Medicine Man

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A good friend of mine has been studying with a Native American medicine man named Howard Bad Hand for several years. Howard lives in Taos, New Mexico, and he comes to Boulder periodically to teach and give I Ching readings. When my friend explained how Howard came to be a Taoist medicine man, I was fascinated by his unusual story. As a young man, Howard was an alcoholic until the day he wandered into a bookstore and picked up a copy of the I Ching. After paging through it, he was struck by a thunderbolt of recognition from his soul. He put down the bottle, picked up the Book of Changes, and found his life path. Howard chants at Sun Dances, offers sweats and healing ceremonies, and his counseling sessions combine Taoist wisdom with keen insight and clairvoyance.

Howard Bad Hand is as intense as his name suggests, and when I decided to have a reading with him, I was a little nervous. My friend told me that Howard doesn't pull any punches; he says what he sees, and if you're not ready to hear it, well, too bad for you. When I arrived at my friend's house for my reading, I was a few minutes early and I sat in the kitchen with a cup of green tea while Howard finished eating his dinner. As the dishes were cleared away, I was invited into the dining room, and met Howard's steady, piercing gaze. He had long, silver hair, a craggy, handsome face and a no nonsense air about him. After a brief introduction, we got down to business. I expected to throw the customary I Ching coins, but Howard bypasses that step and simply asks his client to choose a series of numbers, and then he calculates which hexagram the numbers correspond to.

Hexagram 43

Breakthrough

I chose Hexagram 43, Breakthrough. The I Ching has always struck me as a an obscure oracle, and I have never really been drawn to it. But my gut tells me that it's a very powerful system, and that whenever it crosses my path, I should pay attention to what it is telling me. When Howard said that Hexagram 43 means Breakthrough, I thought that like sounded pretty good news. But as he began to explain its meaning, I sobered up and listened carefully. The image of Hexagram 43, which is also called Kuai, is a lake that is rising up to heaven. But when a lake rises to heaven, it can cause a violent cloudburst. Metaphorically, the waters of the rising lake represent rising passions, and when they reach heaven, they can be released in a storm of passionate emotion.

Impassioned Storm: Tornado and Lightning

The deep meaning that is hidden within Hexagram 43 is the battle of passion versus reason, or evil versus good. The mistake is to jump into the fray of good against evil, releasing passions that can cause violent, destructive storms. Howard told me that my passions are too intense and they transform into anger and rage too easily. He recognized that my rage is aimed towards injustice in the world, towards the powerless people being controlled and destroyed by the powerful. He said that I take on the suffering of the world, but that is a destructive practice that does not benefit anyone, least of all me. My problem is that I have not been accepting life on its own terms. In his stoic, patient manner, he said that good and evil will always exist and that I can't do anything about that.

I was aware of this problem that I have, and I was amazed that he zeroed in one of my unconscious complexes that was causing me a lot of trouble, and that may even be one of the deep causes of my cancer. When I asked him how to work with this issue, he said that I must change my attitudes. He said that whenever I feel rage towards greedy power abusers, I cause more harm than good because I shift into a violent vibratory level, and I actually become evil. This hexagram is very specific in its direction to step away from the battle of good against evil, and to keep emotionally disengaged. I found this great quote about Hexagram 43 at the following web address: http://deoxy.org/iching/43.

If we do evil the favor of fighting against it blow for blow, we lose in the end because thus we ourselves get entangled in hatred and passion. Therefore it is important to begin at home, to be on guard in our own persons against the faults we have branded. In this way, finding no opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil become dulled. For the same reasons we should not combat our own faults directly. As long as we wrestle with them, they continue victorious. Finally, the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good.

Howard emphasized that I need to create peace and equanimity within myself in order to heal. He said I add much unnecessary stress to my life with my attitudes and mindsets, and that these forces were actually strong enough to kill me. His piercing gaze felt hypnotic as he quietly stated that I can cure myself completely from cancer with mind medicine. He looked clairvoyantly into the tumor over my heart and said he would be willing to perform some healing ceremonies for me in Taos, but that neither he nor anyone else can help me if I don't heal my attitudes.

His last piece of advice, which was very difficult to hear, was that Indian medicine men do not believe in chemotherapy, and he gravely recommended against it. I had a feeling he would say this because of my experience with my Native American spirit guide, Mother, who came to me at my doctor's office weeks before. She had told me how she felt about the ways Western medicine fights cancer. Very simply, she said, "It's' not our way." And that's exactly what Howard said. "It's not our way." But I had already had my port surgically inserted into my chest, which is a device that gives the nurses easy access to a large vein in my chest for the application of chemotherapy IV's, and I had been emotionally preparing to accept the chemotherapy as a modality of healing that I greatly needed. This was a very difficult aspect of my reading with Howard Bad Hand, because I sensed so much truth in everything he was saying, but in the end, we have to pick and choose from the sea of advice that floods into the lives of cancer sufferers, and there are many tough decisions to make. So, I chose to go through with my chemotherapy, but also to focus unflinchingly on my mental attitudes that produce rage and act against compassion.

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