Which element would tidy up his/her practitioner’s magazines?

Here’s another little lesson in following up even the tiniest clues to the elements, sent to me by Pierre from France.  I give his words in full, with a few small amendments to make for easier reading:

Just a few words concerning an interesting clue in order to help diagnose the elements.

I treat a male patient since 2 months. At the beginning I felt Water and
Metal a little bit. The others haven't aroused my attention.

After the two first treatments he felt better, but I can attribute this to 7
dragons and AE drain, not to Water treatment.

When I saw him last week, I found that he walked slightly too fast and with
a kind of forcefulness. Compared to my way of walking, I had doubts about
Water... And then when after the third treatment, he got up fast and strong
from the treatment couch, I realized that my intuition was good to change my idea
of his guardian element : indeed I moved from Water to Wood ( thank you for
your blog about bodily movement!) . After he left, I went into the waiting
room and all the magazines which were in a mess on the table before he came
in were now well arranged in ordered piles.

" What an interesting clue to help diagnose a Wood person! Structure of the piles of magazines!"

 

Here is my reply:

A very interesting observation, Pierre.

I think probably only Wood would tidy up the magazines. I (Inner Fire)
would definitely notice that they were all in a muddle, but would not like
to make the practitioner feel that I was judging him by tidying up! I don't
think that Earth would even have noticed (much too busy thinking about
his/her problems). I think Metal would have noticed, but would think it was
the practitioner's task to tidy up, not theirs.

What would you have done, as a Water person? Would you have noticed the
mess?

 

Pierre’s reply to me:

I have never arranged any piles of magazines in a practitioner's clinic. I notice that it is a mess, and I don't like mess. But I know that each thing is moving and unstable : so making an effort to tidy up the piles of magazines is wasting energy for nothing.  I prefer to leave the magazines in a mess.

In my own clinic, I tidy up sometimes the magazines in the waiting room, but always by sorting and throwing out a lot!   Like that, what is left does not seem too messy when it is!

It is by following up such very tiny clues that we begin to differentiate between the different elements.

As a postscript to this blog, I asked Guy Caplan (Metal) whether I was right about Metal not tidying up the magazines, and here’s his reply:

When I arrived at the Acupuncture Academy there were some Acu magazines and EJOM's on the table in the entrance hall.  I instinctively tidied them up into two piles and put them in order.  I don't know if this is a Metal trait or a bit of OCD!

So my observation of Metal is not quite right, is it?  And that’s how we learn that we can’t shut up any element into too tight a box, much as we would like to.   

 And then Guy followed this up by adding another insight into Water:

 When we had the Water group in front of the class, one interesting thing came up for many of them, about not wasting resources! Perhaps the fact of taking time with no goal for itself would be a waste of resources of time for energy for a Water CF?

Interesting how one small but perceptive observation by Pierre has led me, and now Guy, and I hope all those reading this blog, to do a lot of thinking.

A reminder to myself about treating Metal and Earth patients

This week a practitioner asked my help with a patient of his, whom I diagnosed as Metal.  I thought she was more likely to be the Lung official (not able to take in) rather than the Large Intestine (not able to let go).   As usual, seeing this patient added something to my thoughts about the elements.

After I left the practice room I realised that I was in danger of forgetting something JR Worsley told us about treating Metal patients, and which I had not pointed out at the time to the practitioner.  This is something which also applies to treating Earth patients.  He told us that we need to be aware that, for different reasons, both elements might find the start of treatment difficult.  Both might find that the first few treatments could have the somewhat disturbing effect of making them feel rather empty.  I see this as confirming that these first treatments have such a profound effect by addressing the element so directly that they often strip away some of the defences we put up to cope with life.  Metal may therefore experience, perhaps for the first time, a profound emptiness of the spirit, that spiritual disconnection which is the burden Metal has to bear when it is out of balance.  Earth, by contrast, may experience a more physically-based emptiness, that of not being nourished, literally the gnawing feeling we have when we are hungry.

We should therefore always warn our Metal and Earth patients that this might happen, reassuring them it this is a good sign that treatment is clearing things away, so that their energy can be replenished with the good things of life.  After all, that is why we often add that prime clearer-away-of-rubbish, the point IX (Lu) 8, Meridian Gutter, to the normal command point treatment at the very early stages of Metal treatment.  And similarly with Earth, we may add XII (Sp) 8, Earth Motivator, or XI (St) 24, Lubrication Food Gate, early on.  In their different ways, these points all have the effect of helping the element we are directing our attention at to reveal its true needs.

I felt that this Metal patient had so profound an emptiness of spirit that after the initial Metal treatments with which we should always start treatment (see my Handbook of Five Element Practice here for advice on what these points are), I felt she might need more to replenish her.  The obvious point which comes to mind here is IV (Ki) 24, Spirit Burial Ground, but I also felt that she might benefit from another point one or two treatments later, a point which JR Worsley told us is “like IV 24, only deeper”, and that is III (Bl) 42, Spiritual Soul Gate.  And somewhere I feel the lovely point, I (Ht) 1, Utmost Source, beckoning at some time in the future.  JR told us that this was the supreme connecting point, re-establishing a direct connection between Heaven and Man (and Woman of course).  It can be used for patients of any element, and what better point for a Metal patient who, in my eyes, so obviously has lost a sense of this connection.

 

More on what makes the Earth element angry

Here are two observations about what I wrote in my last blog by two of my Earth practitioner friends, one living in Beijing and the other in London.  Both comments have helped me to understand Earth a little better.

My Chinese friend wrote:  “Thank you for sending me your new blogs, I learned a lot about what makes Fire angry. And about what makes Earth angry, I agree with you when you say that “Earth can show its anger when it feels that somebody is not paying enough attention to what it wants to say, or interrupts it in mid-sentence.” But I think “angry” might be a little bit too strong here from my point of view, because I would only feel a bit unhappy about that, and if that’s something I really want to express, I will try to find another chance to tell the practitioner about it. But I will get angry if I tell the practitioner something that really makes me upset or sad or worried, and the practitioner shows no understanding but says something like ”that’s nothing, I don't know why you…”, I may even stop getting treatment from him or her. And in everyday life, I think Earth may get angry when it feels that somebody it really cares about is not paying enough attention to its devotion, or even worse, totally denying it.”

And when asked what would make her angry, my English friend told me: “It would take a lot to make me angry.”


After publishing this blog, this friend added the following to her comments: 

 

"Just to add to mine.... when I get angry about something I feel that I have to express myself over a period of time to different people until I have reached the point that I can let go of it. I guess this is my Earth processing.  And having space and time to mull it over. Also by talking about it over and over it is my way of being understood and heard."

 

 

What do the different elements get angry about?

I always like looking at the ways the different elements express their emotions, and  my last blog (14 August) has made me think about how each element expresses its anger. 

When we express emotions other than the one our particular element imprints us with, these other emotions will always be coloured a little by the specific emotion which has our guardian element’s stamp upon it.  If I take the example of Metal, then Metal’s expression of anger will always be tinged with Metal’s own emotional needs, one of which is its demand for others to respect it.  What makes Metal most angry, therefore, are likely to be those things which impact negatively upon its sense of self-respect, or, by extension, upon the self-respect of others around it.  I have seen Metal people becoming extremely angry, and to me quite frighteningly so, when somebody has ridiculed them openly in front of other people.

Earth can show its anger when it feels that somebody is not paying enough attention to what it wants to say, or interrupts it in mid-sentence.  Its need is not so much a craving for sympathy, but a craving for understanding in its widest sense.  It wants to be given the space and time to express exactly how it feels, and becomes irritated if it is not allowed to do this.  This is something that I, as a rather over-hasty Fire person, have sometimes been guilty of doing, at my Earth patients’ cost. 

I have found Water’s expression of anger to be more hidden, but like Metal’s it can be quite frightening to witness.  It can appear out of the blue (what a Water-like phrase!), like a tornado erupting suddenly out of a clear sky.  Water needs to be constantly on the move, and its sudden expression of anger can be its response to feeling that something is blocking its path.  Behind this outburst of anger lies all the power which Water exerts on all it does.

There is then the Wood element’s own expression of anger.  This is an element most at ease within a given structure and with order in its life.  It is when structure and order are under threat that its dominant emotion of anger will show its stress.   It is easy for us to see an exaggerated example of this in the shouting and fighting to be observed in drunken people on the streets at night.  There is, however, the flipside to this, which is often forgotten, and which often leads us to misdiagnose the Wood element.  This is the suppressed expression of this emotion which we call lack of anger.  Here the voice can speak in an exaggerated whisper instead of a shout, and there may be a marked inability to express anger where anger would be a balanced reaction to some external event. 

Lastly, how do I think Fire tends to express its anger?  I should know, because I am, after all, Fire, but there is always the complication with Fire that, unlike any other element, it has two sides to it, which I have called Inner and Outer Fire.  I have always felt that in some ways this double-sided element could really be described as harbouring two elements, making a total of six in all.  I remember saying this to JR Worsley one day, and was rather delighted when he nodded.  Of course the two sides share Fire’s sensory signatures of colour, sound and smell, but their emotional approach to life is very different.  I can really only speak at first-hand for Inner Fire, although having observed Outer Fire for many years I have learnt to understand some of its qualities as I have those of the other elements.

I know what makes me angry, and that is any injustice meted out to other people, not so much injustice of which I am the object.  I like to fight my battles more on behalf of others than on behalf of myself, and feel deeply, and thus become very angry, when others are wronged.  In my experience Outer Fire’s anger is more directed at feeling that they have been the victim of some injustice.  Both sides of Fire, though, will not harbour grudges for long for they tend to feel that difficulties in any of their relationships with others may somehow be their fault.  Their anger is therefore likely to simmer down quite quickly, once they acknowledge their own role in whatever initially angered them. 

These are my thoughts on the different expressions of anger which each of the five elements may show.    

How the elements cope with responsibility

Having written about the Wood element in positions of power in my last blog (posted 5 December), I feel I should turn my attention to the other elements.    Most obvious of all is a very clear representative of the Metal element, Barack Obama (with, standing at his shoulder, one of the greatest statesmen of them all, Nelson Mandela).  I can think of no greater antithesis to Donald Trump than Obama.  Where Trump is impulsive, given to displays of unco-ordinated thought and action, we have in Obama the very epitome of the opposite, somebody who thinks things through carefully, utters no unconsidered word or action, stands back, observes and only then acts or speaks. Trump’s impulsive tweeting would be anathema to Metal.

So I am left to consider the remaining three elements, Fire, Earth and Water.  As those who have read my Keepers of the Soul  (Chapter 6) already know, over the years I have always used Tony Blair as an excellent example of one aspect of the Fire element, Inner Fire (Small Intestine).   This side of Fire has a toughness coming from its need to sort things appropriately for the Heart, and will feel that it must refuse to do what it does not consider right to do, and force through what it thinks right.  Whatever our opinion of Tony Blair’s decision about the Iraq war, he was convinced, and is still convinced, that this was necessary, and would not allow public opinion, so vehemently against him at the time, to sway him.  There was, too the added pressure exerted upon him from his association with George Bush (another Wood leader to go with Donald Trump and Theresa May), who drew Tony Blair in his wake.

I think that the other side of Fire, Outer Fire, is well represented by two flamboyant politicians, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, both able to attract supporters by acting the clown and making them laugh, a very different Fire quality to that of Tony Blair.

Fire and Wood are the two strong yang, outward facing elements keen to push themselves forward.  We can contrast that here with Obama’s Metal, with its inward-turning yin qualities.

We are now left with the last two elements, Earth and Water.  Interestingly, what I consider to be the most powerful element of all, Water, does not like to push itself too strongly into the limelight, as befits its deeply yin nature, making it the most hidden of all elements, as it works away in the dark.  The most obvious politician I can think of to show Water’s characteristics is Gordon Brown, briefly a Prime Minister, and yet somebody who for many years attempted to undermine Tony Blair and usurp his position.  When faced with the first opportunity to challenge Blair, though, he hesitated and retreated, only becoming Prime Minister once Tony Blair had resigned.  And as Prime Minister, despite so desperately wanting this position for so many years, he was surprisingly hesitant and uneasy in the limelight.

Finally, Earth, for which, David Cameron, our former Prime Minister, is a good example.  Here is a man at ease with himself, and easy in the company of others, with one of those soothing Earth voices.  Once having made the fatal decision to hold the referendum, he was unable to deal with its consequences, resigning immediately rather than facing them.  Powerful when surrounded by others in power (the yang aspect of Earth), Earth’s yielding yin aspect came to the fore when he lost the referendum, and like Gordon Brown, but for other reasons, he retreated rapidly into the background.  In the last glimpse of him on the Downing Street doorstep he was, appropriately for Earth, closely surrounded by his family.

Some people reading these thoughts of mine will disagree with my conclusions, but I hope what I have written has at least made them think a little more about how the elements, in shaping all of us, shape our politicians in very specific ways.  These may often be disturbing ways, but equally often, I hope, positive ones, too.  After all, South Africa would still be under the thrall of apartheid if there had been no Nelson Mandela.  I hold fast to my thoughts of him as a good antidote to fearing what Trump may unleash upon the world.

For simplicity’s sake – another heartfelt plea

Anybody who knows anything about me will know how often I plead for one basic principle of five element acupuncture, which is to keep it simple.  I always hear JR Worsley’s voice in my ear telling us that we really only need 3 minutes with our patients, one to look at them, two to decide on the point(s) to needle and three to say goodbye.  It was said jokingly (or at least I assumed it was), but like everything he said it hides profound wisdom.  The longer I practise, the more I have come to understand this.

As all good five element acupuncturists know, the aim of treatment is to hand control back to the elements within the patient as quickly as possible.  All treatment represents an interference with a patient’s natural energy, a temporary taking-over of control.  We were always told that it is not we who heal our patients, it is nature which does this through the elements which create the world outside and create our bodies and within them our souls.  So if we can find out where a hitch has occurred in the beautiful, health-giving flow of energy round the cycle of the elements, and help reinstate this natural flow, our work is done and we should withdraw from the scene.

From this viewpoint it can then be regarded as a waste of energy to spend so much time mulling over the actions of individual points rather than trying to pinpoint the element under stress and choosing points relating to that element. Sadly, though, I see too many people doing this.  We can call this “not seeing the wood for the trees”.

There is no doubt that it requires much humility to accept that observing the work of the elements in a human being demands skills which we can only acquire over time and involves much hard work.  For example, I like to tell people that it took me many years accurately to recognize the fear at the heart of the Water element, or that flushed red cheeks did not, as I assumed, point to Fire, but either to Wood or Earth out of control.  (In the case of Wood, it is because it is depriving its child Fire of the warmth it needs, and therefore Fire tries to stoke it up artificially, or in the case of Earth, it is because its mother, Fire, is out of control and passes on too much Fire to its child.  Fire never has permanently flushed skin.  Its colour flushes and then fades again quite quickly.  It often has a kind of blotchy red look.)  It took me a long time and much evidence from treating patients to recognize this and to accept that this was so.

But once we realize that what we need to do is study people as closely as possible wherever we encounter them (TV or cafes are good places to observe the significant interactions which point to one element or another), and gradually to build up a personal filing system of indicators for each element, then practice becomes simpler and simpler.  The mantra, as always, is “find the element and the points look after themselves”.  I don’t think it matters at all if I choose one point and another practitioner chooses another, provided both strengthen the patient’s guardian element.

We comfort eat when we don't get enough comfort from eating

A few days ago I was sitting in my favourite café enjoying my favourite meal of the day, which is breakfast – a small espresso with a drop of very hot milk and a fresh croissant to dunk into it.  I was contemplating the world around me, thinking how good it was peacefully to savour the taste of what I was eating, when a thought popped into my mind, which was how important it is to give ourselves the time to enjoy food.

That led me to think how little attention we often now pay to the simple pleasure of eating when we can dash into a coffee-house and grab a quick drink and a bite to eat on our way to hurrying to wherever we are going.  This made me consider what this is doing to our Earth element, our mother element which is there to nourish and support the other elements, and which needs to be nourished and supported itself if it is to do its work properly.  It has to learn how to do this, as all elements do, as they gradually take over the role their mother has taken on in the womb.  I now watch with dismay as mothers stuff bottles into small babies’ mouths in their prams in the street or even in buses amidst all the tumult and traffic noise.  Here there is none of the peaceful enjoyment of feeding time which we should be allowing our babies, and which help their tender little Earth elements to assume their role.   

I wonder how far our lack of attention to the actual process of enjoying the food we put in our mouths, particularly in the early days of a child’s life, is one of the reasons for the sharp rise in obesity we see all around us.  The Earth element can only develop as it should in a loving, caring environment, where it is able to welcome food as something which warms and nourishes it.  It needs this to sustain a healthy relationship to food throughout later life.  If it is denied this comfort because its Stomach official is asked to snatch at the food that reaches it, it will try to hold on to as much of this food as it can, being unwilling to discard what is unwanted because it is not given enough time to process it.   Rather than satisfying it, then, the food that reaches it is tantalizingly snatched away as it is gobbled down in the hurly-burly of modern life.

This may perhaps be one of the reasons behind the success of so many TV cookery programmes.  Do we, through them at one remove as it were, learn to enjoy again, or even for the first time, the delights of food cooked as it should be, as though we are kidding ourselves that this is how we are feeding ourselves?  Is this, too, the reason for the runaway success of The Great British Bake Off, with a mother or a grandmother substitute for the whole country so clearly there in Mary Berry, as the TV immerses us in succulent images of home-baked cakes, so Earth-like a delight?

Somewhere hidden in this, too, may well lie the reason why I hardly pass a person in the street who is not holding a cup of coffee or tea in their hands, often making no attempt to drink it, a substitute for a mother’s nipple if there ever was one, as though their Earth element is sending out a constant reminder to them of its need for attention.

And is this, too, why I so enjoy sitting in a coffee house with my coffee and croissant, a reminder, perhaps, of home and hearth (and mother) all those years ago?

Thoughts on the Fire element and other elements prompted by watching Usain Bolt and others at the Rio Olympics

Usain Bolt is, of course, pure Fire, at the moment the most visible example dominating our headlines.  Watching him interact with the crowd has added to my knowledge of Fire, and made me think more of what it tries to offer those around it.  So here are some more of my insights.

Fire wants to share its smile, its laughter, its thoughts.  If you watch Fire’s eyes they are always looking directly in the eyes of another person when they are talking or smiling or laughing to make sure that their speech, their smiles or their laughter are being received by somebody.  You could say that Fire regards them as gifts they want to offer others.

All elements can talk, smile and laugh, but their interactions will be directed outwards in different ways because they come from a different space within them, created, as everything we do is, by a particular guardian element.  Wood wants to command attention, point something out, Earth wants to ensure that all within hearing respond to it, for it likes being at the centre of a circle, not demanding one to one attention.  Metal, true to its natural desire to observe and judge life from a distance, will tend to keep many things to itself, saying the minimum that it thinks needs to be said, often choosing to keep its thoughts to itself, unless actively asked to share them.  Its smiles and its laughter are more like brief flashes breaking out, as though disturbing its preference for silence.  Compare, for example, the quiet celebration of joy that Jessica Ennis (Metal, I think) shows at winning with Usain Bolt’s tumultuous one, where he draws the whole world around him, spectators and TV audiences alike, to help him share his joy.

Finally, there is Water, always last in my list, because it is such a mysterious element and so difficult for me to pin down, with its often rather hysterical outpourings of speech and emotion, which are more likely to make us step away rather than drawing us towards it, because it makes us feel unsure of what we are experiencing and how we should be reacting.

I use a study of myself, as Fire, more than of anybody else in trying to fathom the secrets of what Fire wants of life.  Thinking of Usain Bolt, as I was this morning, I realised that my need to share my thoughts appears in the urge behind my teaching and my writing, particularly of my blogs and now in my Question and Answer Facebook sessions.  And I want to share my thoughts immediately, almost unable to wait until I have somebody with me, either in person or through social media of some kind, with whom to share them.  I can’t not share, just as Usain Bolt can’t not smile. 

Hence this blog.

 

One of the many challenges of being a five element acupuncturist

We must never be too quick to say “I know this patient’s element is obviously Fire (or Wood or Earth or Metal or Water)”.  There is nothing “obvious” at all about the way in which an element presents itself to us.  We may learn to recognize its presence more and more clearly with time, but we should always leave a healthy small (or large) question-mark hanging over it reminding us that elements can hide themselves so subtly behind manifestations of other elements that they still have the power to surprise us, as they do me even after all these years.

If the presence of an element were so simple to detect, we would all be brilliant five element acupuncturists early on in our career, but human beings are much more complex than we think.  So we should never underestimate the time it will take us to find the one element buried deep within the circle of all the elements which gives each of us our individual stamp of uniqueness.

Pride, as they say, comes before a fall, and never is this truer when trying to diagnose an element.  We risk much if we think our understanding of the elements is greater than it truly is.

In any case, the secret of good five element acupuncture is not simply managing to diagnose the right element, despite this being what many practitioners think.  Instead it is learning to respond appropriately to that particular element’s needs.  Even if we diagnose the right element, do we know how to respond to its needs in a way which makes the patient feel that they have been heard as they want to be heard?  If that understanding is not there, treatment will rest on fallow ground, however much it may be focused upon the right element.

Supposing, for example, that we diagnose a patient’s element, correctly, as Metal, but respond to it in a way which would be more appropriate to an Earth patient, offering a kind of “Oh dear, Oh dear, you poor thing” kind of response, we will find that our Metal patient soon backs away and decides not to continue treatment.  Our element may be Earth and it may be natural for us, mistakenly, to offer to all our patients what we ourselves feel most comfortable with.  Unfortunately, however, we have to learn to make ourselves at ease in the company of elements not our own.  To surround Metal, for example, with a kind of enveloping sympathy is not what it wants.  It will feel suffocated by it, its Lung unable to breathe.  Instead we must learn to offer the space it always wants to place between itself and others.

And the same holds true for how we need to approach our interactions with the other elements.  As far as possible, then, we must learn to suppress the needs of our own element and think ourselves into those of the element we have chosen to treat.  This is not an easy task, and one that it takes some skill and much practice to acquire.

A comparison of the thought processes of the different elements

Each element will think in its own particular way.  Metal will speedily resolve issues in its mind, cutting its way through thickets of thought which may hold up two other elements, Fire and Water.  It will think things through at a measured pace, ensuring that its conclusion and the verbal expression of this conclusion has only been taken after careful consideration, with none of the sense of haste which Wood can show.  This is so unlike the long dwelling upon things which Earth will need to indulge in if it is to fulfil its role as the profound processor of all thought.  Wood will want to reach a conclusion rapidly, making its mind up quickly, perhaps too quickly, and sticking to its conclusion often despite evidence to the contrary.   Water will be reluctant to allow anything to impede its need for its thoughts to flow, but may be hesitant in expressing these thoughts, perhaps often preferring to keep its thoughts to itself.  Fire, particularly Inner Fire, with its concentrated attention to the needs of the Heart, will try to ensure that any decisions it takes are appropriate for the Heart, and are made as quickly as possible to ensure that the protective cover it gives the Heart is maintained. 

A clear difference between the thought processes of Earth and Metal was revealed to me to me on a day when I happened to treat an Earth patient followed immediately by a Metal patient.  I became aware that I was moving from a room in which a patient was almost obsessively concerned with repeating a story she had already told me several times to a room with a totally silent patient, who left it to me to start the verbal interaction between us.  The comparison between the two was very stark and very illuminating, and probably gave me some of the most memorable insights into the differing qualities of the two elements.  I could see that Earth needed me to listen and understand.  It wanted to be heard, and would not be satisfied with simply telling me of an incident in its life, but had to repeat it several times in case I did not hear it properly.  Metal, on the other hand, far from wanting me to hear the processes by which it had reached a conclusion, only wanted to impart the conclusion it had come to quietly by itself in the least number of words possible.  It presented me with a complete episode, leaving unspoken the process by which it had reached this conclusion.  It was interested only in the finished product.  One could say it allowed its mother element, Earth, to do the preliminary processing work, whilst it waited to complete the action, to finalize the thought.

In each case, the speaker, here my patient, was demanding different things from me, the listener, and since these different demands reflected characteristics typical of each element, this could be used as another helpful pointer to a patient’s element.  Of course these individual characteristics can become exaggerated the more out of balance a patient is, and less obvious the more balanced a patient is.

 

 

The elements' different relationships to other people - Part 2

In my blog of 23 October I wrote about the relationships Wood, Fire and Metal like to have with other people.  Now it is the turn of Earth and Water.

There is some similarity between what these two elements want to experience in their encounters with other people, and in each case they express more of a need than we have seen with the other three elements.  Both of these elements enjoy being in the midst of a group, Earth liking to be at its centre with others around it, and Water melding more into the group, each Water person like a drop of water absorbed into the great oceans of life.  Earth will demand more individual attention, whereas Water is most comfortable with safety in numbers.

This picture of Earth surrounded by other people, preferably at their centre, metaphorically echoes the original five element diagram in which the other four elements circle around Earth in their midst.  With Earth the most important thing is that those surrounding it face towards it so that they can take careful note of what it wishes to say.  It is not enough, as it is with Water, for it to disappear into the group, for then its words will not be heard and understood as they should be, an understanding which is a necessary part of its need to process its own thoughts properly.  Processing is, after all, one of Earth’s most important functions.  It takes in, digests and then processes all that comes to it, both physically in the shape of food and mentally in the shape of thoughts.  It then has to pass on what it has processed as physical food worked on by the stomach, and as mental food in terms of thoughts and words worked on by its mind, which it then invites others to hear.

I have always found it interesting to note the somewhat confusing messages Water seems always to be transmitting.  On the one hand, as I have said, it has a need in some way to be swallowed up in the whole, to merge itself with those around it, and on the other, it has the quite contrasting, but less overtly obvious need to rise above the masses around it, and thus to rise to the top.  It is known to be the element of ambition and will-power, and just as water in nature exerts by far the strongest force when it is unleashed in storms and tsunamis, so a Water person will tend to achieve whatever it sets its mind to, often pushing aside those who stand in its way, as storm waters submerge all in their path.  Its relationship to others can therefore often seem somewhat ambiguous.  Appearing at ease in the company of others, it can then surprise them by pushing them aside, determinedly and often unobtrusively, in its fight to get to the top.  A Water person might well be the one in an office who, perhaps to others’ surprise, is offered the promotion these others had wanted and expected to be theirs.

And yet, despite this focused struggle to succeed in whatever it does, with little concern for how this affects others and often at their expense, it constantly seeks reassurance from those around it to still the fears lurking deep within it, fear being its dominant emotion.  

A patient’s comments after his element was changed from Fire to Earth

Here is what a fellow practitioner told me after changing her patient’s treatment from the Fire to the Earth element.  After one treatment on Earth, the patient told her that he 'felt a profound change. Something felt very different'.

I am always delighted when I receive such strong confirmation of the effects of homing in on the right element.  My own patients have used different words to say the same thing, such as “I know who I am”, or “I feel myself now”.  That awareness of self that treatment helps patients to connect with is one of the most moving gifts our practice can offer them.     

How people make us feel

Each day of my practice adds one more day of learning.  Today’s lesson came from something I observed in myself after I had been asked to look at another practitioner’s patient.  Together we agreed that she had been treating her on what I, too, considered to be the right element, which was Fire, but when I was thinking back on this patient the next morning, I remembered that I had remarked at the time, “She’s a rather passive person, isn’t she?”

Something about what I had said jarred now with my feelings around the Fire element.  Was passive a word I would ever use to describe a Fire person, I wondered?  That set me thinking of as many Fire people as I could, including of course myself.  Nobody could call me passive, but then I am Inner Fire, and the Small Intestine is the most active of all the four Fire officials.  But I could think of no Outer Fire person I knew either to whom the word “passive” would fit.  I then thought more carefully about something else which had struck me after seeing her.  I had not felt that she was trying to give me anything, far from it.  I felt instead that she was drawing me towards herself, which gave me now with hindsight the feeling I associate much more with the Earth element.  She seemed to be expressing a need, as though asking something from me, rather than wanting to give me something, so much more typical of Fire.  I told the practitioner of my doubts about Fire, and suggested that she should change her treatment to Earth and let me know how the patient was after a few Earth treatments.

It pleases me that I somehow could not leave things alone until I had traced my unease about the time I had spent with the patient to its source.  This feeling about how we experience being in the presence of a particular element becomes ever stronger with experience, and we should always take note of it.  It can be seen as a form of direct transmission to us of the essential nature of a patient’s element.  

If we interpret this information correctly by examining our own feelings and their response to what is coming from the patient we are well on the way to finding the element.

I always love it when an element declares itself so firmly in this way, even giving me only a slight, but clear hint of its presence.  It may take me a little while to see what it is trying to tell me, but then it always certainly better late than never.

 

The different kinds of spaces Earth and Fire feel comfortable with

Here is an amusing little observation I made during my morning’s breakfast excursion to a local café.  It was quite full, and I tried to find a table as far away as possible from anybody else.  The place gradually emptied as people set off for their day’s work, until all that were left were two people at one table and me at another.  A woman then came in, looked carefully around her for quite some time, before firmly seating herself at a table a mere few feet next to the one occupied by the couple.  I was amused when I saw this, thinking that the last thing I would have done would have been to settle myself so close to the few other customers at the café. 

I then realised that she had made her choice for exactly the same reasons that I had made a completely different one.  We were, I thought, both following the dictates of our guardian element, different as these were. 

I assumed that she was Earth, mainly from her colour, and because she was quite at ease sitting in such close proximity to other people.  Earth likes being surrounded by people, almost irrespective of who they are.  I, on the other hand, am Fire, and Fire only wants to move close to others when it feels really comfortable in their presence.

It is by observing these tiny differences in human behaviour that we learn more and more about the elements.  This morning’s was another interesting little insight into the differences between Earth and Fire for me to ponder on.  Thus do we continue to learn.

 

Hot desking

What a very odd term this is, some of my readers may say.  It is one I heard for the first time a few days ago, but is apparently one used by all modern office workers.  It appears that it is very common now for those working in offices to share desk space with others.  Presumably the term has something to do with keeping an office space warm for another person.  Office workers are now peripatetic; they are asked to wander around each day looking for a desk on which to put their laptop and, presumably, also any personal belongings they have.  They stay there only as long as they need to, placing their things for safekeeping in a personal locker before leaving work.

I was told of a senior member of staff who had worked from her own office all her working life, but who now had been told that she, too, needs to take part in this daily scramble for desk space.  She is appalled by this, and feels totally uprooted.  Where can she put the photos of her family with which she likes to surround herself as she works?  And does she have to get rid of her pot plants which she tenders so lovingly each day?

I wonder what the thinking behind this is, apart, presumably, to save space.  If desk spaces are freed up when people are out of the office, I assume this makes it possible to cram more people into ever smaller spaces.  But what may be the human cost of learning to view your office, not as a place where you establish a second home (your own desk, your own things), but as a public space available to anybody?  Has anybody calculated that?  I wonder whether anybody has thought to measure the comparative job satisfaction of having a familiar against an unfamiliar, ever-changing place of work?  Would it not be as though every day you have to search for a new home which you have to try to make your own?  From a five element point of view, what does this do to office workers’ Earth element, the element which so strongly wants to make every place where it rests its home?

This reminds me of a patient of mine who came to me because her ankles had suddenly swollen so badly that she could hardly walk.  After enquiring carefully about what was happening when this trouble first appeared, it apparently coincided with when she was promoted and moved to an office on her own.  Aware that she was Earth, and therefore, as are all Earth people, is happiest in the company of people, viewing her fellow office workers as a kind of work family who surround her, I asked her whether she liked this.  It turned out that she hated working on her own in this way.  With my knowledge of the Earth element prompting me, I asked whether she could move somebody else in with her.  She was not sure whether this would be possible, but then, as often happens, the fates intervened.  The management wanted to rearrange office space and asked her whether she minded sharing her room with two others.  Of course she agreed.  Very soon after this, and with the additional help of treatment on the Earth element, the swelling on her ankles disappeared.

I always attributed the rather sudden disappearance of her symptoms to her Earth element’s relief at no longer working alone.  Perhaps symbolically her swollen ankles were Earth’s way of immobilizing her, trying to fix a home for her within herself when her actual office home had become too lonely for her.  Once the office had returned to being a comfortable place peopled by others, it could be said that her body could now return to its normal shape, no longer needing to try to find its own stability within itself, which is one way of viewing her swollen legs.  Fanciful though this might seem to some people, I don’t think it is.  Our physical symptoms always in some way reflect what is going on emotionally within us. 

I thought of this patient today, although she came many years ago, because she is further evidence to me of how any environment we are in, office as well as home, will affect our emotional well-being, either positively or negatively.  I suspect office planners rarely think of this when designing how their office spaces should be used. 

 

 

Good Earth quotes

I have always liked writing down particularly relevant quotes about the different elements in the books I read.  The first quote is from an excellent book I have just finished reading by Jacqueline Winspear, who usually writes detective stories based around the time of the first world war, but this time has written a very moving story of a family and friends who volunteer to go to the battlefields in Belgium.  This is a very appropriate subject for a book at the time of the centenary of this completely tragic and pointless war.


“Thea was aware of Kezia, nodding her understanding.  She remembered a certain look, from the very early days of their friendship.  Kezia would often take her time with a question, ruminating over it in her mind, chewing on it like a cow with a clump of grass, grinding it down from side to side to get the goodness – only with Kezia, it was as if she were looking for something in the middle of the problem.  The truth, perhaps.”

        Jacqueline Winspear: The Care and Management of Lies

 

I also list below some of the quotes I used to give my students at SOFEA as a way of helping them understand the Earth element better:

“What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother.  “If I had a mother,” she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes had a wistful, starved look when she thought of it, “if I only had a mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I’d put my head on her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again.  First I’d tell her everything, and she wouldn’t mind however silly it was, and she wouldn’t be tired however long it was, and she’d say, “Little darling child you are only a baby after all,” and would scold me a little, and kiss me a great deal, and then I’d listen so comfortably, all the time with my face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and wrapped round whilst she told me what to do next.  It is lonely and cold and difficult without a mother.”

                                                                       Elizabeth von Arnim:  The Benefactress

 “He was one of those monstrous fat men you sometimes pass in a crowd: no matter how hard you struggle to avert your eyes, you can’t help gawping at him.  He was titanic in his obesity, a person of such bulging, protrusive roundness that you could not look at him without feeling yourself shrink.  It was though his three-dimensionality was more pronounced than that of other men.  Not only did he occupy more space than they did, but he seemed to overflow it, to ooze out from the edges of himself and inhabit areas where he was not.!

                                                                        Paul Auster: Moon Palace

"I thought of life as work.  You have a certain amount of time given to you and you have to find dedication, passion, concentration.  You have to cultivate yourself and be fruitful very much like a patch of land.”

                                                                        Jeanne Moreau, actress: interview

What Earth patients have told me:

“I felt as though the rug had been pulled from under me.”

“I feel the ground a bit firmer beneath me.”

“I always like having a sense of being right at the hub of everything.”

“I don’t think I should always ask other people to feed me.”

“I feel very ungrounded.”

“I feel supported.”

“Everything’s been wiped away from under my feet.”

 

 

 

The Chinese learn to hug each other

Today’s newspaper yielded yet another interesting snippet.  An article from the New York Times International Weekly had the intriguing title “Chinese unwind with a hug and a song”.  Apparently the Chinese are “finally learning to hug each other” - although, from my own experience in China, they already know how to hug with great enjoyment.


Or perhaps it is just that I have met those who have spent time looking at the elements, and have had their interest in emotional responses stimulated by being told to observe what each element offers.  Most Chinese, this article appears to indicate, “have been slow to embrace the embrace”.  Liu Lihong told the class I was teaching that “we need more Fire here”.  In the case of hugs, it is probably more Earth that is needed, since I think hugging is much more a response to one of the Earth element’s needs, which is to draw people close to them.


The article said that “recently it seems like everyone is hugging.  Friends are hugging. Family members are hugging…. The tables are turning….. Schools are now conducting classes in emotional intelligence.  For homework, children have been assigned to hug their parents.”


This trend towards learning to be unafraid to show emotions may be part of the reason why my Chinese five-element students are so keen to learn all about the emotional manifestations of the elements, and enjoy doing exercises which help train them in learning to detect emotions both in themselves and in their patients.

Today's dummy culture

Why do all babies seem to need dummies now? This question often occurs to me as I watch babies passing me on the street, all lustily sucking on dummies, or as I watch parents shove a dummy back into their offspring’s mouth even when the baby is not crying out for it.  Years ago, dummies were frowned upon;  it was thought instead that if babies cried they should be given the warm nipple with its natural supply of comforting food rather than the unpleasant cold plastic variety which gives a baby nothing, however much the baby tries to suck from it.


I find it interesting to speculate why the dummy has become such a universal accessory to a baby’s life.  It worries me that babies now grow up being sold an illusion, tempted to believe, as the dummy goes in the mouth and stimulates the sucking reflex, that it will provide food, whilst it does nothing of the kind.  It is a bit as though you offer somebody what appears to be a sweet in a lovely wrapping, only for them to find when the wrapping is undone that there is nothing inside after all.  It can surely not be healthy to keep on disappointing a baby in this way.


It is little wonder then that so many people have problems relating to food in their later life, since all eating habits start in childhood, as we know.  In five element terms, this shapes a person’s relationship to their Earth element, the mother element.  The provision of nourishment for her child, which is a mother’s first task, should always be associated with  the love and warmth of being held close to a mother, not the stuffing of a surrogate plastic nipple into a baby’s mouth.


As I watch babies sucking feverishly on their dummies, my heart bleeds for what this is doing to the development of their Earth element, and their capacity to nourish themselves later in life.  And perhaps, too, this goes some way to explain the sight of so many adults streaming along the road to work, all carrying their dummy-replacements, a plastic cup of coffee, as though they, too, have been brainwashed since childhood by the need to have something, anything, in their mouth to suck on.


Just as babies can’t nowadays seem to do without a dummy, so adults can’t seem to do without a cup of coffee in the hand.

 

 

 

410 words

 

Don't ask our patients to reassure us!

We can so easily fall into the habit of asking for confirmation from our patients that our treatment is helping them.  It is not our patients’ job to make us feel better; it is ours to make them feel better.  So we should avoid asking a question like, “How are you feeling now?” at the end of treatment, because this is usually our way of asking for reassurance.

This is why it is important to remember the following:

1. It takes times for treatment to percolate through, so we should not expect patients to feel an immediate effect. It may takes some days before patients are aware things are beginning to change.
2. Some people are not sufficiently self-aware to register that things have actually improved.  This may be for several reasons.  They may be reluctant to trust that things can get better, or uncertain whether things won’t just go back to being how they were.  They may also be unwilling to admit to any improvement for fear that we may start losing interest in continuing to see them.
3. “Feeling better” is a very subjective assessment of how we feel.  As energy starts to return to greater balance, there may be all kinds of reactions as patients get used to adjusting to the changes inside them.  There is often an unsettling time as patients have to learn to cope with what may be strange new feelings.

The only things we as practitioners should learn to rely upon are our own observations of change (or no change).  We should look carefully at our patients as they leave at the end of treatment to see whether they look any different.  And these changes will always be very subtle, a slightly brighter look in the eye, a brisker way of walking, a slightly warmer smile.

 

I was reminded of this yesterday after I had treated an Earth patient of mine, who came in looking worried and rather depressed, and left looking as if his spirit had received a welcome uplift.  I felt that the person walking out of the door was quite different to the one who came in.  He himself said as he left, without any prompting from me, “I feel much better now”.  This was an unexpected bonus for me, and left me feeling, yet again, what a lovely, yet profoundly simple calling is five element acupuncture.

 

                                                        

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For those interested to know what treatment I gave, it was: GV14 (Great Hammer) (5 moxas), AEPs (back shu points) of Stomach and Spleen, III (Bl) 20, 21, (7 moxas), followed by the source points of Stomach and Spleen, XI (St) 42, XII (Sp) 3, (3 moxas).  When he came in, he looked so resigned in a passive kind of a way that I thought his Earth element could benefit from being given a boost from GV 14, Great Hammer, before I did the AEPs.

Learning to build up a good relationship with Earth patients

The difficulties I experience with Earth patients are of a different kind from those with Wood or Fire.  I have found that the need to be nurtured which all Earth people have awakes an echo of the same need in me, because at some deep level within me I would like some of the same kind of nurturing I am being asked to offer Earth.  A few days ago, interestingly, an Earth practitioner told me that he finds his first interaction with his patients disturbing because he feels their differing needs tugging at his Earth element which is reluctant to offer what is being demanded of it.  

Once I am aware of this reaction in myself, I remind myself firmly that I am here for the patient and not for my own needs.  What Earth needs is not a blanket response of sympathy of the “Oh, you poor dear” kind, but instead it needs to be understood.  It wants to be heard, and wants to be heard to the end if possible without interruption.  Its thinking is a circular process, ending where it began and then beginning again.  If it is out of balance, it begins again with the same words and goes over the same ground, like an oxen tied to a circular grindstone, going round and round.  When it is in balance, this need to churn over the same thoughts is lessened, but never disappears completely.  Since its function is to process all things, thoughts as well as food, it has to perform this task endlessly as the other elements pass their energies to it for processing. 

 

If I remain clear that my Earth patients need to be allowed time to circle round a subject, even though I may have heard the same thing in the same words before, I am able to stand back and allow this circular movement to continue without getting irritated.  But being a quick thinker and talker myself, the slow chewing-of-the-cud which is Earth’s way of thinking can tend to irritate me and make me want to interrupt it if I am not careful.  So a warning sign goes off in my head with every Earth patient I treat:  Let the patient speak, Nora, and only interrupt or add your own comments when you have given your patient time to process his/her thoughts and express them fully in the way they want.