The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly changed my life. I have lost loved ones to Covid. I grieve for them and mourn them. This is true for millions of others. I wish it were not so. However, it is so, and we must do what we can to mitigate this dreadful plague and its effects.

In the beginning of the pandemic I provided information on the utility of masks, which I had learned having been in China during the SARS epidemic, and over years in Asia during other epidemics of respiratory diseases. I advocated the wearing of masks. Some took that advice. Others did not.

Unfortunately, medical authorities in the western nations told the public that masks did not protect the wearer from infection. We now know that some of those authorities didn’t know any better, but that others lied to the public because they assumed that if the truth were known the public would overwhelm the supply of masks and leave none for health professionals. They might have been correct, or not. Perhaps the public would have left the medical masks for professionals and used cloth masks, bandanas and so forth, if instructed to do so by the authorities. We’ll never know. What we do know is that those lies resulted in much confusion and loss of life and caused the public to disbelieve further advice from those authorities, which led to more loss of life.

WEAR A MASK, it might save your life and that of others.

Absorbed in family and personal matters I have written little during the past months. I also cancelled all face to face classes. ML and I have spent much of the past nine months in lockdown in Turkey, a country that has treated us as welcome guests rather than refugees from the plague. We have not seen anyone in our family for over a year, some of whom have experienced medical emergencies for which we should have been present. We will be unable to attend services for those who have died. Again, our experiences are those of millions of others.

At the request of students, and because all of us are at risk from Covid infection, some at high risk, I am now offering online classes for small groups and on a one on one basis on the practical applications of Taoist Meditation as it applies to self-healing – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Applied Taoist Meditation has saved my life. During a long and active life and a half century of world travel, much of it living with villagers in lesser-developed nations, I have survived Typhoid, Malaria, Shigella, Amoebic Dysentery, Cryptococcus and other potentially fatal tropical diseases – without medical attention. None was available.

Without medical care I also survived a fractured coccyx, two shattered vertebrae and herniated disks, and third degree burns in remote wilderness where I had to walk out on burned feet. In each instance I used Applied Taoist Meditation to heal myself and to deal with pain and disability.

My doctor at the Veteran’s Hospital, and others, have called my self-healing my “supernatural power.” My ability is not at all supernatural. I learned it. Anyone can learn it, if they apply themselves.

Email me if you’re interested in these classes

I am working on a new book, Staying Alive, A Mindful Path to Survival in the 21st Century. If you’re on my mailing list you will receive notice when it’s available.

 The Tao of Survival, teaches you to fend off illness, avoid accidents, awaken your senses to the pure joy of life all around you – and to survive anywhere on this planet.

Note: The skills taught in this book are foundational for the self-healing methods of Taoist Applied Meditation.

On the left side of this page are chapters and photos from my blog and newsletter, Sojourner’s Journal, which includes short stories and articles, reviews and reflections.

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Thanks for visiting,

James