Whatever comes to mind. Sometimes a story I read, sometimes something that came to me while holding my mala beads.
3 AM. Again. Not from an alarm, not from a nightmare. Just eyes flying open. I discovered that in Chinese medicine, every two-hour block has a meridian "on duty" — and waking at 3 AM is your Liver meridian sending an SOS.
After three weeks of overtime, my back started protesting. My mom pulled out a bamboo cup inherited from my grandmother and gave me my first cupping session. Seven circular marks — purple, black, red, pink — like moons on my back, like a map of my body.
At a small temple on Mount Qingcheng, I watched a Daoist priest spend fifteen minutes drawing a talisman. He said: it is not the talisman that works. Once you believe, you work.
