“Protecting oneself from the eternities”

I have spent the last days re-reading one of my favourite books, The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. If you haven’t read it, and want to emerge from the last page smiling and at peace, then do. It is a beautiful, heart-warming book. (And the film they made of it, surprisingly, recreates this warmth and beauty wonderfully.)

And, as usually happens when one reads, up popped some words which echo so much that I feel expresses my wonder at the depths and awesomeness of human life.

“She pulled her wrap closer round her with a gesture of defence, of keeping out and off. She didn’t want to grow sentimental. Difficult not to, here; the marvellous night stole in through all one’s chinks, and brought in with it, whether one wanted them or not, enormous feelings, - feelings one couldn’t manage, great things about death and time and waste; glorious and devastating things, magnificent and bleak, at once rapture and terror and immense, heart-cleaving longing. She felt small and dreadfully alone. She felt uncovered and defenceless. Instinctively she pulled her wrap closer. With this thing of chiffon she tried to protect herself from the eternities.”

Perhaps we can never truly protect ourselves from the eternities, nor should we. We should be awed by them, often frightened by them, but always, always acknowledge their presence.

Meetings with remarkable people

I am fortunate to have had that part of my life, the part into which five element acupuncture burst like some spray of stardust, its second half, illuminated (not too strong a word) by two remarkable masters, both of whom, in their differing ways, moved my life onwards in a different direction, but to me, looking back now, somehow in a pre-ordained way.

The first was JR Worsley, the second now is Liu Lihong. The first led me deep into a world of the spirit which has informed my acupuncture practice ever since. The second has only just appeared over my horizon, but is just beckoning to me from that vast region of the physical world which is China, and from that vast region of the spiritual world which is Chinese thought embedded deep in its past, the thoughts of the Nei Jing, of Lao Tse and of all the long and ancient lineage of practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine.

I started my acupuncture studies because I was curious to understand the profound reactions awoken in me by my own treatment. I only encountered JR Worsley late on in my studies, but my further studies with him, his visits to my practice and my many visits with my patients to consultation days with him deepened my understanding of his profound contribution to moving acupuncture forward into the modern world and widening it to encompass the psychological insights this modern world has provided. He represents the first stage of my encounter with acupuncture.

The second stage starts after I closed my acupuncture college a few years ago, and this was followed by a gap in time before the next part of my acupuncture life began about a year ago. It was then that I met Mei Long, a young Chinese acupuncturist practising in Holland, and my acupuncture path moved forwards in a different direction, this time towards China (see my blogs of 1st June, 2nd August and 8th Nov 2010). Mei has now completed her translation of my Handbook of Five Element Practice into Chinese, and it is now in proof form (it looks beautiful), awaiting an introduction to be written by Liu Lihong.

And here we come to my second important encounter, that with Liu Lihong, which took place at the Rothenburg Conference a few weeks ago. Having written a seminal book, Reflections on Traditional Chinese Medicine, which Mei tells me is a bestseller in China, he is determined to bring back to traditional Chinese medicine the spirit which has drained from it, and sees five element acupuncture as representing that spirit in the field of acupuncture (he is a traditional herbalist). He is encouraging me to come to China once my book is published over there, which should be in the next few months. So as one door closed upon my life as a teacher in this country, the next, beckoning me to continue my teaching in China, now opens for me. My acupuncture life has indeed been fortunate to have been blessed by two such important encounters with remarkable men.

Finally, lest anybody should think that it is only men who have taught me the great lessons of life, these encounters were preceded by one which brought to an end the first half of my life, for this part of my life was illuminated by the insights of a very great woman, Anna Freud, Freud’s daughter. She died just before I encountered acupuncture, and she would have been delighted to know the direction my life took not long after her death, for she was always encouraging me “to do something big”. I think I now dare say, a little hesitantly and I hope with due humility, that I have now done what she would have liked me to do. I am sure that without her encouragement I would never have dared do what I have done or write what I have written, including this present blog! Nor would I have been ready to accept the challenges my life has offered, and might instead have been tempted to turn my back upon them as I would have done in earlier days.

I give thanks for having been granted the rare grace of encountering three such remarkable people, each of whom in some way changed or is changing the direction of my life.

A lesson in humility

Without our being aware of it, we tend to overlook the shadows our own element cast over the patients we are treating, and which therefore inevitably to some extent distort the signals our patients’ elements are sending us. We all have one (or more) weak spots in recognizing specific elements, and if we are to be good practitioners we must learn to accept this and take this into account in any diagnosis we make. Mine is definitely distinguishing between Fire and Earth, something I find I have in common with many other practitioners. I see that this comes from the fact that both elements, in their differing ways, need people, and therefore respond to people with some eagerness.

In my case, I have come to see that one of the reasons for this may lie in the interaction between my own Fire element and Earth people and other Fire people, and the way in which my own Fire responds when confronting the needs of these two elements. My Fire need is to relate closely to each of my patients, and I will be tempted to interpret the warmth with which both Fire and Earth will respond to my warmth as though filtered through what I call my pink Fire spectacles. But Earth’s and Fire’s responses differ, as we know. Earth responds more because it is glad to be offered understanding, Fire more because it is happy to bestow warmth upon the practitioner. Both interactions will make my own Fire element happy, but for different reasons. With Earth I am pleased to see that my offerings are being so warmly accepted (we could say, taken in and swallowed), and I will bask in the warmth my Fire patients offer me.

The direction of movement is quite different in the two cases. Earth’s is to move back and take in, while Fire’s is to move forward and give.

I have been thinking a lot about this ever since a fellow practitioner said to me recently, “You know that famous film actress with the large smile? I see her as so typically Earth, with that mouth which you, Nora, have often called an Earth mouth, open like a baby bird crying out for food.” She was talking about Julia Roberts. I was taken aback because Julia Roberts is somebody I rather blithely included in my list of what I considered to be Fire people. Was it possible that my fellow practitioner was right, and was that, perhaps, the reason why Julia Roberts doesn’t actually make me feel warm inside, despite the great smile? So off I went to look at her on You-Tube, and indeed, when I looked more closely and more carefully, what I saw was somebody who demanded something of me, rather than somebody who gave me something.

This reinforces one of my mantras. Never allow yourself to be lulled into thinking you are absolutely certain about a person’s guardian element, but always keep open the possibility that you may be misinterpreting the signals coming from their elements. And always, always, remain humble and ready to learn. The uniqueness of each person is not easily encapsulated within the all-encompassing meanings contained in. one of five words, Wood, Fire…..

All the little relationships the Small Intestine is asked to enter into

A conference like the one I went to at Rothenburg in Germany last week, with its 1000 participants, makes special demands upon my Small Intestine. The little mediaeval town is overrun with acupuncturists, making it extremely likely that the person you pass in the street will be a fellow acupuncturist. This presents a particular challenge for anybody who is Inner Fire, like me, for every contact with another person, however fleeting, offers the potential for a tiny relationship to be formed. Each person I passed in the Rothenburg streets therefore placed a slight strain on my Small Intestine as it asked itself how wide it wanted to open the doors to my Heart, or whether it was wiser simply to look away and not engage.

These constant challenges to my Small Intestine meant that it could never really relax, for if it does so it would feel that it is abdicating its responsibility to protect the Heart. Luckily, the meetings with good friends of mine who were also there helped to lighten the load. When I was with them, all was well, my Heart beamed with joy and my Small Intestine could at last relax. But never entirely, however, for it is such a necessarily restless aspect of Fire, and always has to be on the go, sifting and sorting, sifting and sorting.

In an idle moment I sometimes wish I were another element! And if I had a choice as to which one, I think it would have to be Metal, so quiet and self-contained, so able to cut itself off from people without a second thought. It would have no such problems as I have in deciding who to smile at and who to ignore. But then I know that it, too, will of course have its own different, but less people-centred stresses.

The effect we have on others

None of us really knows the effect we have on others, for the spheres of influence we spread around ourselves are much more extensive than we think. Many is the time that somebody has said to me, “I remember what you told me…”, when I could not remember saying it, or even, sometimes, the person who came up to tell me that I had said it.

And just as many are the times when I have said, either silently to myself or to the other person, “I remember what you said”, and how far those words had spread their effects on me and around me down the years. One example of this is particularly vivid to me. Many years ago a friend of mine said, “I would never let anybody talk to me like that”, and I looked at her and saw that nobody would indeed dare talk to her like that. The signals she was sending out were telling those that approached her to beware. This was when I realised for the first time how a person’s aura (I would now say that this is a reflection of their element) envelops them so powerfully that it dictates the actions of those they encounter.

This realisation has been a profound lesson for me, for it means that the stronger and healthier a person’s elements become, the more they will be able to withstand the onslaughts of life and thus act as protection. This is a particularly valuable lesson for a five element acupuncturist, for it confirms that strengthening the guardian element enables the patient eventually to deal appropriately with stresses which before may have overwhelmed them. When in balance, a person’s element will be sending out messages to those we encounter telling them that they can go so far and no further. (This is why I like to call it our guardian element, for it does indeed, in balance, protect us from harm.) The protection it places around us may signal its presence often in very subtle ways, a look in the eyes, a firmness in the mouth, but it is so unmistakable that a person who may be minded to criticize may, as my friend showed me, decide instead to keep quiet. This is the way in which balanced elements show their power, and thus does nature, in balance, protect us.

Everybody, and not just acupuncturists, should learn about the elements

A former student of mine has just told me that she is no longer practising acupuncture, but writes that what she learnt whilst studying with us “yet remains a profound education and absolute awakening such that it has imprinted my being for a lifetime. I am deeply grateful to you and those years studying at SOFEA.”

This reinforced what I have been thinking for some time now. A desire to learn about the elements should not be confined to those wanting to use them to study acupuncture or a similar discipline, although this is predominantly how they are studied now. To understand how the elements manifest in each one of us helps us become more aware of our own and others’ strengths and weaknesses, and thus develop greater tolerance both of ourselves and others. This goes way beyond a concentration upon the needle and where to place it.

If I were to start my life again, (and who knows, perhaps I will in another time and another place, and perhaps, too, on another planet!), I would want to found a school of the five elements, with only a small offshoot dedicated to acupuncture, to which all the world would be invited, young and old, and from any walk of life. It still pleases me that one of my graduates who understands the elements most profoundly was a builder with little education but enormous insight. I still remember his brief essay on the elements in which, in the simplest terms, he captured quite perfectly the essence of each element. Here’s to you, Errol, and to our years together studying the elements, from evening class to graduation and beyond.

I would love to be able to offer the elements to many more Errols in another life.

The love of words

I love words, as all who read my books and this blog will have realised by now, so I was delighted to come across this lovely passage in an autobiography of an Irish writer, Dermot Healy, with whom I have only just become acquainted:

“I disappeared from Ireland and my family. I sat by the back window of Healy’s and read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. Then I moved on to Dylan’s poems. The words shimmered on the paper and released themselves from the prison of the sentences they were in. They became things in themselves. A single word collected a myriad of meanings. Verbs bounded in open spaces. A noun was like a bowl of cream. It contained vast worlds. An adjective made an image infinite.”
                        (p. 58: Dermot Healy, The Bend for Home, The Harvill Press, London, 1996)

Apart from this autobiography I have read just two books by him, his latest Long Time, No See. Both are wonderfully strange and poetic. Why has he not won one of the major literary prizes yet?

The “if only’s” and “what if’s” of life

I have been giving a lot of thought to how each element experiences regret. We feel regret at doing or not doing something that we wish now that we had done or not done. Each element has its own special relationship to the past, none more so than Metal, where the past is its special domain. It is here that it gets its most important work done, for it is its task to weigh up and evaluate past actions. The burden of regret will therefore weigh heaviest upon it, for Metal people want to be able to say to themselves, “I have done this well”. It is not surprising to note how often a Metal person will say, “if only I had done this…” or “what if I had done that”.

Other elements will feel the weight of regret less keenly, because for them what is past and gone will represent something different. Wood must plan for a hopeful future, and will have the least time to regret what is past. Fire experiences regret most strongly where it involves hurt it may have done to others, and will try to use this to make the present better. Earth is turned more towards itself, and may not have time to indulge in the luxury of going over the past. Water, the great survivor, may have the least interest of all in thinking of its past in its struggles to stay afloat in the present. For Metal, as we have seen, the past represents the place where it must do its work. The “if only’s” and “what if’s” of life will therefore place upon it the deepest cuts.

We can find a helpful pointer to these different approaches if we listen carefully to the tense in which we describe the most important events in our lives. I have found that whether somebody talks most in the present, future or past tense is therefore a simple, but often effective, way of helping me reach a diagnosis, to be added to all the many other little signs by which an element reveals itself. The present tense is about things happening now, the future about things to come and the past about things that have already happened, the tense in which Metal often expresses itself. Wood will be happiest saying, “I will be doing this”, Fire, “I am doing this”, and Metal “if only I had done this”. Somewhere in between lie Earth and Water.

Our guardian element leaves traces of itself in all that we do and say. I have found different modes of speech to be another simple way of tracking its footprints.

The classical pianist Lang Lang – an excellent example of Fire!

For all the people who read this blog in China (and elsewhere round the world), I am happy to be able to point them to one of their compatriots, the classical pianist, Lang Lang, who is definitely (in my view) of the Fire element. You can see that he is trying to stop himself from smiling even as he plays, and is just waiting to burst into laughter as soon as he has finished.

I’ve just seen him on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show on BBC 1, so you may be able to catch him on BBC i-player.

Have a look at him there or on U-Tube, and smile at his enjoyment of his music-making and of life.

Don’t always think a red face is a sign of the Fire element

One of the most frequent mistakes we have all made is to see a very red face on a patient, and immediately diagnose them as Fire. A flushed face, with an even red spread over the whole of the face is, I have found, never Fire, but either Wood or Earth.

Fire’s red tends to appear in blotches, interspersed with a much paler colour, particularly around the mouth and eyes. Its red also tends to come and go, as happens when we flush, one minute making the face very red and then dying away so that the face looks pale and drained of colour. I always see this as the Heart, and particularly its devoted servant, the Heart Protector, pumping away to try and bring a good blood supply to the face, but not having enough energy to keep the blood flow consistent.

Both Wood and Earth can have very red faces when they are out of balance, but their red does not come and go in flushes, but stays there all the time, placing a layer of red over the whole face which almost submerges the elemental colour of green or yellow beneath it. In the case of Wood, the red is a result of the weakness of the mother (Wood) causing distress in the child (Fire). In the case of Earth, the reverse is true, even though there is the same effect of flushing. Here Fire, the mother, is unable to pass on sufficient energy to its child (Earth), causing a build-up of Fire in the mother.

The red of a Wood imbalance comes from its child crying out for help, and the red of an Earth imbalance comes from its mother showing distress. The kind of red which appears will obviously be very different in either case, but will, misleadingly, appear to be the dominant colour. So beware of any snap decision about Fire when you see red!