Harnessing Awareness for Healing with Brandt Stickley, L.Ac.

Today’s Guest

Brandt Stickley is an Assistant Professor in the College of Classical Chinese Medicine, National University of Natural Medicine, and a Visiting Professor at Dragon Rises College of Oriental Medicine, Pacific Rim College, Five Branches University, Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences, Yo San University and Maryland University of Integrative Health.  As a Senior Instructor and Board member of Dragon Rises Seminars he teaches Shen-Hammer Pulse Diagnosis.  Brandt is a graduate of Cornell University and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.  He has worked closely with Dr. Leon Hammer for 20 years, and is considered an authority on the model of Chinese medical Psychology developed by Dr. Hammer.  In his own development of this school of thought, he has relentlessly pursued a synthesis of Classical Han and Tang Dynasty herbal medicine and acupuncture, Chinese magical medicine, philosophy and religion, with concepts of psychosomatic medicine, body-oriented psychology, neuro-phenomenology, process-oriented philosophy, imaginal, integral, and consciousness studies.  He brings all of these disciplines to play in striving to intend the impossible as a clinician, teacher, writer and speaker.  In theory and in practice, Brandt’s work seeks to establish Classical Chinese medicine as a vital psychosomatic and physiosemiotic current in the evolution of consciousness and the alleviation of suffering. 

RESOURCES

Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

Shang Han Lun: On Cold Damage, Translation & Commentaries

Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies: Psychology & Chinese Medicine

Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings

Focusing

The Ever-Present Origin

Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness

Adrian Bejan – Constructal Law

episode transcription

Heather Clark 

Welcome to Unshakable Being, inspiration and practical tools for purpose led helpers, guides and leaders like you to shift out of stress, stop going in circles, and get what you want in your life, body and business. I am Dr. Heather Clark, and I’ll be your host.

Heather Clark 

Hello and thank you so much for joining us again on Unshakable Being. Today we have Brandt Stickley, who is a professor of classical Chinese medicine, and teaches in multiple doctoral programs and has his own practice in Portland, Oregon. Brandt, welcome to the show.

Brandt Stickley 

Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

Heather Clark 

I am so pleased to have you on I encountered Brandt. I was listening to a different podcast and he was sharing about so many wonderful things. But one of the things that really piqued my interest is he has a slightly different take on medicine and healing and how our worldview can impact that. So, Brandt, if you’re willing, let’s just dive right in. What’s healing?

Brandt Stickley 

That’s a good one. Healing is fundamentally I think, described as a process of flowing with a continual state of change in a way that harnesses resources, internal resources into an adaptive and fluid response to changes in the environment.

Brandt Stickley 

Anything that expresses an adaptive restorative dynamic In response to what could be perceived as stresses or influences from outside, will work towards creating wholeness. And wholeness is, of course, an A major, it’s etymologically, even an aspect of healing.

Heather Clark 

I completely adore that. And I really like the perspective that isn’t it isn’t a fixing something that’s broken. It’s not a correcting something that’s gone awry. It’s simply a fluid response to change.

Brandt Stickley 

Right? It’s it now and that doesn’t mean that it can’t mess it can’t be restorative. Right there are there are systems in the body, and and functions within the body, which can be seemingly damaged beyond the body’s capacity to self repair, without the without the introduction of another stimulus or part of a major part of that stimulus is simply that what what is behind all what’s behind that stimulus is awareness more than anything else.

Brandt Stickley 

What we call healing is the process of harnessing harnessing the, the unlimited infinite, endlessly, self organizing and self creating manifestation of awareness, as it intersects with all of the patterns of human physiology and that and by patterns of human physiology that admits necessarily a physical aspects, mental aspects, emotional aspects And spiritual aspects, all of which are, all of which are, in a sense holographically nested within each other. And each responsive to any stimulus that it comes into contact with it in some way.

Brandt Stickley 

And I think that there’s a fantastic book called, called Meditations on the Tarot. The author was the author published it posthumously and anonymously. And we know now that it was actually that the author’s name was actually Valentin Tomberg. But one of the statements from that book, which I I, I heartily endorse, by the way, It’s probably one of the most significant spiritual documents produced in the West in the 20th century. I can say that unequivocally. And in awareness and then and and really embedded in a in a European context also, which is interesting that in that one of the statements that’s resonated with me from that text is the subtle rules the dense.

Heather Clark 

ooo

Brandt Stickley 

And another way of putting that in if you were to translate that into a kind of Chinese medicine, classical Chinese medicine language, you would say, the southern this, the subtle governs the dense and the word governs is an English translation of a Chinese word. jure which means, which means governs which means directs. But also means is also could be traveling as treats

Brandt Stickley 

so there’s a lot of my work focuses on a specific Chinese medicine text which is called the Shang Han Lun. And that is a proximately, a 2000 year old herbal medicine text that describes that describes patterns and how patterns manifest and then what to do about them. And many of the many of the lines that aphorisms and kind of descriptions of these patterns ends with the phrase such and such a formula governs it.

Brandt Stickley 

So Yeah, so it’s it’s that that jure, jure means to treat. And there’s another term. There’s another term also ju, which means, which means governs and is also translated as treat. Right. So there’s a quality of correspondence between those terms.

Heather Clark 

Can you give us a little bit of an example so that we can ground our understanding and what you mean by subtle, subtle rules to dance, like, could you make that just a little bit more tangible,

Brandt Stickley 

right? So it’s so the subtle rules the dense the d e n s e, means that in the manifestation of so that it’s a simple example of that is how a thought can affect the physical body. And the physical body can equally affect thought. And it does that through subtle, subtle dynamics. Now on the one hand, the spiritual, what we would term have to term the spiritual, which is necessarily admits of paradox, and ineffability. And it’s something which is by its nature, not completely knowable, something that’s always somehow fugitive to our full cognitive grasp. That’s, that’s a that’s a definition of the spiritual and those aspects. Anything which admits of those aspects has a more profound influence has the potential to exert more profound influence than the merely physical does. But at the same time, every physical, every physical manifestation also admits of its own unknown quality. And so every physical thing also admits of the spiritual. But the impulses coming from more spiritual dimensions of our experience are of greater importance to how things unfold.

Heather Clark 

Which is a completely different point of view than most of us in the Western world and Western traditions take.

Brandt Stickley 

Yeah,

Heather Clark 

yeah.

Brandt Stickley 

Now, imagine taking that notion and then creating an entire system of medicine around it.

Heather Clark 

Well, Why not? I mean really we’ve done it the other way and here we all are.

Heather Clark 

There are so many different places I want to go with this. Let me just first comment how, how much I adore that Meditations on the Tarot is one of the most powerful spiritual books that you can recommend. I love that so much because really inspiration can be found anywhere. And it is almost a different example of the subtle rules the dense.

Heather Clark 

So this whole idea of the example of using thoughts influence the physical and then of course physical influence the thoughts it’s a slightly different take on thoughts become things. Have you seen this played out not only in your own life, but that of your, your patients and your clients?

Brandt Stickley 

Well, so absolutely, and I should say a little bit about what the nature of my work is. which is that I practice it I teach and practice Chinese medicine. And to, to a pretty significant degree. Most of most of my work centers around psychiatric conditions. And you can frame that out also as you can also, you can also frame that out as psychological conditions or you can phrase it as mental emotional conditions. But that’s the core of my work and that’s the core of my, my research and my main interest. And so within that

Brandt Stickley 

Within that, there are it’s simply, it’s quite simply that how one experiences the world is necessarily influenced by what they have experienced in their life. Everything that anyone has ever experienced, is somewhere in their body in some fashion. As it happens, everything that will happen in your life is also present in your body in a nascent form and

Brandt Stickley 

that can only be understood temporarily. That if we allow the past, the present and the future to be one continuous quality intensity with a quality of duration and not view it as the past somewhere at the present is be here now and then the past is not here now and the future is not here now. As if the as if the present were a place here where we could actually be, which is somehow separate from the spatial expression of the past or the future, if we can be present to the entire flow of that

Brandt Stickley 

intensity, that temporal quality, it’s easy to recognize that the thing that everything that’s happened to you is present somehow within you as an expression of time intersecting with physical and therefore, everything that will happen in the future is also present. within you, but neither of them this is the really intense part. Neither the past nor the future are fixed, if they admit of the same quality of duration, neither of them is fixed and they can be transformed.

Brandt Stickley 

And that requires to, to under to understand that and to actually feel that in your in one’s own body and in identify it in one’s own experience requires a fundamental shift of one’s consciousness to be able to perceive or even perceive it. And that shift in consciousness can only only happen under states have only happened within states, where one is clearly in contact with the infinity the infinite Quality of awareness. And it is, it is focused through attention in a manner that one could say, attention is like a play thing in the hands of awareness. And if we can place our attention somewhere in our body, we can actually perceive aspects of its past and its present and its future simultaneously.

Brandt Stickley 

Now, if we can identify that place in a body and somehow use an acupuncture needle, to introduce as if it were an antenna, that is calling that state of calling that state of awareness into attention of pure unconstrained plentipotentialality that opens the door for so called subtle energies to manifest within the body. So here’s a clear example.

Brandt Stickley 

At an incredibly prosaic example,

Brandt Stickley 

if a person comes in and they’re having an upper respiratory infection, such as what we would call the common cold. One way of looking at that is my goal is to restore the system to a state of natural function, such that the body is not being overwhelmed by coming into contact with some environmental factor. And that could be a virus, it could be an environmental factor, or a change in the weather could be an environmental factor. Both of those things, act in certain ways. In recognizable ways that constrain the body’s adaptability and ability to respond fluidly.

Brandt Stickley 

So if a body is locked in a state of common cold, and I’m approaching and I’m trying to restore natural function, all I’m trying to do is look through that experience towards a future in which that already existent transformation of the common cold experience has been achieved. And I’m calling that future self which is free of that upper respiratory infection into this moment so that as if it could come in and inhabit the body of the present.

Brandt Stickley 

Does that make sense?

Heather Clark 

That makes perfect sense. Oh, I’m here for all of this. I love this. I have a question about. So I love this metaphor, I just enjoy this so much and then using the acupuncture needle as an antenna to really call attention to this pure energy. What, if any role does the person on the receiving end? What does their thought process their worldview? The metaphor that they see this through what impact does that have on their results, if any?

Brandt Stickley 

Well, that’s a good question. So, the answer to that is, of course, it has an influence. It has to have an influence. But there is a there is a–an experience of awareness prior to its manifestation as thought, which that thought can branch out, right everything is coming everything arises from a from a unified state where it then moves from a state of unity towards a expression of duality and then that duality, as soon as that duality which we call Yin and Yang, as soon as that emerges as two poles of one state, two poles of one unity, then it admits of movement.

Brandt Stickley 

And that movement is like best likened to the breathing. It’s likened to the breath, the breath of life, the breath of the cosmos, the breath which in enlivens us, which is described almost universally almost universally the breath is described as the spirit that animates humanity animates life what confirmed what describes life is the presence of breath. There’s a, there’s there’s the first breath that we take and the final breath that we take are both mediated by the process of breathing. And they’re both and the final breath we take is present in the first breath and the first breath is present and the final breath.

Brandt Stickley 

And so, if a person can, in in spite of let’s say their intense skepticism, if a person through the process is able to pause and recognize awareness prior to It’s differentiation into a discernment of a pattern which a pattern which gives rise to the attitude.  And can identify that moment and can feel that moment in their body can feel that awareness within them. Then it’s as if the resistance has been transformed or the resistance has been seen through. And that’s one of the fundamental.

Brandt Stickley 

That’s one of the fundamental intentions that we can hold. I can’t go I can’t necessarily go into a therapeutic encounter and foist an intention upon someone. That’s not my goal, my my, my goal is to have what would be called an acausal intention, an intention which doesn’t involve the influence of me exerting my will over an outcome, but is a description of my intention to hold a space that is consistent with the pure expression of awareness that will give rise to likewise and awareness of potential transformation for the patient.

Heather Clark 

And do you find the results are just as good based on it’s you holding the intention or do you think the shared intention because most people do call them patients or clients,

Brandt Stickley 

patients patients? Yeah,

Heather Clark 

so the patients that come in to see you obviously, they’re coming to you for healing. That seems pretty straightforward. But I’m just thinking of the times I’ve received acupuncture if someone had shared with me This needle is an antenna to focus and direct–I think my experience might have been completely different. And I maybe could have participated more, at least from an intentional level. And I just wonder if that’s been your experience like sharing the whole process with people and what are we really doing here shifts it? Or is your intention to come in and hold the space for the transformation to occur? Is that enough?

Brandt Stickley 

Well, so someone literally a week ago said to me, someone literally a week ago said to me, is this just acupuncture because I’ve had a lot of acupuncture and it’s never been this transformative. And my response to that is, that is twofold. One is, as you’ve just described, if I can hold that scope If I can be present to the entire set of potentials that exist in any given moment, then all of those become components of the treatment.

Brandt Stickley 

If I’m focused solely on your back hurts, and I’m going to get rid of that back pain, and I’m going to do it because this tissues like that, and that tissues like that. That’s the scope of my intervention.

Brandt Stickley 

Now, that doesn’t mean that, you know, the irony is that it can go both it can go, it’s all one of the phrases that I like is there, everything’s everything all the time. Right. So in a sense, it’s like that that’s there’s a Sanskrit word for that, which I think is sarvam sarwat mokum. Like that. Everything’s everything all the time and that has a lot of input, a lot of implications but that means That if a if the if the practitioner comes in with a set intention, which is to is to get rid of something that doesn’t mean that the patient isn’t going to make contact with some set some form of awareness that allows them to recognize how that back pain is a manifestation of the totality of their whole life.

Brandt Stickley 

In essence, right, like every one of the the meaning of a holographic nesting or a holographic universe is that, again, everything’s everything all the time. So there’s no aspect of your experience that is not a part of the total, the totality of your experience. And every one of those points of contact with your experience opens up to the whole, not necessarily, but if that potential manifests if that potential is somehow stimulated then that That limited intervention can open up to the hole and can transform the whole or not. And my passport, you know, my, like Pascal’s Wager is I’m going to hold as much as I possibly can. I’m going to create as much space and as much intensity and as much depth and evolve right as much depth as possible. So that it very naturally flows into a state where that most complete most untraveled most uncoerced. manifestation of the wholeness of a human being can express itself through itself, by itself, organized in itself.

Heather Clark 

I love how as you share that it’s really this idea. It’s almost It’s creating a freedom or unleashing an inner freedom?

Brandt Stickley 

Absolutely. My, my goal writ large is to promote freedom. And in promoting freedom that means that one becomes free of coercion, coercion from outside physical coercion. I want to see liberation from any forms of physical coercion. I want to see liberation from any mental shackles, any mind forged manacles? As Blake said. I want a person to not be beholden to the same patterns that arose in their experience when they had negative influences upon their life, injurious insults.

Brandt Stickley 

I want people to be free from the feeling of being overwhelmed by circumstances, overwhelmed by forces beyond their control. Able to resiliently respond to them and adapt to them in a way that subverts that kind of coercive force. If that coercive force is arising from within as a thought pattern that gives rise to a certain behavior and that behavior gives rise to a certain risk factor and that risk factor gives rise to a certain deterioration of function. And that certain deterioration of function gives rise to what gets identified as disease. And that disease gets treated by a conventional way which suppresses the body’s responsiveness.

Brandt Stickley 

That’s another form of coercion.

Brandt Stickley 

Right all of those things could be described as as adversarial, antagonistic or as we would say, allopathic to the body’s natural response to its environment.

Heather Clark 

Oh, I love this. I love it and I really am enjoying this slightly different take on because there’s that’s one of the things I mean, not like I don’t know exactly what to do but the goal to really liberate people, I wouldn’t put it as liberation, but that’s, to me what it means to truly become unshakable. Where you’re, it’s like gifting yourself with being your own person.

Brandt Stickley 

Yeah. So gifting yourself with being your own person is exactly what I’m talking about. Because what I’m talking about is living into the fullness of your living into the fullness of your being. So that you’re being being and the expression that, that you’re becoming as an expression of your being is free to self organize and to completely and to completely express itself as itself. That’s that’s the goal and that would be unshakable because in Chinese medicine, so the term that I apply to what you are calling unshakable I call it the Taiyang life. Taiyang life, the great yang life and that means that at its peak of expression, it is free to move.

Brandt Stickley 

And at any given moment, every everything in your body at any given moment, every process In your body, from your thought process, to every physical manifestation of metabolism that’s happening in your body is going through a cycle of pivoting into existence, being in a state of full existence. And then and then closing down and returning back to the back to the void from which it sprang.

Brandt Stickley 

Everything’s going through that and at that peak moment of expression, at the apex of that, that would be akin to being unshakable. And it just so happens that in Chinese medicine, that taiyang aspect is the term that’s applied to the point of contact with our environment. So that’s described as a channel that’s described as a set of organs that are related to that, that quality it’s attributed to a state of openness and if there’s if it’s an open state, then it also governs how things close. Because open and closed are not two things. They’re part of one constant movement.

Brandt Stickley 

And so the taiyang life is the full expression in spite of you know, it’s not contrary to the totality of your being the totality of your being could include many things, right? Because this is not about, you know, this is, this is not about ableism. It’s not about you know, there’s no ableism in this. There’s no like, call for some form of idealized neuro typical organization of the nervous system. There’s each unique person expressing themselves fully as they are precisely without any need. To change its manifestation.

Heather Clark 

What an elegant way of saying that we’re not broken. There’s nothing to fix. There’s simply a fuller expression of who you truly are.

Brandt Stickley 

That’s what I’m talking about.

Heather Clark 

This tell us all about your origin story. How did you come to be doing this? and teaching these truly wonderful concepts in the world?

Brandt Stickley 

So I there’s a long version and a short version, I’m going to strive for the short version.

Brandt Stickley 

And the answer to that is that I studied. Well, actually, I studied what would now be called I focused a lot on what would now be called critical theory, which is often pejoratively these days described as As as being postmodern, but I studied literature, and I studied Asian Studies. And I started out at studying English literature. And I love Milton and I love Blake and I love Keats and Shelley and I love I’m enjoying right now Octavia Butler and I like all I like all manifestations of literature, I think Moby Dick is one of the most profound expressions of principles in Chinese medicine that one can imagine.

Brandt Stickley 

And I became very interested in post 1978 Chinese poetry. And so after I finished my bachelor’s degree, I went out to UC Berkeley to start studying Chinese there and While I was there, I had acupuncture for the first time from one of my classmates, Abigail Surasky in fact, is her name. She was an acupuncturist at that time, and still is in California. And it it, that experience transformed my life. And a year later, I decided to go to acupuncture school, through the long version includes all of the amazing things that and had that landed me there, but I ended up going to acupuncture school. The first week in acupuncture school, I went as a kind of bookish person, I went into the library and they found this book called Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies, written by Dr. Leon Hammer, and I read that book, and as soon as I opened it, I discovered my life’s work.

Brandt Stickley 

And within a year, of that, I was studying a method of pulse diagnosis that Dr. Hammer had learned from his teacher, Dr. Shen and had written a book about and was actively teaching. So I started studying that pulse diagnosis. And about a year after that, I started working directly with Dr. Hammer studying pulse diagnosis. And then after I graduated from acupuncture school, and went to China, and came back to the United States. My mentor, Dr. Hammer, was asked to take leadership of a school in Florida. And so I moved with my family and I moved down there, and I started teaching and that was basically at the request of my teacher. And I discovered that I really love teaching So, after doing that for some time, at one point I, you know, I was probably doing like 75% private practice in Florida, about 75% private practice maybe 25% teaching. And I said to my wife if I could find a program that was really academically strong, and, and where one was really a professor and not, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t like a, like a technical school in some way. I would, I would teach there if it had real academic rigor and real academic freedom. And I found that at what was then called National College of Natural medicine and is now called

Brandt Stickley 

the National University of natural medicine in Portland and the classical Chinese medicine program. was founded by Dr. Heiner Fruehauf. And he’s also a major influence on my thought. And I was offered a position teaching there. Because the work that I teach from that is teaching the material the model in that book that I read in my first week in school. And I do that at the behest of my teacher who asked me to teach it. And then I have brought my studies of the deepest strata of Chinese medicine. The many of the earliest texts of Chinese medicine are what fascinates me the most. And I’ve bridged those two bodies of work. And that’s what informs my practice.

Brandt Stickley 

And so, I think about how to bring my teachers work as a psychiatrist who discovered Chinese medicine who made the journey from a Western positivist model as a medical doctor, through psychiatry residency through psycho six years of psychoanalytic training, through investigations of more somatically oriented psychologies, until finally finding Chinese medicine and recognizing within Chinese medicine, basically, the solution to the problem that’s plagued Western models of Psychosomatic Medicine already answered within Chinese medicine. And so my teacher brought Chinese medicine into his practice of psychiatry. And then through study with him and and and research into how his work and especially the pulse, the contemporary Chinese pulse diagnosis that he teaches deepened my insight into the classical texts, and how likewise the classical texts equally informed my understanding of what I had learned from my teacher. And then to bring that to bear in from in trying to understand how to achieve the goals that I described earlier.

Brandt Stickley 

So that that’s it. That’s the origin story. Does that make sense?

Heather Clark 

It makes perfect sense. And I love that this was all inspired Well, everything up to it, but it feels like the big catalyst was the book.

Brandt Stickley 

It was Yeah, the big that was definitely a big that was definitely a big catalyst. But within that, you know, it’s like a, there was a heck of a lot of meditation and stuff going on at this Same time

Heather Clark 

nothing happens in a vacuum. But I like how it at least as you’re experiencing it now, the Flashpoint, if you will, was from a book and a book that continues to really support you as you go along. I mean, you’ve been able to integrate it, you teach the structures have it. Yeah. And it sounds like it’s, it’s, it’s as if the book has access to truth. So it makes it easier. It’s a nice framework to teach from

Brandt Stickley 

Yeah. And it’s a I’ve, I’ve taught some iteration of a course based on that text for 18 years.

Brandt Stickley 

And in that time, I’ve reread that book almost as many times and every time I read it every every year when I read it, there’s some new facet of it that fascinates me and Almost creates a theme for that year of teaching, in a sense.

Heather Clark 

Yes, because there’s different things in the world at the time, there’s different things in your awareness. So how beautiful It’s so elegant when a person is able to revisit something, because after 18 years, you’re probably, you know, fairly familiar with it.

Brandt Stickley 

Well, that’s true, but I know that

Heather Clark 

new aspects

Brandt Stickley 

so that’s the distinction between that’s the distinction between if you if you imagine this as a model as a as a pedagogical model. Western academic tradition suggests that one goes through the generalism of the bachelor’s degree, then goes into the specificity of a master’s degree where in they have they are able to demonstrate that they are have a familiarity with the unique literature of their disciplines. And then they move into the doctoral the doctoral program and in the doctoral mode. In essence, it is as if the dissertation must necessarily take into account everything that has been developed in the field to that point and then leap off from that point which means that in a sense every new iteration at the level of a dissertation has to in some measure, refute what has come before it.

Brandt Stickley 

Classical education is different classical education is not achieved in the same manner classical education is achieved by deepening intensity of return to the same thing over and over again. Bringing what is constantly new in one into contact with as you as you said, like that Wellspring from Which a truth arises. That’s what the real meaning of a classical education is, is returning to the source returning to the source returning to the source.

Brandt Stickley 

And I mean that in all manifestations of that term.

Heather Clark 

And I know that with your work, I’m sure that you’re working with the patients that you work one on one with. I’m very curious. How would a person like they’ve just come to you they’ve had the experience of what probably is a magical treatment. How can they begin to deepen their own intensity with their connection to whatever their own personal source is?

Brandt Stickley 

Well, I would suggest that the first thing is to stop looking for it outside and find it internally. Right, the final step into wholeness is always taken by an individual themselves. When there’s, you know, there’s no, there’s no, it’s always a question of, you know, one way to put it as a phrase that came to me recently, which is, we don’t move through space, space moves as us.

Brandt Stickley 

And if we can recognize that, you know, there isn’t there, that the center of the universe is within us. And it’s manifesting as us and if we can just find that center internally then that then they will have achieved what you’ve described.

Heather Clark 

So not only are we in the present and then within us is contained the past in the future, but also within us, is the center of space, and it’s manifesting as us. So, I know that I can think of some specific listeners, but I think listeners in general are like, this is amazing. Where do I start? Is it starting with simply playing with this concept and allowing yourself to really toy with it and see what’s true for you? Is this okay, now I get to get a cushion and meditate is this bookstore like,

Brandt Stickley 

Oh, well, so you want some book recommendations.

Heather Clark 

If that’s something that you find is a good place for many people to start, obviously, whatever you suggest isn’t going to work for everybody, but sometimes there’s some broad strokes to start with, that people can Okay, well, I can try this. I can try Oh, here’s something that worked.

Brandt Stickley 

Okay, so, um, my first and most enduring book recommendation that describes this, just that, in a sense, everything that I everything that I’ve posited, I think is expressed within it in some fashion is called Zhuangzi.

Brandt Stickley 

So, that’s z h u a n g z i. Zhuangzi, which is I think one of the most important works of literature and philosophy and storytelling all wrapped up in one delightful, inscrutable constantly elusive work of literature.

Brandt Stickley 

So that’s like I think that’s like that’s probably my my number one most unequivocal recommendation and there’s a lot of you know and actually on this but on a on a similar notion like there’s a huge the work of Eugene Gendlin Focusing. There’s he wrote a book his most famously wrote a short a brief book called Focusing were in I think in that book he coined the term felt sense that’s incredibly valuable because it’s really like in a sense of process of awakening to recognize all of the ways that we that all of the sort multiple sources of communication that are constantly manifestations of awareness presenting themselves to us in the interests of our, in the interests of the evolution of our consciousness and the  expression of our true being.

Heather Clark 

And as you’re sharing this, I have a sense that if people choose to read this, especially with the first book that you recommended here, like your brain may or may not understand it, but as you share it, it really has a sense of read it and immerse yourself in it and allow it to alter you, and if you understand it, that’s great. But it really has the sense like it’s, it’s entering a dance allowing yourself to be transformed. Is that more what happens? Are you read it in? You’re like, Oh, no, here’s my checklist.

Brandt Stickley 

Oh, no, no checklists. I don’t think there’s any checklists. I mean, you could read it as a, you could read it strictly as entertainment. Like, you could turn off Netflix, and you could read this book and you’d be equally entertained. That’s what’s so fascinating and wonderful about it. And it exists and there’s multiple English translations and, and really any one of them will do.

Brandt Stickley 

And all of them are worth reading in the sense.

Heather Clark 

Beautiful and I love the phrase evolution of consciousness. Because I’ve had, there’s a modality called Soul Languages, and I’ve had soul languages done for my business. And what I discovered is my business is actually what I really do is I nurture the evolution of consciousness.

Brandt Stickley 

So, on that note, I would I want to describe the greatest influence on my understanding the two greatest influences on my understanding of the, the very concept of the evolution of consciousness.

Brandt Stickley 

Are Sri Aurobindo and the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser. and Sri Aurobindo and and there’s an interesting connection between those two also. To the degree that Gebser, identified, Jean Gebser, identified wrote a book called The Ever-Present Origin, which is his most famous book. A friend of mine, Jeremy Johnson wrote a book great introduction to Gebser’s work called Seeing Through the World and that’s available from Revelor Press.

Brandt Stickley 

And that, so Gebser wrote Ever-Present Origin which is this amazing, amazing phenomenological exploration of the evolution of consciousness, which was I, I believe, published in 1949 in German and is so profound and so far beyond kind of Western rational, mental rational structuralism that it represents itself a manifestation of the evolution of this text itself represents a manifestation of the evolution of consciousness and Gebser said that he upon learning of Sri Aurobindo felt that his felt that his, the entire body of his work was an expression of what was emerging from Sri Aurobindo’s explorations of the evolution of consciousness in India at the same time, and viewed his work as being a small subset of this profound explosion of awareness that was occurring through Sri Aurobindo.

Heather Clark 

It feels like if I’ve understood that correctly, he viewed his work as certainly an expression and a small part of that, but really, it’s as if it was an evolution of the consciousness of the world which then allowed these things to express themselves.

Brandt Stickley 

Right, both of those things are true.

Heather Clark 

Do you feel like We are in the midst of another evolution of the consciousness of the world.

Brandt Stickley 

I think we’re constantly it’s constantly evolving. And we can we’ve never not been in the midst of such an evolution. But it’s important to not conceive of that model of evolution as like a teleological process. But instead, as you know, which would be like to suggest that it has some linearity. It’s more like, it’s more like, not like a straight line, but like a spiral, like a circle that’s got an opening, a circle with an opening, it’s a spiral and a spiral has the capacity to continuously evolve without ever in a direction, right? It has direction, but it doesn’t have have necessarily an endpoint and it doesn’t reach it through a linearity. And so we’re always at some point within that process of moving towards greater and greater complexity. Now another way to think about that is through the work of I think his name is

Brandt Stickley 

Adrian Bejan the constructal law that discusses how exactly how that notion of moving towards greater and greater degrees of complexity is really fundamental to physics. And imagine how the Mississippi arises from you know, a spring and then begins as a stream, but when you get down to the Mississippi Delta, it’s this increment bifurcated network mesh mesh work like network of complexity.

Brandt Stickley 

The same is true of your carotid artery and the vasculature of your brain. The same is true of your aorta and all of the arterioles in your lungs. The same is true of major highways, byways, neighborhoods, streets, sidewalks, houses, like all of those things are, are, are exactly manifestations of that the same is true of the reflection of a tree trunk, which then opens up into opens up towards the sky, reaching its peak contact with the light of the sun through the canopy is exactly a similar question. process, and that equally is reflected back down into the earth, which where the roots are exhibiting the same thing reaching into the earth through that movement from unity to duality, to self organization, to the 10,000 things or the multiple manifest that, you know, the, the almost limitless, infinite manifestation of things.

Heather Clark 

Yes, and it’s, at least in my point of view, it’s as if it’s fractal in nature, because if you understand a smaller portion of it, then that informs your understanding of the larger portion while it’s more complex, it’s not unmanageable. There’s an inherent simplicity in that type of complexity.

Brandt Stickley 

Exactly.

Heather Clark 

Yeah.

Brandt Stickley 

That’s the that’s the that’s the import of that’s why I reiterate self organizing. You know another another term for which is like auto poetic like self creating. And all of those things are happening simultaneously like at this moment, at this moment you are somewhere in the total trajectory of your life as a whole. And in some way you are in this moment regardless of what you’re doing.

Brandt Stickley 

You are completely expressing the fullness of you, as you are in this moment, in the context of birth to death. At the same time, you exist as a whole in the context of four seasons. You exist As a whole, in the context of midnight, to noon, and noon to midnight, and you exist as a whole expression of this moment, and this 60 minutes cycle in which you are enmeshed. And each one of those things is a fractal expression of the whole, as you said.

Brandt Stickley 

Now, each one of those different sort of iterations likewise you admit of something which transcends you, you are also the full expression of something which completely transcends you and it’s inclusive of your ancestors and your descendants simultaneously. And if you can bring your awareness into that intensity of that and also recognize that that’s a totality of your being

Heather Clark 

It’s not that complicated.

Brandt Stickley 

See, but each one of those, each one of those arenas can have ways in which we’re not completely somehow we’re not completely flowing with that unfolding of events and we’re stuck, we’re either moving through it too fast or we’re moving through it too slow or we’re just stuck in place in that process.

Brandt Stickley 

And if and every one of those different registers of time and wholeness is expressed through a channel in the body through a point in the body through an aspect of the function, if we can both be present if both patient and practitioner can be present to that moment, and all of the intensity is which it holds and all of the flows which are moving through it inexorably, and may create circumstances for contact to stay intact, in the words of my teacher contact, to stay intact, to imagine making contact with the whole expression of your totality in a moment and as a sensation. Imagine that ever imagine that there’s presently in your body a sensation that you can identify, which is a pure expression of the totality of your being.

Heather Clark 

I would call that your unshakable center.

Heather Clark 

Yeah.

Brandt Stickley 

Totally. Exactly.

Heather Clark 

Oh, this is so delightful.

Brandt Stickley 

Right, a circle whose center is nowhere and circumference is everywhere, but is within you. That’s the kingdom of heaven. That’s God whatever term you want to apply to it

Brandt Stickley 

Unshakable center– that works for me.

Brandt Stickley 

Angel Megatron that works for me. Like there’s any number of you know, any number of lenses through which one can describe it but only as an only within oneself can one experience it.

Heather Clark 

Yes, and call it Fred if you want to, as long as you’ve got the experience of it and the expression of it because I believe that’s the part that will completely change your life without you know having to live on a mountain without having to do you know really extreme things but really having everything you want right here in place. In this moment.

Brandt Stickley 

Absolutely

Brandt Stickley 

100%

Heather Clark 

Beautiful. So beautiful. I I know we touched on it briefly, but I would like to give you an opportunity. What does it mean to you to be unshakable?

Brandt Stickley 

To me, unshakable would mean. unshakable means able to respond flexibly, dynamically and adaptively to any circumstance as an expression of the totality of who you are.

Heather Clark 

Eloquently put, thank you. I could talk your ear off all day, but our time is drawing to a close. Where can people find you?

Brandt Stickley 

Well let’s see. www.BrandtStickley.com is probably the easiest place.

Brandt Stickley 

And yeah, I mean really that’s all there is that’s everything everything’s there. And I teach I teach quite a bit in various places. But of course, that’s all strictly China. You know, it’s really it’s Chinese medicine. And often it’s, it’s relatively advanced students of Chinese medicine but I have a very poorly updated blog portion of my website and and I update the contact page and I update the events page. As you can imagine events have kind of all gone online at this point. And I’m not doing a lot of the teaching that I, that i a lot a lot of the teaching that I do involves teaching the pulse diagnosis and so that involves hands on work and so that’s on hold for now. But, yeah, just the website is there. And you know, Facebook and Twitter and all that business.

Heather Clark 

Beautiful. Thank you so much. This has been an absolute delight. Thank you.

Heather Clark 

Thank you.

Brandt Stickley 

It was fun.

Heather Clark 

Thank you so much for listening to Unshakable Being. You’ll find more information and the episode shownotes at unshakablebeing.com. Subscribe to the podcast and share with your friends. May you be unshakable, unstoppable and vibrant again. Until next time,