Purpose, Elation and the Pancreas

There are many ways to look at the state of acupuncture in America and the progress that has been made over the last twenty years. In this article I would like to discuss some of the really basic terms and concepts of Oriental medicine that, even after “all these years” of acupuncture in America, are still problematic. Looking critically and carefully at the past gives us many lessons for the present and future.  Read more...

 

Postnatal Depression

The Ji Yin Gang Mu (Compendium of Benefits to Women, 1620, by Wu Zhi–Wang is a major TCM gynaecological text which contains gynaecological formulae arranged by disease category. It contains more than fifty formulas listed for these various conditions, as well as others that in the West might conceivably be thrown into the “post natal depression” basket, such as recurring hiccups or wandering pains. The commentaries included within the Ji Yin Gang Mu note that there are three major approaches to post-partum emotional disorders. One focuses on “bad blood” left over after the birth, which rushes to and disrupts the Heart shen. Another emphasises blood deficiency resulting from the birth process and its attendant traumas. The last points to pathogenic wind taking advantage of the blood deficiency to attack.   Read more...

 

All Disease Comes from the Heart; The Pivital Role of the Heart

Most modern clinicians find that a majority of their patients suffer from the symptom complex generally referred to as “stress.” Emotional stress, however, is usually regarded as a confounding rather than a causative factor in pathophysiology. This assessment is contrary to the tenets of classical Chinese medicine, which originally regarded emotional imbalance as a spiritual affliction of primary significance.  Read more...

 

The Awakening of Choice

A most significant part of healing lies in the renunciation of the victim position and the assumption of 100% responsibility for ourselves as embodied by the actual choices that we make. A goal of any healer in a spiritual tradition of medicine, one that recognizes the primacy of spirit, must be to assist in liberating the patient’s choosing faculty from the fears and desires of the ego. Simply put, freedom means “free to choose” as opposed to being a slave to the mechanism of a conditioned mind. Free to choose what? Free to do the right thing. When it comes to the “spiritual practice of medicine,” positive change in behavior is far more significant in assessing efficacy then a change in a patient’s feeling state.   Read more...

 

Behavior Modification in Dogs and Cats with Chinese Herbs

Robert J. Silver reminds us that archeological evidence indicates that early hominids observed animals using plants for food and medicines, and emulating their use of these plants was the beginning of the art and science of herbal medicine for humans. Our domestic animals have lost much of their herbal instinctual knowledge. Dr. Silver believes in view of this historical perspective, it is appropriate that we humans give back to them the benefits that we have learned from their ancestors by practicing herbal medicine on animals.  Read more...

 

Beware the Rampaging Hun

Individually embodied spirits engage and accumulate experience through the combined agency of the five aspects of Shen (Spirit). Each of these shen is associated with the primal movement of one of the five phases (wuxing), is contained within its zang (vital organ), and expresses interactions with the world through its paired fu (storehouse). Together the five shen provide both the motive force for each individual’s life, and his or her capacity to learn and grow.  Read more...