The Great Totality

Well, school has definitely started. I originally thought I would be able to post at least once a week, but here it is, my third week of classes and I am just now able to find time to sit down and write. Grad school is no joke, I actually have to study this time around. My classes are going well and I am enjoying the subject matter immensely.

I suppose I should let you know the classes I am taking this trimester:
Acupuncture Point Practicum - In this class we learn the location and the names of the acupuncture points on the 12 organ meridians.
Acupuncture Point Theory - This class complements Acu Practicum. In the course we discuss the functions of specific points, the locations, the names, the antiquity points, technique in needling, the indications for the point, and most importantly what the point treats. In my opinion, this is by far the hardest class.
Intro to Biology - Yup, intro to bio, just what it says. Basic, basic, basic bio. snoooooooze
Intro to TCM Theory - This is the most concentrated and heaviest work load. The class meets twice a week for a total of 8 hours (and sometimes more if Caylor keeps us late).

TCM Theory is the class I have been meaning to write about. This is the class where we discuss the foundations of Chinese Medicine. In its most basic form everything in Chinese Medicine can be boiled down to Yin and Yang. That's right, everything in TCM can be put into a relationship that is represented by that favorite black and white symbol of hippies and surfer dudes everywhere. Most of you readers will know a little bit about the yin/yang relationship, but I think a brief review might help others.

Yin --------------Yang
Descending - Ascending
Contraction - Expansion
Cold - Heat
Water - Fire
Night - Day
Rest - Activity
Solid - Gas
Female - Male
Winter - Summer
North - South
Heavy - Light

At a glance yin/yang represents opposites and their relationship to each other. Some things are more yin than others or less yang than others. For example Spring can be considered yang, however it is less yang than Summer. If one tries hard enough they can put all things in the universe into a yin/yang relationship.

When discussing yin/yang we naturally begin to explore the concept of balance. When yin and yang are in balance there is harmony, this is represented by the Tai Ji (black and white yin/yang symbol - roughly translated Tai ji means Great Totality). Another yin/yang concept that is seen in the Tai Ji is the idea that no thing is entirely yin or entirely yang. That is represented by the black and white dots of the Tai Ji. This concept is important because if an object is not completely yin or yang then it has the potential to change into its opposite. This is linked to the concept of "Flux" or constant change. Without the impetus for change there would be no growth, no expansion, no evolution. When discussing pathologies and organ disharmonies this idea is of the utmost importance. When we are healthy there is balance between the yin and yang systems in our bodies. If we are sick our yin and yang are out of balance, one may be deficient or the other may be in excess. However, since nothing is truly yin or truly yang it has the potential to correct and balance itself out again.
Am I losing you yet?

Lets look at some yin/yang relationships as it relates to the body:
Yin-------------------------------------Yang
Structure/Bones - Energy (Qi/Chi)
Solid Organs - Hollow Organs (for transporting blood, food, waste)
Corporeal Soul (physical body) - Shen (Mind/Spirit) Ethereal Soul
Body below the waist - Body above the waist
Internal Organs/ Middle of Body - Skin/Limbs
Anterior - Posterior

Relationships of Yin/Yang are hard to see when looking at a healthy body. But when you introduce pathology into the picture, things start to make a lot more sense. For example a yang condition is fever. Excess yang will present as heat and will rise to the yang part of the body (head), the tongue and complexion will be red, there is often sweating and chills (yin compensation for the excess of yang). There are also things like false heat, which is a deficient yin condition that presents similar to the yang condition above, but that is just confusing and we won't get into that right now.

The last yin/yang relationship I would like to discuss are those factors that disrupt yin/yang harmony in the body. They are the 6 pathogenic factors, better known as the 6 Evils:
Wind: Probably the most evil of the six. Wind will drive the other pathogenic factors into you and usually does not invade the body alone. Wind can quickly go from being an external condition to an internal condition if it is not stopped from penetrating into the internal organs. For example sitting by a drafty window with an exposed neck and shoulders will drive the cold right into you. Your body may present with cold symptoms like the chills and runny, stuffy nose (clear mucous) and if caught soon enough you can sweat the wind cold out of you, if you let it go on it will get deeper into the body and become wind heat, you will present with a fever, soar throat hacking cough with yellow mucous (yellow=heat/yang). Internal manifestations of wind are liked with nervous system pathologies. Any condition with symptoms of twitching, spasms, convulsions, and tics is a condition of wind.
Heat: This can be internal or external. There are many types of heat and the way they manifest depends on the organ they are effecting. External Heat damages the heart and the brain.
Cold: Once again this can be external or internal. External cold can lead to hypothermia and frostbite. If cold arises internally it can cause issues like constipation or poor digestion. It can lead to depression or lack of energy. I like to think of a cold condition as one where the body does not have enough internal fire to properly maintain physiological processes like blood circulation and digestion.
Dampness: If you live in the Great Lake States then you know what external dampness is. It's called July and August. Internal dampness is issues with water regulation and retention in the organ tissues. Its symptoms are related to the spleen and sugar metabolism.
Dryness: I am currently experiencing external and internal dryness. My skin and nails are cracked and dry and I have internal dryness of the lungs resulting in loss of my voice and a slight loss of breath. Dryness can very much result from a dry climate like here in Denver, or it can be due to lack of water intake or water circulation in the body. Dryness hurts the kidneys, as they are responsible for water circulation in the body.
Summer Heat: I don't really get this one yet. I know that it is similar to heat and often combines with dampness. Also it is seasonal and only occurs in the summer, hence the name "Summer Heat".

This is just an introduction to the pathogenic factors. As I begin to discuss organ functions and and disharmonies I will be coming back to these quite often.

Okay, so we have covered a little bit of the basics. Try to digest this theory of yin and yang, it is one of the most beautiful concepts in TCM. There are still two other basic foundations of Chinese medicine that I need to tell you about, but they will have to wait.

Begin the Beguine

I have recently had some time to reflect on what it is exactly I am trying to do out here in Denver. While it is not unheard of, changing careers and pursuing a completely new course of study at my age may seem to some people slightly irresponsible and mildly self indulgent. Especially when one considers that I have no prior training or educational background in any healing art, Western or otherwise. But I will not be starting from the ground up. I will be building upon a foundation of tacit understanding and intuition. This is knowledge we all have. We know when someone we love isn’t feeling well just by looking at them. We know when a friend is depressed without even having to ask. Our bodies tell us things about our selves and others, we just have to listen. We all know what it feels like to be healthy and we know all too well what it feels like to be out of health. It is this shared human knowledge that will be my support as I begin my training.


Chinese medicine is built on a completely different system of understanding than Western medicine. Chinese medical traditions date back over 2,000 years and are based on the teachings of the Tao. I am not a student of Taoism. However, as I have begun to learn about Taoist practices I find them natural and intuitive. But I am a Westerner and have been brought up in Western schools and institutions. Psychologist C. G. Jung had some wonderful insights when he began to study Chinese texts based in the Tao. I would like to share some of his Commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower with you.


“A thorough Westerner in feeling, I cannot but be profoundly impressed by the strangeness of this Chinese text. It is true that some knowledge of Eastern religions and philosophies helps my intellect and my intuition to understand these things up to a point, just as I can understand the paradoxes of primitive beliefs in terms of “ethnology” or “comparative religion.” This is of course the Western way of hiding one’s heart under the cloak of so-called scientific understanding. We do it partly because the misérable vanité des savants fears and rejects with horror any sign of living sympathy, and partly because sympathetic understanding might transform contact with an alien spirit into an experience that has to be taken seriously”.

“Anyone who belittles the merits of Western science is undermining the foundations of the Western mind. Science is not indeed a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when it is taken as an end in itself. Science must serve; it errs when it usurps the throne. It must be ready to serve all its branches, for each, because of its insufficiency, has need of support from the others. Science is the tool of the Western mind, and with it one can open doors with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our understanding, and it obscures our insight only when it claims that the understanding it conveys is the only kind there is. The East teaches us another, broader, more profound, and higher understanding- understanding through life. We know this only by hearsay, as a shadowy sentiment of expressing a vague religiosity, and we are fond of putting “Oriental wisdom” in quotation marks and banishing it to the dim region of faith and superstition. But that is wholly to misunderstand the realism of the East. Texts of this kind to not consist of the sentimental, overwrought mystical intuitions of pathological cranks and recluses, but are based on the practical insights of highly evolved Chinese minds, which we have not the slightest justification for undervaluing”.


I have such an appreciation for what Jung says here. I already have encountered philosophies that have been very difficult to wrap my Cartesian brain around, and if you come along with me on this journey you will as well. Indeed, it would be so easy to brand these Eastern ideas as superstition or voodoo. It would also be a mistake to fain open-mindedness and except them head on without any digestion or assimilation into our Western thought systems. That would not be true understanding, only mimicry that is so common in this “New Age.”


“A Chinese can always fall back on the authority of his whole civilization. If he starts out on the long way, he is doing what is recognized as being the best thing he could possibly do. But the Westerner who wishes to set out on this way, if he is really serious about it, has all authority against him – intellectual, moral and religious”.


There will be people in my life that will simply refuse to understand the path I have chosen to travel. I can accept that.


“The individual must devote himself to the way with all his energy, for it is only by means of his integrity that he can go further, and his integrity alone can guarantee that his way will not turn out to be an absurd misadventure”.


I wanted this first post to give the reader a bit of insight into my approach on learning the subject matter. I hope that it has been interesting reading for you. Future posts will be more journal oriented and will discuss topics that are covered in my classes. I may get philosophical from time to time and I invite all of you to comment and contact me with questions.


So with love and excitement in my heart I go forward, and leave you with one last thought from Jung:


“A growing familiarity with the spirit of the East should be taken merely as a sign that we are beginning to relate to the alien elements within ourselves. Denial of our historical foundations would be sheer folly and would be the best way to bring about another uprooting of consciousness. Only by standing firmly on our own soil can we assimilate the spirit of the East”.


-C.G. Jung, Commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower