“No, it is not the surgeon who is God’s darling. He is the victim of vanity. It is the poet who heals with his words, stanches the flow of blood, stills the rattling breath, applies poultice to the scalded flesh. Did you ask me why a surgeon writes? I think it is because I wish to be a doctor“
-Dr. Richard Selzer, The Exact Location of the Soul
I have been a voracious reader my entire life, a keen sponge drenched in as many words as I could devour per hour. I studied the art of storytelling and discovered at an early age that I possessed the divine gift of storytelling as well. I believe that storytellers are the ultimate healers. We heal ourselves and the world by sharing pieces of our souls that engage and connect with others.
“Telling and listening to stories is the way we make sense of our lives,”
-Dr. Thomas K. Houston
This is my way of making sense of the world; my own life. I wish to make it public in an attempt to commune with my fellow mankind. It is my deepest hope that if you find yourself here and reading my words, that you feel less alone in this crazy world, or have your perspective broadened in a compassionate way. I am enraptured by many diverse subjects, so I will be including material that spans anything you can imagine and how it anecdotally relates to my life:
- Medicine, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering
- Diet, Fitness, and Exercise
- Mental and Physical Illness and Health
- My experience as a Certified Brain Injury Specialist
- My experience as a medical school applicant (and hopefully medical student, then doctor as my life progresses!)
- Religion and Philosophy
- Alternative healing and herbalism
- Spiritual practice and shadow work
- The intersection of science and spirituality
- My experiences being bisexual
- My experiences exploring both monogamy and polyamory
- My experiences with love
- My experiences dating someone in the military
- My experiences of being a child of divorce
- My experiences being a “burner,” or someone that regularly attends Burning Man and the regional burns in my area of the country
- Healing emotional traumas and addictions
- Living a sober lifestyle while promoting awareness and harm-reduction for those that choose to use substances
- Visual Art, Music, Poetry, Books, Fire and Aerial art
- Secrets I’ve yet to reveal publicly but plan on doing so at an appropriate time
I pride myself on the fact my education is science-based. I carefully research everything before I form an opinion on things, but I also draw a lot on personal experience and intuition. As a storyteller, it’s my duty to communicate whether a post is research-based or more of an anecdotal opinion piece, so I can always promise you I’ll clearly state what kind of post I’m making. Some posts will be full of information, some will be full of emotion, and others will be full of art. I believe in the art of balance and strive to walk The Middle Way in my own life– this blog will be a reflection of that.
So what’s with the title of the blog, Sine Umbra Nihil?
The title of this blog, Sine Umbra Nihil is a latin phrase that translates to “Without shadow, nothing.” It originates from a latin proverb found on a sundial. In full, the proverb goes “Cum Umbra Nihil, Sine Umbra Nihil” which translates to “with shadow nothing, without shadow nothing.” This is quite literally very appropriate for a sundial, as it is the interplay between light and shadow that yields the time of day on its face.
However, this proverb takes on a deeper meaning when applied to life. I deeply relish the musings of Carl Jung, and his beliefs of the shadow aspect of our personalities fascinate me endlessly. In college, I was trying to reconcile the gaping depression and anxiety that had belabored me since childhood. This is when I first found the importance of meditation, positive affirmation, diet, and exercise. I showed incredible improvement in myself but became blinded by my own light. I began to think that if I just focused on these positive aspects, I wouldn’t have to deal with the heavy darkness I’d been trying to escape my entire life; I tricked myself into believing it wasn’t there anymore. The 4.5 years I’ve spent after graduating were filled with paying for that ignorance and avoidance. Before my very eyes, my own life spilled open like pandora’s box and my light and shadow began to intertwine, and I will be the first to tell you that it was NOT pretty in that turbulent beginning.
I am a firm believer that the road to self mastery is a harmonic unity of both our light and our shadow. A sundial is a beautiful physical example of how light and shadow can work together to be productive and serve a purpose, and it illustrates my own personal goal of achieving productivity and purpose in the light and shadow of my soul. This is the ultimate wisdom of my stories that I want to share with the world.
What about the title of this post, past is prologue?
“Past is Prologue” is an album title of one of my favorite artists, Tycho. I would best describe his genre of music as organic downtempo/ambient melodic– imagine if you had a soundtrack to all the peaceful, whimsical dreams you’ve ever had in your life. The album name really struck a chord with me at this particular point in my life. I’m in a major transition where I’m exiting my self-indulgent and self-limiting cycles of chosen suffering and blooming into the compassionate healer I have always dreamed of becoming. I look back on all the trials and tribulations I’ve gone through and instead of feeling beaten down or tired, I feel invigorated. My heart is brimming with a fierce gratitude for the knowledge and wisdom I have gained from all the beautiful and painful experiences I’ve gone through, because it’s all led to here now. It’s led to a certain strength and clarity of me realizing that despite my mistakes and misfortunes of yesteryear, I am not a prisoner of my past. I refuse to stay stuck in brainwashed loops of the same old mistakes where my progress is plagued with a maddening repeatability. I refuse to rob myself of my future based on the lie that my past makes me unworthy. My past is a tool for my future, it is the groundwork for achieving my highest purpose as a human here– which is helping and loving others to the best of my ability. My past is my prologue.
“You are the medicine, life is the ritual”
Sine Umbra Nihil 