cara solas, md, frcp(c), MQP, Zen chaplain
I have studied with many teachers and continue to process and digest my own experience and my narration of it, considering and discovering the choices and conditioning informing my perspectives through working with formal teachers, in my meditation practice and within my relationships with self and other. I have learned that the key to connecting, to understanding and to healing is to listen. I continue to learn how to listen more fully, with more organs, with spirit, with all of who I am. I believe that we humans do best, as individuals and in community, when we come to deeply feel and honor our wholeness and our inter-relatedness to all Life, within a shared Consciousness.
My trainings have been conventional and unconventional, formal and informal. I have a medical degree (MD) from the University of Alberta and postgraduate training and certification in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology in Ottawa, Ontario. I am ordained as a Zen Buddhist interfaith chaplain. I am a Medical Qi Gong Practitioner and continue to study and advance in that tradition. I have training in and exposure to various relational and healing forms such as Council Practice, Hakomi and Ancestral Clearing. I am a student of movement, clay, Nature, Life, friends and family and decades’ experience in health care settings, as practitioner and patient. I walk, I dance, I read, I laugh, I meditate, I love, I quest, I travel, I connect, I reflect, I write, I study, I listen, I learn, I practise. And repeat!
I have practised as a Western-trained physician since the 1990s, mostly in British Columbia as a medical oncologist. Over time, I have come to realize that the dominant Western medical model has become very focussed on the physical manifestations of disease, thereby often missing the invariably-present mental/emotional and spiritual aspects of Being. Starting in 2013, I began to incorporate more specific and intentional practices into my work to offer a more balanced and nuanced approach to healing.
My offerings incorporate various approaches to companion, mentor, teach, accompany, guide, share, learn from and marvel with those who seek to heal and connect at fundamental levels. When you work with me, we create a safe and caring container, call in the guides at all levels, including our intuition, shadows, values and dreams, and explore and discover how vast and whole we are, at essence.
My guiding principles in my work and life include Love, Humility, Respect and Kindness. I resonate with a Daoist framework and cosmology, which inform much of my non-denominational approach. I believe that the foundation of our reality is not form, nor energy, but consciousness. Bringing our loving awareness to our experience informs and directs our curiosity in a dynamic relationship with the Universe in which we are met and guided, challenged and supported.
These beliefs and principles guide me to co-facilitate a space where we cultivate flow and connection in our lives.
Wellness is both individually experienced and a universal energetic. The former is particulate, specific in its details for each person. Universally, Wellness incorporates qualities of ease, safety, belonging, spaciousness, empowerment and resonant connection with a vastness that is both beyond ourselves and requires us for its completeness.
My trainings have been conventional and unconventional, formal and informal. I have a medical degree (MD) from the University of Alberta and postgraduate training and certification in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology in Ottawa, Ontario. I am ordained as a Zen Buddhist interfaith chaplain. I am a Medical Qi Gong Practitioner and continue to study and advance in that tradition. I have training in and exposure to various relational and healing forms such as Council Practice, Hakomi and Ancestral Clearing. I am a student of movement, clay, Nature, Life, friends and family and decades’ experience in health care settings, as practitioner and patient. I walk, I dance, I read, I laugh, I meditate, I love, I quest, I travel, I connect, I reflect, I write, I study, I listen, I learn, I practise. And repeat!
I have practised as a Western-trained physician since the 1990s, mostly in British Columbia as a medical oncologist. Over time, I have come to realize that the dominant Western medical model has become very focussed on the physical manifestations of disease, thereby often missing the invariably-present mental/emotional and spiritual aspects of Being. Starting in 2013, I began to incorporate more specific and intentional practices into my work to offer a more balanced and nuanced approach to healing.
My offerings incorporate various approaches to companion, mentor, teach, accompany, guide, share, learn from and marvel with those who seek to heal and connect at fundamental levels. When you work with me, we create a safe and caring container, call in the guides at all levels, including our intuition, shadows, values and dreams, and explore and discover how vast and whole we are, at essence.
My guiding principles in my work and life include Love, Humility, Respect and Kindness. I resonate with a Daoist framework and cosmology, which inform much of my non-denominational approach. I believe that the foundation of our reality is not form, nor energy, but consciousness. Bringing our loving awareness to our experience informs and directs our curiosity in a dynamic relationship with the Universe in which we are met and guided, challenged and supported.
These beliefs and principles guide me to co-facilitate a space where we cultivate flow and connection in our lives.
Wellness is both individually experienced and a universal energetic. The former is particulate, specific in its details for each person. Universally, Wellness incorporates qualities of ease, safety, belonging, spaciousness, empowerment and resonant connection with a vastness that is both beyond ourselves and requires us for its completeness.
