We live in a secular age—at least it would be true to say that the dominant culture is largely secular in orientation. The Catholic Church no longer calls the shots and carries the weight it once did centuries ago, and this would be true of other faiths as well, although obviously religions are still functioning and still have a great deal of power. Thus, I tread carefully around this word “sacred.” It has typically been considered the exclusive province of the religions.
I bring this word “sacred” up because two weeks ago it dropped in my lap so to speak in my teaching at NUNM in Portland, OR. A few of our students and recent graduates drove to North Dakota to offer support in the medical yurts for the Standing Rock water protectors. I salute them for their actions. They returned with wonderful, inspiring stories.
One of them said something very curious to me. She related that the acupuncture treatments they gave at Standing Rock worked almost magically well. All the treatments were “home runs.” Just a few needles inserted and tough pain conditions were resolved. She felt it was due to the atmosphere of the camp being thick with prayer and a sense of the sacred. Her brief comment gave me a lot to think about.
Gregory Bateson, one of the great minds of the last century, in his last book, Where Angels Fear: Toward An Epistemology of the Sacred, arrives at a beautifully succinct definition of the sacred: That with which thou shalt not mess. Anything that is sacred should be hands-off in other words. In the past I worked ten years as a high school teacher of mathematics. In math we call a solution “elegant” if it contains no superfluous elements. This Bateson definition of the sacred certainly qualifies by that convention as elegant. It covers a lot of ground in a few words.
What I like about this definition is that it allows us to talk about the sacred without recourse to strictly religious language or concepts. Using Chinese Medicine and its therapies we try to work with the patient in such a way as to help them reassert what is normal and healthy. But is this sacred work? As I have sat with this question for a few weeks now, I come down in my view with a solid YES. This is indeed sacred work that we do. We are not messing where we ought not. We practitioners are in fact trying to change the dynamic in our clients’ bodies with our needles, moxa, and herbs, so that normal function is reestablished.
Perhaps some will be uncomfortable with this idea. After all, as I wrote above, it is a highly secular age in which we were all raised, whether our families were religious or not. The larger society around us is thoroughly secular. Sacred work is the work of priests and rabbis and imans, NOT acupuncturists and herbalists. At least that would be the commonly held view. But by Bateson’s definition I think we qualify as workers of the sacred. Where we “mess” with natural processes we do so with respect for nature and her ways. Where we find cold, we bring warmth; where we find lack of movement, we restore movement; where we find dampness, we drain it. This is a medicine of minimal interference, a medicine that takes its cues from close observation of how nature works.
The question I ask myself is: Can I establish this sense of the sacred in my own practice in a way similar to what is going on in the Standing Rock camp? I think this is a question for all of us, and it need not lead us into the realm of the religious for answers, but, of course, it also does not preclude that option.
Blessings on us all in these interesting times in which we find ourselves.
Bob Quinn