It was dark and murky outside, a damp, almost autumnal feel
to the day, when I first wrote this blog.
We have hardly had any summer at all in this country. To relieve the gloom of the day I am looking
ahead, and drawing up a summary of my plans and projects for the autumn, a form
of taking stock which we should all do before the year closes down fully.
So here goes:
1. A series of SOFEA seminars, two in September and two in
October (see SOFEA website for details);
2. Two trips to Europe in September (to Holland
and Switzerland) for
clinical work with practitioners, then a gap in October, before my third trip
to China
in November;
3. Preparing my books for publication in e-format (the Keepers of the Soul is already available
in e-format);
4. Completing my translation for Elisabeth Rochat de la
Vallée of her 101 Key Concepts of Chinese
Medicine, which Monkey Press will be publishing (nearly done!);
5. Reviewing my translations of some of Elisabeth Rochat’s
very detailed work on point names. I’m
at the moment looking at Heart Protector (Heart Master) Points 1 - 9, and Lung
Points 1 - 9;
6. Trying yet again to find a publisher for my translation of one of Jacques Lavier’s books, this time in America. Has anybody reading this got any contacts with publishers who might be interested in publishing this very important book which provides one of the key links in the route of transmission from East to West?
7. A French translation of my Keepers of the Soul has been commissioned, and a Mandarin translation of The Simple Guide is at this moment winging its way to China. It will be interesting to see if they want to publish this in addition to the Mandarin version of my Handbook of Five Element Practice which is now well into its second edition of 5000 copies over there.
So that makes for a very five-element orientated autumn! And today the sun is shining again, so thoughts of autumn have receded.
I have been watching Usain Bolt very carefully, trying to
work out whether he is Outer or Inner Fire. And I think now that he is Inner Fire, or, as we
five element acupuncturists say, a II CF, with the Small Intestine as his
dominant official.
Watching him has made me look again at the
differences between these two sides of Fire.
And there are great differences.
I remember saying to JR Worsley that I thought there were really 6 CFs,
not just 5, because Fire
could be considered to consist of two, and he nodded.
So here is what my observation of Usain Bolt tells me about
what I see as being typical of the Small Intestine:
1 He is able to multi-task in a way very familiar to me from my
own Inner Fire abilities, and in a way no Outer Fire person would do. I realised this when I saw him chatting
happily to one of the stadium volunteers standing behind him just before the
200 metre final only a minute before settling down in his blocks. He is obviously able to switch quickly from
one task to the next without apparently any loss of focus. This may even be his way of
concentrating more on the next thing, even if that is an Olympics Final.
2 He likes to include everybody in his joy, chatting to all
his fellow competitors after the race, addressing the camera, running up to
the crowd and talking to everybody there.
Remember that the Small Intestine is the closest official to the Heart,
and it wants to help the Heart express joy, particularly at these very intense
moments. Contrast this with Jessica
Innes drawing her joy back into herself when she won, and her quiet
self-absorption throughout the heptathlon.
(I think she is probably Metal, so quiet and self-contained.)
3 He has great awareness of what is going on all around him,
seeing exactly which camera is on him, responding quickly with a joke and a
smile when he knows the world is looking at him. He watches everybody and everything all the
time, as though using his Small Intestine’s ability to sort so that it can send
the right information on to the Heart.
You can’t have a better example of Fire than Usain
Bolt. Anybody who can make a whole
stadium of people smile, let alone the billions
watching on TV, must be Fire. And he
loves acting the clown.
Apart from enjoying the Olympics, which have lit up this
country with a very English kind of enjoyment, I love watching how the
different athletes respond to the stresses and joys of competition from a five
element point of view. It’s fascinating
seeing all the different expressions of the elements so clearly visible, and
there’s no better way of adding to our knowledge of the elements than watching
people under stress.
I love passing on heartening news about the results of
simple five element treatments. And this
latest anecdote, from the practice of a friend of mine, encouraged me to think
a little more about our approach to treating children.
An 11-year old girl suffering from severe migraine came for
treatment. The practitioner felt that
her element was Fire, and this is the first treatment she was given:
AE drain (great deal of AE on Lung, Heart Protector and
Heart)
Source points of Outer Fire, VI (TH) 4 and V (HP) 7
The migraines stopped completely the day after treatment,
and have not recurred since. She will be
given one more treatment in a few weeks’ time (summer seasonal: VI 6 (TH 6) and V 8 (HP 8)), and will come
back for occasional top-up treatment if necessary.
The migraines started after she moved school, leaving many of
her close friends behind. She was also
now being bullied by another child. All
this meant that her Fire element was suddenly placed under a great deal of
stress with which it could not cope.
Hence the migraines and hence, too, the Aggressive Energy.
This made me think about the treatment I have given
children, and why I have always, without exception, found Aggressive Energy to
be there, and often a surprising amount of it for such young children. This then set me thinking about AE in general, and what its presence signifies. So why so much AE in children, when very sick
adults may not have any?
I like to think that this may be because in children the
imbalances are usually still at a fairly superficial stage, and have not had
time to infiltrate deep within the elements.
We were always told that AE was the result of one element under stress
flinging the negative energy which is weakening it across the K’o (Ke) cycle to
its grandchild element in an attempt to avoid harming its own child element. If the element under stress (which does not
need to be the guardian element) has sufficient energy to get rid of negative
energy in this way, it is still strong enough to maintain a good level of
energy. An AE drain may therefore help
to deal with the first attack on the elements, and it may be that it is only
when elements are deeply weakened that more sustained treatment at a deeper
level is required.
When we treat children, we use exactly the same five element
protocols as for adults, but we use less of them and treat far less often. We don’t need to treat children more
frequently than once in two weeks, even at the start of treatment, and then
only for a few treatments, spreading treatments out more quickly than for
adults. We also use less moxa on the
points (though children will be fascinated by moxa if you show a cone being
heated on yourself first to calm them).
We also needle on one side of the body only, to reduce the stress for a
child, except in the case of the AE drain and Entry/Exit blocks.
We also have to get used to needling a struggling
child! I use short needles, and always
hold the needles carefully covered by my hand so that the child doesn’t see
them. It is important to needle quickly,
and not delay things by trying to talk a child through its fear, as you would
with an adult. With the AE drain, if the
child is young enough I ask the parent to take the child on their lap, and hold
the child very firmly as I insert the needles.
The needles often fall out when the child struggles, so have a good
supply to hand.
And pulse-taking in these circumstances is also quite
difficult! So we do our best with
whatever information we have. Obviously,
too, we have to learn about the child not only by observing it ourselves for as
long as we can, but by talking to the parent(s)/guardian. Again, obviously, this should if possible be
done when the child is not present. A
phone call or meeting before the first treatment, in which we ask the
parent/guardian the kind of questions we would ask an adult at the TD
(Traditional Diagnosis) is essential to give us a picture of what is going on
with the child and the family’s approach to this.
What is interesting, though, is that children themselves
respond very quickly to the effects of treatment. Though they may shriek or struggle a bit, the
little child who makes a terrible fuss about the actual needling will often be
the one who rushes into the practice room and greets me with a kiss, as though
it knows I have helped them.
The important thing is always to bear in mind that the reason
why a child needs treatment is, as we know, not simply because of something
physical, but, as with any patient we treat, inevitably has a deeper emotional
cause. All those terrible cortisone
inhalers now lined up on primary school shelves which the young children are
told to take for their asthmas could be thrown away if only people realized the
stress their children’s Metal elements are placed under in this modern
world. When we are asked to treat
children, therefore, we must always look beyond the child first to the
parent(s), and then beyond the parent to the world in which the child lives.
Usually, unfortunately, we are not asked to
treat the parent, although we can clearly see that this is where the trouble
lies. In the case of this young girl, it
seems that her parents may not appreciate how much the change of school and the
bullying is affecting their child, and are not acting to support
the child’s Heart Protector in a way that will help it protect itself from the
bullying. As we know, bullies always
pick on a child which shows weakness, so the stronger her Heart Protector
becomes, the more it will be able to stand up for itself.
It isn’t even April 1st, but a few days ago I
heard on the BBC that a university somewhere is doing research into this very
subject. Apparently cows are being
fitted with some kind of device which will help researchers find out how much
cows like to chew the cud together. They
will monitor how far the milk yield goes up if cows are allowed to stay with
their group, or down if they are separated from them.
I imagine the answer will be the obvious one, particularly
to a five element acupuncturist.
Presumably a happy cow will produce more milk than an unhappy cow, just
as a happy person will lead a more productive life than an unhappy person.
I have
taken the plunge (see my blog More about
books of 1 July), and now one of my books, Keepers of the Soul, can be downloaded on to Kindle. Confirmation that it was good that I have
done this has just come through a lovely email I received yesterday from China. The writer, Feng, studied acupuncture in Chengdu, but did not complete her studies because she did not
like the approach she was being taught. She moved to Europe, and then, quite by
chance (if there is such a thing!), made contact recently after many years with
my friend Mei, with whom she studied in Chengdu. She is now so enthused by five element
acupuncture that she will be coming to my seminars in the autumn, and wishes to
become a five element acupuncturist.
As you can see
from her email, she has bought one of my books in its e-book version, and has
sent me the following review. I pass it
on to you in her words:
“Dear Nora,
I downloaded from Amazon Keepers of the Soul to my Kindle one week
ago and now I just finished it and want to tell you how I feel
about it. I would put my thoughts together in the way as if I
were telling a friend about this book and I apologize for my gerglish.
At the beginning what touched me most is the utmost sincerity of the
author. As I started the reading I had the feeling as if I were
watching the author explore the elements, she was a little bit tense and me
too, she tried to convey to me the whole dimension of her interaction with
the elements and sometimes she succeeded and sometimes left me try hard to
figure out what she was confronting at that moment. I have never
experienced this kind of approach the author has to
TCM, honest, sensible, totally unassuming, open, and by
a highly cultivated western mind (?!). Reading the book brought some
subtle awareness to my inner world and I had the feeling I could even make
correction to some minor disorders inside myself without intervention of
needles. This led me to imagine what the intervention of a needle would do to
me! As the reading processed, the author becomes more and more relaxed and as
it comes to the description of the elements with example of prominent people it
is getting even entertaining. It is a book that opens and I would recommend it
to everyone without restraint.
Greetings from the summer of Chengdu,
Feng”
Thank you,
Feng, for these interesting comments. I
particularly appreciate your words: “It
is a book that opens.” That is what all
books should do – they should open something new inside us so that we see the
world and ourselves in a slightly different way.
I also like
the comment that you felt “I was a little bit tense” at the start of the
book. I probably was, as I was trying to
encapsulate in words all my feelings about the elements. Whenever I write, I always feel the
difficulty of capturing feelings within the sometimes clumsy and inadequate
framework of words.
It’s lovely to get feedback from patients about successful
treatments we have done. So here is something I can share with you.
A long-standing patient of mine told me that she had been
suffering for some time from persistent menopausal hot flushes. Her
element is Earth, and this is the treatment I gave her:
CV (RM) 12
III (Bl 38) (or 43 – if you prefer, which I don’t!)
XI (St) 41, XII (Sp) 2
All the points were tonified and moxibustion on each point was added to
the treatment.
My patient was amazed by the effect of the treatment. The hot flushes stopped that night, and she
hasn’t experienced any since.
I hope this goes some way to dispel the widespread myth that
moxa should never be used on patients suffering from hot flushes. The opposite is true. Whilst hot flushes make people feel very hot
on the outside, they can remain very cold on the inside. Indeed I suspect that the inner cold may be the reason why the Three Heater is working overtime trying to provide heat, but in the wrong place. Moxa helps correct this imbalance by sending warmth deep within the body (and soul!) to the meridian network.
This is called treating fire with fire.
Over the past years I have experienced many dark days when I
despaired for the future of five element acupuncture. Now, I can say with heartfelt relief, no
longer. It is not only that the whole of
China appears to have opened up to welcome it back to its heart after many
decades of absence, but in this country, too, maybe perhaps partly as a result
of this or because the spirit of the age demands it, five element acupuncture
appears to have regained its soul. I see
evidence of this all around me, and am deeply encouraged by it to continue my
work in promoting it.
One small, but significant, evidence for this found its way
round the world to me by a circuitous route, which illustrates how the world is
now indeed one. Mei Long, my young
Chinese student and friend, translates part of my blog into Mandarin for her
own mini-blog (called a weibo), which then speeds on its way round China and to
any Mandarin-speaker elsewhere in the world, where it apparently attaches
itself in some form to Liu Lihong’s blog which is read by a vast readership in
China. A reader of this blog is a young
Chinese girl living in London
who came to one of my seminars, decided to experience five element acupuncture
for herself and now wants to study it.
Things do indeed come full circle if we wait long enough.
Some of you may have been surprised when I wrote that I
dislike books which list the function of points in my blog of 17 June, The Simpler the Better (last
paragraph). So here are my reasons.
We should always remember that points provide access to the
meridians on which they lie, and through this to the elements deep within, each
point a tiny opening through which external energies can be drawn in and down and
internal energies drawn up and out. We sometimes forget this, because as
acupuncturists we only work on the surface of the body, and our concept of the
meridian network is often modelled too closely on the two-dimensional charts
hanging on our walls. But though we use
the points as places where we needle, their function is to convey the messages
our needles are attempting to send down to the elements upon whose meridians
they lie. They are therefore always
messengers, never the message itself.
Books listing the various functions of individual points can
confuse the unwary. If used carefully such books may well add to
our understanding of the points, though I myself doubt much that is written in
them, wondering upon how much actual clinical experience they are based as
opposed to theoretical musings about the ancient Chinese meaning buried in
their names. What worries me is that
relying on these books for our point selection, which so many acupuncturists
sadly tend to do, inevitably weakens the awareness of the link between point
and element, and potentially makes a knowledge of the element secondary to the
apparent function of a particular point.
As five element acupuncturists, we are on a slippery slope once we begin
to think of the point as having a function all its own quite distinct from that
of the element which gives it that function.
We must never confuse the messenger with the message. And if our treatment is getting nowhere, we
should not shoot the messenger (the points we have used), but look to change
the message (the element on which they lie)!
I think the following is a beautiful
description of the loneliness of grief, the feeling of isolation we all feel
when we experience loss. It comes from a book by the American writer, Francine
Prose, called Goldengrove, which is
all about how a young girl copes with the death of her sister.
“So many of (those trying to offer comfort)
said the same things that I might have thought that there was common ground, if I hadn’t known that I was alone on an iceberg
split off from a glacier….. When they wept, I cried, too, and for a moment I
almost believed that my iceberg might have room for another person.”
