A call for more five element teachers

It is one of my sadnesses that so few good five element practitioners want to pass on their experiences to a new generation of student acupuncturists.  What I have learnt from teaching in China (see my blog of 31 January 2020) has helped me understand some of the reasons for this, and helped me try to devise ways of persuading my fellow five element acupuncturists to have the courage to follow in my footsteps and in those of other five element teachers.  There appear to be very few people now who are prepared to face what they may think is the daunting prospect of diagnosing patients’ elements in front of a group of people.  People are often afraid of committing themselves to diagnosing an element publicly in case they have to change their opinion later on.   

In all the years during which I have been helping practitioners develop their five element skills, I have tried to emphasize the fact that they should not be obsessed with finding the right element immediately, because this is an impossibility, particularly for novice practitioners with little experience to draw upon.  The speed at which we eventually home in on this element is directly related to how long we have been practising, how many patients we have treated, and with what humility we approach our practice.  JR Worsley always said that we learnt more from not getting the element right than from finding the right element often almost by chance, because we might otherwise assume that our diagnostic skills are more highly developed than they are, and this might lead us to become a bit too complacent.

I can confirm from my own experience that he was right.  I am reminded here of a very humbling incident which took place a few years after I qualified when  I returned to the Leamington college to start my postgraduate studies under JR.  Our class of about 25 was asked to diagnose a patient, and to my horror everybody but me raised their hands for Earth, whilst I was the only one who thought the patient was Fire.  What the others had observed, but I had not, was that the patient was circling round the same point again and again in what she was talking about.  To everybody this apparently pointed to Earth’s need to process its thoughts in a repetitive way, which they all saw as being typical for Earth, something I did not. So why had this bit of learning passed me by during my undergraduate training?  Had I perhaps been daydreaming when this was being discussed, a habit I still have, where I find my thoughts veering off sideways from the main topic under discussion?

I naturally felt foolish to find myself unaware of something so typical of the Earth element after two years in practice.  And yet I have never forgotten this incident.  It taught me to overcome the natural feelings of incompetence which a wrong diagnosis will arouse in us all, particularly as I felt I was so publicly exposed.  I realise, though, that this had the long-term effect of making me less worried than some other practitioners are at accepting as quite normal that sense of utter blankness after first meeting a patient, rather than expecting to experience a blinding flash of recognition of an element’s signature.  And the sooner all us five element practitioners learn not to beat ourselves up if we do not recognize a patient’s element as quickly as we think our years of experience warrant, the better a practitioner we will each become.

I believe that the reason why so many five element practitioners hesitate to put themselves forward as teachers comes from the speed at which JR diagnosed patients, which they either observed themselves as I did over many years, or heard about from those he taught.  He would always insist that we would all have reached the same level of diagnostic skill that he had once we had gained the 40 years’ experience he had.  I’m not sure that this is strictly true, but certainly there was an element of truth in what he told us.  The problem is that his example appears to have cast a shadow over the teaching of five element acupuncture which he himself would have been very sad to note.  When I told him one day that I felt that I did not have enough experience to teach others, he said very simply, “You know more than they do, Nora.”  And I remind myself of these words whenever I lose trust in my own ability to teach others.

I started my own teaching life by giving evening classes before I had fully qualified, and I learnt so much from teaching the little I knew then.  One of my acupuncture tutors who encouraged my teaching told me that as a teacher one should never claim we know something that we don’t.  Again this is something which has stood me in good stead, and I always judge those I want to learn from if they are happy to admit that they don’t know the answer to somebody’s question.  It is the teachers who give the impression that they are all-knowing who I am suspicious of, and I have known quite a few of these.

It is interesting that the Chinese five element acupuncturists I teach are quite happy to change their diagnoses, because I have emphasized from the start that it always takes time to home in on a patient’s element. This has meant that many of them are already quite happy to take on the role of teaching others the fundamentals of five element practice, without the fear I often encounter in acupuncturists in this country.

So this blog is a plea for anybody wishing to spread an understanding of five element acupuncture to as many people as possible to overcome their natural fear and just pass on their own delight in their practice.  They should remember that anybody who has been in practice for even as short a time as only a year knows more than those who have never practised five element acupuncture at all.

 

 

An ancient form of healing for a modern world in crisis: how an understanding of the five elements helps us cope better with the stresses of modern life

We are living through difficult times, perhaps more difficult than any that I can recall as an adult, though a childhood spent under the shadow of the second world war must certainly have weighed more heavily upon my parents.  Now with the sudden invasion of the coronavirus almost bringing the world to a halt, we are all confronting what is perhaps the most frightening of all, which is facing the unknown.  None of us can now predict how things will develop, not even the most experienced scientists used to exploring the secret worlds of viruses, with their eery ability to change shape and ferocity at will, in a never-ending attempt to outwit our human capacity to master them.

We are left, then, with our individual responses to this challenging situation.  In five element terms this will depend very much upon the element which guides our life, and the level of its balance or imbalance.  We need each to ask ourselves how, finding ourselves in such an uncertain and therefore threatening world, we will counter these uncertainties and threats.  Some elements will thrive and others will shrink.  So what particular challenge does the appearance of this virus, and its effects upon our everyday life, present for the different elements?  And here we have to look closely at situations which an element finds comfortable to be in, and those which by their very nature threaten and disturb it.  As with all things, we can use our insights here to teach us a little more about the elements.

First we have to look at how a five element acupuncturist deals with named diseases, like cancer, or the coronavirus now.  We have to remind ourselves that our approach to any patient suffering from any condition whatsoever must always be the same.  We must find out as much as possible about our patient, and gradually pinpoint their element.  Then by treating that element we hope that we will strengthen it sufficiently for it to cope with whatever stresses it is being subjected to.  The only difference when dealing with a very serious medical condition is the fact that this will be having a major effect upon the patient, and his/her elements will be under greater stress than if they are only suffering from a minor imbalance, such as a headache or slight emotional trauma.

Because all major illnesses are considered by orthodox medicine to be purely physical in origin, and therefore to be treated by purely physical remedies, such as drugs or surgery, the emotional and spiritual effects of these illnesses are usually overlooked.  This is precisely where five element acupuncture, with its treatment of all three levels of body, mind and spirit, can help.  Our treatment should therefore be able to support patients suffering very severe physical illnesses at a level which purely physical treatments cannot.

The extent of the spread of the coronavirus has raised the level of fear in everybody.   In this atmosphere of fear, it is difficult even for five element acupuncturists to remember that simply supporting the elements at all levels is likely to increase a patient’s resistance to infection. The more balanced all the elements are, the less likely they are to be overwhelmed by any disease. We also know that old people and others already weakened by illness are those most at risk, and we would hope that our treatment will help strengthen their ability to withstand the debilitating effects of any other infections they are exposed to.

When we look at how the different elements will cope with the serious task of dealing with the coronavirus and the understandable fear it engenders in all of us, it will be good to start by looking first at the Water element, since its emotion, fear, is the dominant emotion swirling around now.   Even the most laid-back person will be experiencing some deep-seated fear of what the future may possibly have in store for them, should it spread to whatever country they live in.  Being Water’s emotion, fear will already have given Water people a lifetime’s experience of learning to cope with this emotion.  In some ways, therefore,  they may be better able than people of other elements to deal with the current situation, perhaps by being the first to take practical steps to remove themselves quickly from the risk of possible infection.  If they can’t do this, they may then be able to draw on their natural skill in hiding the fear they are experiencing, thus making themselves look well able to cope, where people of other elements may not be able to do this.  If Water cannot flee from a frightening situation, which is always its first reaction, it has learnt to turn its fear into the kind of response a cornered animal will make, which is to fight rather than to give up.  Water people may then be the ones who appear to be the least disturbed by the real risks involved in any situation, and thus look best able to cope.

When we move on to Wood, we will find a different copying mechanism.  For Wood is likely to want to counter the risk of catching the virus by taking some definite action, and, unlike Water, whose actions may often be more hidden and surreptitious, and therefore appear to be seen as avoiding action, Wood likes to act not only openly, but to feel that it is controlling the situation for other people around it.  It is always happiest to be the one taking obvious control of any situation, whereas Water is likely to be more concerned simply with its own safety, with less interest in seeing how others are coping.  Wood will therefore be happiest if the whole environment in which it lives is operating smoothly and things are under control for everybody around it.  It will counter fear with action.

To get some idea of how the Fire element will deal with the current situation, I can use myself as the best example, because I have personally been faced with the reality of having to take some decisions about whether I should still consider going to China in mid-April as planned.  I expect my trip would have in any case had to be postponed because many airlines have already halted all flights until the end of April, but since my Chinese hosts persisted in telling me that all would soon be well, I felt it was up to me to make the final decision, and not wait for the airlines to make it for me.  In the end, it was I who postponed my trip.  Looking at my reasons for doing this, I realise that fear for my own health and safety was not the predominant one.  My main concern was for the Chinese acupuncturists I felt I might be letting down if I cancelled my visit.  It was only when it was pointed out to me that perhaps my Chinese hosts did not want to be the first to cancel my visit that I felt able to take the decision.

I also amused myself by envisaging myself landing at Beijing airport suffering from a slight sniffle, being whisked off to quarantine to some god-forsaken place I’d never heard of, succumbing there to the virus and being hospitalized, turning my visit into a disaster for my hosts.  I suspect that Fire’s reaction to dealing with a situation like this may always include a strong component of not wanting to be a bother to other people, mixed with any natural fear it feels.  Fear, though, is not an emotion I am very familiar with, and wonder whether that is a general Fire reaction.

Earth, on the other hand, will always tend to look after its own needs first, before checking that those around it are safe.  I think it will experience an appropriate degree of fear, which will encourage it towards acts of self-preservation.  Metal will weigh up the risks more carefully than any other element, work out a way of dealing with them, and then, once having made its decision about what avoidance measures it would be sensible to take, will just get on with its life.  Its assessment of the situation and the dangers involved for it and for others will be the clearest of any element.  It was my Metal son who was the first person to warn me not to go to China, well before the risks became so overwhelming.  All he said to me was “Watch it, Mum”, and then left it to me to decide what to do.  Since he is not somebody who would make more of a situation than it merits, I took his advice to heart, and have “watched it” by deciding to postpone my visit.

My observations here are necessarily very generalized, but I believe there is a strong core of truth in my thoughts on how the different elements deal with fear.

 

 

 

 

My review of Professor Liu Lihong's book: Classical Chinese Medicine

Published by The Chinese University Press
The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2019

 

I would like to start my review of Liu Lihong’s book with the words with which he ends it:

"Why is this book titled “Contemplating Chinese Medicine” in Chinese? What is it that we are contemplating? It is nothing other than these underlying principles, nothing other than the mysteries of nature and life as deciphered through the orientations of time.”  

Liu Lihong was the person who invited me eight years ago to come to China to give an introductory seminar on five element acupuncture, and has since then steadfastly promoted five element acupuncture as a valid discipline of traditional Chinese medicine.  It was therefore a lovely moment of recognition for these years of my work in China since then to read the following in Heiner Fruehauf’s introduction:

 

…”Liu Lihong has developed the Institute (for the Clinical Research of Classical Chinese Medicine) into an influential platform that has reintroduced multiple classical lineages to contemporary scholarly discourse, most notably the Fire Spirit School of Sichuan herbalism (huoshen pai), the traditional system of emotional healing synthesized by the Confucian educator Wang Fengyi (1864-1937), and classical five-element-style acupuncture. Each one of these efforts has had a considerable impact on the grassroots momentum of Chinese Medicine education in China.”

 

Joyful at thus seeing evidence of the importance of my work in China, I was delighted at last to be able to read the book which was the catalyst those eight years ago for Mei Long to write to Liu Lihong, urging him to acquaint himself with this discipline of traditional Chinese medicine, one which she recognized was very close to his own approach.  It has been with much surprise and delight now to receive confirmation that all that I was taught by the great master of five element acupuncture, JR Worsley himself, all that I have since learnt for myself and from my readings of the classics through translations by Father Larre and Elisabeth Rochat, all of this finds strong, almost eerie echoes in what Liu Lihong writes.

Though the book includes much detailed discussion of herbal remedies, since Liu Lihong is a herbalist, I have come to regard it much more as a profound philosophical exposition of Chinese thought, and it could well have been entitled Classical Chinese Philosophy.  Certainly the profound insights about Dao, yin yang and the five elements, which are the main emphasis of the book, also form the bedrock of my five element practice.  In particular, he emphasizes, as JR Worsley always did, the importance of regarding ourselves as embedded in nature.  As he says:

“When discussing Chinese Medicine, the backdrop of the natural world cannot be forgotten. If you have a thorough understanding of the natural world, your foundation in Chinese Medicine will be sound and your understanding can progress.”(p. 375)

Of the many insights I gained from my reading of this book, none impressed me more than the clarity with which he compares traditional Chinese medicine and modern Western medicine, clearly seeing that they spring from different approaches which cannot be melded together into one system as so many people now attempt to do.  Instead he regards them as complementing each other, provided that their fundamental differences are acknowledged.  For instance he writes:

“Western Medicine is clearly biased towards objectivity rather than subjectivity…..Chinese Medicine is vastly different in this respect and places great emphasis on the subjective experience.” (p.262)

I also find the humility he shows in relation to his own understanding of his discipline quite startling and very impressive, such is his respect for his masters whose influence on his development he acknowledges.  I always feel that teachers who are not afraid to know that they have more to learn are the ones I can truly learn from.

And here I encounter a slight problem, for though, quite rightly, he claims that the best, if not the only true way of learning is to sit at the feet of an acknowledged master of whatever discipline we wish to practice (and did I not do exactly that when I was fortunate enough to find my way to JR Worsley?), how are we to find such masters in a world, as he says, where institutionalized classroom learning is valued more highly than the kind of personal transmission from master to pupil?  And even more pertinently, where are the great clinical teachers without which there can be no transmission of such profound age-old disciplines?  Liu Lihong, too, is also deeply concerned about the increasing depletion in the number of those who have sufficient clinical experience to warrant being given the name of masters of their discipline, whilst there are ever-increasing numbers of those eager to learn from such masters.

This is something I have had to struggle with during my time in China, for I often ask myself how can I and my small cohort of two other five element teachers, Guy Caplan and Mei Long, alone pass on as much as we can in the form of personal transmission through our seminars to as many people as we can.  It is with great relief, therefore, that, thanks to Liu Lihong’s efforts and that of those working at his Tong You San He foundation, I can at last be reassured that there is an ever-larger group of Chinese five element teachers who can now pass on their understanding of five element practice to others.

The world needs people of vision, such as Liu Lihong, and I am honoured to have been able to work with and for him.  I am profoundly grateful that my efforts to re-introduce five element acupuncture to the country of its birth have been recognized by him as making a significant contribution to his work in so firmly and courageously ensuring that classical Chinese medicine, including five element acupuncture, now takes its rightful place at the forefront of modern medicine as a profound medical discipline in its own right.

Finally, I want to express my admiration for the team of translators, led by the book’s editor, Heiner Fruehauf, who have made such a tremendous job of creating an English version which reads so beautifully and eloquently.  As a former translator in another life, and still a translator from French into English of Elisabeth Rochat’s work, I appreciate from a very personal point of view the many hours, days and weeks of hard work such an excellent translation would have demanded.

 

 

Announcing the publication of my new blog: A Five Element Companion

This can be viewed at https://afiveelementcompanion.blogspot.com

 Below I give my first entry for those who may be interested in starting to read my weekly entries:

 "1. I find that I have written down many more of my thoughts on my five element practice that have not yet seen the light of day than I thought I had.  My old Viennese astrologer friend, Dr Oskar Adler, whom I have mentioned before in my writings, always said that each of us has a duty to pass on whatever we have learnt to the outside world.  "We never know who will read what we have written and who will learn from it," he would say.  So in the belief that the more that is written about five element acupuncture the better, I will be using this new blog to pass on my thoughts to whoever wishes to read them.  I intend to add a new post about once a week, and these individual entries taken together will form my eighth book. 

I am drawing together some of the writings about my practice as five element acupuncturist which I feel will be helpful for any of my colleagues, particularly now those in China, who want to benefit from what I have gradually learnt over the years.  I am especially keen to pass on the lessons from my own acupuncture master, JR Worsley, with whom I studied closely for several years as part of my postgraduate training.  One of the many things I remember him telling us was that we would always learn more from what we didn’t get right to start with, especially our diagnosis of guardian element, than when we got things right.  I know that the mistakes I made in my early practice have always proved to be valuable lessons for me, and I therefore hope that what I write here will give five element practitioners a little more confidence and enjoyment in their five element practice." 

I will continue to add to my current blog when interesting thoughts strike me which may not fit the structure of this new book.

 

 

In praise of youth

The older I get, and I am now surprisingly old I find, the more I seem to be drawn to the young, from the little babies in their prams looking so eagerly around themselves as they enjoy taking possession of a bright new world, to the young students from many different acupuncture colleges in this country and abroad, who crowded into our latest SOFEA clinical seminar last week.  I am no longer in the acupuncture loop which knows how many acupuncture colleges there still are around Britain, but to my knowledge quite a few have had to close, and their replacements seem to be more in the nature of small independent training establishments, even too small to be called colleges or schools, in which a few dedicated acupuncturists endeavour to pass on their knowledge to a few equally dedicated and enthusiastic students.  This is a faint modern imitation of countless years of individual master/pupil transmissions which was considered to be the only acceptable route of transmission in earlier days.

I am always so pleased to see the keenness with which these burgeoning acupuncturists learn to embrace five element acupuncture early on in their careers, because, for obvious reasons, the longer practitioners have to immerse themselves in the profound and, to me, magical world of the elements, the more easily they will find themselves at home within it.  One of the problems for all the many TCM practitioners who have attended what we used to call SOFEA’s five element conversion seminars has always been the need for practitioners new to five element acupuncture to summon up sufficient courage to move to a discipline which cannot be viewed merely as an add-on to what they have studied, but requires them to put aside their previous learning and embrace the new in its entirety.  To do this, when most practitioners are working on their own and haven’t the support network provided by studying at a five element college as I did, requires them to be absolutely convinced of the validity of five element acupuncture as a stand-alone discipline, and the stamina to confront all the inevitable ups and downs which embarking on a new direction to their practice demands of them.

I always admire the way that Mei Long, one of my co-tutors at our Chinese seminars, was so instantly convinced of the truth underlying five element acupuncture that she changed direction from TCM in a single leap of faith, and has never looked back, being now one of the most competent five element practitioners I have been privileged to work with.  She was certainly younger than I was when she encountered it for the first time, for I was all of 45 before I had even seen an acupuncture needle.  But I was fortunate that at that time in the UK five element acupuncture was a dominant influence in the few acupuncture colleges which then existed, and had not yet been undermined by the influx of modern Chinese acupuncture into this country.  I therefore welcome all those young student acupuncturists out there who seem to share so wholeheartedly in my love of the elements, and make running our seminars in this country so worthwhile for Guy and me. 

This is also a good time to tell you that we are running two further five element clinical seminars in London in 2019, the first on Friday 8 February 2019, and the second on Sunday 9 June 2019, both at Neal’s Yard Therapy Rooms in Covent Garden.  The February seminar is now almost fully booked and has a waiting list, but there are still places available in June.  Details of both seminars can be downloaded from our website www.sofea.co.uk.  

A draft introduction to another book

I am just drafting the introduction to some more of my writings about the elements, and am posting this below as a blog.

"I am drawing together in this book some of the writings about my practice as five element acupuncturist which I feel will be helpful for any of my colleagues, particularly now those in China, who want to benefit from what I have gradually learnt over the years.  I am especially keen to pass on the lessons from my own acupuncture master, JR Worsley, with whom I studied closely for several years as part of my postgraduate training.  One of the many things I remember him telling us was that we would always learn more from what we didn’t get right to start with, especially our diagnosis of guardian element, than when we got things right.  I know that the mistakes I made in my early practice were always valuable lessons for me, and I therefore hope that what I write here will give five element practitioners a little more confidence and enjoyment in their five element practice.

 

We can never be neutral observers of life.  As all scientists now acknowledge, the observer is always part of what is observed, so there is no such thing as being objective.  Our judgements are always subjective.  The important thing is to be aware of this and to try and understand ourselves as deeply as possible so that we can understand the nature of our involvement in any human interaction.  In five element acupuncture terms, this means understanding how our own guardian element colours how we perceive all the people we meet, and in particular how this fact colours our interactions with our patients, and our diagnosis of their particular element.

 

All I write about the elements is always therefore to some extent coloured by what I perceive through the filter of my own element, Fire, and in particular its inner core, the Small Intestine and the Heart deep within.  Anybody reading what I write must therefore take this into account, and accept my particular slant on the elements which a lifetime of being Fire gives to it.  Of course I have many, many years of observing how people of other elements interact with other people, and learning from these observations so that I hope I have  also much to say about the world as seen through the filters of elements which are not my own.  

 

The subjective nature of all our interactions with the world around us is undoubtedly why I notice that my writings about the elements which I present here are not evenly spread over the five, but tend to be focussed more on Wood and Fire, with Earth a slightly more distant third.  Throughout my writing life, I appear to have written far less about Metal and Water.  I rationalize this a little by thinking of the order in which the elements are placed around the great five element circle.  Fire’s relationship to its fellow elements is closest to its mother element, Wood, and its child element, Earth, whilst it has a more distant relationship to the following two yin elements, Metal and Water.  I wonder also whether this helps explain my yang Fire’s deeper understanding of totally yang Wood and half-yang Earth, than of the two more mysterious and more hidden yin elements.  Despite myself, then, this book is tilted slightly more towards the yang, the sunny side of the mountain and daylight, than towards the yin, the shady side of the mountain and the darkening light.

 

As I draw together the observations of all the elements and their interactions with each other which I present here, it is useful for those reading this to understand that, unique as each human being is, everybody will have their own individual take on the elements which will lead to their own often quite different perceptions, but ones which are as valid as mine are for me.  The important thing is that we should constantly test our understanding against what we learn from our interactions with one patient after another, so that we remain honest enough to modify our thoughts to take account of any new insights we gain."

 

 

Planning my 8th book

For my next book, I have decided to write about the most important milestones in my acupuncture life over the past 40 years, many of them associated with what I learnt at the feet of JR Worsley.  I have been surprised to find that these include so many of what I call seminal moments, particularly spread around the early years of my practice, which have acted as catalysts, directing my understanding of what I was doing along new paths.  Drawing these together now, I realise how fortunate I was to form part of the last cohort of JR’s postgraduate students at Leamington, at a time when I was very aware, particularly throughout the last two years of my Masters’ course there, that storm clouds were gathering over five element acupuncture’s head, for a while threatening its very existence.  For a time after I left, these almost obliterated five element acupuncture’s right to exist as a legitimate stand-alone acupuncture discipline.

Thank goodness that I now feel that that threat, though very real at the time I founded the School of Five Element Acupuncture in 1995, is now rapidly receding in the light of China’s enthusiastic welcome of five element acupuncture back into its homeland over the past seven years.  So where some years ago what I write might have been tinged with sadness at the hard battles I have had to fight to keep five element acupuncture alive in this country, now it is with joy that I am bearing witness to a complete reversal of its fortunes.  And I hope that I am not being too arrogant to revel in the thought of what SOFEA, its graduates and I have done to achieve this.  As JR said, “They will want five element acupuncture back in China soon”, and that is what, thankfully, has happened.

 

Another heart-warming email, this time all the way from Israel

It is unusual for me to receive two such accolades for five element acupuncture as I have done so close together over the past few days.  I blogged about one on 31 March, and here’s the second one from Anton Aridan, an Israeli five element acupuncturist.  As with Jo’s, what Anton has written makes all the hard work Guy and I do so life-enhancing and worthwhile.

“I have just read a touching email, that you published in your blog, from a student of yours expressing gratitude. This moved me to express mine, for I have been wanting to do this for quite a long time now and just been kind of shy.

I am now re-reading your book 'Keepers of the Soul', the one that inspired me at first time to come to London and learn from you. Now, after some little bit of experience, what I discover is just the truth of whatever I have read or heard from you. I see how patients so willing to move to discuss their emotions instead of pains. I see how they appreciate that I listen for them carefully, instead of rushing to do a treatment. I started seeing the slightest changes in patients after a successful treatment.

Some days ago a new patient came with very bad knees. She told me such a horrible story of her life that I decided to add the CV14 point just after AE drain on the first treatment, because I thought her spirit really needed some support. And, of course, I finished with her source points. After the treatment I told her that I was not sure if I could help her knees. She said that she was sure I could not help her knees, but she felt so much better in herself that she would come for treatments just for that. Again the truth that you teach, being honest with the patients only helps. And feeling better in themselves is sometimes all that patients really seek for.

I feel like I have found my place in five element acupuncture. I want to thank you and Guy very much for passing with such passion whatever you know to anyone, who wants to learn.” 

A chapter closes

As the tumultuous year of 2017 draws to a close, so too does a further chapter in my acupuncture life, for on 31 December I surrender the lease on the SOFEA clinic at 57 Harley Street and move my practice elsewhere.  For the first time in my acupuncture life I will be renting a clinic room in somebody else’s practice and handing over to others all the administrative work.  This will be a new experience for me, and in some ways brings my acupuncture practice full circle.  When I first qualified, I worked by myself from my own home, and only moved my practice when I started my acupuncture school SOFEA in Camden Town, and realised that it made more sense to practise from there rather than split my practice between home and school.

From that point onwards, for the past 20 more years or so I have had the responsibility of running a group clinic.  For the first 10 years this formed part of the school, and provided a student clinic as well as giving students the opportunity to observe a thriving professional practice at first hand.  The last 10 years started when I closed SOFEA and moved to a clinic in Harley Street with about half a dozen other five element practitioners, doing what I had got used to doing and without really querying whether I still needed to run a group practice.

Having now been forced by circumstances (a steep rise in rent, difficulties with our landlord) to decide whether to move this practice elsewhere or simply just move myself, the decision almost made itself.  It was, I realised, time for me to step back and look after my own needs rather than continually taking on the administrative responsibility for others.  So as of January I will find myself walking to a small clinic not far from my home for the few hours a week I still want to practise, where I will continue to treat my long-standing patients.  It is good that the other Harley Street practitioners have all found clinics close to each other, so that we will continue to nurture a small five element base in central London.

What then will I do with the time I will now have available to do other things?

The New Year, as every New Year should, will bring new challenges with it, and some remnants of things which need to be completed from the old year.  For instance, the draft of my 7^th book, A Five Element Legacy, is already with my publishers, Singing Dragon Press, who have promised to get the book published in time for me to take copies with me to Beijing at the end of April.  The translation rights are already being discussed with my Chinese publisher.

Then, as promised by my hosts in Beijing, the translation of what I call my first blog book, On Being a Five Element Acupuncturist, will be ready for distribution to all those attending the seminars we will be holding there at the end of April.  These will now consist of a development on what we have done before.  The Foundation which Professor Liu Lihong has set up has now formed what they call A Project Heritage Programme, which is a three-year course focussing on the legacies of different forms of traditional Chinese medicine and thought, one of which is five element acupuncture.  We will be giving a four-day course as part of this programme, followed by a seminar for our more advanced five element practitioners which continues on from where we left in October.

I have been told by Lynn Yang, who is the brilliant organizer of every minute of our stay and negotiates so smoothly with Singing Dragon Press about the numerous translations now being completed for each of my books, that she intends to get one translation published in time for each of our twice-yearly seminars.  Three have now appeared (The Handbook, the Simple Guide and Patterns of Practice).  Over 25,000 copies of The Handbook have already been sold, and I have just been told that the Chinese publisher is ordering a re-print of The Simple Guide, as they have sold out of the 5,000 copies of the first edition.  The translation of the most precious (to me) of all my books, Keepers of the Soul, is being reserved for Lynn Yang herself, because, as everybody tells me, it is a complex book and requires a serious understanding of my very literary-based English.  It is my favourite book because it expresses, in language I am proud of, the depth of my feeling for the elements and what they represent in terms of human destiny.  Difficult to read it may be, though obviously not to me, but the profound things in life cannot always be shrugged away in simple language.  So I expect it will be long after all my other books have been translated that Lynn will find the time in an extremely busy life (she is the second in command at the Beijing Foundation) to do justice to my works in the way she has told me she thinks fit.  I am very lucky to have found someone so prepared to take the time needed to do this.

Finally, there is one thing hanging over from 2017 which is still very much under discussion, and that is a book I want to write dedicated simply to the elements and to the many tips for learning to recognize them I have devised over the years.  I realise that I have included in each of my books something about the elements, but often it has been interwoven with other topics.  For example, in the Handbook it takes second place to the practicalities of being a five element acupuncturist, and in my other books I often concentrate upon aspects such as practitioner qualities.  Recently I looked through my blogs and realised that that they contained many useful tips dotted here and there which could well be drawn together to form a more complete picture.

My lovely publisher, Jessica Kingsley of Singing Dragon Press, has sadly just announced her retirement.  In my email to her thanking her for what she had personally done to get my books published (and as she told me, saved me all the trouble of packing books up and traipsing to the Post Office to send them off, as I used to do when I first self-published my books), I tentatively asked her whether, as a farewell to her as she leaves, she would consider commissioning this, my eighth book.  She will let me know in the New Year, but the possibility that she might agree has spurred me on to look at the elements with a fresh eye.  This is therefore one piece of unfinished business with which the newly liberated Nora will occupy herself in the New Year.

These are the good things which lighten my mood when I am forced to contemplate the political shambles of 2017, with, I fear, much, much worse to come.  I feel like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, who had to keep reminding himself not to mention the war.  For me, the red light is “don’t mention Brexit”, or “Trump” – so I won’t, for the moment at least.  I don’t want these two events to spoil my last entry for 2017.

I thank all who have helped me in my acupuncture work over the past year:  Lynn Yang and my lovely group of five element acupuncturists in China, Mei Long who comes with us to China, and above all Guy Caplan, who so stoically stands at my side through thick and thin, both in this country and China, coping with all the necessary chopping and changing my Small Intestine demands of me, as it tries to sort out what is best to do, whilst his Metal would no doubt prefer simply to work things out quietly, make its decision and stick to it.  I am always surprised how well two such different elements combine in our joint work in offering five element acupuncture to the wider world.

A Happy New Year to everybody.  I hope to see some of the readers of this blog at our next seminar on 2 March (http://www.sofea.co.uk/content.asp?page=seminars).

andbook, .  I thank all those.

Our body clock: confirmation of the existence of horary points

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."