ecological systems and exhausted natural resources. Yet, as humans, we intrinsically harbor a spirit that taps into the infinite abundance of the universe. My heart told me that Earth and the cosmos wants this spirit to be seen, embodied and embraced too.

To my surprise, being in the museum, I found myself appreciating the Norwegian fishermen’s spirit of exploration and their trust in the infinite. I began to wonder a different question, “how do we honor and embody this spirit that trusts and explores infinite abundance while upholding ethical responsibility for sustainable practices?”

This question released a powerful wave of healing in my body, as it guided me toward integration, unity and creativity, instead of focusing solely on resistance or “fighting against”.

In the museum of Norwegian Fishermen, I was surprised to see part of myself reflected in these fishermen. I, too, have this explorer spirit that believes in infinite possibilities. This spirit has taken me on a cross-continental journey from China to the U.S., embarking on expeditions to the high mountains of the Himalayas, scaling rock walls in remote alpine countries, and navigating diverse professional fields such as science, healing, music, philosophy, leadership development and organizational consultancy. Before I arrived at Norway, I just published my first English book The Resonance Code - Empowering Leaders to Evolve Toward Wholeness and attended a conference on Climate Change and Consciousness in Scotland.

These fishermen and myself are both explorers of the unknown territory, except in different dimensions. The fisherman explores the ocean. I am an explorer of the “ocean” of consciousness and “islands” of cultural paradigms.

The Tao: Navigational System for the Unknown

Throughout my “cultural expedition”, the navigational system I rely on is the wisdom traditions rooted in my cultural heritage: Chinese medicine and the philosophy and practices of the Tao. As a Taoist practitioner, my purpose is to nurture harmony and balances between different forces and to alchemize the tensions between polarities into creativity and regenerative power.

Practices like Qigong and Tai Chi teach me what harmony and balance feel like in an embodied sense. With this honed sensibility, I can begin to harmonize the Yang—the expansive, adventure-seeking spirit of explorers—with the Yin—the heart and soul that perceives the world through cycles of reciprocity.

If we take from the ocean, we also need to give back by nurturing its regeneration with care. By tending to this relationship of reciprocity, we can re-learn how to become ethical stewards of nature’s infinite abundance.

Tending the relationship of reciprocity is not just about treating the ocean, forests, and rivers as inanimate objects, measurable quantities and data, or passive resources to "manage." It is also about relating to them as animated beings with their own will, desires, feelings and evolutionary purposes.

Without this perspective, even our best efforts at “environmental management” can unconsciously project human desires, needs and metrics of measurement onto nature.

Many indigenous teachings around the world emphasize awakening the felt-sense memory that we are an integral part of the ecological system, just as ants, mushrooms, grass, and spiders are part of the ecology. Our bodies are not merely an aggregation of bones, muscles, tendons, and neurons; they are the physical anchor of subtler energetic system that extends beyond the physical mass. This energy system of our body resonates with the ocean, the forest, the lava, the mountains, and the rocks. When we tend to this part of our being, we may reclaim our membership as an element of the ecological system.

One Chinese saying said, if you want to understand leopard, you need to become a leopard. 想要了解豹子，需要成为豹子. If we want to understand how the ocean regenerates herself and sustains her infinite abundances, we need to become the ocean.

Become the Ocean We Love

Qigong and Tai Chi have taught me how to become the ocean I love. Through these practices, I tend this part of my being that naturally resonates with natural elements. These practices slow down my awareness, synchronize my breath with movement, and nurture the reciprocal relationship between parts of my body and the whole. They teach me to fully inhabit my physical body and respect its autonomy.

In Qigong, we do not force or will our bodies to produce specific results, like becoming faster or stronger. In my Tai Chi practice, it’s also not even about “performing the right forms”. Instead, we practice the forms to allow our body to restore its alignment and awaken its own autonomy. We cultivate an awareness of gravity, which is being experienced as a spiritual force that connects us to Earth Mother. We also cultivate an awareness of "levity," a subtle energetic force that can be felt through dedicated practice. Each gesture and movement, simple as they may seem, carries meaning. These acts of embodied communication bridge our energy with the subtle, energetic web that surrounds us.

During my time visiting Norway, I felt the ocean and the Norwegian ancestors speaking to me. One year later, I moved to Bellingham during COVID. Since then, I met many people of Norwegian ancestry who have since become close friends and collaborators. My collaborator Daelinar is one of them. Together, we co-founded the Dancing Tao Tai Chi school. I like to think that our ancestors are guiding us to come together and collaborate, forging a new pathway to bring our respective ancestry knowledge into an integrated whole.

Below are videos Daelinar and I co-produced for the Dancing Tao workshop we will lead on Jan 4 in Bellingham Washington.

Hidden Maps of the Tao

Dear Substack Friends, I have been quiet for a long time here. Meanwhile, creativity has been bubbling like a hot spring in my local community of Bellingham, Washington.

In the last two months, the community around me is experiencing a lot of pain, fracture, and uncertainty as well as grounded responsiveness to what ‘s happening in the political realm. More than ever I felt the urgency to offer the Taoist knowledge of sense-making to regenerate unity, interconnection, and harmony.

During last two months, I have been offering a course to a local community of folks who are interested in the Tao. This course is called the Hidden Maps of the Tao in Chinese Characters. No, it is not a language class, but it is about language.

Language Shapes Perception of Reality

Language shapes our perception of reality. Modern language, with English as a primary example, tends to be pragmatic and straightforward, aimed at “arriving at the point”, extracting meanings from the felt-sense and lived experiences sometime in a brutal way. With this language as the primary lens, we may experience the world as fragmented, transactional and alienating to the felt-sense of aliveness.

In contrast, ancient languages with an indigenous root, with Chinese as an example, works in an opposite way. It tends to enfold layers of meaning into simple phrases, enriching the felt-sense and feelings through poetic expressions. It also arranges many shades and nuances of felt senses into imagery and metaphors, through which one experiences more of an inter-connected, living world.

Chinese characters often consist of multiple parts, each carrying meanings, relations to history, rituals, and myths from time immemorial. When each character is translated directly into an English word, the deeper meanings, and the wisdom embedded in the profound experience of interconnection with all living being, are often lost.

When we peak into the kaleidoscope of each Chinese character, and contemplate on the meanings it transmits, we activate our feeling heart and intuitive mind, where the essence of the Tao already resides. This course I am teaching revives a poetic sensibility that sees the world an interconnected whole. In this essay below, you will get a taste of what I mean by that.

At Resonance Path, we are working on bringing this ground-breaking work to the wider world. We are planning to launch a virtual course based on this material in 2025. Please stay tuned to our newsletter.

This work has been a co-creation between this group of pioneers in Bellingham. I can’t take full credit for this, as the inspiration, frameworks and materials for this work has emerged out of a series of synchronicities, delightful surprises, and ongoing dialogue and interactions exchanged among a very lively community.

With that, in celebration of the darkest time of the year in the norther hemisphere, I present you 暗, Chinese character for dark or darkness, which in its poetic sense means the Music of the Sun.

暗，Darkness is the Music of the Sun

When we encounter something or someone that we don’t like, we often attribute darkness to it. We might also call a difficult period a “dark time”.

From the eyes of the Tao, darkness is just as integral to life as light. When we are presented with a situation or adversary that feels dark, one way to respond is to ask, What part of myself have I overlooked, rejected and ignored in the preceding phase of “light” that has just ended? How can I deepen the integration of these parts into who I am?

To live in the dark, to intentionally walk the path of darkness with integrity is an ancient art of the Tao.

The Chinese character for darkness is 暗, pronounced as “ahn”. It is composed of two parts. The left part means the sun, the right part means a rhythmic tone or sound. When we put these two components together, the poetic meaning of 暗 becomes the Music of the Sun.

Everything has a dark side. In Taoist philosophy, we believe that the ultimate Truth of the universe is hidden from the explicit meaning-making of the cognitive mind. That is why the first line of Tao Te Ching says the Tao that can be uttered into words are not the true Tao. However, the Tao is not inaccessible through words. It is through the implicit, the enfolded, the gentle caress of the words that the essence of the Tao shines.

Perhaps the most difficult lesson to learn from darkness is about ourselves. Our personality has a “shadow” side, which is different from, or even opposite to who we think we are. As our culture today is often fractured, polarized and disconnected, our identity, who we think we are, is what we rely on to get a sense of safety and belonging. Paradoxically, since safety and belonging often feels scarce, our identity can turn into a rigid, defensive insulation that further isolates us from life.

However, when darkness comes, we can choose to shed the layer of the old identity and be exposed to the reality with our raw, inner vulnerability. We can choose to dredge the deeper layer of the ocean bed of unconscious self, so we can rebirth a more robust, adaptable and enlivened identity that is connected with larger life forces.

After the election, many people in my immediate community are experiencing a lot of pain, despair and darkness. At Bellingham, Resonance Path has been offering a local gathering called Social Alchemy Lab as a space for people to listen to each other, feel our emotions, and transmute them into creativity. Together, we are exploring who we are in our deepest being beyond our visible identity. We choose to sing with the music of the sun.

In darkness, seek not light with our eyes. Instead, let’s tune our ears to listen to the music of the sun. I look forward to further exploring the mystery of who we are together with this substack community in the coming year!

Language shapes our perception of reality. Modern language, with English as a primary example, tends to be pragmatic and straightforward, aimed at “arriving at the point”, extracting meanings from the felt-sense and lived experiences, sometimes in a brutal way. With this language as the primary lens, we may experience the world as fragmented, transactional and alienating to the felt-sense of aliveness.

In contrast, ancient languages with indigenous roots, with Chinese as an example, work in an opposite way. Ancient Chinese tends to enfold layers of meaning into simple phrases, enriching the felt-sense and feeling through poetic expression. It also arranges many shades and nuances of felt senses into imagery and metaphors, through which one experiences more of an inter-connected, living world.

Chinese characters carry maps pointing to the mysterious territory of the Tao, which cannot be comprehended through an approach dominated by the rational left brain. Nor can it be fully translated into modern English language. Learning to speak and draw Chinese characters, and contemplating on the meanings they transmit, will activate our feeling heart and intuitive mind, where the essence of the Tao already resides.

This fall, I will be leading a study group in Bellingham, where my home is, to explore the hidden meanings in the Chinese language, as a contemplative way to dive deeper into the cultural context of the Tao. My vision is that this pilot group will generate materials for an online course that can reach a broader audience. If you are interested in such offering in the future, please sign up for our newsletter at ResonancePath.com. You may take a peek at what this course looks like here.

Sadness is the Heart of Autumn and Self is Part of the Ecology

Here is a taste of the hidden meaning in a Chinese character.

The Chinese character for sadness 愁 (pronounced as Chou), has two components. The top component 秋 means autumn. The bottom component 心 means heart. Together this means that sadness is the heart of autumn.

If autumn has a heart, it will feel sad as the leaves wither and blossoms of summer die out. In Chinese poetic culture, thousands and thousands of poems have been dedicated to the exquisite flavors of sadness and the beauty of the heart of autumn.

This character alone implies two things about the philosophy of ancient Chinese culture regarding emotions, selfhood and nature. First, Chinese culture seeks balance and harmony of the multitude of emotions. Without feeling sadness, we can’t feel joy. Life is a dance between polarities, a weave of both/and. Second, emotions do not just belong to individuals. Emotions are part of the energy of the ongoing cycles of seasonal and ecological change. We humans, as part of nature, participate in these cycles of change through feeling our emotions.

Modern culture prioritizes and emphasizes a selfhood that asserts itself onto nature, a self that dominates and controls. In ancient cultures that see human being and nature more as a whole, selfhood is an ecological self, an ongoing dialogue, an interactive process of giving and receiving, influencing and being influenced. Feeling emotions is a critical process to allow the influences of the environment, natural or social, to shape ourselves so we can be part of the ecology.

Recommending Fieldwork, where Feeling is a Pathway towards an Ecological Self

The degradation of mental health is very palpable in our time. Conditioned by the modern culture’s paradigm to assert control, many of us often avoid feeling emotions and interpret our emotions as negative. When we redefine what these emotions are, we may start to develop a more wholesome relationship with emotions where they become a pathway for self-awareness.

Developing a relationship with emotions is a practice and a science. I recommend my partner Joe Shirley’s fieldwork. Joe is the founder of psychotopology, a new science of the feelingmind. This work resonates with the deeper mystery of Taoism, which brought us together as creative and intimate partners.

I have been using fieldwork on myself as well as in my professional work for the last twelve years. I see Joe’s work as an essential piece in shifting the cultural paradigm and re-orienting our self-hood towards a more fluid, flexible and changing part of nature. Joe just published this quick guide that leads you through a mindfulness practice with feelings as a portal.

Fieldwork: a mindfulness process to engage feelings a pathway to the ecological self

Autumn is a season for feeling the the loss of summer, and settling down to prepare for the winter. It is also a time for harvest and celebration. May your heart expand to feel both and dance with the polarities of the season!

If you value the writing I shared, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. May your contribution be amplified through resonance and come back to you in a hundred fold!

You are also welcome to subscribe for free. Free and paid-subscribers get the same contents.

Listen to: DOWN THE WELL on Spotify or Apple, a podcast interview with Spring Cheng on THE RADIO.

A Response to a Call from the Naked Heart

Synchronicity is the language of the inter-connected, living world. When we step off the highway of the fast-speed, hyper-digital, hyper-transactional life, we will notice the choir of synchronicities sung by all beings. We may even join in. We may even hitch a ride on the hyper-digital internet highway to amplify the synchronous waves. Here is a story from my recent experience.

A month ago, I published a song and a short writing called Naked Heart. Naked Heart is a translation of a Chinese phrase 赤子之心. It means a level of authenticity and boldness that a small child has, free of any disguise, defense or pretense. It is where the original wisdom of the heart resides.

The day after that, I received a message from Randall, someone local who took a songwriting/song-catching workshop I held about a year ago. He has started a podcast called The Radio. With excitement, he told me that he had been immersed in the exploration of living from the heart. Intrigued by the song and the essay, he asked me if I wanted to be a guest to his podcast.

I agreed.

A week later, Randall came and we had a heart-felt conversation around what it means to live from the heart in the modern world and what the wisdom of the Tao may offer. You may listen to this interview on Spotify or Apple.

Some highlights:

• Taking in the world through the heart, with its darkness and glory, grief and joy

• Cultivating a collective container to process our deepest feelings in community through embodiment

• Receiving and listening to each other

• Recognizing heart, both as a physical organ and a psychological faculty, as a “master information synthesizer”

• Each human is a living tree, exchanging information with the world at a level beyond what can be extracted as digital information

• Song-catching as a new “technology” to build the resilience, strength and volume of the heart

• Honoring songs as beings that want to be living through us, nourishing us or helping us to shed and transform

A “Thank You” Note from the Earth

That afternoon after Randall left, my partner Joe and I decided to finish a yard project. We were making a mandala stone sculpture to honor our connection with the land that we called home as well as our connection with Kairo, our beloved puppy who passed away eight months ago. We were at the last stage of the project — we just needed to pick some nice stones to put at the center of the sculpture.

Before we arrived at the rockery courtyard, my heart felt a surge of joyful currents. I told Joe, “I love to be around big rocks. They make my heart happy.”

There were dozens of huge bins of rock, all with various sizes, colors and shapes. We already knew which kind of rocks we would like. I walked towards the bin and randomly picked out a few without looking.

“Look at what’s in your hand.” Joe said to me.

I looked down. It’s a beautiful, heart-shaped rock. Beside it is another one in the shape of a cradle. Kairo, our puppy, had spent much of his life enjoying being cradled by Joe and me.

So these two rocks went home with us.

Inside the stone circle we made, when I placed the cradle back to back with the big heart stone, I thought to myself, “I needed something to put inside the cradle.”

Suddenly I felt something in my left hands. I looked down, it’s another smaller, rock in a heart shape. It felt as if it leapt into my hands when I was thinking those thoughts. So there it is, a baby heart, sleeping in the cradle, in the presence of the big heart.

This is a day of the echoes of the heart. The frequency of heart, expressed through music, conversations, as well as stones resonated with each other into a beautiful choir.

Life is a constant stream of resonance, harmony and reciprocity. When our heart is closed, we become deaf to it. When we are open to the stream of resonance, we know we belong to a larger sphere of life. I give thanks to all who joined in this resonance — A Chinese woman living in Amsterdam who shared her story which led to the song of Naked Heart, Randall the podcast host, the Spirit or Kairo, and the Spirit of Earth and Rock.

This resonance is what I turn to for insights, hope and guidance living through the chaos, violence and uncertainty of the world. This ever present resonance speaks through stones, songs, patterns of clouds, trickling streams, as well as heart-warming conversations and exchanges between friends, community and family. I trust that it contains powers our ancestors always knew. And it contains powers that connects us to the future generations who will inhabit the Earth we will leave behind. This is the lifeline I hold onto to at a time like this when the Old World we know of is dying and a new world of the unknown is being born.

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Do you have a response to this post? Do you have a similar story? Please feel free to post them here. Let’s continue the echoes of the heart!

Spring Cheng offers Living Song Mentorship where she guides you to reunite with the core essence of your being through the portal of voice and song. For a free trial session and more information, please click here.

If you value the writing I shared, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. May your contribution be amplified through resonance and come back to you in a hundred fold!

You are also welcome to subscribe for free. Free and paid-subscribers get the same contents.

Documentary “Dancing with the Dead” be available for viewers worldwide for the limited time of September 20-29th. See the film as many times as you wish over 10 days. 

Follow this link to get ticket: watch.showandtell.film/watch/redpine

It will be a rare opportunity to experience the power of art in bridging time, places and cultural legacies with a worldwide audience!

Documentary Dancing with the Dead features the life story of Red Pine, the world-renowned translator who dedicated his life to the translation of Chinese classic poetry and sutra into English. It is also a rare portrait of the mystic hermit culture in China that has survived capitalistic development. The movie incorporates ten songs I composed over Chinese poetry.

For how the movie and my music found each other through synchronistic events, read this story. For background about how the colonial history has squashed the spirituality of China and how the culture lineage perseveres through my life, read this story.    

Join Red Pine, Director Ward Serrill, and Singer Spring Cheng on Sunday, September 29, 12:00pm PT for a free, Live Q & A. To learn more and reserve your spot, or register for the online premiere: watch.showandtell.film/watch/redpine

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Hello Earth Song friends, I’d like to introduce you my offering of the Living Song Mentorship, in which I support you to reunite with the core essence of your being through the portal of voice and song.

Do you have a secret longing to sing as an expression of your being, and yet you are being held back by beliefs such as “my-voice-is-not-good-enough”, “I-am-not-musical”, or “it’s-too-late-to-learn-music-as-an-adult”? These are all modern-day spells that have been wired into our our nervous system, suppressing the blossoming of our core essence and enlivened expression of life energy.

In playing music, we are reminding ourselves that we are vibrational beings. Through music, we metabolize emotions and channel holistic energy through our body. Scientific studies have shown that music integrates and stimulates brain activities, making us more intelligent. Healing may spontaneously occur and intentions carried by the music may blossom into manifestation through the law of resonance.

In my experience of offering this mentorship, I find the biggest obstacle is that people can be overly critical and judgmental, comparing themselves with the professionals. In Living Song Mentorship, we will prioritize making music for the joy of doing it and the pleasure of connecting with oneself, rather than for external approval. This way your can connect to your innate river of music and progress much faster than being fixated on performative results.

Mentorship can happen both in-person (Bellingham Washington), or over zoom. Watch the video below and see what people say about Living Song Mentorship.

Here are the some of the things that might happen during a Living Song Mentorship session. However, each mentorship will be different as it is tailored to each individual’s specific needs.

• Somatic attunement to support your voice organically.

• Inviting your own song through an organic process, and nurturing it into a full piece.

• Cultivating music as a source to process emotions such as grief and fear, connect to your deeper core of being, and amplify the joy and inspiration in your life.

• Using a piano or keyboard to learn musical theory including scale, chords and simple composition. Accompanying yourself while you sing.

• Working through the inner critical or judgmental voices and transforming them into allies instead.

My Story

As a child, I loved to be in communion with Earth and creatures around me. I remember the pleasurable sensation of being one with the environment. But that experience was short-lived. Soon my family moved into the city and I was swept into the forces of the techno-materialistic-individualistic culture.

Parallel to the loss of an intimate connection with the Earth, throughout my childhood and youth, I was also immersed in the grief of losing my ancestors’ songs. For decades, I felt as if I was under a spell that separated me from the core essence of my being. This separation was the source of much of my suffering.

What I didn’t know was that the ancestors’ songs were searching for me as much as I was searching for them. At age 41, I met my music mentor Kaija who taught me to sing songs spontaneously welling up from my heart. Eventually these songs led me back to reunite with my ancestors’ songs. Click here to read the full story about my journey to discover my voice and reclaim my lineage.

My music can be found on Substack or Bandcamp. Save the date for my concert at Western Washington University on Nov 7, 2024.

For new clients, I offer a free 20 to 30 minute meet-and-greet session. To set up an appointment, please use the contact form.