Another chance encounter

Readers of this blog know that I enjoy going to coffee houses and doing my writing and my reading over coffee.  Often, too, I don’t finish the cup, but just enjoy the smell and the feeling of excitement it always give me.  I have traced this back to when I was a teenager, and the first coffee shop in London opened in Wigmore Street.  This would be where I rendezvoused with an uncle who, being originally from Austria, was helping me with my German studies as I prepared for my university entrance exams.  Then a second coffee-shop opened in Hampstead, and again I can feel the thrill of travelling up to North London from our South London home, emerging in Hampstead High Street opposite the Everyman Cinema, and feeling myself in the heart of London’s intellectual life.  A coffee shop, a book, and something to write with and write on therefore still remain tinged for me with the exciting aura of the past. 

And I would like now to acknowledge the friendliness of all the staff at one of my favourite coffee houses, Paul’s, here in Marylebone High Street.  I now know each by name, and they always greet me with warmth.  And, too, to my surprise, I discovered recently through a chance encounter that two people who are often here at the same time as me happen to have known this same uncle who introduced me to coffee houses all those years back.  This is another example of what is called a serendipity – something that happens quite by chance, but seems somehow to be pre-ordained.

I love the word serendipity*.  Firstly, for its sound which has within it a clear reference to a kind of made-up childish word I use, “dippity”, which is in not in my dictionary, (although “dippy”” is, meaning “crazy” or “silly”, and” of uncertain 20^th C origin”), and for me describes a somewhat scatty kind of a person.  And this always sets me thinking on a well-worn, nostalgic path which leads directly to my mother.  For I remember her well one day, a few years after I had established my acupuncture college, saying to me, “I always wonder how a flibbertigibbet like you got it together to run a school.”  So to her all the length of the half-century of the lives we lived together I must have remained this very scatty, dippity sort of person I certainly was as a child.

The thought of this serendipitous meeting with my uncle’s acquaintances in my favourite coffee shop this morning brought this all back to me.

* The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “serendipity” as ”the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident” (coined by Horace Walpole in 1854)

Three lovely books to add to my reading list

I love coming across good books, and am always very quick at putting aside others that I am not enjoying, even though I may only have read a few pages.  I realise that the secret of a good book is that it teaches me something new about the human condition, and was pleased to find the following in an article about one of my favourite yet not all that well-known American writers, Elizabeth Strout, whose latest book My Name is Lucy Barton is now included in this list.  The article quotes her as saying that ”…her five novels have begun “always, always” with a person, and her eyes and ears are forever open to these small but striking human moments, squirreling them away for future use.  ”Character, I’m just interested in character,” she says”.   And then, “But ever since I was young, I have seen writing as trying to help people.  That sounds so corny but that’s really what I see as my job – trying to open somebody’s eyes just a little bit for one minute.  So, yeah, there are times I think, “This is foolish,” but I don’t know that it’s any more foolish than any other acts of trying to help the world.”

I realise that in my own way I also like to think of my writing as trying to help the world understand human beings a little more, in my case particularly through the medium of the five elements.

And here are two further American writers with books I want to add to my list of favourites.   One is a beautiful writer of what are called graphic books, which is how they describe all types of illustrated books, from cartoons to novels.  The writer Lauren Redniss has illuminated my last few days with her book called Thunder and Lightning, which is about the natural forces of nature.  It is quite beautifully illustrated, with a handwritten text which intertwines itself around the illustrations so that each page becomes an interesting work of art.

And my final author recommendation today is a prize-winning book by Anthony Doerr All the Light We Cannot See about a young German soldier in the Second World War and a blind young French girl. – very moving, very true and beautifully written.

Another example of the effectiveness of simple five element treatment

I have just received an email from a five element practitioner which illustrates very neatly how effective simple treatment can be.  She writes:

“I have been treating a number of youngsters recently and one particular 13-year old girl has responded extremely well to some very simple treatments. Her GP had diagnosed her with hyperhydrosis - she was very self-conscious and anxious about her excessive sweating, especially of her head, neck and face, and this was preventing her from participating in sport at school. The GP wanted to prescribe beta-blockers and had also suggested surgery to sever the nerves responsible (!).

 

I was undecided between Water and Wood CF for this young girl, but plumped for Water and treated her with AE and yin source points only. At the follow-up appointment, she reported to have had three bouts of shivering on the way home, despite not feeling cold, and slept soundly for the first time in months. That week her sweating had all but disappeared and she had enjoyed playing badminton, and was looking forward to a night out dancing at her first non-school disco. I needled yin source points again and left it at that. It came out in conversation that she had fallen badly in the past and injured her coccyx - perhaps the source of the imbalance?

 

How wonderful that such a simple treatment has proved to be so effective - and has hopefully prevented this young girl from becoming heavily medicated or subjected to some fairly drastic surgery.

 

I am feeling truly humbled and privileged to be asked to treat these people, and to have the opportunity to put your teachings into practice - the simpler, the better. Thank you for such wise words.”

 

Thank you, too, Jo, for telling me this, and also for having the courage to stick to simple treatment.

There was one thing I queried with her.  I asked her why she had used "yin source points only", and omitted the yang source points.  It turned out that she had slightly misheard what I had said about treating children less frequently and needling on the left side only, and somehow thought that meant doing the yin points only, not the yang.  But the results she obtained by just addressing the yin is a further demonstration of the power of simple treatment.
 

 

Heart 7 again: Addition to my blog of 5 Feb

The practitioner, Ruth Wallis, with whom I shared a happy day last week (see my blog of 5 Feb), has emailed me with a slight correction to what I wrote.  Apparently students were told to end the first treatment with Ht 7 rather than a source point of the element they have chosen only if they could not decide which element to choose.  As she puts it, “If I am happy with the CF then I do not use Ht 7”, adding that “you have at the back of your mind it’s all too easy to think 'O its ok not to assign a CF straight away because you can always use Ht 7 after AE'.”

And therein lies the problem, and what I consider to be the mistake.  This is my reply to her:  “But who is “happy with the CF” at the first treatment?  That’s really the problem.  People are so worried about getting the “right CF” straightaway that they don’t give themselves time to address the elements and instead reach for Ht 7.  You are right when you say about it being easy to grab at Ht 7 instead of looking for the element.  I’m going to write a follow-up email based on what you wrote.  Thanks for stimulating me!”

Each treatment is there to ask a question of the elements and we must get used to gauging their responses so that they eventually guide us to the right element.  Note the word “eventually”.  We should not try to model ourselves on the example of JR Worsley, who some of us will remember saying with conviction after only a few minutes with the patient that “he/she is Wood”.  He would say that we would all be as proficient as he was at diagnosing the elements if we had done the same 40 or more years he had.  But few of any us have this amount of experience.  I have completed some 30 years as a five element acupuncturist, and still acknowledge that I need quite a few treatments before I am ready to convince myself that I am treating the right element. 

Because element-diagnosis is such a rarefied skill, we should waste no time in the practice room.  And by not addressing a particular element by reaching instead for Ht 7 we are doing that.  The Ht 7 treatment will tell us precisely nothing about the patient’s element (unless by chance they happen to be Inner Fire), and it will only defer to the next treatment what some seem to regard as the dreaded moment when they have to make up their minds and plump for one element.  It is far better gradually to train ourselves not to be fearful of “not being sure” of the element, and instead accept, as I do, that the initial absolutely necessary period of uncertainty, often extending to several weeks of treatment if not more, is a natural part of the process and not to be feared.  We should not be surprised at the difficulty of pinpointing the unique complexities of each human shaped by one particular element.

And even JR would query his own diagnosis.  I remember him saying about a patient of mine, “That’s odd.  I’m sure he is Earth, and yet his colour is not Earth’s colour”, and he went away puzzling about that.

We should all enjoy the mysterious world which each human being opens up to us, and accept that this ultimate unknowability makes our work to fathom which element lies at the heart of each of us difficult but enthralling.  And we should never be in a hurry, always remembering one of my mantras “Don’t worry, don’t hurry!”  Patients don’t if we don’t.

 

 

 

 

A plea for caution in using the point Heart 7: Spirit Gate

It is always a joy for me when I have confirmation that what I have taught somebody has really taken root, and is now flourishing.  One of the difficult things I have had to learn as a teacher is to accept that much of what I try to pass on to others may fall on fallow ground and never produce the fruit I so much hope for it.  Last weekend, though, thankfully the opposite happened.  A practitioner asked me to come to her practice to help her with some of her patients.  This proved to be a very satisfying day for me, and, I could feel, for her, too.  She was eager to learn from my experience, and this encouraged me to pass on what I could.

There was just one thing that pulled me up short, and which she asked me to write about.  For some reason which I still cannot quite fathom, she had been told during her training as a student at the old College of Traditional Acupuncture in Leamington that the first treatment should consist of the Aggressive Energy drain (good), but followed, not by the source points of the element she had chosen to start with, but by Heart 7, and this for every patient.  For the life of me I can’t think why this rather bizarre first treatment had become embedded in what was essentially a five element practice.  Why would the first official to be treated always be the Heart?

In the good old days, when JR Worsley controlled the curriculum, we were always being told to be extremely cautious about needling the Heart.  It is in many ways a sacred meridian, touching our very core, and therefore to be approached only with great care.  It is for good reason that one of the few times we use it for any guardian element is as the last point in treating a Husband/Wife imbalance, the point which we call upon to restore balance at the deepest level.  Apart from that, it can be used as a First Aid point for emergencies affecting the Heart, and, of course, as a command point, the source point, for patients with Inner Fire (the Heart and Small Intestine officials) as their aspect of the Fire element.  Here again, though, we should be wary of over-use, and concentrate treatment more upon Small Intestine points.

So please, please, all five element practitioners reading this, direct your choice of points firmly to the element you have decided upon from the very first treatment, and leave the Heart well alone.  And do at least 4-5 treatments on that element before deciding that a move to another element is called for.  To help those who are rather unclear how to start their five element treatments, you can look in my Handbook of Five Element Practice for a detailed discussion of point selection in general and for point selection for the first few treatments in particular. 

And give Heart 7 the respect it reserves.

A comparison of the thought processes of the different elements

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

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

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

 

 

Alittle bit of unexpected cheer

I am watching with fear as the world, which often seems never to learn from its past, hovers yet again on the brink of another financial precipice, with the rich making sure that they get richer whilst the poor only get poorer.  And I can hardly bear to look at a newspaper or listen to the news because everywhere I see the desperate faces of asylum seekers risking their lives, and often losing those lives, in an attempt to escape the horrors of wars.  I can understand what being a refugee is like, although at one remove, for half my family, my mother’s half, was Austrian Jewish and many of them were forced to flee to this country before the second World War, most escaping the concentration camps only because my English father could vouch for them.

And then I think of all those rich and influential people sitting around behind police barricades in five-star hotels in Davos, flying in and out in their private planes, to discuss from a distance what to do about the poverty in the world.  And the gap between their world and the world outside seems to grow ever wider.

It is sometimes too much for me, and I have to take refuge in reading all kinds of escapist literature, my favourite being detective stories, where good always triumphs.  I am particularly fond of the gentle old-fashioned English country village kind, which takes me back to the nostalgia of a simpler life, with echoes of my own childhood.

I am cheered, though, by hearing that at last this country will be doing something about the hordes of unaccompanied children who live in appalling conditions just a few miles over there in the camps in Calais, a prey to child traffickers.  It seems as though one or more thousand will be allowed in.  And high time too!

...............


There is a happy postscript to the blog above which I have just read in today's Guardian newspaper:  "Teachers flood Dunkirk school for refugees with aid offers".

This is a heartening story of the school a teacher and friends have set up in the mud of a refugee camp in Dunkirk, of the success they are having in teaching the refugee children, and of the many other teachers volunteering to cross the Channel to offer their help.  Hoorah, hoorah!

Further thoughts on traditional acupuncture's legacy to the history of Chinese culture

I have recently written about the importance we should all give to the idea of a personal legacy which we pass on to others (see my blogs of 24 May 2015 The legacy we leave behind and of 27 August 2015 Transmission of a lineage).  I have been made particularly aware of this after reading a few books in the excellent series about China published by a very enterprising publishing house, Zed Books (www.zedbooks.co.uk), whose books I would recommend for those interested in understanding China's position in world history today, not only for people like me who visit China, but also for those concerned with world politics in general, as we all should be.   

For obvious reason I have concentrated my reading on steeping myself in things Chinese, and the Zed books I list below have given me much food for thought.  Each has changed my perspective on what my trips to China are teaching me (I am embarking on my 9^th visit in April), and each has made me re-evaluate my own role in re-introducing five element acupuncture to China.  I see more clearly now how this fits into the general thrust of China’s renewed interest in connecting with its past, as well as helping me understand more how it wishes to extend its connections with the world outside its borders.

The books on China that I have recently read are:
Wade Shepard: Ghost Cities of China
Michael Barr: Who’s afraid of China?
Leta Hong-Fincher:  Leftover Women
Tom Miller:  China’s Urban Billions

And then there is a further book which is not solely related to China, but addresses the global financial world, and has taught me more than any other book I have read about the historical reasons which led to the 2008 financial collapse, and the possible trouble now looming over us yet again.  It has made me understand the sheer selfishness of politics now, which contrasts sadly with what I see was what could be viewed as a golden age in British life in which I grew up, the post-World War years before Margaret Thatcher’s arrival on the political scene.  In those years  there really was a feeling that the whole country was trying to work towards a more egalitarian country, and the state itself  looked after the weakest as a matter of course, and not, as now, stigmatizing them for being weak.

So my last recommendation is for another Zed Book is The Global Minotaur by Yanis Varoufakis.  He was the Greek Minister of Finance at a time when it looked possible that Greece might be able to defy the almighty power of the IMF and the German government and refuse to cripple its citizens with further austerity, a hope unfortunately not realized.

 

 

 

 

 

The Fire Element’s Four Officials (Part II)

Here’s my second blog about the Fire element, as I look in detail at each of its officials.

Let’s start with the Heart, and thus with Inner Fire, as we should always do, as it is our most important official, in five element acupuncture called the Supreme Controller.  There it sits safely behind all kinds of barricades in rather lonely splendour, with only its companion official, the Small Intestine, granted close access.  It is cut off from the rest of the castle to protect it, and there is no direct connection between it and Outer Fire.  This is the inner sanctum of the Fire element, with the Supreme Controller, like a Lord of a Manor or an Emperor in the Forbidden City in Beijing, hidden well away from sight, and closely guarded by its yang companion, the Small Intestine. 

Such is the Heart’s importance that it has two further protectors, forming an outer defensive ring, the Three Heater and the Heart Protector.  These I call the two Outer Fire officials.  They patrol the castle’s ramparts and form the outer perimeter of the Heart’s defence system.  The Heart Protector can be thought of as a guard always with weapons in its hands, defending the castle from attack.  Its yang companion, the Three Heater, ensures that every part of this defensive structure functions harmoniously and as a single unit.  These two officials are alert to any danger, and do all they can to prevent an attack upon the Heart deep within.   We can interpret this emotionally as an awareness of the risks inappropriate relationships can pose.  It is interesting to note how often an Outer Fire person may cross their arms across their chest when they talk to other people, a physical sign that they are trying to protect the Heart inside.

This image reveals some of the characteristics which the two Outer Fire officials show as they maintain their defensive attitude at all times.  This can manifest itself as vulnerability when they are weak, as though retreating behind protective barricades.  It is as if they are physically lowering the portcullis when danger threatens.

This kind of defence is quite unlike the response of the Small Intestine to pressure upon it.  Since it is the closest official to the Heart, it cannot afford to retreat in this way, but has to stay in control at all times.  Instead, its yang quality shows itself increasingly the more defensive it may feel inside.  It counters stress upon it more by verbal sparring and mental agility.  We know that the Small Intestine’s function is to sort the pure from the impure, rejecting impurities to protect the Heart.   It is therefore constantly responding to whatever situation it is presented with by trying to sift from it only that which it is good to allow through.  

When we are trying to distinguish the characteristics of an Inner Fire person from that of Outer Fire, this somewhat restless activity can be seen as one of its distinguishing features.  The slightly puzzled look in an Inner Fire’s eyes as it tries to sort out its responses to a given situation is a good clue.   Outer Fire is not puzzled by life, just alert to its dangers.

I give below some of my tips for distinguishing the two sides of Fire from one another:

Outer Fire:

Easier than Inner Fire for people to relate to. (This reflects its time of maximum activity which is the evening, at the end of the day, as people start to relax.)

Relaxed company, spreading warmth and joy around it.

More articulate than Inner Fire, since it does not need constantly to sort out its thoughts.

 

Inner Fire:

More active than Outer Fire, since its time of maximum activity is around noon, when the sun’s yang energy is at its height.

             More prickly than Outer Fire. 

Likes to spread warmth and joy, but is often prevented from doing this because it is concentrating more on trying to work out what needs to be done to help the Heart.

Can look puzzled by life and remains puzzled until it has worked out a solution.  Can therefore send out confusing signals which other people may find disturbing.

 

Despite these tips, it is not easy to distinguish the differences between these two sides of Fire.  This is why we always start by treating Outer Fire for a few treatments to strengthen the Heart’s defences before moving to Inner Fire if we feel we have not reached the core of a patient.

I like to think that Outer Fire asks "Is this person safe to love?", whilst Inner Fire asks "Is this person wise to love?"

Thank you, Mary,  for prompting me to collect my thoughts together on the Fire element in this way.

 

 

The Fire Element’s Four Officials (Part I)

I seem to be thinking a lot about the Fire element at the moment, so my next two blogs offer some more of my thoughts.

A few days ago a student asked me about this element, and particularly about one of its four officials, the Three Heater (also called the Triple Burner), and that has set me thinking about what exactly the different functions of these officials are.  They are obviously all part of the Fire element, which has as its centre the Heart, but what do the other officials do to help the Heart?

I have always had an image in my mind’s eye when I think about the Fire element, and that is of a mediaeval castle, surrounded by a moat and battlements. These represent the Heart’s outer protectors, the Three Heater and the Heart Protector, which work together and which I have named Outer Fire.  The battlements have what is called a portcullis guarding its entrance from the outside world.  For those not familiar with the word, a portcullis is a heavy iron or wooden barrier which is lowered down from above to cut off anyone trying to gain access over the castle’s moat, and thus to protect the castle from intruders.  At the very centre of the castle there is a further structure, again surrounded by its own fortification, which represents the Heart with the Small Intestine circling around it and protecting it.  To these two officials I have given the name of Inner Fire.

I don’t know where I got this image of a castle from.  Did one of my teachers at my Leamington College describe the Fire element in these terms, or was it an image I developed for myself to understand the different functions of the four Fire officials?  I know that it was already clearly imprinted on my mind by the time I started my evening classes in London soon after I qualified, so it has become a very long-standing representation of this element for me.  And I find it very useful as it helps explain for me some of the differences between the two Inner and two Outer Fire officials.  For each pair has a different function within the Fire element, has different characteristics, therefore expresses itself differently within us, and needs to be treated differently with its own groups of points.

I will discuss this in greater detail in my next blog (Part II).