"Here," Xiaolan Zhao says, holding out her hand. "Let me help you sit up."
She has re-entered a small treatment room in her Xiaolan Health Centre in Toronto's Annex neighborhood, where I'm lying naked under a sheet on a flat table.
"Drink this," she says. She hands me a cup of tea and watches as I sip it.
"Dandelion and licorice," she explains. She puts little pills (cinnamon) on a spoon, and offers it, like a mother to a child.
"Do I chew them?"
"Swallow them with the tea," she gently instructs.
I do as I'm told and turn to take in her quiet presence, her face a clear pale moon of benevolent calm. Who wouldn't be curious to understand the appeal of Dr. Zhao? She has a cult-like following, her devotees mentioning her name and ministrations like a secret mantra.
After her first book in 2006, Reflections of the Moon on Water: Healing Women's Bodies and Minds Through Traditional Chinese Wisdom, the number of patients in her practice, where treatments (at $105 for an hour) are not covered by medicare, leapt from 7,000 to 12,000. This week sees the release of her second book, Inner Beauty: Looking, Feeling and Being Your Best , which includes recipes for traditional treatments for everything from hair loss to dermatitis caused by cancer radiation treatments.
It also includes personal stories about herself and some of her patients that reflect Dr. Zhao's mindful approach to wellness.
"Be comfortable with who you are. Good health shines through," the 55-year-old says to explain her philosophy on aging, which she exemplifies. She wears no makeup. Her black hair shows only a strand or two of grey. She mediates and exercises daily; doesn't drink alcohol or coffee.
Is it simply the growing interest in alternative therapies that fuels her popularity? One in four of her clinic's female patients (who constitute almost 80 per cent of the practice) is battling cancer. "I don't believe in chemotherapy," she explains, adding that she supports people's personal decisions. "It's only wrong if you regret what you do." One of her female patients remains in remission from breast cancer after 15 years of following Dr. Zhao's regimen of an alkaline diet (no red meat, no dairy, reduced alcohol and caffeine), exercise and herbal/acupuncture treatments.
She respects Western medicine, having trained as an abdominal surgeon in China, where she was born, the youngest of four children. But after witnessing the healing power of herbal remedies, she earned a second degree, in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). "As a young person, Western medicine is very attractive. You believe everything has an answer at that age," she says lightly. "But then you realize that with many illnesses, almost 90 per cent, the cause is not known."
Interested in a mix of Western and Eastern medicine, she came to Canada in 1988 to conduct cancer research at Queen's University.
Soon she found her greatest gift was in helping fellow doctors with her ancient techniques. Someone would complain of a migraine, say, and she'd put him on a table to work with the meridians of the body - there are 12, according to TCM - and assess what's known as the "three treasures": a person's jing (or genetic imprint), qi (energy flow) and shen (spirit or mind). Through acupuncture, herbal remedies and massage, she aims to harmonize the body's energy.
After she opened her first clinic in 1992, her reputation flourished, due in large part to her following among the Canadian literati, including Margaret Atwood, Susan Swan and Michael Ondaatje. Playwright, actor and author Ann-Marie MacDonald has written a blurb for her new book. An ordinary citizen would be forgiven for imagining that if Dr. Zhao can facilitate the flow of energy for those who rely on their capricious creativity for their livelihood, she can fix anyone.
Her architect-designed facility, built three years ago, has the vibe of an uptown spa, all eucalyptus aroma and Zen understatement. When I arrive, she ushers me into a chair in a small, dimly lit room and motions for me to place my wrists, with the palms of my hands turned up, on a little red beanbag placed on the table between us. She puts her fingers on several precise points on each wrist, explaining that she can "read" the health of my organs based on the different pulses she can feel.
"Do you have pain in your knee?" she asks after a moment's silence.
"Yes," I say, surprised. "My left one." It flared up about two days earlier, a recurring pain related to a long-ago herniated disc in my lower back.
"And your stomach."
I nod. There's discomfort there as well.
When I'm on the table, after drinking the tea, she moves around my body, tapping in acupuncture needles, rubbing the palms of my hands, the soles of my feet, asking how I feel.
She gives details about her personal life matter-of-factly. "I always wondered what my life purpose was," she explains. "As I get older, I see how impermanent we are. The reason why we're here is to learn who we are. And see what the daily offering to us is."
She brought her elderly parents, both 85, who live across from the centre, to Canada in 1990. In 1977, she married "a wonderful Chinese man," but "he was very controlling," she says without rancor. They divorced 17 years later. "We were both virgins, so we didn't have much understanding of relationships." He couldn't accommodate her growing professional popularity, she says. Her adult son lives in Columbus, Ohio. She lives alone and enjoys a legion of friends.
There's a quiet certainty to her compassion. Her gaze is steady and patient, displaying little emotion. "Some people say I'm psychic because I can tell by looking at people if they're ill," she says, laughing gently. "But no," she adds. "It's from doing this for 30 years."
Maybe it's just the unexpected intimacy of the exchange that's healing. (My knee pain did abate.)
"Here, I can feel a blockage here," she says while massaging my neck in an effort to relieve a dizziness I occasionally experience. "This is where I can feel the gallbladder."
"My gallbladder in my neck?"
"Yes, the meridians. Full circle," she offers abstractly.
Ah, maybe that's it. The appeal of a mystic soothsayer, who serves to remind us that we're all a mystery of existence someone actually cares to decode.