By the Sea: On Creation, Control, and the Intelligence of Nature

A close-up of a cappuccino in a white cup, featuring heart-shaped latte art, placed on a wooden table in natural sunlight.
Morning coffee by the sea — where conversations on life, medicine, and nature began.


It had been too long since the three of us last met.
Three friends - two of us immigrants - each working in healthcare, each in our own way.

We found ourselves in a small café by the sea, the horizon stretching endlessly before us, sky merging with water in a vastness that felt infinite.

My two friends had always worked privately, within established and recognised fields of conventional healthcare. I was the newcomer to private practice - attentive medicine born from the limitations I saw in conventional medical training and experience, even as I recognised its power.

We spoke joyfully, intensely. Committed to understanding - and therefore, to loving. We spoke of our work and how it could not be separated from our lives: how they needed to align. Otherwise, the friction between what is true in me and what I pretend to be drains vitality - felt as deep fatigue, expressed in many ways, from overeating to overspending, and sometimes as changes in the body: a disease calling us to pay attention. That call to attention lies at the heart of attentive medicine.

On the creator and the creation

We asked ourselves: is there truly a division between the creator and what is created?

We took the example of pregnancy: is the woman’s body, transformed by the man who moved his body into hers - and by the life of their child - really separate from them? Is the child who moves and pushes inside “her” / "them " truly “other”? Or is there only one extraordinary movement, one life, seen from different perspectives?

We asked the same about nature: is there a division between nature and what created nature? We saw that such a division only appears when viewed through the lens of time - “first” the creator, “then” the creation. But if you stand in the moment of creation itself, is there still a line between the two? Is harmony in nature the product of time, or of something else - a sensitivity to all that is happening now?

On voluntary and involuntary life

From there, our conversation turned to a closely linked question: why do we believe in a division within ourselves?

We tend to identify with “the one who can act” - the part of us that can command our body to move, or act upon the bodies of other beings in nature. Yes, I can choose to lift my arm. But so many processes in my body happen without my conscious will: my heart keeps beating, my lungs keep opening and closing, hair keeps growing and falling, eyes keep blinking, ears keep hearing - even in moments when life feels unbearable and one wishes it would stop.

In those moments, humbled, we can see life expressing itself outside the realm of will. There is an intelligence in the body that continues regardless of what I consciously “want” - an intelligence that is life itself.

Unless there is violence - towards oneself or towards others - life continues in its own intelligence, including death, which is part of life.

On control and violence

Finally, we asked: why do we value control so highly?

On our table lay a single olive. We imagined placing a band tightly around its middle, forcing it to grow into a shape we desired. This, we saw, would be an act of violence against the freedom and intelligence of nature.

This is how we have shaped trees into tables and chairs, metals into computers and phones, sand into houses and skyscrapers.

Those who named our species Homo sapiens identified us with what we know - and therefore can replicate - rather than with what we also are, and can discover.

And so we wondered: is what we call control, will, or wanting ... truly free? Or is there, hidden within it, an element of violence - the imposition of our ideas upon something wiser than us… and free?

If instead we identified with the intelligence of nature - rather than with our wanting - perhaps we would find freedom not in controlling, but in listening.

That morning by the sea, I left with the quiet certainty that attentive living, like attentive medicine, begins in listening - and in respecting the intelligence already at work in life.

  

#DrFatouMbow #attentivemedicine #holisticmedicine #holisticdoctor #healthcare #integrativemedicine #mindbodyconnection #vitality #wellbeing #listening  #naturewisdom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Le fibrome, le corps et l’éveil d’un médecin malade

Image
Hossegor – Là où une fin a ouvert un commencement. Regarder. Écouter. Questionner. Et parfois… réaliser. Ce que ma maladie m’a révélé — à moi, médecin, sur l’écoute, la responsabilité, et la médecine attentive Je suis médecin. Et comme tant d’autres médecins, j’ai été malade. Ce simple fait devrait pourtant nous interpeller : comment une médecine si efficace pour supprimer les symptômes peut-elle rester si silencieuse sur ce qui les fait naître ? Mais pendant longtemps, je ne l’ai pas conscientisé. Je ne voyais que des symptômes, des chiffres, des pertes sanguines à camoufler, des taux d’hémoglobine à corriger. Je voyais un problème à résoudre. Je ne voyais pas moi. 1. La délégation : quand on remet son corps aux mains des autres Les symptômes étaient là : les règles hémorragiques, l’épuisement, cette masse dure dans le bas-ventre… Mais je les ai longtemps tus, ou minimisés. Et ce silence, je l’ai compensé en déléguant à la médecine conventionnelle ce que je n’arrivais pas à...
Read more

When “how” keeps us stuck: attentive medicine and breaking free from smoking

Image
  Photo by Vyoum Kushwaha. Smoking can be a deeply rooted habit tied to emotion, identity, and history. My journey away from smoking was not about battling addiction but about attentive presence—listening deeply to the body and mind. This story is part of how attentive medicine embraces healing beyond force or fear. I was a smoker. I picked up the habit in medical school — a place full of long hours, intensity, and unspoken pain. Many of us smoked. No one seemed to find it strange that the people training to help others live better lives were themselves clinging to harmful habits they didn’t understand and couldn’t stop. Conventional medicine didn’t offer much. Nicotine patches, which never replaced what I found in smoking. A medication that kept me awake for three days and left me flooded with disturbing dreams. And hypnosis — which, although helpful for some, didn’t feel right for me to consider. I didn’t want to manipulate myself. I wasn’t trying to force a change. I wante...
Read more

Qui est le patient de la médecine attentive?

Image
La médecine attentive commence avec une ouverture du cœur – quand le patient dit : « je suis prêt ». À qui s’adresse la médecine attentive ? Beaucoup de personnes me demandent : « Quel est le patient de la médecine attentive? » Ce n’est pas une question théorique : elle détermine ce qu’on attend du patient, et ce qu’on ne peut pas attendre de cette pratique. La médecine attentive n’est pas un raccourci pour éviter la médecine conventionnelle, ni une alternative aux traitements vitaux. Elle commence ailleurs. Clarification nécessaire : rôle du patient et place des traitements vitaux Il est essentiel de préciser que la médecine attentive ne commence jamais par un refus des traitements conventionnels. La résolution des symptômes est parfois vitale, et seule la médecine conventionnelle peut alors assurer la survie et la stabilité minimale du corps. Sans cette sécurité biologique, aucun espace attentif n’est possible. La médecine attentive n’est pas une alternative, ni un ra...
Read more