The ancient art of traditional Chinese medicine and the beauty of nature photography meet at the John Day home and office of Kyle Cline, a licensed massage therapist, practitioner of classical Chinese medicine and photographer.

John Day is no stranger to the ancient Chinese art of healing and herbal remedies. Cline is continuing a tradition made famous here in the last century by longtime resident and China native Ing “Doc” Hay, who with his friend Lung On lived and worked at the Kam Wah Chung building.

Now an Oregon State Parks landmark and tourist attraction, the building served as a home, general store, boardinghouse and a place of healing and community gathering.

For his clients, who come as far as away as Boise and Bend, Cline’s home is also a place of healing and rejuvenation.

Skylights allow sunshine to pour into a spacious home atop Charolais Heights, overlooking the John Day Valley and the Strawberry Mountains to the south. Relaxing music plays for guests and clients, and large framed prints of Cline’s vibrant and beautifully composed nature photographs add to the calming vibe.

“I’ll put photos up and people will see them and buy them, but people walk in here and they drop off three-quarters of their stress and what we do is more effective,” he said. “In some ways, all of this becomes a part of that healing process. It’s art. It’s creative energy.”

Cline said just being around nature and the sheer beauty of the landscape here is its own kind of healing.

“We can talk about the Chinese healing model, but the base of it is about nature,” he said. “That’s not from China. Nature is everywhere.”

Cline said he has a clientele of a couple thousand people seeking help for everything from anxiety and back and neck pain to headaches, menstrual issues or digestive problems. Not unlike Doc Hay’s apothecary at Kam Wah Chung, Cline has a room in his home with shelves full of herbs and granulated herbal blends to help the people who see him.

Cline said his journey to healing others began after he was healed by a Chinese acupressure practitioner around 40 years ago, when he was living in the Cascades east of Salem near Detroit Lake and became ill from giardia, a waterborne parasite. Bedridden for two weeks, Cline said the session led to him feeling better.

It was then he decided to pursue the knowledge and skill needed to practice Chinese healing himself by learning in Taiwan and in China from traditional masters. Cline moved to John Day in 2013 from Portland, where he had lived for 30 years.

“The thing was, when I came out here, I didn’t know anybody, but I could come here and do the same thing Doc Hay did and they say, ‘OK,’ ” Cline said. “I couldn’t have done that anywhere else; it was just such a natural fit.”

Equally important to Cline is his work with the camera.

With the beauty of the mountains and rivers in Eastern Oregon, Cline said he found a calling for nature photography.

“It’s the nature and the environment available out here,” he said. “That’s really powerful in terms of energy in a Chinese model for healing, and that’s what I was missing in Portland.”

Cline’s home and his website are filled with artfully composed vistas of mountain lakes and canyons, in addition to skillfully photographed close-ups of animals in action. He sells prints of his work online.

In a blog post on his photography website SimplyNaturePhotos.com, Cline explains the backcountry treks he takes to capture the photos.

“Maybe these photos of my backyard, backcountry Oregon, can serve as a reminder of the beauty, energy and spirit of this wonderful place we call home,” Cline wrote. “And in the process, recognize that we are a part of nature, too, that we are all interconnected.”

People interested in learning more about Cline’s work as a Chinese medicine practitioner and photographer can visit Cline’s homepage at www.simplytao.com.

NAME: Kyle Cline

AGE: 66

RESIDENCE: John Day

OCCUPATION: Licensed massage therapist, Traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, Nature photographer