This multifaceted essay emerges from a host of sources within diverse academic settings. Its central thesis is guided by physicist John A. Wheeler's thoughts on the quantum enigma. Wheeler concludes, following Niels Bohr, that we are co-participants within the universal self-organizing process. This notion merges with concepts from Peirce's process philosophy, Eastern thought, issues of topology, and border theory in cultural studies and social science, while surrounding itself with such key terms as complementarity, interdependence, interrelatedness, vagueness, generality, incompleteness, inconsistency, and (...) mestizaje. Ultimately, a sense of semiosic process pervades in light of combined homogenous and hetergenous tendencies. (shrink)

In this article a discussion of the phenomenon of wellness and its relevance to contemporary nursing practice is developed. Drawing on phenomenology, the research literature and the author's own wellness research, an exposition of the concept of wellness is presented. It is proposed that the experience of being well is lived as a continuity of time and that it involves both a taking-for-granted of the body and containment of the horizon of concern. The state of actually being well is also (...) clarified and contrasted with the more common understanding of wellness as an optimal or future state. This discussion has significance for nursing knowledge development, in terms of our understanding of the experience of wellness and illness. It also has implications for how nurses approach their practice, particularly in the area of health promotion. (shrink)