It has taken me a while to get this onto my website.  I hit the road and have been busy figuring out many things.  Here is the note that I sent to all my beloved clients:
I feel totally blessed daily. I found a subject, Chinese Medicine that I have loved and learned from for nearly 4 full decades. It has been exciting and engrossing. I’ve been able to move together with you going from one element to the next and supporting you where you can transform within this understanding. It has been my honor to serve in this way. My heart is full.

Chinese Medicine became a spiritual path for me so that everything in life contributes to it. From the moment I started my practice I learned to come from a heart place that knows that there are invisible realities as well as visible ones and that the large questions are implicit in the asking of the small ones. My life as a practitioner revealed the questions of who we are and how we come here to heal.

It is now my time to take a different path. I am writing to let you know that I will be going into semi-retirement starting at the end of October. This has nothing to do with Covid. I decided that I would retire from full-time work at this time several years ago. It will be autumn and as we move into the metal season, I will be letting go of what was and stepping toward different goals. I will focus more on cultivating my qi, taking my own deep exploration inwardly, outwardly visiting beautiful parks, doing my arts and crafts, and visiting the people who I love. And I will make journeys that I have long postponed. It is the right time of life to make this exploration.

I am closing my practice toward the end of October. My focus on healing will continue as I will teach meditation and Qigong, sometimes in person and sometimes by zoom. I will be doing distance work, mentoring healers, and doing spiritual readings. I’ll probably be doing things that I don’t even know about yet. I have a built out Promaster Dodge Ram and will be exploring the wonders of a nomadic life. And I hope to have a YouTube channel on the spiritual aspects of this journey. I have already placed crystals in the insulation of the van according to the bagua of feng shui. For more on this wait for the YouTube channel.

I have loved serving you and operating within the paradigm of Chinese Medicine which has never grown old. And I am thankful for shifts in consciousness and healing that have happened. Every chapter in life has a beginning and an ending, it’s my moment to make the shift to the next phase.

Please know I will do everything I can to support you in this transition. You can keep up with me at evesoldinger.com.


In light and love,
Eve

It really is spring.  Now we are rounding the bend with the passing of the Spring Equinox with the rare but welcomed balance between light and dark.  It was totally windy yesterday on the exact day, but that seemed to let you know with the wind all things move.   This morning I transitioned into the longer walk from 2 miles to 3 miles in the morning.  I saw a fox managing to flee across East West Highway without being hit.  That was amazing.

 We all see and experience the Spring with all the changing vibrations of growth.  The buds are appearing everywhere.  We are well into the yang time of year where everything grows dramatically.  Foxes can be seen in morning traffic.  In our own lives we are aware of where we will step to grow and engage during this next phase of life.

Always pursuing my growing edge in Qigong, last week I watched several presentations at the Qigong Summit sponsored by the Shirt Network.  They were all great.  I thought I would share one story told by Ken Cohen, an amazing historian and Qigong teacher.  He was studying with a 94-year-old man in India and following him up a mountain. He was astonished that it was hard to keep up with him.   And he felt that this man must hold the secret to immortality. He asked him if he did, and he answered yes. He asked him for the information and then they sat down to have a cup of tea.

The man told him that there were four things to living a good life and having a healthy life. The first was simplicity.  The second was acceptance about life’s changes, the third adaptability, and last embracing the wisdom of childhood.  If you experience life with where you live in simplicity you do avoid the habits that keep you always wanting something next.  Some of us find ourselves within this pattern.  Keep it simple

Life is challenging and presents obstacles and challenging situations.  Being able to live in acceptance of what comes instead of resisting it is important to finding inner peace.  And then being able to adapt to the coming changes is a sign of true emotional development.   We all get caught in certain kinds of events and find it difficult to find our way back to ourselves and to our hearts.

And having the possibility of being in the wisdom of childhood gives you the opportunity to be in total awe in every moment.  Life can be endlessly exciting if you notice it for the first time.  Take joy in everything that happens and be in your childhood wisdom.

I’m not sure the year, but in the late 1990s I was hiking a trail in Arizona with a friend.   We had walked perhaps 2 miles and he wanted to sit while I insisted on going a little further up the trail in the hope of locating some petroglyphs that I had read about.  Thinking it might just be a 10-minute walk I ventured forward while my friend settled in one spot to wait for me.  

I can remember watching my feet take each step forward and thinking that I needed to rush because of keeping him waiting.  I kept going forward.  I hadn’t gone more than a half mile when all of the sudden I heard a rattle.  It’s an unmistakable sound.  Less than 10 feet away, I saw the rattlesnake shaking his rattle, coiled and ready to get me off his property.  

I know what you are supposed to do.  Stand still.  Wait for the rattlesnake to settle down.  However, the adrenaline was rushing, and I could already feel my heart pounding outside of my chest.  No thinking was involved.  The fear was real and immediate.  I made a move that I hadn’t even tried before.  I went up in the air and went back 5 feet.  I think I screamed as I heard my friend running toward me. 

I just wanted to see the petroglyphs on the side of the rocks.  Instead, I experienced fear and terror.  There was no doubt that if that rattle hadn’t started to warn me, that I would have been bitten.  The petroglyphs didn’t matter anymore, but the fear did.  I felt it throughout my body.  This was a very dangerous moment. 

Much of fear that we experience now is apprehension.  The dangers are real and often not immediate.  The virus that we realize now is so contagious is surging.  But we can be calm.  We can be careful.  We can exercise, eat well, do qigong, wear a mask, take our vitamin D and Zinc and take one step at a time through this.  

The opportunity in all this, as I repeatedly have said is to examine how we will create life after this is over.   What have we learned about our needs?  How do we want to create life?  What is the balance between work and home?  What are you really interested in?  Is there a subject that you have taken up that is your passion?  

In keeping with this questioning there is a Winter Solstice coming up.  We are walking-putting one step in front of the other toward it.   It is the day with the least amount of light, yet it is the day that we can receive the most information to go forward.  This is a moment for contemplation.   There is a point on the Bladder/ Water Meridian called the ‘extremity of yin’.  The Yin is all about receiving.   This Bladder point is the last point on the meridian by the little toe before the Qi begins to move up again.  This is the moment to be still until we are ready to put one foot in front of the other. 

According to the Chinese Calendar, on November 7^th each year the 3-month season of Winter begins.  But last week in Washington, DC it was 75 degrees which makes it a difficult moment to talk about and prepare for the coming season.  But today when I went outdoors it was 47 degrees and I was properly clothed for Winter and ready to initiate this conversation.  

Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and I savor the chance to look at the bare bones of branches and trunks.  In the casual staring at them I feel my own energy going inward to a quieter place where I don’t want to speak.  I find I need a peaceful existence.  Why might you ask, do I speak of a more peaceful existence during a pandemic time when we can hardly spend time out or with other people?  Aren’t we already as quiet as life allows? 

Even during this separateness, we can go to a quieter time with more meditation and stillness.  It requires that we sleep more, and gently accept what we can and can’t do as we need to go deep and learn to receive or what we might call ‘yin’ time in Chinese Medicine.  Without the proper rest we can’t build up our resources to understand that we always have enough, or we can create enough.  I find it as a nesting period through which we can develop the capacity to find faith in whatever comes next. 

The element associated with the Winter is the Water Element.  Water can fill any container, can be fluid running through mountain streams, can be snow and ice, and then melt to water the land.  Water brings renewal and cleansing.  The calm lakes reflect the trees and moon and stillness and silence surround the same deep waters.  

I invite you to embrace this coming season.  See what inspires you during these longer nights.  Invite the dreams that you make become real.  And when you look at the still water to find your reflection, truly look to your depths.  Much joy will follow you in this Winter Wonderland.