The Concept of Blood in Chinese Medicine

Blood CellsWhile the concept of Qi often dominates our attention in Chinese Medicine, the Blood is at least equally important to us. We know that increasing good Blood circulation can increase the effect we want to achieve in local areas.

The Blood houses the Spirit in Chinese medicine and the Spirit provides the capacity for memory. On a spiritual level this includes the memory of who we really are and what we want to become. Memory can be important in the sense of maintaining change after a treatment.

Moving the Blood can help our treatments last longer because the client is able to register change on a deeper level and their physical form stores that memory for them. This is because we are increasing the circulation of Blood as it moves through the fascia and this has a strong effect on the musculature and nerves.

Excerpted from an article by Cindy Banker, AOBTA

Consciousness-Based Energy Medicine for Optimal Health

Innate WisdomI would distinguish what I practice, which is a combination of Shiatsu and BodyTalk, as more subtle than physical manipulation and safer than pharmaceutical intervention.

Working with the subtle energy level is less invasive and has a broader range of influence all the way down to the physical. Yet I’ve gone a step further to include Consciousness, which is more subtle than the subtlest energy and all-inclusive, whether subtle, dense or otherwise.

Energy is innate to physical matter. Nowhere can we find physical matter devoid of energy. Similarly, intelligence is innate to energy. Nowhere can we find energy devoid of intelligence. This innate intelligence (or simply “Innate”) is everywhere in the universe, which would include this planet, Earth.

Energy is patterns of vibratory movement expressing levels of intelligence (coherence, beauty, knowledge), and innate is non-active pervasive pure intelligence (wisdom, power, bliss) essential to Consciousness. Innate cannot be isolated nor made more or less intelligent – it IS intelligence. I can be conscious of varying energetic expressions of health or dis-ease in the body/mind complex, but Innate is Consciousness itself and beyond measurement including any attempt at diagnosis whatsoever.

Working intuitively with the dynamics of Innate is to work as though Innate itself were doing the intuiting. This I refer to as “Being in the zone”.

There is not a person more intuitive than Innate itself and this is what allows each of us to unfold what is essentially our own Innate Consciousness.

Working with Innate, therefore, is to work beyond any personal level of intuition, even though it is through that intuition that Innate communes during a treatment.

The great wisdom of both Shiatsu which is based on the ancient premises of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Veda, and Bodytalk which is a modern day understanding of the Quantum Theories being expounded in the Sciences, is that since Innate is innately our own consciousness, Shiatsu and BodyTalk amount to being an exploration into the appreciation of our own Selfhood.

Now, not even doubt, hesitation, insecurities, pains, and problems can get us down because they are also expressions of Innate – and any message communicated by Innate Consciousness is worth getting excited about. Love yourself; go easy; be gentle with your Self and see everything, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, as an opportunity to expand. Laugh at yourself, go to the mirror and look at yourself, give yourself a wink and a smile. Feel yourself worthy of communion with the Supreme Wisdom innate to Consciousness that pervades and supports all of Life- your Life! This is the Life worth living. This is the source of All, including health and well-being. “Finding Health” begins and ends here with the applied consciousness of Shiatsu/Bodytalk.

You are so much more than the sum of your parts. The quantum shift that 2012 represents is not Apocalyptic or the End of Times. It is simply the end of the focus of Cartesian reductionism on the parts of us, and a return to the Holistic understanding inherent, not only in the mystical traditions of all major religions, but also in the findings and observations of Quantum Theory.

I would like to thank and acknowledge Tim Hall, Bodytalk Practitioner, for the inspiration and some of the content of this article.

 

Autumn: A Time for Building Up Your Immune System

White Tiger ConstellationWe celebrate the return of Yin energy, where we begin turning inward after the warmth and outward expansion of Spring and Summer. Autumn is the time of gathering in the fruits of our labors, of bringing in the harvest.

To the Taoists of China, the Autumn Equinox opens the Western Door of Heaven, the door of the White Tiger constellation, one of the Four Doors, when the gates of Heaven are open to virtuous souls with great merit.

In Chinese Five Element Theory, the Autumn Equinox marks the beginning of the Metal Element cycle. Metal is also associated with dusk, the West, with the color white, with the White Tiger protector of the West, with dryness and cooling. It is the most important time of year for building up your immune system in preparation for the approaching cold winds of Winter.

A Time to Strengthen

It’s the best time of year for strengthening the Lungs, as we are more susceptible to colds and flus as the weather changes. Chinese herbs such as astragalus (Huang Qi) and platycodon are perfect to help strengthen the immune system and Lungs.

Now is also a good time to stock up on Yin Qiao, an especially good formula to take at the first sign of a cold. My favorite Chinese herbal formulation to fortify the immune system is Jade Windscreen Formula (Yu Ping Feng San).