At one time, I would have eagerly attended any ceremony, with a nose-to-the-glass desire to become whatever I witnessed before me. Now I attend strong in myself, as a guest, thankful for those who are able to have continuity with their homelands and ancestors. It is beautiful.

I am a person of many European clans, a fluid embodiment of bygone tribal eras. What do we do when we are a beautiful, confusing patchwork quilt of cultural expressions? When we are not born on ancient inherited land that stores millennia of ancestral memories? What would a ceremony even look like today? 

Moving beyond the terminology of "tolerance," our world is slowly opening to the celebration of How Things Are. We exist as, with, and because of an incredible diversity of life. This fluidity includes gender, of course. All of us have ancestors that transcend masculine-feminine gender duality. Let's just take a moment to think about and acknowledge that. Our very own ancestors, born to be who they are. Maybe today we'd call them genderqueer (or any number of emerging terms to address the specific identity-needs of humans), but they certainly had their own terms. In many cultures, such people were, and are, woven into tribal fabric as another valued strand. Our two-spirited predecessors whose very embodiment signals the big, beautiful truth of simultaneity, held important cultural posts. 

I have seen many articles making the rounds that discuss the "active chemical constituents" of herbal medicines and whole foods. And why not? This is how we create and analyze western pharmaceuticals, and how we describe their mechanisms of action. Curing Chemophobia: Do Not Buy Alternative Medicine by Michelle M. Francl takes this method of distillation a step further by using it to compare ancient herbal medicine with modern western medicine. 

Ms. Francl compares one molecule of methotrexate, a western pharmaceutical that can treat arthritis, with a molecule of quercetin, present in the Chinese formula Four Marvels Powder (Si Miao Wan), which can also treat arthritis. She asserts that each of these toxic molecules can have a litany of adverse effects on the body, but at least methotrexate has been studied (by western science) and dosed with precision. Why should we place more trust the more benign-sounding substance, especially because we do not know its exact dosage, and because it is not in our western medical canon? 

Francl's analysis is based on the assumption that breaking down these two medical systems into isolated constituents is an accurate or equitable way to compare them. But quercetin does not equal Four Marvels Powder, just as antioxidants do no equal blueberries. This modern metonymy is not poetic. It is an expression of our limited perspective. Maybe it is even a symptom of not feeling whole. In any case, I am calling into question this popular method of analysis.

How do we recontextualize classical Chinese dream diagnosis for modern people? It helps to understand that these passages are not theoretical, but based on observation. So, we can start by observing our own dreams and the dreams of the people around us.