How Five Element Acupuncture Is in the World

     The very shorthand of the beginnng is that first and always there is the Dao, out of which comes the (second) Yin and Yang, and (third) they are the originators of heaven, earth, and man - the three, out of which comes the four directions, and they produce the Five Elements or the Five Phases. Boy, what a mess of incompleteness that is!
     I may have to come back to most of that.
     Five Element is a nature-based, phenomena medicine, at least the way I learned it which may not be exactly the way I was taught.
     There are the five (!) seasons or five elements (Wood can be thought of as that green cirlce at about 9 o'clock) and each one is associated with a whole host of ideas which we practitioners observe, like color, smell, odor and emotion. The season of spring is associated with the color green and the emotion anger. The Liver and the Gallbladder are the organs of the element of Wood, the season of Spring. The concept of the Liver (somewhat different that we appreciate it in Western medicine) is associated with vision (since the meridian of the Liver opens into the eyes) and muscles.
     When the elements are well in balance we incorporate all five aspects seamlessly. When one is uneven, it shows up more.
     The "so what?" aspect is answered when we perceive a patient with anger issues, the color green observed around the eyes or mouth, problems with vision or muscles. The wood pulses, the Liver and Gallbladder ones, may evidence some unusual characteristics or be very weak or very strong. Any combination, this little scenario may direct us to treat something to do with Wood.
     Now, it's not as simple as that. It may be that the supervising element of Metal may be over controlling or Wood may be undercontolling its responsible element of Earth, so we have to allow for those interactions.
     Again, we rely on the interplay of the pulses to provide us direction.

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We should manage our fortunes as we do our health - enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, and never apply violent remedies except in an extreme necessity. - Francoise de La Roschefoucauld

Is My Butt Too Big?

“Cleaning out things makes my butt smaller.” That’s what a patient told me the other day. Up until this spring, the patient had been holding on to too much stuff, it’s a lot, really. And now this season, it’s time to turn loose of it, to lose weight, to strip down to what really serves, to cleanse out life.

There’s a quote from Gail Reichstein, author of Wood Becomes Water, that reads "the quickest way to control an excess Earth element is to clean up clutter. Not dirt necessarily, which is the province of the Metal element, but the clutter and overabundance that accumulate around us during times of stress and inattention. Clean off tabletops and desktops, clean out drawers and cabinets, organize closets and basements, throwing out as much as you can, and organizing the rest into neat piles. This will begin the process of draining and simplifying an overburdened Earth element."

"Earth element"? More later on the elements. . .
It’s like it’s connected, the more stuff that goes, the less you weigh.

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How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever. - David Norris