There appears to be something in human nature that strives constantly
after change. It seems that we can never be satisfied with what we have, and
always want more. This niggling sense of dissatisfaction can express itself in
many ways, and in different ways in different cultures and at different times,
but what all these feelings have in common is some level of discontent with a
current situation and a desire to change it in some way. We seem to long for things beyond our reach which
we stretch out our hands to try and grasp.
We therefore never appear to be content with the status quo, each of us
in our own often tiny and insignificant way trying to reach a little further
out into the world beyond us.
Viewed from a five element perspective, our individual element defines
the direction of this search for the new and the unexplored, and shapes its
terms. It is therefore no coincidence
that I should have found myself gradually moving towards a calling which feeds
my Fire element’s need to relate to people, particularly on the
one-to-one-basis I enjoy with my patients.
Nor is it by chance that I so much like helping others share in my
delight through my teaching at what an understanding of the elements has added
to my life.
I have just returned from what I think is my 12th visit to China. I hope that the 150 or more practitioners and
students at our seminars will also emerge from our time with us stimulated into
changing something in their lives through what they have learnt, and may well
dare to venture into areas their newly invigorated knowledge of the elements
points them towards. All will have received
some five element treatment, and once an element has been stirred into life in
this way, it cannot rest until it has set in motion some of those individual
changes all of us need to make if we are to fulfil whatever destiny our life
has laid down for us.
I loved reading that Stephen Hawking, the author of a Brief History of Time, has agreed that
his PhD thesis should now be available free on line to anybody who wants to
download it.
“By making my PhD thesis open access, I hope to inspire
people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet; to
wonder about our place in the universe and make sense of the cosmos,” he
writes. “Anyone, anywhere in the world
should have free, unhindered access to not just my research but to the research
of every great and inquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding.”
What a lovely thought!
It made me think that I, too, would like people to have “unhindered
access to my thoughts”. And I hope that
in a way they do, through this blog, which is why I so much enjoy writing
it. I feel that I am sending my thoughts
far out into space, free, for anybody who is interested to read them.
Of course, even Stephen Hawking and his publishers have to earn
their living, as I have to do when I publish my own books, so books, I am
afraid, can rarely be handed out free, as blogs can, but the thought behind
what he says is an important one. Too
many people feel that they must somehow copyright everything they do, as though
clutching their thoughts tightly to themselves and reluctant to let them go
except for payment. I think the reverse
should be true, and Stephen Hawking’s plea for “free, unhindered access” to
thoughts is to be applauded.
I was interested to read in the Guardian a few days ago that
the Nobel prize for medicine has just been awarded to three scientists “for
their discoveries on the molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythms –
in other words, the 24-hour clock.”
These scientists “were recognised for their discoveries explaining how
plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is
synchronised with the Earth’s revolutions.”
“They identified a gene in fruit flies that controls the creatures’
daily rhythm, known as the “period” gene.
This encodes a protein within the cell during the night which then
degrades during the day. When there is a
mismatch between this internal “clock” and the external surroundings, it can
affect the organism’s wellbeing – for example, in humans, when we experience
jet lag.”
The article quotes Sir Paul Nurse, the director of the
Francis Crick institute in London,
as saying “Every living organism on this planet responds to the sun. All plant and animal behaviour is determined
by the light-dark cycle. We on this planet are slaves to the sun. The circadian clock is embedded in our
mechanisms of working, our metabolism, it’s embedded everywhere, it’s a real
core feature for understanding life.”
The article goes on to say: “The rhythm of day and night
affects our health and our cognitive functioning. When it is disturbed, we are. But our sense
of upset, or even jet lag, is just a minute part of the whole living world’s
adaptation to the alternation of day and night: animals, insects, plants and
even plankton show a cyclical pattern of behaviour as the Earth turns. This is built into their DNA.”
I don’t think there is a better way of describing the action
of the “light-dark” (or as we would put it the yin-yang) cycle of the elements. How lovely when science confirms what the
ancient Chinese discovered thousands of years ago, and we use every day in our
practice as we attune our patients’ energies to the daily and seasonal cadences
of the elements.
A footnote to the blog above which I wrote a day ago: In a further newspaper article I have just read the following: "In the past decade...scientists have shown that clock genes are active in almost every cell type in the body. The activity of blood, liver, kidney and lung cells in a petri dish all rise and fall on a roughly 24-hour cycle. ...In effect, tiny clocks are ticking inside almost every cell type in our body, anticipating our daily needs."
I have come across two individual pieces of writing which in
their different ways both describe the mystery which is at the heart of human
life, and underpins my practice of five element acupuncture.
The first has provided the title for this blog. It is taken from a podcast by Heiner Fruehauf
on the Classical Chinese Medicine website https://classicalchinesemedicine.org/your-body-sacred-landscape/,
which I listened to some time ago.
The second is from a blog by my young friend Sujata
Varadarajan, who writes beautifully about her life in India and her
yoga practice at http://sujatavaradarajan.blogspot.co.uk/
In her latest blog she says:
“Now that I have begun
focussing on my inner energy, I find myself unconsciously sensing the energy
given out by the environment as well - in particular nature. Not in
discrete units but in a fuzzy kind of way, feeling the difference between the
energy of water and land, of grass and granite, of raindrops and wet earth.
I feel an immense gratitude towards all the traditional, wise systems which
recognized this energy, and devised unusual ways to work with it - in
particular the systems I have come in contact with - Yoga, Five Element
Acupuncture and Tai Chi Chuan. It's a magical feeling to be linked to
everything through something so basic yet intangible, and to be able to tap it
and use it wisely.”
I love the thought that our bodies are sacred landscapes,
and therefore that we always have to be aware that with each treatment we are
being invited by our patients to enter a sacred space, and must do so
sensitively and humbly. And equally, how
lovely it is that we are privileged to enjoy “the magical feeling” that “we are
linked to everything” and are able, through our practice, to “tap it”, and, we
hope, “use it wisely”.
Thank you, Heiner and Sujata, for putting thoughts so close
to my heart into such beautiful words.
I have been looking through some of my past blogs about how
I learn to diagnose the different elements, and came across one that I posted some
years ago which has prompted a few more thoughts. I am repeating part of here, adding a few
more observations I have made since then.
Often without our being aware of this, we gradually build up
a list of the characteristics by which
we have learnt to recognise the different elements These are like our own short-cuts which lead
us towards an element. We often follow
along what to us is a well-trodden route towards an element without being aware
we are doing it, and, more importantly, without checking at intervals to see
whether our responses have become stereotyped and no longer reflect the great
diversity with which the elements manifest themselves. We should always at intervals do a stock
take, and throw out any worn-out clichés
about an element which have passed their sell-by date.
None of the descriptions by which I attempt to define the
elements can be absolutely clear-cut, any more than the distinctions between
one element and another can ever be clearly defined. Like the colours of the rainbow, the elements
meld into one another at their edges, so that they will share, faintly, some of
each other’s characteristics. Though
faint, these similarities can nonetheless confuse us, some more than others, and
explain the difficulties we all have in distinguishing between the
characteristics of different elements.
My own greatest confusion has always come from the differences between
Earth and Fire, and my least from those between Metal and Water, with the
similarities I perceive between other pairings falling somewhere between these
two. Other people will find it difficult
to distinguish between other elements.
Each of us should remain aware of where our own particular
difficulties in differentiating between the elements lie, and use them as
warning signals along the path to a diagnosis.
In particular we need to ask ourselves at intervals whether unconscious
bias for or against an element has crept into our practice, so that without our
realising it the number of patients we diagnose as being of one element seems
to be surprisingly high, whilst that of another element surprisingly low. Are we perhaps tempted to avoid recognizing
the characteristics of elements we find it too difficult to deal with in the
practice room?
How does the Fire element make me feel? This is a more difficult question than when I
ask myself how the other elements make me feel, because here I am confronting
my own element, and dealing with one’s own element presents challenges and
risks all of their own. One would think
that its very familiarity to me would make me feel far more at ease, but oddly
this is at the same time both a true and a false
assumption.
In a way I am very easy in the presence of Fire because I
can relax and express my enjoyment of life with those who enjoy similar
things. But I find that I am also
irritated by just those familiar qualities in other Fire people that irritate
me in myself. So my contacts with Fire
are not always the unalloyed delight one might expect them to be.
In looking at the elements over the years I have often
learnt a great deal from studying them in those closest to me, my family and
friends, as many of us do. We cannot
choose our families, but we do of course definitely choose our partners, and
thereby hangs many a tale about our relationship to the other elements. We also choose our friends. Unless we have moved from partner to many
other partners over the years, our choice of friends will provide us with the
largest selection of those we like to be with. We are likely to have accumulated
more friends than partners, and thus have a larger choice from which to
learn more about the elements at close hand, and more specifically, to explore
what it is about particular elements that has attracted us sufficiently to select
them as people whose companionship we enjoy. For me
it has been a fascinating exploration which has yielded surprising results, all
of which has taught me a lot about particular elements in general and about my
own element in particular.
I have
therefore used myself as a productive tool of learning, which we should all do
if we are to deepen our understanding of what distinguishes one element from another.
