This chapter described an important relationship I had with my mentor Monica, an astrologer and tarot reader who opened my eyes to metaphysics and the revival of ancient wisdom traditions. Meeting Monica led me to rekindle my relationship with I Ching, the ancient cosmology indigenous to Chinese culture.

This scene depicted here took place shortly after Monica did my first tarot reading. You may read previous chapters here.

After the first meeting with Monica, I visited her often. We formed a relationship that was both mentor-student and friendship. I rarely sought her divination services. The first experience not only brought intense emotions, but also contradicted all the rigorous training I received as a scientist, especially the attitude toward “random events.”

The education I received for over a decade and the entire social enterprise I was part of drove this principle into my head: random events are meaningless. The yearly salary of one hundred twenty thousand dollars I received from the pharmaceutical company mandated me to find statistically meaningful patterns that would stand out from the chaos of randomness.

Yet Monica’s intuition, guided by a few tarot cards drawn at random, opened the door straight to my inner soul. Perhaps random events are the door to an unknown, new world? A voice inside me whispered that I must go through this door.

There's a teahouse on 85th Street in Seattle. Its owner loves Chinese tea culture. He decorated the teahouse with antique, Chinese-style, mahogany furniture, and various wood sculptures and art scrolls from Eastern Asia. One afternoon, Monica and I were sitting at the tea shop savoring oolong tea.

“How can a random draw of cards tell my destiny? If I take another draw, they will surely be different, right? And yield different results, right? How can I trust a random event that is not repeatable?” I poured my eager questions out to Monica.

Monica smiled. “My dear, are you still the same person you were during the first divination? The questions you ask now are no longer the same as those you asked when you first saw me. Of course, the cards would also be different.”

I took in the perfume of the oolong tea and pondered. “That is true. When I was a teenager, I read about a Greek philosopher who said one cannot step into the same river twice. But I am a trained statistician and a scientist. In science, we would only consider repeatable results as valid. Random results are treated as invalid. How do I reconcile these two ways of thinking?”

Monica’s eyes seemed bluer when she was in deep thought. “Science as defined by the dominant western culture represents a way of knowing that is still in its infancy. The tarot and other divination methods come from ways of knowing and wisdom traditions that have survived the destruction of many ancient civilizations. They address different aspects of reality. Sadly, today many people in the West only recognize science as the sole mode of knowing and forget about these much older and wiser traditions.”

Monica’s words rang deeply in my heart.

"In the tarot reading, you said my true destiny is to be a philosopher. But honestly, I do not like those who call themselves philosophers. To my taste, they are too dry, pedantic, and heady!"

"Darling, you're not that kind of philosopher!" Monica replied with a laugh in her sing-song voice. "You are the kind of philosopher who approaches the big questions in life led by a feminine consciousness. And what I love about you is that you do not shy away from using your masculine strength when you need to!"

I was taken aback. I had never heard these two ideas, "feminine consciousness" and "philosopher", strung together before. Nor had I considered my “masculine strength.”

I took a deep breath and said, "Almost all the philosophers I know are men. But then, I don’t know all the philosophers.”

“Well, feminine consciousness is not limited to just women. While most of us are either born with a penis or a vagina, we all have both feminine AND masculine consciousness. Male philosophers can be guided by their feminine consciousness too. Likewise, women can carry masculine consciousness.”

“What do philosophers guided by feminine consciousness look like?" My voice was a bit stiff, as if it weren’t my own.

Monica smiled and said, "They are good at thinking with their bodies and making judgments through intuitive intelligence."

"Thinking with the body?!" Hearing this, I was at a loss for words. How can one think with the body? All through my years of schooling, I was trained to think with my head! My mind experienced a momentary total blank.

Monica continued, "On Planet Earth, most civilizations have reached the late stage of patriarchy. Feminine wisdom and creativity have been deeply suppressed over the past few thousand years. This suppression affects every person, regardless of their biological gender. A boy can carry the trauma of the suppression his mother experienced.”

This was the first time I encountered these kinds of thoughts. I felt a bit tense. I said to Monica. “In modern China, under the communist regime, women have equal rights with men. They work, play sports, and take social roles as much as men do. In fact, most girls in the schools I went to are more competitive than boys.”

Monica laughed, “And you are one of those girls, right?” She continued, “That is really awesome for those girls, and for you! But don’t forget, many social responsibilities that fall on women such as caring for the young, nursing the old or the sick, and birthing, for that matter, are undervalued, or not even compensated. Nor are they paid adequate respect. Women only received the same education as men, voting rights, and control over their reproductive rights in this century.”

I took a gasp of breath. Monica’s words opened my eyes. “It’s true. My grandmother had bound feet all her life. She gave birth to eleven children, spent her entire life farming and taking care of household chores. She never had the chance to go to school or earn any salary.”

Monica continued: “Raising feminine consciousness is not just about winning in competitions. Believing that life is all about playing games of competition is what perpetuates patriarchy.”

“What other games are there besides competition?” I asked.

“A different game might be something symbiotic, a win-win, mutual relationship. Look at the world of nature around us. It is full of symbiotic relationships. Bees help flowers to pollinate and flowers feed the bees. Bacteria fix nitrogen for soybeans and soybeans provide place for bacteria to live. Algae and fungi work together to create the lichens… ”

“But nature is also full of predators like wolves… ”

“Of course! Nature does not exclude the game of competition. But a healthy ecosystem keeps the numbers between wolves and their prey in a delicate balance. No matter how fierce the wolves are, they do not completely exterminate the populations of their prey.”

“That’s true. Predators are necessary for ecological systems too.” I murmured.

Monica continued, “Do you know about the wolf pack in Yellowstone? When park rangers exterminated the wolf pack, the park soon suffered from an over-population of grazing animals like deer, which led to the soil eroding and riverbanks collapsing. When they re-introduced wolves back into the park, the equilibrium was restored. So, from the perspective of nature, even predator-prey relationships are part of the symbiotic web of relationship.”

Monica’s words illuminated a deep intuition I had for a long time but struggled to find words for. I was excited. My curiosity pressed on.

“But how come the ‘predator’ nature in humans is so destructive to ecosystems?” I asked.

 “Humans haven’t been learning to be responsible for our predatory nature. We got too caught up in the game of competition, oblivious of the larger context, the symbiotic game.”

“But how can humans learn? Competition is so fundamental to the capitalist economic system. The gap between rich and poor is destined to widen. With this trend, the 'wolf packs' will completely devour the wealth of their 'prey.' How will nature balance the 'predator' nature within the human societal system?" I asked.

"When an ecosystem has abundant resources, it can support more aggressive predators like the wolf packs. But when resources become scarce, the self-regulating mechanism is bound to kick in at some point to diminish the wolf population. Those species that are good at symbiosis and win-win games start to gain an advantage."

With these words, I fell into deep thought. My eyes drifted and fell upon a Yin-Yang Tai Chi diagram hanging on the wall of the teahouse. I murmured, "So, the forces of competition and symbiosis wax and wane in nature."

Monica followed my gaze and saw the diagram as well. She nodded and smiled, "Yes, just like the Yin and Yang in the Chinese Tai Chi diagram."

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For a moment, the two of us fell silent, each savoring our tea, reflecting on the conversation we had. I let my mind wander and found myself saying, "In Chinese, the word symbiosis 共生 implies not only to live together, but also to die together. Just like the blue-green algae and fungi in lichens, they depend on each other. Without the other, neither can survive independently. Yet, at the same time, they are two completely different species."

Monica responded, "This is like the wisdom of Ubuntu from Africa. I am because you are. I am because we are. To enter this kind of symbiotic relationship, one has to be willing to be very vulnerable, which is challenging for our American culture. We like to be tough and independent. We cling to our individual life and individual property. Eastern cultures have more wisdom regarding symbiosis and win-win games. Moreover, Western civilization has plundered nature and Indigenous peoples, accruing a great deal of karmic debt. If humans are to survive this evolutionary shift, eastern cultures will have to lead the way."

I sat back in my chair and said, "Eastern culture indeed retains more wisdom in this regard. However, my experience living in China is that in our culture, the lack of clear boundaries between people often leads to unhealthy interpersonal relationships, which can be very exhausting and destructive to society too."

Monica pondered for a moment and said, "Hmm, indeed, you are right! Individuals need to have a healthy and strong sense of autonomy in order to form healthy symbiotic relationships. So, this turning point requires mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations."

“Like what we are doing!” I clicked my teacup to hers. “Like what we are doing!” Monica exclaimed back. We both smiled.

Monica continued: “The energy source our current civilization relies on is primarily oil. But oil is finite. In several decades, we are going to exhaust the energy source. This game of competition our capitalistic system is playing, unchecked and unbalanced, is not sustainable. Again and again, in my meditation and dreams, I see that human society will undergo significant challenges in the coming decades. Environmental and climate crises will overwhelm our existing social systems. The turning point will not be easy. Human societies have been engaged in, or even addicted to conflict and warfare for thousands of years. If our consciousness does not awaken, this collapse of the modern civilized world could bring disaster and even more violence to many people.”

Monica's eyes were fixed on a point in the distance ahead. The shadow of deep sorrow appeared on her face. Following her gaze, I seemed to have a glimpse of a future filled with chaos and uncertainty.

Unconsciously, I scooched my chair away from Monica a little as if where she sat was a portal into that future I feared. I looked around at the tea shop. The warm afternoon sunlight shone into the teahouse, casting an orange, golden glow on the mahogany furniture. The soft chatter of tea patrons filled the space with a sense of leisure and peace, showing no signs of an impending ‘collapse of the civilized world’. "

I felt skeptical about Monica’s words. But I could not help leaning in and asked, “How can one navigate such a period of collapse then?”

Monica's gaze seemed still lost in the distant future. “I follow what’s in the Hopi prophecy. Long ago, the elders prophesized this time of Great Change. We are going to be the witness of its unfolding. The prophecy advises us to become aware of our sacred relationships with Mother Earth and her creatures. We need to consider our livelihood, who are we in community with, and whether we are in right relationship with them. And, do not look outside for our leader. ”

She poured the last of the tea from the pot and drank it. Then she said, "Heal yourself. Take care of the people around you. Awaken the feminine within yourself. Form allies between the feminine and masculine. We all carry the psychological traumas inherited from several generations of our ancestors. Healing these wounds will require the effort of many generations."

I fell into silence, considering the traumas I had inherited from my ancestors. I thought of my grandmother and her tortured feet.

My father left the rural village in the Sichuan mountains for college at the age of 18. After college, he worked in the Shanghai astronomy observatory for his entire career. He rarely returned to his village. When I was a young girl, it would take him a 3-day train ride, one-day bus ride, and a 5-hour walk to reach his home village.

When I was one year old, both my parents were working full-time. My grandmother travelled to Shanghai to help take care of me. After I grew up, I only met her once when I was ten. She was a typical rural farmwoman. Her face etched with deep lines, recording the hard work and relentless vicissitudes of her life path. She emitted a repugnant smell, and as a ten-year-old girl, I didn't want to be close to her.

Now, sitting in the teahouse across half of the globe, for the first time in my life, I tried to imagine what was like to be my grandmother. An eight-year-old girl. Having her foot bones broken by her own mother, and then wrapped in a three-meter-long binding cloth. She spent her life walking on bound feet, staggering along the mountain paths of Sichuan. Vague images flashed through my mind: pain, wounds, infections, and pus... I could smell her again in that moment. I began to feel dizzy, suddenly breaking out in a cold sweat.

By then, Monica finished her tea and got up. “My mystic, philosopher friend, I have an astrology client coming up right now. We'll chat more next time." She hugged me, planting a firm kiss on my cheek. Striding out the door, she flowed, her robe swirling around her like a whirlwind.

[Read Chapter One here]

I was born in Shanghai in 1973 in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, a time of chaos, confusion and destruction that affected one billion people. My mother is from Beijing and my father is from Sichuan. We belong to the Han ethnic group, the largest ethnicity group in China[1]. However, since I was a young girl, I have felt homesick toward Tibet, yet I never set foot there until I was 31 years old.

I remember hearing stories of Tibet as a child. This mysterious world situated on the high plateau felt like a realm closer to heaven, drawing me like a magnet. My feeling about Tibet was more than just a Han girl's curiosity. Tibet drew me and felt like a place I had lived in “past lives.”

Pictures of Tibetan landscapes, the majestic mountains and the jade-like blue mountain lakes felt more familiar and home-like than Shanghai, my birthplace. Everything about Tibet cast a potent spell on me. When I saw Tibetan words, tears surged up even though I didn’t understand the meanings of the words. When I heard the singing of Tibetans, the sacred chants, I felt transported to a high peak, like a snow lotus flower, blooming quietly in a noble silence. I didn't know where these feelings came from.

My appearance reminds people of Tibetans. People have inquired if I have Tibetan ancestry. I wonder if I had been Tibetan in a previous life? As a child, I thought so, but told no one how I felt.

Being born into a family of scientists in China with a materialist worldview characteristic of the 1970s did not allow me to entertain the idea of any "past life". I locked this sense of myself in a deep chamber in my heart.

As I grew older, I developed my own intuition around this inner sense. I believe that each person is a unique embodiment of life, one of a kind in space and time. However, I also believe that after death, the information stored in the human nervous system, equivalent to what spiritual language refers as “soul,” is released from the body and re-distributed into the universe. The undying love and joy, unfulfilled dreams, ungrieved losses, unresolved sadness and hatred, all forms of energy, pervade the time and space we inhabit, not unlike how Wi-Fi signals fill our surroundings in modern life.

Following this idea, our psyches may work like a “cell phone” unit, receiving, processing and transmitting these energy forms permeating space. Just like each cell phone is unique, we are also each a unique transceiver, attuned to specific frequencies according to our individual dispositions, physiques, family history, beliefs, and mental and emotional make-up. For reasons unknown, the “transceiver” of me tuned to signals specific to Tibet. [i][see note]

For a long time, this “transceiver” notion only stayed as a flicker of intuition. The Matrix I lived in, the super-materialistic, mega-capitalistic societal machine, holds the Newtonian view of a cold, lifeless world as a religious dogma, leading us to believe each person is an isolated, separate being. Within this belief, the notion that we are intrinsically connected with one another as a super organism sounds absurd. Fearful of being ridiculed, I buried my intuition like a seed underground, not speaking about it to anyone. However, I treasure my intuitions, knowing that intuition is the origin of all scientific discoveries. I had no idea how to further develop my intuition into something concrete. Trapped by the Matrix, I felt isolated and anxious. I was motivated to seek a way out.

When I visited Tibet for the first time in 2004, I was a mountaineering enthusiast. Climbing was not just a hobby, but my core identity. I lived in Seattle, the mega outdoor capital. Home to athletic, outdoorsy, well-off middle-class people who hike, run, bike, climb, ski, sail, paddle and all sorts of outdoor activities, Seattle is surrounded by more than ten million acres of national forests, national parks and endless wilderness.  In addition, oceans, rivers and lakes complete the landscape. As I fought my inner battle with my scientist identity, I held a tight, tenacious grip on my climber identity, a strong and silent protest against my nine-to-five job.

I spent most of my non-working time, holidays and weekends on training, trips, or activities related to mountain climbing. Obsessed with high-risk adventures, I took on both high altitude climbing and rock climbing, feeding on the adrenaline and endorphins produced by my body when I was in the mountains. Over time, the highest peaks in the continental United States, such as Mount Whitney in California, and the famous Mount Rainier in Washington State, did not challenge me enough. I wanted to go to real snow-capped mountains and climb one no one else had ever climbed! In my search for this challenge, I found the Chola Shan Mountain, which rises to 6000 meters (nearly 20,000 feet) in Ganzi County, Sichuan, above the border between Sichuan and Tibet. Since mountain climbing was just emerging in China, this mountain had only been ascended once.

In 2004, A year after Tao and I got married, we took our honeymoon trip to climb the Chola Shan Mountain. A startling, unexpected change happened when I stepped into Tibet. I began to hear a voice arising from my heart, an unfamiliar voice.

At first, the voice emerged vague and deep. It registered as a faint, percussive sensation in my body, like when a truck drives by in the distance or the huge kettle drum in a symphony is struck. My body shook as if a very low-frequency shock wave moved through me.

Under the influence of this vibration, I felt a deeper Self, who seemed to have been asleep for decades, slowly but surely waking up. This deeper Self, awakening from a long, long sleep, felt thick, gray and sluggish. Silent, she did not utter a word. Her presence felt more comforting and maternal than anything my adult self had experienced. She cradled me as if I were an infant.

In this slow, swaying cradle, my normal identity, the special-force-elite-scientist-plus-weekend-climber-warrior retreated into the background. In the empty space, a bone-deep wave of fatigue and empty sadness engulfed me. I knew these feelings were there, but I pushed them to the background to pursue the treadmill routine of my life. As I surrendered to this fatigue and sadness, the part of me attached to my normal identity curled up in the cradle like a baby, as if clinging to a mother’s arms. I’m reluctant to admit that to my surprise, the ambitious – almost neurotic – craving to climb high mountains started melting like a glacier under the spring sun. I was alarmed and confused.

A well-loved Chinese poet, Xin Qiji, living in the 12^th  and 13^th centuries wrote a famous line, “The green hills look charming and enchanting to me. I guess I must look the same way to the green hills.”[2] Traveling among the mountains in Tibet, I felt as if the mountains observed and examined me, whispering, "You are finally here. We have been waiting for you … "

Xin Qiji’s poem illustrated a key perspective underlying ancient China’s philosophy and worldview. Nature, a conscious being, observes, sees, senses and experiences humans, as much as we observe, see, sense and experience her. The attitude we hold towards Nature reflects back to us. This philosophy permeates the poetry I read and loved as a young girl.

However, when I was growing up, few people around me read ancient poetry anymore. The entire society, caught in frantic competition with the West, fixated on scientific and technological development. Caught by the spell of the materialistic worldview, Chinese people discarded traditional knowledge and wisdom of our own culture into trash bins. In my twenties, when the massive waves of industrialization forces hit China, I felt repulsed and shocked by the violent and mindless disruptions to ecosystems all over China. The green hills my ancestors once loved and sang poetry to fell into grievous silence. The rivers dominated by dams and darkened by pollution boiled with repressed anger. A voice in my heart told me It is only a matter of time when Nature’s force will reflect this violence back to humans.

In 2004, the mountains in Tibet were still largely isolated from the disruptions of industrialization. Their Spirits remained alive and well, honored and held with respect by the Tibetan communities living around them. In contrast, the Spirit of many mountains I visited in the civilized areas of China felt subdued and tired, withering.

That year, Tao and I and four American teammates climbed to the top of Chola Shan. As a high-altitude adventure experience, it made a memorable climb. But when I returned to my usual life, I found I had changed. I thought that after climbing Chola Shan, I would hit the next higher peak on my bucket list. But after this trip, my ambition melted away like ice, revealing a much deeper, aching longing, like a secret, underground waterway.

The sheer scale of the Tibetan landscape gripped my heart. The sense of slowness and simplicity, the deep blue sky and profound stillness hypnotized me. The Tibetan life preserved a sense of wholeness, full and rich all by itself. I found myself recalling the fragrance of freshly picked wild mushrooms in the farmer’s markets, the red cheeks of Tibetan teenagers driving yaks and the broad smiles on people’s faces. Amid this immense landscape, the Nyima piles, stone planks carved with Om Mani Padme Hum[3], surrounded by oceans of white Khata[4], mesmerized me most.

I could not forget that low-frequency vibrational tone I felt in Tibet. However, back in Seattle, the vibration got compressed, turning into an agitated voice in my heart, speaking in a language I couldn't understand. It spoke in a tone eager and sincere, as if begging me to go back again.

The following year, 2005, I returned to Tibet alone. I wanted to do a solo trip and Tao agreed. This time I did not scale high peaks. Instead, I wanted to do a Kora, the Tibetan pilgrimage and meditative practice which involves circumambulation of a né, considered a “sacred abode”, the dwelling of deities or the Spirit of a power place. The most momentous né are sacred mountains and lakes. At that time, the Tibetan areas I travelled through still maintained the cultural tradition where people related with the natural world as a sentient being. Sacred mountains, the abode of beings from other realms, often stand as the “protector” of the place.

Climbing and circumambulation pose such a contrast! One requires a linear ascent; the other, a circling around the mountain. One conquers the height of the mountain peak; the other venerates the mountain as a deity. In Kora, the pilgrims circle the mountains in a meditative state of mind. Serious pilgrims perform full-body prostrations every step along the arduous mountain trek while carrying sleeping gear and food in a rucksack to endure the harsh elements at high altitude. Pilgrimage of this scale can take years to complete. Tibetans consider this kind of pilgrimage a high honor and peak experience of one’s life.

After doing research around the Tibetan sacred mountains, I felt an inexplicable draw to the Kora circuit of Meili Mountain range in Zhong Dian area of Yunnan Province in southwest China. There are several famous sacred mountains in Tibet. Each sacred mountain has its own Kora route. While most other sacred mountains form abodes of a male deity, Meili Mountain range is the home to a mountain god and goddess: husband, King Kawagebo, and wife, Mother Miancimu.

There are two Kora circuits here, one large, one small. The large circuit, an arduous trek of 150 miles, passes through landscape averaging above 10,000 ft. It would take two weeks to complete. As a beginner, I chose the less ambitious smaller circuit, a trek of 30 miles. From Seattle, I flew to Kunming, the last metropolitan city that serves as a hub for outdoor enthusiasts. There, I teamed up with a couple of young trekkers who also set out to do the same pilgrimage circuit.

For three days, the bus, starting from 6000 ft, inched up the narrow and treacherous road, often without guardrails, carved into the steep slopes of the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Slow travel gave our bodies a chance to acclimatize to thinner air at the high altitude. The Tibetan driver who drove us into the Tibetan area taught us not to point at sacred mountains with our index fingers. We should instead face our palms upward and, with respect, point to the peak using the whole hand. The expression in his eyes when he looked at the mountain while showing us the gesture was as respectful and loving as looking at an elder grandfather of his own family.

On the evening of the third day, we arrived at a Tibetan Buddhist temple at 11,000 ft. This four-hundred-year-old temple’s fantastical name, Feilai, means flying-over. According to legend, at the time the temple was to be built, all the materials had been collected at different sites. One day, the building materials suddenly flew away, assembling themselves perfectly at the present location.

Feilai temple offers a panoramic view of twelve snow-capped peaks, towering from 15,000 to 20,000 feet, parading in a straight line with Mount Kawagebo and Mother Miancimu at the center. Mount Kawagebo, rising to a height of 22,113 ft, resembles a majestic king sitting on his broad throne. A crown-like peak sits in his left hand. The surrounding mountains bow down to him, like subjects bowing down to their lord. His partner, Mother Miancimu, the daughter of the Sea God, rises to a height of 19,862 ft. She carries a demeanor resembling a graceful and untouchable goddess gently holding a baby in her arms. However, her peak is extremely steep, almost vertical like a knife at the top, formidable to any mountain climber.

No human climbers have set foot on the summits of all twenty peaks above 15,000 ft in this mountain range. This is due to its remote location, extreme weather patterns, steep and unstable terrain, as well as the local efforts to preserve the pristine quality of the environment. After conflicts with climbing teams who intended to conquer the summit in the 80s, local officials issued a law forbidding climbing teams to trespass in this sacred mountain range.

The spectacular view from Feilai temple is only visible during a small window of days each year when clouds part, revealing the sacred mountains. The locals believe only blessed ones will arrive at Feilai temple on a bright day with a full view of the mountains.

On that day, we were blessed. When we arrived at Feilai Temple, the mountain range stood in its most full, splendid display. Sunset painted the mountains as if aflame. Every minute, a different hue of intense red and orange hit the viewers’ nervous systems with intense, psychedelic-like pleasures. Drunk with what we witnessed, we were unable to speak. It was the first time I experienced a being so powerful its mere presence could alter and transform me.

The second day, we found a steep path away from the highway and started the Kora circuit trek. After that, we trekked for two days, passing rhododendron forests, climbing down steep ravines and up exposed ridges, visiting temples and villages buried deep in the valleys, further and further away from modern amenities. Although I traveled along the high plateau with high intensity exertion, I felt lighter and lighter.

As a climber, I had grown accustomed to the rustic way of living, camping in the open and carrying everything I needed in a backpack. However, this wilderness experience felt different than the weekend and holiday excursions in the Pacific Northwest. Around Seattle, those excursions were a choice, a privilege, a moment of levity out of the gravity of city life. Whereas here, living in simplicity and close to the elements is a way of life sustained for generations after generations. No modernity exists. There is a sense of weight in this way of life, a sense of gravity which grounds the modern life I was used to. I felt humbled.   

After two days trekking, we arrived at a mountain pass called Nazongla at 12,139 ft. A sea of white Khata and colorful prayer flags rolled in the wind under a balmy sun. The Khata and prayer flags hung so thick that at one point, I could not see anything but endless flapping, colorful fabric. As I found my way through this rolling sea, in front of me appeared a sudden, full-body view of Mother Miancimu.

I had never seen a mountain this beautiful, this dangerous-looking, and this pure and other-worldly. She embodies the enchanting quality of beauty normally associated with feminine figures, while emitting a formidable sense of power and command usually associated with masculine authority. Miancimu embodies both a feminine and a masculine Spirit. Her beauty and power took my breath away. I felt an immediate impulse to kneel and surrender myself to her. But my modern ego was too embarrassed to prostrate myself in that moment.

We discovered a surprise “tea house,” a makeshift structure built out of wood planks on top of Nazongla Pass. Pilgrims and villagers rested there, drinking yak butter tea, a high caloric, staple drink available in every Tibetan household. This tea has a strong, pungent smell that permeated not just my body, but also my clothes and backpack gear. This smell accompanied me for a long time after I left the Tibetan Plateau.

We lingered at this mountain pass for a long time. The beauty and serenity surrounding us was so intense we did not want to leave. I experienced an odd feeling telling me this was “my special place”, but I didn’t know why. As time passed, although reluctant to go, we needed to find lodging in the Yu Beng Village, a village only accessible to foot-travelers like us. The village lay another two hours down on the other side of the Nazongla pass.

Yu means rain, and Beng means collapse. Rain Collapses. This name contrasts the soft, gentle rain with the intensity of a collapse like an avalanche, arousing my imagination of a mythical dream world! Only we weren’t dreaming. Located in the valley between Kawagebo and Miancimu, Yu Beng Village lives up to the mysticism of its name. At the edge of the village sits a Tibetan temple with a white stupa guarding it as a sacred place. The ancient village appears to have been sleeping for thousands of years in the glacier of time, indifferent to world affairs. We stayed at a villager's home, a wooden house, lit with a dim light bulb for a few hours in the evening. The frigid wind from the glacier blew through the cracks in the thin wall. The simplicity here fed me with the joy of a pure, uncluttered experience in human existence. Comforted, I felt I had returned home!

I felt drunk as I inhaled the refreshing air and let my body soak in the broad silence on the plateau. My gaze wandered back and forth along the glacier on the snow-capped mountains, admiring every line and every engraving drawn by the ridges and valleys covered with ice. The two ivory-colored monuments of Kawagebo and Miancimu anchor the vibration of an ancient myth, a memory sealed deep in the dark glacier of my own unconscious. As I stood at the foot of these two sacred mountains, the black ice of this glacier started melting and an old, old memory, much older than my own life began to awaken. This awakening did not register in words. It arose as a sensation, as if my body were immersed in a magnificent, silent symphony of many, many voiceless vibrations. The symphony played in the sky above Yu Beng Village, day and night, in my waking dreams and dreamlike wakefulness.

The pilgrimage circuit ended in front of a cliff in the valley at the foot of Mt. Miancimu. To my surprise, a wooden house sat as if inlaid in the cliff, with icicles hanging from the gutter. Inside the simple house lived two female nuns in red robes, immersed in their spiritual practice. Delighted by our arrival, they welcomed us, and we took photos together under the light of the sun. In a daze, I felt as if, in meeting these nuns, I met myself in my previous life.

During the few days we spent in the village, often I sat on the bed in the wooden house, gazing into the snow-capped mountains for hours. The flow of time stopped. In those moments, I touched the texture of eternity.

One afternoon, holding a cup of tea, I stared at the pure white and proud peak of Mother Miancimu, lost in that world between dreaming and wakefulness. A very thin wisp of white cloud-mist rose from the peak. My heart filled with admiration and yearning for the goddess in front of me. Her pure and quiet presence became like a mirror. At once, I saw all the dark and imperfect parts of my soul that made me feel ashamed. "She is so noble, clear and pure. What about me?" Thinking these thoughts, I seemed to see a small, pearl-like ice ball rolling down from the top of the mountain, then falling through the crown of my head and into my body. In that instant, I shivered with the cold, as if I had caught a chill.

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After returning from the Meili Snow Mountain range to Seattle, I fell quite ill. A cold lingered and developed into a lung infection, leading to a nasty cough lasting for a couple of months. I plummeted into a low ebb of depression.

The pure presence of Meili Snow Mountain mirrored back to me the restlessness and confusion in my heart. The two journeys to Tibet awakened the self who felt at home in the Tibetan village at the foot of the snow-capped mountains. This self could not find her place in the nine-to-five grind in the metropolitan city of Seattle.

My social identity sat at the top of the working class, but my heart was weighed down by a job in which I had a hard time finding meaning. Every day I questioned my conscience, “Am I working toward better human health, or to extract wealth from sick people and make more profits for the drug industry?” I couldn’t shake off the feeling I was meant to serve human health in a very different way. Facing the leaping data in the computer, the vehicles shuttling on the highway, the concrete jungle of the city, along with the overly pretentious perfume smells in malls filled with consumer goods, my heart felt lonely, hopeless, and frustrated with my inability to answer these big questions. The winter rains in Seattle did not help. Everything was so gloomy, boring and noisy!

My job could not provide me with the kind of fulfillment I longed for, not even one bit! But what could I do? What profession could make feel alive and provide me with a good livelihood? What was it I was meant to do?

The vibration from the earth, the vibration of the silent symphony that once played in the presence of the Meili Snow Mountain range, turned into an agitated voice sitting in a pit at the bottom of my heart. The voice paced like a trapped madman, back and forth alone in the middle of the night, saying something rushed and indistinct from time to time.

I didn’t know how to relieve such psychological pressure. One weekend, in a Seattle newspaper, I noticed an article about the Tibetan New Year celebration to be held by the Sakya Monastery and Tibetan immigrant community. The location of this celebration was near the East West Bookshop. My heart skipped a beat upon seeing this news. I immediately jumped in the "white horse" and drove to the event site.

The Tibetan immigrants rented the two-story building of a community activity center and decorated it in full Tibetan style. The way Indigenous people decorate their clothes, utensils and jewels often reflects their natural surroundings. The landscape of the Tibetan Plateau features a vast expanse of white snow, endless blue sky, yellow dirt and massive green meadows. Tibetan décor emphasizes primary colors of red, blue and yellow. As soon as I entered the community center, waves of scarlet, dark blue, crimson, orange stripes, burgundy robes, and rainbow-like prayer flags rushed toward me. For an instant, I thought I was being transported to the other side of the earth.

The community center bustled with Tibetan people dressed in bright colored Tibetan robes adorned with agates and sapphires. Curious white people milled around, mingling among them. There were performances offered by community members, and small stalls selling Tibetan snacks, Tibetan jewelry, Tibetan clothes, and Buddhist ritual instruments.

The Tibetans joviality displayed a palpable kinship among community members. Like the Han Chinese New Year, everyone reveled in high spirits, talking and laughing, pushing and teasing each other. The atmosphere so lively, it offered a stark contrast to the grey, cold February weather and the polite-and-distant Pacific Northwest cultural ambience. I wandered aimlessly through the crowd, unnoticed. I felt like a discarnate soul walking in the world. I could see others, but they could not see me.

Somehow my feet took me away from the crowd and I found myself in a small room in the much quieter basement. Gentle music played, warm and soft. A temporary sign hung on the door: "Tarot Divination: Decipher Your Life's Purpose". I walked in. Behind a screen sat a white woman in a blue-purple satin robe, with a clear complexion. Her blue eyes emitted a mystical serenity like a mountain lake.

That was Monica.

Noticing the empty chair facing her, I sat down. This became my first experience of divination in this lifetime.

************

At the time, I didn't know the moment I sat across from Monica was my first face-to-face conversation with my destiny and purpose in this incarnation. I didn’t know I was about to take the “Red Pill”, activating the switch to pop me out of the “Matrix”. I didn’t know I would leave the paved road arranged by society, expected by parents and approved by the general public, and veer onto a winding, untrodden, dirt path through an uninhabited wilderness. I didn't know the white woman in front of me would be my guide at this crucial junction of my life. I also didn’t know that five years after we met, my identity, marriage and the world I built for myself would collapse to ruin and Monica would suddenly fall ill to a mysterious disease and depart from this world, leaving me alone to traverse through the dark unknown. And I didn’t know that three years after she passed away, I would receive signs at East West Bookshop indicating her spirit had been helping me from the other side of the veil all along!

After so many years, I often try to recall the specifics of my conversation with Monica. But the memory of the moment, like an impressionist work, is blurry and jumpy, without clear-cut shapes, only large blocks of strong emotion, spreading like watercolor on an empty canvas.

Monica placed the Tarot cards in front of me and asked me to think of a question. Into my heart, I asked, as a Han woman, why do I yearn for Tibet so much? Why do I feel so repulsed by my current job? What is the true purpose of my life?

Following Monica's instructions and holding the questions in my heart, I shuffled three piles of tarot cards in front of me and then selected three or four cards from each pile. Monica arranged these cards in a rectangle on the table. She pondered for a moment, then raised her head to look at me, her green eyes deep and placid as a lake. In the lake, I saw the reflection of a place in my heart I had never visited. She began to speak. In essence, I recall her saying:

"You were a philosopher, thinker, and a priest in your previous life. Not only that, you have been a priest serving many civilizations on earth. Earth civilization is about to enter a major turning point in evolution. Values, ethics, and the construction of traditional cultural meaning will all be affected. You need to let go of expectations placed on you by others and overcome the gravitational pull of social inertia. Return to the source of life and use your life to rethink how the culture you live in is constructed. Explore the meaning of life.”

Dumbfounded, I felt her calm words set off an atomic explosion in my heart. I could not say I believed her. I did not understand what she was saying. What do priests and priestesses do anyway? The rational part of me, the responsible self who managed my life initiated a loud protest. This protest arose with strong backing. My hard-won skills as a highly valued data analyst taught me not to trust random data. All the scientific training I received screamed. This is nonsense! How could a random draw from a pile of cards show anything about my purpose! The trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry I served along with the rationality controlling material reality appeared to be built on a scientific cornerstone: randomness means nothing.

While this rational self yelling in protest, another, much younger voice spoke in my heart. This voice, like a seed buried deep in the ground, awakened by a spring rain and loud thunder, sprouted in front of my eyes. She absorbed every word Monica said, stretched her tiny green leaves, growing delicate branches in the gap under the giant rock of my rational self.

[1] There are currently fifty-five ethnic groups in China, most of them with a distinct language, culture, myth and religious beliefs. For thousands of years, the dynamics between diverse ethnic groups has always been an essential ingredient in shaping the history and culture of China.   

[2] The original text is我见青山多妩媚，料青山见我应如是

[3] Buddhist mantra, meaning “Hail to the jewel in the lotus of my heart.”

[4] Khata is a traditional ceremonial scarf used predominantly in Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and India. It is a symbol of honor and respect. People use Khata in ceremonials and traditional dances and offer it to monasteries and temples and honored guests.

[i] This intuition of the “transceiver” model of the psyche developed under the influence of traditional Chinese culture. Within traditional Chinese culture, there is a belief that whatever we see outside, be it natural elements such as fire or water, or human systems including social structures or technological development, can all be seen as reflections of our inner worlds. Influenced by this perspective, as a cell phone entered my life when I was in my late 30s, I wondered what part of my inner self was being reflected by this amazing gadget.

Cell phones connect 85% of human beings through a simple dialed call, even when we travel to some of the most remote corners of the world. What if this level of interconnectedness mirrors an aspect of our own consciousness with which modernity has lost touch? This possibility strikes such a chord in my heart. The mythical stories I read about the powers possessed by ancient shamans suggested that they were able to tap into the collective psyche of their culture and community. But can we modern people access this “cosmic Wi-Fi” signal through our sensory capacities, direct experience or intuition? 

The Matrix, the super-materialistic, mega-capitalistic societal machine, built upon the Newtonian view of a cold, lifeless world, leads us to believe each person is an isolated, separate being. Under this premise, we turn our attention away from our innate ability to connect with the world around us through direct, sensory experience. Instead, we pour our attention outward, especially when consumerist culture inundates our senses with myriads of material manifestations. Gradually, the inward pathway of interconnection atrophies and we are left with a black hole of hunger and loneliness, rendering us vulnerable to be hooked and obsessed with the cell phones in our hands!

The story of Earth Song is my journey tracing back along the inner pathway of interconnectedness. In the old times, the hermits did that. They retreated into the deep of the mountains, going inward to find the point of consciousness that “plugs into” the web of interconnectedness. I very much wanted to experience that consciousness myself. However, what Earth Song showed me is also a pathway different from the ancient hermits. Instead of retrieving into the mountains, this is a pathway emphasizing relationships, intimacy, and creative expression,  a more feminine way of being and living.

I believe that when we are reattached to the internal sense of interconnection, we will become less susceptible to the detrimental effect of technologies. Nor do we necessarily need to shun technologies. Instead, we will have a chance to harness them towards building a thriving life. 

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[This is an excerpt of Spring Cheng's memoir Earth Song. In a quest to re-enliven the lost art of Taoist myth and magic, Spring embarks on a journey to heal the trauma of colonization and patriarchy, reclaiming her birthright to live a more whole, enlivened and inter-connected life. Earth Song weaves a tapestry of love, myth, power, sexuality, culture, psychology, and philosophical commentaries. It culminates in the story of Spring and her partner Joe bridging the chasm between Chinese and western, ancient and modern cultures in their intimate, professional and creative partnership. Spring is writing her memoir in both English and Chinese simultaneously.]

In February 2008, an early spring...

At that time, my world was still running according to a normal script in the “Matrix”, the highly digitized, super-materialistic and mega-capitalistic societal machine. Like many Asian immigrants, I earned an advanced degree, a doctorate in Molecular Biology, which got me a well-paid, respectable job as a senior research scientist in a biotech company. What I didn't know was, like the character Neo in the movie, I was about to take the “red pill” and pop out of the matrix. The known script of my life was reaching its last page.

Seattle, known for its rainy winter, offers an occasional February day with a warm, early spring sun. During a lunch break, I leisurely drove my “white horse” out of the office building in the Lake Union neighborhood, an upcoming tech zone full of glimmering, modern architecture. Eager to have my lunch break with a good friend, Monica, an astrologer working at the East West Bookshop, I headed to the corner of 65th and Roosevelt Street, about three miles north.

My "white horse" was the Chinese nickname for a top-of-the-line Nissan Maxima, the first car my husband Tao[1] bought after he got a job at Microsoft. In China, Maxima has a romantic market name, Chien Li Ma, meaning “The Thousand-Mile Horse”. Since this car is white, and White Horse is a popular term for Prince Charming, the Perfect Man, Tao and I jokingly called the car the white horse.

In 1999, nine years earlier, Tao and I met when we were both graduate students attending the University of Iowa. Tao pursued his master's degree in computer science while I studied for a Doctorate in molecular biology as well as a master’s degree in biostatistics. Tao got his dream job in Seattle after graduating with his master's degree and bought a brand-new, white Maxima to celebrate.

Tao and I grew up in China before industrialization swept through China and before material wealth exploded. When we were young, no working-class people owned a car. They commuted on bikes and buses. Our parents’ annual wages averaged a couple hundred dollars. We lived a simple and slower-paced life, unconcerned by the paucity of our material possessions compared to the developed world. Coming to the US and buying a car right out of graduate school, at that time, was a big deal, not just to us but also to our families back in China!

A year later, I also graduated with my PhD, and followed Tao to Seattle. We settled in our home near Microsoft Park in the suburbs. Tao was close to work, but every day I had to drive to the city on the freeway for my job. As a husband who dearly loved his wife, Tao gave his beloved white horse to me.

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My work never burdened me, and I often indulged in long lunch breaks. I drove the "white horse" around the city of Seattle, meeting friends and eating together. I enjoy Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. In addition to reasonable prices, their food flavors compliment my Asian palate. I do not often go to Chinese restaurants, as overly-Americanized Chinese food offends my authentic Chinese stomach.

I worked for a biotech company belonging to a division of Merck, a major pharmaceutical company. Although a scientific research institution, our company bore a mysterious name: Rosetta.

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian stele unearthed in 1799. As with all edicts of the Pharaoh of the ancient Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, the priests recorded this one in hieroglyphs. At the time the Rosetta stone was discovered, the ability to interpret hieroglyphs had been lost. Archaeologists could not decipher the Egyptian writing.

But the Rosetta Stone is unique.  The same edict is written in three languages. The top 14 lines are hieroglyphs from ancient Egypt. The middle 32 lines consist of Egyptian cursive script, followed by 54 lines of ancient Greek. Using the ancient Greek, which was still understood, a physicist and a linguist used this stone tablet to decode the text and grammatical structure of the lost ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic language.

The company I worked for sat on the leading edge in the field of biotech back then. It was founded by a former Harvard professor considered by the industry as a genius nerd. As one of the pioneers in what’s called “microarray technology” Rosetta applied chip technology to medical and pharmaceutical research, "printing" the entire genome, tens of thousands of genes in an organism, on a glass chip smaller than a thumb nail. This technology brought about a revolution in biopharmaceutical research. Before that, biologists could only measure the activity of a few genes at a time. Using these microarray chips, the amount of data available for research exploded like a tidal wave, creating a new field called bioinformatics. I worked on analyzing the big data collected for drug research ten years before “Big Data” became known in popular culture.

In the opening scene of the movie The Matrix, the main character Neo, a software engineer, stares at a computer screen flashing with computer codes and numbers. My job looked a lot like that. Except Neo is a fictional character, whereas I am a full-fleshed woman!

Stephen, the founder of Rosetta, wore glasses with green or pink rims. His deep eyes and colorful frames added a sense of fantasy, a surreal air to his presence. The first time I met him was when he interviewed me for my job. When he was talking to me, his eyes didn’t focus on my face, but stared into some black hole outside of the three-dimensional world behind me. While we were engaging in a dialogue, it appeared as though a million computations were happening in Stephen’s head. I believed he attempted to analyze me down to the atomic level. As we wrapped up the interview, he said to me with a tone of authority, “I think I know you now better than you know yourself.”

“How disrespectful to say something like that to someone you just met!” A small voice grumbled inside. But I did not allow my expression to give me away. As an immigrant, I needed the job to get a green card and a stable income. I deferred. Another one of these nerdy, self-centered scientists who always insist they know more than anyone else. I sighed inside. Clearly, Stephen had no clue about his rudeness. In the field with American academics for six years, I had become accustomed to this kind of unconscious offense from hyper-rational, insensitive science nerds.

Stephen named the company Rosetta because genes are the code language of biological evolution. His scientific ambition to decode life sat alongside a dabbling in metaphysics and spirituality – Taoism and Tai Chi. It is said that his cosmic perspective, gleaned from the Tao Te Ching, inspired his imagination to attempt putting tens of thousands of genes in the genome on a tiny glass chip. He succeeded.

The big data era was in its infancy then. The industry hailed my research group as a "special forces" in the field of bioinformatics. This special force team consisted of ten scientists, three from former Soviet Union countries including Russia and Ukraine, and seven from China. How ironic that Merck, a pharmaceutical company steeped in capitalism, hired a group of scientist elites cultivated by socialist countries to fill this high-stake role. Besides another younger female Chinese graduate student who worked as an assistant, I was the only woman scientist on this team.

To work in this elite team required knowledge and skills in two important subjects: biology and statistics. Chinese people's minds, strong in mathematics and physics, coupled with a strong cultural value on the quality of hard work, made us valuable employees. The two chief scientists on our team were Weidong and Yuejin, highly respected Chinese researchers at the time. Their names, translated as Protecting Chairman Mao, and A Great Leap, are typical names for Chinese people born around the 1950s, when fervent worshipping of Chair Mao and his ideology reached a high peak. These two scientists, poached by Stephen from the field of astronomy, both possessed a solid foundation in mathematics. After being persuaded to change careers, they picked up biology books, committed themselves to transforming into biologists, and succeeded.

In graduate school, I had been trained to become a bench scientist. But I hated it. I hated the repetitive labor of pipetting microliters of chemicals into tiny tubes. Killing lab rats and mice made me nauseous. Handling radioactive materials repulsed me. Coming to graduate school had been a means to leave China so I could explore a different way of life in America. I was not at all wedded to the subject matter. Once I made it to America, I realized in no way could I live my life killing lab rats, much less fumbling with radioactive materials that could increase the possibility of my getting cancer.

Just by a stroke of cosmic chance, the School of Public Health and Biostatistics happened to be right next door to my laboratory. Compelled by an impulse, I enrolled myself in a master's degree program in biostatistics, which turned out to give my math-minded brain a better suited outlet. I did not do any research into the career prospects for biostatistics. Anything would be better than a bench biologist. Acting on impulse when coming to big decisions has been a running theme in my life. It is both my “superpower” and the bane of my existence!

By the time I graduated, the microarray technology field had emerged. My dual education in molecular biology and now, biostatistics, made me a hot commodity in this emerging field, as very few people carried advanced degrees in both subjects. Without any effort, I was recruited into this high-paying, high-prestige special forces team.

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I knew in my heart that I was only pretending to be a scientist. I chose the path of scientific research primarily because of my parents. Both astronomers, they spent their entire careers at the Shanghai Astronomy Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I was born in the dormitory of the Sheshan Observatory, an outpost on the top of a little hill on the outskirts of Shanghai.

As a toddler, I wandered around the observatory’s giant telescopes pointing to the distant corners of the sky. I watched my mother churning numbers and calculating the orbits of stars. At that time, Chinese society operated under a strong and unquestionable Newtonian perspective, assuming the world is made of lifeless material that can be reduced to the smallest units for scientists and engineers to analyze, measure, and manipulate to fulfill man’s desires. The most symbolic manifesto is Chairman’s famous four-word slogan, Ren Ding Sheng Tian, meaning humans must conquer nature![2] This slogan was plastered on posters around cities and villages, and incorporated into radio programs, textbooks, and newspapers. The slogan posed a sharp contrast to another four-word phrase, Tian Ren He Yi, meaning nature and humans live in harmony with one another, the ancient Taoist perspective that Chinese culture inhabited and embodied for thousands of years.

Growing up with both societal and parental influence, I fell into science as my career path only because I could not see any possibility to explore or even consider other choices. But my heart never bought into that cold, Newtonian view of the world. To me, the natural world was alive. A forest bathed in morning mist whispered an enchanting hum. Ants talked to each other and transmitted detailed information by touching each other’s antennae. And the stars! The stars sang to me at night through their twinkling light and lifted my body into the milky way! Somewhere in my heart I knew this as a truer version of the world. But as a little girl, I had no means to argue with the dominant narrative. All I could do was to hide this more beautiful living world in my heart and observe the social belief in silence, pretending to go along with what everyone said.

My silence and reticence to speak my truth changed when I met my astrologer friend Monica. She introduced me to the field of metaphysics including its new languages, symbols, and ways to relate with the enlivened world my heart felt and knew. After spending time hanging out with Monica, I realized that although I was wearing the label "scientist", I yearned for a deeper discovery of the greater mysteries alive in my heart. My true passion lay in the metaphysical studies which are frowned upon, considered “not valid” or “wacky” by my scientist colleagues. At best, pursuing the ethereal could be a fashionable hobby as my boss Stephen did. But no self-respecting scientist could take metaphysics seriously and claim it as her primary subject. That would lead to certain career suicide!

When it was time to go to lunch with Monica, I couldn’t wait. Wearing my scientist disguise day after day exhausted me, but when I was with Monica, I could put away the mask and be myself without pretense.

To be fair, I don't dislike scientific thinking. My parents passed along great intelligence. Through my hard-earned degrees, I enjoyed developing a strong logical mind and an ability to think critically and analyze a problem. I am good at big data analysis and relish the thrill of making complex computations. What troubled me was the pretense that the Newtonian worldview is primary and the only “right” way to understand the universe. It pains me when people use this view to invalidate other, more ancient and indigenous worldviews! As when Stephen claimed that he knew me better than I knew myself, dogmatic scientists claim the worldview coming from their existing scientific knowledge can explain everything! I rejected this arrogant attitude that the scientific community held toward life.

I believed that to understand life, we needed much more than just a Newtonian, material-centric scientific paradigm. I also doubted the pharmaceutical industry, led by people with an arrogant scientific attitude could resist the greed for profit propelled by capitalism. Many signs I saw from inside suggested this industry placed the need for growing profits above the interest of human health. As a result, my conscience suffered. When a profit-driven drug industry became the primary pillar of a medical system, I saw it doing more harm to human health than good.

Of course, every scientist I met inside the industry thought they were working toward better human health. No one would intentionally choose to profit from human suffering. However, I saw the social forces of capitalism working in insidious ways, preying on the human unconscious. I saw collective greed being too hard to address when people are not in touch with their unconscious feelings and motives.

This is why science and metaphysics need each other – both are studies of the unknown. Astronomers and astrologers study stars in the sky, but their methods and intentions differ. Astronomers take themselves out of the picture and treat the stars as objects, separate from themselves. From that perspective, they gather and analyze data, apply reason and logic, and uncover deeper laws governing the universe. Whereas astrologers place themselves in the picture. They ask what if the stars, their movements and relationships, reflect who I am inside? From that perspective, astrologers use myth, intuition and introspection to discover one’s true purpose in relation to the world. I see science studying the unknown territories of the outer world, whereas metaphysical studies explore the unknown territories of the inner world, the scientist herself. They complement each other really well!

Science and technology have grown into a power that can benefit or destroy humanity. Scientists and engineers have become the “priests” of modernity, serving as intermediaries between humanity and the formidable powers released by modern technologies. Yet, without adequate self-knowledge and inner awareness, the well-educated people serving these roles can potentially unleash terrible destruction. Our society already has wide proliferations of technologies such as nuclear bombs, as well as widespread extraction and construction methods that kill biodiversity and disrupt the equilibrium of ecosystems everywhere. And now, the question of how Artificial Intelligence will impact the social fabric becomes daunting.

I believe humanity needs to form an alliance between science and metaphysics. We not only need to apply scientific thinking to understand the wonder of nature, we also need to engage the wonder carried within the human heart and soul, the inner domain of a scientist. In this way, we might gain access to a deeper wisdom allowing humanity to harness the power of science and technology towards enhancing the quality of life, instead of rendering humans as slaves to the “machine”.

Ten minutes after leaving work, I sat in the Royal Palm restaurant sipping a cup of green tea as I waited for Monica to appear. Royal Palm is a Thai restaurant opposite the East West Bookshop where Monica offered astrology readings.

At that time, sixty-fifth street, located north of the University of Washington, was largely a community of intellectuals, middle class, and former hippies, many of whom held a keen interest in Eastern philosophy and spirituality. The East West Bookshop specialized in books on metaphysics, body, mind, philosophy, and religion. They also sold tools for body and mind to enhance spiritual practice. Yoga clothing, mats, Buddhist incense, beads, meditation mats, essential oils, crystals, gems, everything a New Age person might want to fulfill a desire for engaging the metaphysical. The store, infused with light sandalwood incense, washed by the faint sound of sea waves over the sound system. Friendly, soft-spoken shop assistants greeted shop patrons, primarily well-off white middle class people seeking a refuge from their high-paced stressful lives.

Within a few minutes, Monica strode into the restaurant. Quite tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, Monica wore her hair so long, it hung to her waist like a waterfall. That day, she wore a large, deep blue, silky robe. As she crossed the restaurant to join me, her powerful steps swished and floated the robe away from her body into the breeze. Every time I met her, she looked to me like a shaman from the fifth century walking out of the Mayan jungle.

As usual, she hugged me tightly, kissed my cheek, and after exchanging simple greetings, we began to order. I ordered fried broccoli with crispy tofu, and Monica ordered Thai fried rice noodles. While waiting for the dishes, Monica began to talk to me about astrological transits and the corresponding events she observed.

"Recently, the temple's board of directors met when Mercury was in retrograde. Do you know how difficult it is to communicate when Mercury is in retrograde?" Monica is a member of the board of directors of the Sakya Tibetan Monastery, two miles down the road from the Thai restaurant.

Monica went on talking at length about the administrative affairs she was steeped in as well as the subtle energetics she read from them. I listened to Monica like a child snuggling next to a beloved aunty telling a dramatic story. Through her words, I peered into a world distant from my corporate job – the world of ancient temples and astrological events. The world where physical and non-physical realities meet and contact each other.

Monica and I met two years earlier, in 2006, at the Tibetan Spring Festival fair held by Sakya Monastery At that time, I had just returned from a pilgrimage to the sacred mountain, Khawa Karpo, also known as Mt Meili, on the Yunnan-Tibet Highway.

[1] The character for my husband’s name Tao is 涛, which means ocean wave. At the same time, Tao, in English, also means the Tao, (道 as the Chinese character), the Way, the Indigenous Chinese cosmology and mystic tradition, one of the central themes of this memoir. However, this is not a meaningless coincidence, as the Way of the Water is always seen as a metaphor for the Tao.

[2] The more literal translation should be human must conquer heaven. However, heaven, or 天, pronounced as Tian, has connotations very different from heaven in English. In English, the word heaven may carry a religious undertone, contrasting with “hell”. Not so in Chinese. The world heaven refers to the cosmos, the wilder and contiguous nature that connects and includes all. I believe the more appropriate translation for the character Tian here should be nature, instead of heaven.

[Read Chapter Two here]

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