I have just read this lovely quote from Goethe. I give it in German first, for those amongst my readers who understand German: "Er hat gelernt, er kann uns lehren." "Only he who has learnt can teach us."
We can indeed only learn from those who themselves have truly learned - a rare breed, I'm afraid. There are many people who teach who have never done their learning at the deepest level.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
Nora's new blog
I have decided to start a new addition to my blog which will include examples of five element treatments taken from my practice.
Please click on the link below:
http://www.five-element-treatments.blogspot.com/
Please click on the link below:
http://www.five-element-treatments.blogspot.com/
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Treatment of Patient 2
Patient 2: Female, age 24
Element: Fire (Inner Fire) (Small Intestine)
Number of years coming for treatment: 4
Number of prior treatments: 36
Original main complaint: Lack of direction in life, need to sort out a complex relationship.
Time of last treatment: 3 months ago
What has changed since last treatment: Much surer about where her work is going, looking forward to new challenges in her job rather than being apprehensive about them, happy to have completely cut off from previous boyfriend.
Treatment given:
1. SI 19/Bl 1 (entry/exit block found between SI and Bl – pulses of SI and Ht very strong, those of Bl and Ki very weak). This block is very common on Inner Fire, for obvious reasons. The sorting official can become overloaded, causing energy to dam up at SI 19, and weakening the vision we all need which is provided by the first point on the Bladder, Eyes Bright. Re-opening the passage-way between the two officials by needling these points has a remarkable effect on Inner Fire’s capacity to sort out the troubles of the world.
2. SI 4, Ht 5: Source point of SI, plus the lovely point, Ht 5, Penetrating Inside, which I see as taking good SI energy deep down inside to the Heart.
At the end of treatment: Colour changed after block was cleared, she said her head felt clearer.
Time of next treatment: She will phone me if she feels she needs another treatment before Christmas.
Proposal for next treatment: Windows of the sky on SI (SI 16, Heavenly Window or SI 17, Heavenly Appearance). I like to think of SI 17 as being a little bit stronger than SI 16, as I feel it must gather up some of the energy from SI 16 as the official moves up from the side of the neck to the jaw. I therefore start by doing SI 16, and then later on in treatment move to SI 17.
Element: Fire (Inner Fire) (Small Intestine)
Number of years coming for treatment: 4
Number of prior treatments: 36
Original main complaint: Lack of direction in life, need to sort out a complex relationship.
Time of last treatment: 3 months ago
What has changed since last treatment: Much surer about where her work is going, looking forward to new challenges in her job rather than being apprehensive about them, happy to have completely cut off from previous boyfriend.
Treatment given:
1. SI 19/Bl 1 (entry/exit block found between SI and Bl – pulses of SI and Ht very strong, those of Bl and Ki very weak). This block is very common on Inner Fire, for obvious reasons. The sorting official can become overloaded, causing energy to dam up at SI 19, and weakening the vision we all need which is provided by the first point on the Bladder, Eyes Bright. Re-opening the passage-way between the two officials by needling these points has a remarkable effect on Inner Fire’s capacity to sort out the troubles of the world.
2. SI 4, Ht 5: Source point of SI, plus the lovely point, Ht 5, Penetrating Inside, which I see as taking good SI energy deep down inside to the Heart.
At the end of treatment: Colour changed after block was cleared, she said her head felt clearer.
Time of next treatment: She will phone me if she feels she needs another treatment before Christmas.
Proposal for next treatment: Windows of the sky on SI (SI 16, Heavenly Window or SI 17, Heavenly Appearance). I like to think of SI 17 as being a little bit stronger than SI 16, as I feel it must gather up some of the energy from SI 16 as the official moves up from the side of the neck to the jaw. I therefore start by doing SI 16, and then later on in treatment move to SI 17.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Five element treatment procedures
Because I feel that not enough is written about the clinical side of a five element practice, I am going to include more details of treatment procedures in this blog from now on so that people can see how I approach treatment.
For those interested in learning more, my Handbook of Five Element Practice is a good place to start.
For those interested in learning more, my Handbook of Five Element Practice is a good place to start.
How to approach long-term five element treatment
Many people appear to be puzzled by what they see as the problem of what treatments to give a long-term patient, that is, somebody who returns to us for treatment over many years.
I think this worry is quite unnecessary, because it comes from the mistaken feeling that we need constantly to ring the changes in the points we select. Such a feeling is based on uncertainty and a lack of understanding about what we are doing. We can, I hope, rightly, assume that with long-term patients we have by this time worked out their guardian element, and therefore which element we direct most of our treatment towards. Why, then, do some of us think that it is not enough merely to continue treating this element in the way we have in the past, and in the way that has, presumably, led to the good results which persuade a patient to keep on wanting to come to us year on year? Why not simply repeat the cycle of treatments in some form or other, not necessarily each time using the same points, which have in the past led to such a successful outcome that the patient thinks it good to return to us for more?
To help the many people who have asked me to solve what to them is a problem, and to me appears the simplest part of treatment, I have gone through the files of patients of mine who have been coming to me for treatment for some considerable time, in the cases I selected, from 6 to more than 15 years, looking for examples of treatments for all five elements. I have then listed the treatments I have given them over the past 3 years. People to whom I have given these lists have told me how surprised they are to see how simple my treatments are. If they were to see these patients, I think they would also think how effective these treatments have proved to be.
The elements which have received all these years of treatments, initially as frequently as once or more a week, now as infrequently as a few times a year, are now so attuned to receiving the support offered them by the needle that they need only the slightest nudge to help them back along the path to balance. If, as does of course happen, life deals a patient some heavy blow, then treatment may for a while become more frequent and more intense again, for example if a Husband/Wife imbalance or Aggressive Energy appear, but again the patient’s energy will take a surprisingly short time to re-balance itself compared with similar events happening to a patient in the early stages of treatment.
It is indeed always surprising and heartening for me to observe how somebody who returns to me after an absence of a few years may require just one or two treatments to get them back on track, even though the gap since the last treatment has been so long. It is a sign that the elements have long memories, respond very quickly to the familiar feeling of energy re-charging itself in treatment and yearn to regain balance as quickly as they can.
I hope these lists will help those who are unnecessarily worried about the whole question of long-term treatment, and confirm my firmly-held conviction that, in acupuncture, as well as in many things in life, “less is more”, a term I heard an Indian histrorian using on the radio this week. So simplicity, and thus the least number of needles for the least number of treatments, is what we must always aim at. It is quite clear to me that those who know what they are doing, in whatever field they are working, and here in the field of acupuncture, always do less than those who don’t, and always do it more effectively.
Anybody wishing to have my list of points for long-term treatment can now download the relevant PDF from the SOFEA website, www.sofea.co.uk, under Stop Press.
I think this worry is quite unnecessary, because it comes from the mistaken feeling that we need constantly to ring the changes in the points we select. Such a feeling is based on uncertainty and a lack of understanding about what we are doing. We can, I hope, rightly, assume that with long-term patients we have by this time worked out their guardian element, and therefore which element we direct most of our treatment towards. Why, then, do some of us think that it is not enough merely to continue treating this element in the way we have in the past, and in the way that has, presumably, led to the good results which persuade a patient to keep on wanting to come to us year on year? Why not simply repeat the cycle of treatments in some form or other, not necessarily each time using the same points, which have in the past led to such a successful outcome that the patient thinks it good to return to us for more?
To help the many people who have asked me to solve what to them is a problem, and to me appears the simplest part of treatment, I have gone through the files of patients of mine who have been coming to me for treatment for some considerable time, in the cases I selected, from 6 to more than 15 years, looking for examples of treatments for all five elements. I have then listed the treatments I have given them over the past 3 years. People to whom I have given these lists have told me how surprised they are to see how simple my treatments are. If they were to see these patients, I think they would also think how effective these treatments have proved to be.
The elements which have received all these years of treatments, initially as frequently as once or more a week, now as infrequently as a few times a year, are now so attuned to receiving the support offered them by the needle that they need only the slightest nudge to help them back along the path to balance. If, as does of course happen, life deals a patient some heavy blow, then treatment may for a while become more frequent and more intense again, for example if a Husband/Wife imbalance or Aggressive Energy appear, but again the patient’s energy will take a surprisingly short time to re-balance itself compared with similar events happening to a patient in the early stages of treatment.
It is indeed always surprising and heartening for me to observe how somebody who returns to me after an absence of a few years may require just one or two treatments to get them back on track, even though the gap since the last treatment has been so long. It is a sign that the elements have long memories, respond very quickly to the familiar feeling of energy re-charging itself in treatment and yearn to regain balance as quickly as they can.
I hope these lists will help those who are unnecessarily worried about the whole question of long-term treatment, and confirm my firmly-held conviction that, in acupuncture, as well as in many things in life, “less is more”, a term I heard an Indian histrorian using on the radio this week. So simplicity, and thus the least number of needles for the least number of treatments, is what we must always aim at. It is quite clear to me that those who know what they are doing, in whatever field they are working, and here in the field of acupuncture, always do less than those who don’t, and always do it more effectively.
Anybody wishing to have my list of points for long-term treatment can now download the relevant PDF from the SOFEA website, www.sofea.co.uk, under Stop Press.
Examples of five element treatments from my practice: Treatment 1 of Patient 1
Because it is useful for those reading this blog to have a practical example of the kind of treatments a five element acupuncturist does, I give below one such treatment, to which I will add as I come across treatments which I think will be of interest. For obvious reasons, all personal details have been changed, but the actual points and the reasons for choosing them have not.
For anybody unfamiliar with five element protocol, my book The Handbook of Five Element Practice describes five element treatment procedures in detail.
Since five element acupuncture has always used the term Heart Protector for what others now call the Pericardium official, I am continuing to do so by abbreviating it to HP, rather than P. We also use Conception and Governor Vessels (CV and GV) for Ren Mai and Du Mai. I have coined the phrases Inner and Outer Fire to describe the two quite distinct sides of the Fire element, the Small Intestine and Heart (Inner Fire) and the Three Heater and Heart Protector (Outer Fire).
We also always apply small moxa cones to each point before we needle, except where contraindicated, and the number of moxa cones is that listed in J R Worsley's Point Reference Guide.
Treatment 30 Sept 2010
Patient: Female, aged 42 (to be called Patient 1)
Element: Fire (Outer Fire) (initial diagnosis only – to be confirmed or changed as treatment progresses)
Number of prior treatments: None. This was the first treatment by me after she was passed on to me by another practitioner, who had been treating her for 5 treatments.
Main complaint: Panic attacks, depression, painful shoulder and hips, bad sleep. A history of under-achievement, usually apparently self-induced: failing her final university degree by not working in last year, even though she sailed through the first two years, giving up on being a tennis player just as she was about to make the county team as a teenager. The really deep-lying problems lay, as they always do, in early childhood, because her mother had alcohol-problems and her father disappeared. She has never married and is in an on-off relationship with a married man.
Treatment given:
The physical examination was done during the initial Traditional Diagnosis (TD) the week before: BP (normal), Centre Pulse (in the centre), Akabane tests (any that were out were corrected).
1 Checked for Possession: Not found
2 Aggressive Energy (AE) drain: AE found on HP and H. Drain took 1 hour.
3 Checked for Husband-Wife (H/W) imbalance (which I had thought might be there, because of the great imbalance between left and right pulses and her desperation): Not found
4 Source points of Fire (Outer Fire): TH 4, HP 7 (tonification without moxibustion)
At the end of treatment:
She looked calmer, and less agitated after treatment. But only time and more treatment will tell if she is Fire, and, if so, which side of Fire, Inner (SI and H) or Outer, TH and HP).
Things to look out for next time:
1 Re-check for the possible presence of H/W imbalance, which can appear once the AE drain has helped the patient’s mask to drop.
2 Check for the appearance of any Entry/Exit blocks (to be checked at each treatment, as they can appear at any point, a good sign that good energy is trying to push its way through the meridian system, and causing a slight overload at some point).
Suggestions for next treatment:
1 CV 8 (no needling, but 3 moxa cones on salt) – a balancing,
reinforcing point for the spirit on CV.
2 Source or tonification points (i.e., from Wood (mother) - Fire (child),
TH 3, HP 9 with 3 moxa cones, or transfer from another element to Fire, depending on pulse picture found.
For anybody unfamiliar with five element protocol, my book The Handbook of Five Element Practice describes five element treatment procedures in detail.
Since five element acupuncture has always used the term Heart Protector for what others now call the Pericardium official, I am continuing to do so by abbreviating it to HP, rather than P. We also use Conception and Governor Vessels (CV and GV) for Ren Mai and Du Mai. I have coined the phrases Inner and Outer Fire to describe the two quite distinct sides of the Fire element, the Small Intestine and Heart (Inner Fire) and the Three Heater and Heart Protector (Outer Fire).
We also always apply small moxa cones to each point before we needle, except where contraindicated, and the number of moxa cones is that listed in J R Worsley's Point Reference Guide.
Treatment 30 Sept 2010
Patient: Female, aged 42 (to be called Patient 1)
Element: Fire (Outer Fire) (initial diagnosis only – to be confirmed or changed as treatment progresses)
Number of prior treatments: None. This was the first treatment by me after she was passed on to me by another practitioner, who had been treating her for 5 treatments.
Main complaint: Panic attacks, depression, painful shoulder and hips, bad sleep. A history of under-achievement, usually apparently self-induced: failing her final university degree by not working in last year, even though she sailed through the first two years, giving up on being a tennis player just as she was about to make the county team as a teenager. The really deep-lying problems lay, as they always do, in early childhood, because her mother had alcohol-problems and her father disappeared. She has never married and is in an on-off relationship with a married man.
Treatment given:
The physical examination was done during the initial Traditional Diagnosis (TD) the week before: BP (normal), Centre Pulse (in the centre), Akabane tests (any that were out were corrected).
1 Checked for Possession: Not found
2 Aggressive Energy (AE) drain: AE found on HP and H. Drain took 1 hour.
3 Checked for Husband-Wife (H/W) imbalance (which I had thought might be there, because of the great imbalance between left and right pulses and her desperation): Not found
4 Source points of Fire (Outer Fire): TH 4, HP 7 (tonification without moxibustion)
At the end of treatment:
She looked calmer, and less agitated after treatment. But only time and more treatment will tell if she is Fire, and, if so, which side of Fire, Inner (SI and H) or Outer, TH and HP).
Things to look out for next time:
1 Re-check for the possible presence of H/W imbalance, which can appear once the AE drain has helped the patient’s mask to drop.
2 Check for the appearance of any Entry/Exit blocks (to be checked at each treatment, as they can appear at any point, a good sign that good energy is trying to push its way through the meridian system, and causing a slight overload at some point).
Suggestions for next treatment:
1 CV 8 (no needling, but 3 moxa cones on salt) – a balancing,
reinforcing point for the spirit on CV.
2 Source or tonification points (i.e., from Wood (mother) - Fire (child),
TH 3, HP 9 with 3 moxa cones, or transfer from another element to Fire, depending on pulse picture found.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
A lovely Leonardo da Vinci quote
I have just read this beautiful description of the power of the human eye by Leonardo da Vinci, who was himself a most amazing man of vision, in every sense of the word:
“Who would believe that so small a space could contain the images of all the universe?”
In our own, much smaller, but perhaps not much different way, we could say that within the small space of our own eyes as we look at another human being is contained the image of all that being, if we can but be sensitive enough to interpret what we are seeing.
“Who would believe that so small a space could contain the images of all the universe?”
In our own, much smaller, but perhaps not much different way, we could say that within the small space of our own eyes as we look at another human being is contained the image of all that being, if we can but be sensitive enough to interpret what we are seeing.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Meditation on Mastery: J R Worsley and Wang Fengyi
As part of things coming full circle (see my blog of June 1st), I am now in touch with Heiner Fruehauf, who has very kindly sent me a copy of his interesting article, All Disease comes from the Heart – The Pivotal Role of the Emotions in Classical Chinese Medicine. In our email correspondence, Heiner mentions Wang Fengyi, master of the lineage he studied under in China. Wang Fengyi practised in Manchuria during the 1930s, when the region was occupied by the Japanese, who, Heiner says, “imported some of this system to Japan”. Heiner describes JR Worsley as “a Western Wang Fengyi”, and wonders whether there could be a connection between what he calls “these two masters”. After all, JR received some of his training from Japanese masters.
Apart from offering a fascinating insight into the possible transmission of the five element system, his comment also set me thinking about what exactly we mean by the word master, and in particular upon what kind of person I myself bestow this accolade. (Mistress seems never to have been used in this context, as far as I can see, though somebody out there may correct me on this!) I am very clear in my own mind that JR is the only master of acupuncture I have so far encountered, and that I cannot at the moment attach this designation to any other acupuncturist. No doubt there are other living masters of acupuncture whom I have not met, or acupuncturists I have met who other people would call masters, but each of us must have our own concept of what mastery means. I must therefore draw on my own experience of just one acupuncture master to help me try and fathom what I personally see as the nature of mastery.
I do not regard mastery as being obtained through the acquisition of a particular skill or set of skills or the result of any kind of particular dexterity, nor as arising simply from a level of intelligence applied to a particular discipline. It is certainly not what is attained by gaining a prescribed qualification. It implies something far deeper and more complex than that. Buried within it is always the sense of something which connects this person to the deeper mysteries of life, and thus to the spiritual, and to what may well lie beyond the reach of those who are non-masters or not-yet-masters. When I think of the word, I have a picture before me of a disciple bowing humbly before his/her master. It is therefore associated with a level of reverence accorded by one person to another, implicit in the term “revered master”. And reverence can never be bestowed lightly; it always has to be earned.
I do not think you can work your way to mastery. You can work towards proficiency, so that you become increasingly competent at what you do, but mastery is not an acquired skill. It is, in my view, something in the nature of a gift, a God-given gift, I would like to add, from whatever God or power or force created the awesome powers which can reside within one human being, a gift which is only vouchsafed a very rare few. And such people touch those they encounter in very special ways, opening doors that without them would remain forever shut.
I was fortunate to be one of the many whom the mastery of JR in the field of acupuncture touched with its inspiring touch. And there was no better illustration of this for me than the time when I heard him going through a list of all the points from his Point Reference Guide, one of the five element bibles without which, even now, I could not practise. He talked the class through each point on each official, thus the whole mythical 365, and addressed each point as though offering a greeting to them in hushed tones of love. Hearing this I felt I was being allowed a glimpse of a world in which he wandered at will, but which I could only venture into with his help. I understood then that points spoke to him and communicated with him in ways I could myself only dimly perceive, and which bore little relation to the lists of point functions in the many books now vying with each other to offer often dubious insights into point selection.
I certainly do not think that I can aspire, or will ever want to aspire, to the title of master, nor am I sad about this, having a good appreciation of my own limitations as acupuncturist. A good, competent, hardworking acupuncturist I may be, but the magic of mastery will always elude me. It makes it all the more precious that I have encountered mastery once in my life.
For details of videos and lectures given by Heiner Fruehauf, particularly in relation to Wang Fengyi, see his website www.ClassicalChineseMedicine.org.
Apart from offering a fascinating insight into the possible transmission of the five element system, his comment also set me thinking about what exactly we mean by the word master, and in particular upon what kind of person I myself bestow this accolade. (Mistress seems never to have been used in this context, as far as I can see, though somebody out there may correct me on this!) I am very clear in my own mind that JR is the only master of acupuncture I have so far encountered, and that I cannot at the moment attach this designation to any other acupuncturist. No doubt there are other living masters of acupuncture whom I have not met, or acupuncturists I have met who other people would call masters, but each of us must have our own concept of what mastery means. I must therefore draw on my own experience of just one acupuncture master to help me try and fathom what I personally see as the nature of mastery.
I do not regard mastery as being obtained through the acquisition of a particular skill or set of skills or the result of any kind of particular dexterity, nor as arising simply from a level of intelligence applied to a particular discipline. It is certainly not what is attained by gaining a prescribed qualification. It implies something far deeper and more complex than that. Buried within it is always the sense of something which connects this person to the deeper mysteries of life, and thus to the spiritual, and to what may well lie beyond the reach of those who are non-masters or not-yet-masters. When I think of the word, I have a picture before me of a disciple bowing humbly before his/her master. It is therefore associated with a level of reverence accorded by one person to another, implicit in the term “revered master”. And reverence can never be bestowed lightly; it always has to be earned.
I do not think you can work your way to mastery. You can work towards proficiency, so that you become increasingly competent at what you do, but mastery is not an acquired skill. It is, in my view, something in the nature of a gift, a God-given gift, I would like to add, from whatever God or power or force created the awesome powers which can reside within one human being, a gift which is only vouchsafed a very rare few. And such people touch those they encounter in very special ways, opening doors that without them would remain forever shut.
I was fortunate to be one of the many whom the mastery of JR in the field of acupuncture touched with its inspiring touch. And there was no better illustration of this for me than the time when I heard him going through a list of all the points from his Point Reference Guide, one of the five element bibles without which, even now, I could not practise. He talked the class through each point on each official, thus the whole mythical 365, and addressed each point as though offering a greeting to them in hushed tones of love. Hearing this I felt I was being allowed a glimpse of a world in which he wandered at will, but which I could only venture into with his help. I understood then that points spoke to him and communicated with him in ways I could myself only dimly perceive, and which bore little relation to the lists of point functions in the many books now vying with each other to offer often dubious insights into point selection.
I certainly do not think that I can aspire, or will ever want to aspire, to the title of master, nor am I sad about this, having a good appreciation of my own limitations as acupuncturist. A good, competent, hardworking acupuncturist I may be, but the magic of mastery will always elude me. It makes it all the more precious that I have encountered mastery once in my life.
For details of videos and lectures given by Heiner Fruehauf, particularly in relation to Wang Fengyi, see his website www.ClassicalChineseMedicine.org.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Doing little things with great love
I came across this lovely saying by Mother Teresa in my Indian friend’s blog, http://sujatavaradarajan.blogspot.com . “We are not born to do great things. We are born to do little things with great love.” And, as my friend Sujata adds, “And little things done with great love have the ability to change people’s worlds.”
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, as I am sure many of us do, with all the great horrors and sadnesses which pour towards us from every corner of the globe at all hours of the day, and with my own feeling of impotence at how little one person can achieve to push back this tide. It is therefore good to be reminded of the importance of each tiny act of help, and this is how I like to regard my acupuncture practice. As someone once said to me, “You can’t save the whole world, Nora.” Yes, that is true, but I have learnt to view each successful treatment as a small act of salvation, in its own way helping towards saving a person’s health, body and soul.
Sujata’s blog is a beautifully written unfolding of life in India of interest to those who want to know what is happening in one of the most powerful countries in the world today.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, as I am sure many of us do, with all the great horrors and sadnesses which pour towards us from every corner of the globe at all hours of the day, and with my own feeling of impotence at how little one person can achieve to push back this tide. It is therefore good to be reminded of the importance of each tiny act of help, and this is how I like to regard my acupuncture practice. As someone once said to me, “You can’t save the whole world, Nora.” Yes, that is true, but I have learnt to view each successful treatment as a small act of salvation, in its own way helping towards saving a person’s health, body and soul.
Sujata’s blog is a beautifully written unfolding of life in India of interest to those who want to know what is happening in one of the most powerful countries in the world today.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Location of spirit in body
Sitting here, writing this, I am trying to work out where to place that area of my being which is at this moment concentrating on understanding my own feelings and trying to express them in words, in other words my mind and spirit. I can see my physical body in front of me, feel the chair beneath me, my feet touching the ground, and my fingers holding this pen (yes, I still write everything first with a pen!), but I cannot pin down where exactly these thoughts that these fingers of mine are writing down are emerging from within me. They must be coming from this body, because when I get up to make a cup of tea they follow me into the kitchen, and yet they seem to have no actual physical abode inside me. It is as though they are within each cell of my body, but also float free of it so that, when I am thinking or feeling, my physical body disappears. I am in a very real sense disembodied for the period of these thoughts and feelings, and will only be brought back to this body if I consciously direct my attention, as I am doing now, to think of its actions, in this case my fingers holding my pen and directing its movements into forming words, or if some pain or discomfort interrupts the flow of my thoughts, and forces some part of my body to my attention.
We rarely think how odd this all is, and how strange are the hidden workings of our inner life as compared to the much more visible, because physically palpable, workings of our body, but the inner dominates the outer in ways we remain largely unaware of. The life of our emotions has so strong a pull upon us that it has the power to shape our body, forcing it into all kinds of distortions and convolutions as it presses upon us from within. Our hunched shoulders, tightened lips, frowning foreheads and bent knees can often be an expression of an inner life hunched, taut, frowning or bowed.
And each element will express these tensions in different ways, depending on how it reflects its vulnerabilities or its aggressions.
We rarely think how odd this all is, and how strange are the hidden workings of our inner life as compared to the much more visible, because physically palpable, workings of our body, but the inner dominates the outer in ways we remain largely unaware of. The life of our emotions has so strong a pull upon us that it has the power to shape our body, forcing it into all kinds of distortions and convolutions as it presses upon us from within. Our hunched shoulders, tightened lips, frowning foreheads and bent knees can often be an expression of an inner life hunched, taut, frowning or bowed.
And each element will express these tensions in different ways, depending on how it reflects its vulnerabilities or its aggressions.
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