Deepest Health: Exploring Classical Chinese Medicine » Blogging

Chinese medicine question of the month : intro to a new method of engagement

Eric — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:27:58 +0000

As a first-year student, I was so blown away by everything I was learning in school for Chinese Medicine, I couldn’t keep my mind straight. I was being rearranged, challenged on every level. I really couldn’t have blogged about the questions I was having if I tried. During my second year, things were less windswept but busier – that was my strongest blogging year during my tenure at NCNM. My third and fourth years were *much* busier in terms of work at school, work outside of school – the blogging clip declined. Also, while I was more able to formulate relevant questions, I was less likely to actually pose them. Why? Part bravado, part fear, part exhaustion.

Bravado might be the wrong word, let me explain. Learning something new, especially something as new as Chinese medicine was to me, is always a meandering path of discovery. You don’t know who to listen to, you don’t know how to even find the right information – it’s all just surprise after surprise. As you progress, things come into focus a bit. In a field as vast as Chinese medicine, even a little focus feels like an incredible accomplishment. However, if you’re a humble person (or even just a marginally intelligent person) you realize that this little bit of focus is a REAL little bit and you’ve got several lifetimes of work to do.

But imagine… you’re a second or third year student, a year or two to go. You’ve invested lots of time, energy and money into learning a profession. You’re looking to make a career of the thing. At some point you realize that you’re basically just going to escape school with enough knowledge to avoid killing people. This is scary, because you want to graduate with enough knowledge to be as good as your teachers. At least close, anyway.

You have a couple of choices at this point. First, you can act like you know more than you know. Many people take this approach. Ill advised. Second, you can become despondent and drop out. Equally ill advised. Third, you can become despondent and a pain in the butt to the school administration, your fellow students and the profession in general. Please don’t do that. Finally, you can do some version of what I’ve done – hunker down and get to learning.

The problem with how I’ve done the latter is that I stopped being vocal. I stopped asking questions, even when I had them. It’s sort of like this – as soon as I think of a question, I see how it is attached to a million other questions and I don’t even know where to begin. So, I shut my trap. This is NOT GOOD FOR BLOGGING. It’s only when I had a particularly crystal clear question that I was able to pull something together for a post. Those posts tended to generate a lot of discussion, but they were few and far between.

What I want more than anything is for Deepest Health to grow into a vibrant community for students and practitioners of Classically oriented Chinese medicine. A place where we can come together, discuss issues, get to know one another and get busy becoming the future of the medical profession. A place where we can exchange news, resources, advice and anecdotes. A place for the genesis of new ideas that will help our patients. I’ve been working the last couple of weeks to figure out how to make this vision a reality. If you read the last 30 or so posts on DH, you might see that I’ve actually been working on this for a couple of years! :D

In service of all of this, in service of the work I’m doing to write a book, in service of the work I’m doing to be a good teacher to my fine students at NCNM – I am going to try something. Each month, I will search my soul to find a topic that is most standing out to me and will focus on that for the majority of my posting during that month. I hope that this will help us, as a community, to engage more deeply with a topic while also keeping me focused and motivated to blog. In some ways, it’s an extension and development from the Year of Sagely Living and other “grand projects” that have been discussed here. In other ways, it’s just a representation of my own development as a scholar and practitioner. It seems like an interesting possibility. The timeframe may contract or expand, depending. The topic may be vast (reading Classical Chinese) or very narrow (Mahuang in Shanghan Lun formulas) – I will try to trend a little closer to the former. We’ll just see how it goes.

We’re a little far into January, but I have to start somewhere. This month is all about flavor, wei 味.

I’ll post some introductory thoughts shortly. Thanks, as always, for your support.

。

Chinese medicine question of the month : intro to a new method of engagement

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Looking back – two and a half years of Chinese medicine blogging at Deepest Health

Eric — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:29:51 +0000

I started writing at Deepest Health in earnest in June of 2007 – about 2.5 years ago. Since then, there have been almost 300 articles posted, about 20 of those being podcasts. Topics have ranged from my personal habits to larger movements in politics and society. I have blogged about veganism, the use of animal ingredients in Chinese herbalism, about acupuncture, dietary therapy, business and the shifting energy of the seasons. I have run a year long program of self improvement called the Year of Sagely Living as well as dabbled with multimedia explorations of the natural world. Deepest Health has had a fairly active community, weighing in through almost 2000 comments (thanks everybody!)

Through all this blogging time, my personal life and the world I live in has changed a great deal. I’ve written a thesis, passed my boards, graduated from school in Chinese medicine, started my practice and learned a ton about my profession and myself. I’ve studied with masters, been the President of my school’s student body, watched my daughter become a teenager, witnessed the election of our country’s first African American president, and enjoyed the beginning of my third decade of life.

A lot has gone on in this scant two and a half years. It’s been a tough adjustment, moving from blogging as a student to blogging as a practitioner. There’s just so much to do! However, today I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Things are calming down – settling out into a more predictable stream of work and play. I appreciate that and hope it means that a new golden era of Chinese medicine blogging at Deepest Health is on its way. Who knows what will come in the next 2.5 years? I’m excited to find out.

In celebration, I thought I would do something I hate doing (haha) – highlight some of my old posts. I’m one of those people who doesn’t read my old journals, you know? I don’t like looking back and seeing how much I didn’t know, or how badly I wrote. Even worse, I hate finding out that I knew more then. :D I thought I would feature posts that didn’t get much interest when they were posted. So, sit back and relax with a cup of tea and enjoy this exploration through the archives. I’ve also linked to a couple of less read posts in the blue links throughout this post, check them out!

Two quite different ways to learn and practice Chinese medicine

Neijing says: yes, your doctor should be meditating

The Chinese organ clock and the pericardium : emotional health

Why does Chinese medicine seem so complicated? (A guest post by friend and colleague Michael Givens)

Chinese herbal medicine and the doctrine of signatures

Looking back – two and a half years of Chinese medicine blogging at Deepest Health

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Finding balance between Chinese medicine and running a Chinese medicine based business

Eric — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:59:52 +0000

It’s been hard for me to write lately. It’s mostly because when I look at my old entries, particularly those that got a lot of attention, they are nothing like what I think about and write about now. During my second year, and the summer after, I was really just reading and re-reading the material I got from my teachers and thinking about how it applies to life. The summer in particular was an experiment for me, simply to see if I could build a blog talking about Chinese medicine.

Well, I did. With some help from my friends – near and far.

I got an email from a reader recently who told me that he missed my more frequent posting. He wondered what happened to me. In our ensuing exchange, I got some valuable advice. This reader encouraged me to write about whatever it is that I’m working on because that’s what he’s always loved about reading Deepest Health – it’s about one man’s journey into the wild world that is Classical Chinese Medicine. Thanks, reader. You know who you are. It’s true that when I started this blog, I really wanted to dive into everyplace this medicine takes me – how the theory plays out in real life, how it opens into a million different directions, how it changes me – and my patients.

Who knows how I got off track. Let’s get on with it. Today, I’d like to talk about something that’s been on my mind for a couple of weeks as I go about my work stabilizing a new practice in the competitive market of Portland, Oregon.

As a new graduate in Chinese medicine, I had a few options open to me:

Join an established practice. I had a few offers, but to be entirely frank, I knew I wanted to do my own thing with Amanda and whomever else shared our vision. I wouldn’t say I don’t “follow” well, but I just like to experiment, I like to be in control of a business, and it’s really one of the big reasons I ended up choosing this path.
Go in with a bunch of peers to create a group practice. There were a couple of people who talked about this with me, but no one was serious – and all of those people have since gone on to do something else.
Work in some kind of integrative health center or progressive hospital. Plenty of those in the Portland area, but it’s just not my thing. I think integrative medicine is a great field, and more power to those who are interested. It’s just not me.
Work out some kind of residency or other kind of post-graduate education. While this sounded nice, and I’ve actually worked my way into something that looks a little like this, I really needed to start making money right away. I have an adolescent daughter and my partner has been (mostly) supporting us – including my harebrained adventures into blogging – for the last four years. Seems like it might be time for me to put in my hours.
Get some other kind of job as I gradually work my way into a practice of some kind. Just not my style, folks.
Do something other than practice – teach, for instance. I’m doing this, though on a very part time basis. I see myself as primarily a clinician, so gunning hard for teaching positions was never at the top of my list of things to do. However, I do like teaching and I feel incredibly grateful to be in the place I’m in now.
Build a practice from nothing as quickly as possible with few resources. Yeah, I chose that path. :)

It hasn’t been all roses, but I’m fortunate to have an awesome business partner in my life partner, Amanda Barp. I’ve also been blessed to have a lot of help along the way – my internship with Mark Silver and Kate Williams of Heart of Business, the savvy and ever-present advice of NCNM teacher and local Chinese medicine practitioner David Berkshire and of course the friendship and inspiration of my friend and Watershed gift economy superstar, Brandt Stickley. I’ve also been teaching myself business skills since about my second year of CM school. Running this blog taught me a fair bit, in fact.

Not everyone is so lucky, I understand. But even with all of this help, I’ve struggled. Honestly, I expected nothing less. I mean, of course it takes a while to get a practice off the ground. That’s not really what I’m talking about. In fact, weirdly, it’s the fact that I’ve been so good at making this business work that has me perplexed. Seriously!

What’s shiny versus what’s necessary

In Cosmology and Symbolism class with Heiner, we learned a lot about sacrifice. About how the true virtue of Water is to go to the lowest place. About how the Heart is really about making itself small. About the virtue of doing all the dirty work and demanding none of the credit. I’ve always sort of been ok with that. Look, I’m an organized guy. I can hang with spreadsheets. I don’t mind researching legal and financial issues. I like brainstorming, and I like even more building those brainstorms into real action plans. Even more, I like tracking those actions and seeing they become reality. I don’t mind calling up utilities and haggling about charges.

In fact, today, with the help of Amanda, I gleefully entered all of my herbs into inventory tracking. Seriously. With Lot Numbers and vendor contact information and everything. I’m ok with doing these things – and when you start a new practice from the ground, there’s lots of these kinds of things to do. At least if you want to create a solid and steady plan for growth, expansion and reaching out to as many people as possible.

Thing is – these things aren’t shiny. They’re not sexy. They’re not mystical. They’re not the kinds of things that eager, seeking potential patients cozy up to. No one at this point is out in the community saying, “You know, you should really go see Eric Grey – he sure can wield a label maker like nobody’s business.” I mean, really, folks – it’s just not the stuff of Chinese Medicine legend. But – this is the kind of stuff that one must do to walk the path I’ve chosen. And of course, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t mind doing any of it.

Spending your time and speaking your truth

Part of what I’m thinking about is the way that I spend my time and how that can be instructive to others. I’m talking about my actual use of time, but also what I talk about and what I portray in my conversations (whether online or offline). The fact is that while I don’t mind doing these things, it’s not even anywhere close to my passion. It’s not what I bring to the table. It’s not what’s brought me success in the clinic. It’s not, truly, what I’ve been studying these last years. So, I’ve found myself thinking lately about the critical need to keep balance between indulging in my passion for our medicine, particularly herbs in all their glory, and the sort of fun and absolutely necessary grinding work of running a successful business in Portland.

This balance is important. Ridiculously important. Part of its importance has to do with sanity and purpose and all of that. If I don’t feed my need to grow as a scholar and clinician, I’ll get sad. Sad Eric is a terrible father, partner, needler and prescriber. Sad Eric eats waaaaaaaaay too many Newman’s Own Ginger Oh’s. This medicine, these plants, the interactions with patients – these feed my soul. But, also, there’s something about growing a practice. If my passion is underfed, I won’t show it to patients. It won’t come out in my interactions with people in the store. It won’t display on my Facebook status. Won’t come out on my blog. People won’t know who I really am, or who I really hope to be, or who I can help them to be. That’s equally important. So, this balance is important!

I figure I’m not the only one who has ever struggled with this. Funny thing about human experience – no matter how unique a single human thinks their experience, it’s usually pretty resonant with others’ – even in wildly different cultures, professions and demographics. So, I thought I would put this out there. Have you had this experience – or are you having it now? Have any thoughts about this balance and how it is best maintained? I’m working a plan, of course, and it seems to be helping – but let’s see what we can come up with together.

Share your thoughts in the comments. We don’t bite.

Finding balance between Chinese medicine and running a Chinese medicine based business

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More Classical Chinese Medicine courses in Portland, an update and a question

Eric — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:33:36 +0000

Hello my patient readers,

I have a few items of interest for you today.

1. I am working hard on several things for the blog. My work has been stymied somewhat by the new course I’m teaching at NCNM (have to get my teaching legs under me) and the intense amount of activity going on at Watershed Community Wellness. In the queue are the following:

Information, currently being worked on with students at NCNM, about the relationship method of learning Chinese herbs
A special offer for Deepest Health readers on some excellent books for learning Classical Chinese in the context of Classical Chinese medical texts
An interview with Paul Rosenberg, tea monk in Portland, about the energetics of tea

2. Watershed Community Wellness is currently upgrading our website. You can see the newest iteration by clicking on the link in this sentence. New to the site is a sign-up page for our newsletter. Geared towards patients and people looking for useful, accurate everyday health information, it may be of interest to some of Deepest Health’s readers – so go ahead and sign up if you are interested. Thanks!

3. A question : who would like to see the weekly Eric rambling about Chinese medicine podcast return to Deepest Health?

4. Michael Givens, MAEC, MSOM, recent graduate of NCNM and long time student of Chinese medicine, history and culture has several courses coming up at Watershed Community Wellness. Below find a schedule of his current offerings. If you are interested, please contact him directly.

Classical Studies Saturday Series

Reviving the old to gain knowledge of the new…

At Watershed Community Wellness

View Larger Map

with Michael Givens, MAEC, MSOM

Advanced Formulas Study – new class beginning soon!

This course is an advanced study of the Shanghan zabing lun. Beginners are welcome and will benefit from taking the course, but it is geared towardsthose who have an interest in studying the depth and intricacies of the work of Zhang Zhongjing.

We will discuss the major formulas in each of the six conformations, including their internal and modular structure, their directional quality according to classical physiology, and their relation to many other formulas in the Shanghan lun and Jingui Yaolue lun.

This course will also demonstrate the seasonal wisdom inherent in the system of the six conformations as understood both from the Neijing Suwen and the Shanghan lun. Students in the course will begin to see the diverse application of classical formulas and thus will be able to begin using them to treat the diverse diseases and imbalances of the modern patient.

We will cover the six conformations in this order so as to correspond with the seasons:

9/26:             Taiyang

11/7:            Yangming

12/5:             Taiyin

1/9:             Shaoyin and Jueyin

1/16:             Shaoyang

Time:                         9-noon

Location:             Watershed Community Wellness, SE 9^th and Morrison

Fee:                         $300 or $70 per class (drop-in : you can commence at any time after the first class and still benefit)

Introduction to the Shanghan lun

This course will prepare you for studying the classical formulas of the Shanghan lun, as well as establish a firm basis of all formulas study. The Shanghan lun offers us a deep understanding of physiology, pathology and the correct approach to treating all diseases. This class is for the beginning and advanced student. Even if you already have a strong formulas education but would like to dig deeper into the text of the Shanghan lun, this class is for you.

We will be reading and analyzing the introductory lines of each of the conformations in the Shanghan lun, and discussing the fundamental formulas in each chapter and how they are representative of the physiology and pathology of each of the conformations.

Dates: Saturday 10/3 and Saturday 10/17

Time: 9-noon

Location: Watershed Community Wellness, SE 9^th and Morrison

Fee: $120

Discussion of the Trigrams in the Yijing

This course will deepen your understanding of the core principles of the Yijing (The Classic of Change). Through carefully looking at the Shuogua (the Discussion of the Trigrams) we will unearth core principles of Chinese medicine, and the philosophy of the superior physician.

The Shuogua is one of the “wings” of the Yijing, ancient commentaries which had a significant impact upon the understanding of the Yijing, as well as on the theories of the ancient classics of medicine. We will discuss the deeper aspects of the trigrams, numerology, symbolism and correspondence, as well as moral philosophy, as they came to influence Chinese medicine.

The Shuogua introduces many key concepts found in Chinese medicine, especially within the theories of Yin and Yang and Five Phases, as seen in the Hetu (Yellow River Map) and the Luoshu (River Luo Writings). This pre-Confucian treatise offers for us a glimpse of the root of these very fundamental theories.

Dates:                         Saturday 10/10 and Saturday 10/24

Time:                         9-noon

Location:             Watershed Community Wellness, SE 9^th and Morrison

Fee:                         $120

The Great Battle of the Dragon and Turtle

A 3 hour lecture on the Open – Close – Pivot (Kai He Shu) theory in the Neijing Suwen chapter 6, as understood through the lens of ancient Yijing calendrical science and the Six Conformations of the Shanghan lun. This class will present a unique way of looking at time and change (and transformation) as well as a deeper understanding of physiology, pathology and the fundamental concept of “one yang.”

Date:                         10/31

Time:                         9-noon

Location:             Watershed Community Wellness, SE 9^th and Morrison

Fee:                         $60

The Joy of Learning, the Delight of Discussion

An Introduction to the Confucian Analects for the Chinese Medicine Practitioner

“To learn and at due times to repeat what one has learnt, is that not after all a pleasure? That friends should come to one from afar, is this not after all delightful?

“The Master said: Let a [student] first be incited by the Songs (Shijing, Book of Odes), then given a firm footing by the study of Li 禮 (ritual / virtue of the Heart), and finally perfected by Yue 樂 (music).”

Following the example of this statement found in the Analects, we will discuss the ancient Odes (Shijing) of the early Zhou dynasty, then explore the depth and meaning of Li 禮, and then finally engage with the concept of music and joy (yue / le 樂) in the Analects as well as in the art of Chinese medicine. Please join Michael in on two Saturdays in November for this discussion series on the wisdom Confucius can offer to students and practitioners of Chinese medicine.

Dates:                         11/14, 11/28

Time:                         9-noon

Location:             Watershed Community Wellness, SE 9^th and Morrison

Fee:                         $120

The Erdan and Liushen Formulas in the Tangye jing

This course will present the important Erdan and Liushen formulas in the Tangye jing (the ancient all-but-lost classic of formulas), which have been shown to be precursors to the formulas in the Shanghan lun. They provide for us an ancient perspective of seasonal illness.

There are two sets of Erdan formulas (the Yang Dan formulas, and the Yin Dan formulas or the Sunlight in the Sunrise formulas, and the Shade in the Sunrise formulas), which include a total of five formulas, the most important being Guizhi Tang (Cinnamon Twig Decoction).

The Liushen formulas are based upon the six directions (North, South, East, West, Above and Below), but also can be seen as corresponding to the Twelve Branches, as understood in classical Chinese medical theory. They are the original Dragon, Phoenix, Tiger, and Turtle formulas.

Both of these sets of formulas treat Tianxing (or seasonal diseases or epidemics). This course will provide an understanding of how these ancient formulas are very relevant for modern epidemic diseases.

Dates:                         11/21, 12/12

Time:                         9-noon

Location:             Watershed Community Wellness, SE 9^th and Morrison

Fee:                         $120

More Classical Chinese Medicine courses in Portland, an update and a question

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Stripped to the bone

Eric — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:43:23 +0000

Pardon the period of relative silence, I can only hope it won’t last long. I’m currently being taught the truest meaning of a hexagram I threw twice in a row when contemplating the Autumn and what is in store for me during this transitional period from light to dark. I hope my dear readers will forgive me a quite personal post – I’ll try to throw some teaching in there somewhere. :)

The hexagram I threw is number 23, Bo 剝 - often translated as “Stripping” is my teacher for late summer and early autumn of 2009.

In Karcher’s excellent translation, he states:

“Stripping describes your situation in terms of habits and ideas that are outmoded and worn out. The way to deal with it is to strip away what has become unusable. This brings renewal. Remove and uncover things. Cut into the problem and strip away the unessential without thought of immediate gain…”

This hexagram is associated with the Pericardium. The Pericardium is associated with the 9th month, after the Autumn equinox. In Portland, that time of year is typically quite cool, yet still full of harvest activity. It is the perfect symbol of cutting something away, moving through death, and harvesting so much from that transition – flourishing, rebirthing, reawakening. The Pericardium is the organ system that helps us regulate what we let into our innermost sanctum, and what we choose to hold away. It is the dog at the foot of the Master’s bed. We call it the Heart Protector, but in some cases it’s best function is to make us stripped, bare, utterly vulnerable and open to what is happening.

For me, this connects to Karcher’s translation in a few ways. When we protect ourselves, trying to stay too comfortable for too long, we hold on to habits (of thought and otherwise) that no longer serve us. In an effort to keep everything steady and safe, we stagnate. A function of the Pericardium, then, is to allow us to change – but in deep ways. It allows us to let go of long held beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that seem almost impossible to release. These are probably things we think of as part of our “personality,” they may be family traits, things that keep bringing us affection and protection, and so on.

This could, of course, have a number of meanings as a teacher for the autumn season. However, given that is is Ramadan, it has special implications for me. There is the simplest interpretation – that I am not eating or drinking as much, stilling the many consumption based habits that rule all of us for so much of our lives. This year, this practice has helped me to utterly break my attachment to alcohol, even little amounts. That’s a very positive thing for me. Also brought to mind is the spiritual mandate in Islam to leave that which does not concern one. We all accumulate habits, hobbies and even friends and acquaintances that are not really in our best interest. They are, at best, frivolous and at worst, self-destructive. Regardless, they take us away from spiritual peace – and that is something I am very serious about finding in my lifetime.

So, I’m trying to see this stripping in a positive – though not entirely pleasant – light. I’m accepting the lessons of this teacher with as much grace as I can muster. I am clearing away the old to make way for the new. It is a very difficult process. In the last week, I have lost my grandmother, had a number of ridiculous material mishaps (car broke down, etc) and have been suffering, like all of us, the painful effects of this limping economy. Yet, I have also started teaching at NCNM, gained several new patients at Watershed Community Wellness and have made real progress on a number of projects. Most importantly, I can feel some great spiritual shifts coming on. While I’m happy this will have positive benefits for my practice of Chinese medicine, mostly I’m just happy to see some real movement in that realm of my life.

All of this to say, my friends, that I’m terribly sorry for the long delay. I am writing up all the articles for the ongoing herbal relationship series, and so much more is cooking. I just have to give myself the space to complete this stripping process. In the meantime, please peruse the Archives, comment on recent articles, and feel free to email me to request articles, features, and just to say hello. It’s always appreciated.

Thanks!

Stripped to the bone

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How can you make income online as a natural health practitioner with integrity?

Eric — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:54:41 +0000

I have been working hard lately to find ways to make Deepest Health a significant income producer for my family. I love blogging, and I’ll never stop – because the intangible benefits are so awesome. However, making income using this blog has always been a keen desire of mine. I should note that DH pays for itself (hosting costs and so on), and then some, but is a long way from providing me with the 5-6 figure income I had hoped for when I began. There are doubtless many reasons for this. However, there is one extremely vexing problem that sits at the center of all the difficulty. Before I reveal that difficulty and ask for your help with brainstorming through it, I’ll give a very brief lay-of-the-land for those who are unfamiliar with making money online.

How do blogs make money? There are many ways to make money online, but I have learned the most about the methods I discuss below. I’m doubtless leaving a lot out!

Indirect methods

1. Advertising : Here you are promoting the products, services and/or websites of other people. The producers or website owners pay you to have a text-link, banner or other type of ad in the sidebar of your site. There are clearinghouses that hook together advertisers and people who want to provide ads, like the popular Google Adsense service. You can see Google Adsense links in my sidebar to the right. If you scroll down a little bit farther, you will see a less popular service – Performancing Ads – that does something similar. One can also solicit advertisers directly, selling banners and other types of advertising with only a moderate amount of effort. This is very similar to the way that magazines and newspapers keep the price of their products affordable – advertising helps to defray their costs. This method suffers greatly from the difficulty I’ve alluded to in the introduction to this article – we’ll get to that in just a minute.

2. Affiliate promotion : This is somewhat similar to providing advertising as in #1. You are still providing an interface through which your site visitors are going to head over to someone else’s website to buy products or services. However, in this case, the advertiser only pays you when they make a sale. You can see examples of this type of advertising in my sidebar as well, right next to the Google Adsense links. As with direct advertising, affiliate marketing suffers from a major problem if you are a natural healthcare practitioner looking to make money online with integrity.

Direct methods

1. Selling products the blogger makes : This is, most agree, the best way to make money online. Any time you can create a product and sell it directly to interested people, you are going to both maximize your profits and be able to have an active hand in helping people in an area you care about. Unfortunately, creating products requires that you actually have something to offer, have the ability to create the product, and have the time to engage in the product creation process! This is an investment that doesn’t have to be made when you are selling other people’s stuff. Common products sold on websites include books, audio products and handmade crafts.

2. Soliciting donations : This tends to be only a trickle of any given website’s income. I suppose it could be leveraged to become a significant producer, but it would depend on one’s ability to really mobilize their reader base. It also requires that your readers connect with you and your site’s mission deeply enough that they take the time to make the donation.

3. Creating membership sections of the website (this is a variation on #1) : This is really product creation, and even more time consuming than creating something like an e-book or instructional CD/mp3. In this situation, a person has enough content that they can run a course on some topic of interest to their readers. There are several software solutions for delivering content in this format, and one needs to learn how to leverage the software to be successful. Regardless, this is probably the most expertise and time intensive method for generating income online – but it is also probably the most successful in terms of real income generation.

Why make money online?

Wait, you might be thinking, why even bother making money online? Well, in my case, I am hoping to make online income a significant enough part of my total cashflow that I am able to reduce the prices of my Chinese medicine consultations and, generally, be a more stable presence in the Portland Chinese Medicine scene. Seeing money flow in from the significant work I do to keep this blog running also helps to keep me motivated. Fortunately, I’m also motivated by the fantastic connections I’ve made with practitioners and students all over the world… one of those intangible benefits that’s important not to ignore. :)

So, what’s the problem?

Well, if one does not have the expertise or time to create a product, if one is not successful in soliciting donations then one will naturally gravitate towards the indirect methods of moneymaking online. The major problem with both of the indirect methods is simple : there are so few products worth promoting that have active affiliate programs or money for advertising. I have approached a number of providers of my favorite Chinese medicine products, but precious few of them are willing to purchase advertising on a website and even fewer have enough money to actually do so! However, I am approached every day by product and service providers asking for advertising rates. The problem is that I would never recommend their products!

Integrity can be quite a burden at times, yes? :D

The same goes for affiliate programs. A quick search of the most popular affiliate program databases uncovers hundreds of health and wellness products. However, practically zero are related to natural MEDICINE, and nearly all are actually detrimental wastes of money. There is simply not enough great merchandise out there to promote! Or, rather, there aren’t enough of those fantastic manufacturers that have caught on to the power of online advertising.

What is to be done?

I’m going to be working over the next couple of weeks to prove myself wrong. I would love to hear from you if you know of any products with great affiliate programs. If you are a producer of something that you do sell online – why don’t you use website and blog advertising and/or why don’t you have an affiliate program? If you are a website or blog owner – do you do advertising? Why or why not? What obstacles have you run into?

I’ll be very interested to hear peoples’ thoughts in the comments!

How can you make income online as a natural health practitioner with integrity?

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Using Devonthink to learn and write about the Chinese herbal formula Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang

Eric — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:59:33 +0000

I will write more about specific thoughts I have about Devonthink and how it’s been learning to use it. First, though, I want to describe how it has been helping me. Of course, this obsession of mine is not really about Devonthink. It’s about manipulating information in interesting ways. It is about actively participating in the creation of an ever complex and rich extended mind. I want to make something very, very clear at the outset, however. I’m not talking about having a computer attached to me all the time. I’m not talking about abandoning books, traditional memorization techniques, human interaction or anything of the kind. What’s interesting is that as my involvement with the reorganization of my Chinese medicine information is progressing, my Qigong, medititation and prayer practices are all becoming easier. I think this is a similar phenomenon that many have experienced when fully implementing GTD. It’s the feeling you get when you organize your basement or purge a bunch of old files. Space! Openness! Freedom. That’s the real goal – not having a shiny database.

Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang – my favorite formula

I have used Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang (or Fuling Guizhi Baizhu Gancao Tang) more than any other formula, hands down. I combine it with just about everything, and all of my patients have ended up on it (or one of its variants) at some point. Why? Well, I don’t know. I hypothesized the other day that it has to do where I live – we’ve got a whole lot of Water Qi floating around Portland – maybe that’s contributing to a shoddy water metabolism in Portlanders? Anyway – I wanted to see how Devonthink could help me write an article about this formula.

A brief aside : my old blog writing habits… transformed

For those of you who do not blog, you probably don’t even really know how this thing happens. The simple explanation is this – I have a program (Wordpress) installed on a server (Laughing Squid) that manages all the data that is used to create the pages (articles and so on) that you see here on Deepest Health. I can access this program and its databases in many, many ways. The most frequent part I need to access is the main administration panel, where I can moderate comments, write blog posts, edit blog posts and alter the blog’s appearance with just a few clicks. Up until very recently, I used this interface (on the web) for all of my blog post writing. The other major way that blog posts are written is in what is called an “offline editor.” This is simply a program that runs on my Macbook that is used only to manage blog posts – none of the design elements or comment moderation or anything like that.

I recently started using Ecto as an offline editor. Why? Lots of reasons that I don’t need to go into in this post – let it suffice to say that I find using an offline editor to increase my productivity in general and make me feel more like a “writer” and less like a “person who is constantly on the freaking Internet.” So, that’s one good change. To be honest, it hasn’t changed my experience of blogging that much, yet. But, enter Devonthink.

I spent about 8 hours doing the initial learning and setting up of my DT database. Mostly, this involved taking all the folders from my little stacks in the Finder and putting them in Devonthink “groups.” Now, this was actually quite complicated in some situations and it is frankly not done. For instance, as Mike Reynolds pointed out in his comment on my last post, Devonthink doesn’t read into some file types – notably Excel and Powerpoint. Thus, these have to be converted to PDF and made searchable. That entire process takes about 90 seconds per file (I’m sure there are ways to automate it). There are also a lot of things that can be done to one’s information to make it more accessible to Devonthink’s artificial intelligence. For instance, I’m doing a lot of breaking up of files to make them more focused (taking my huge formulas charts and turning them into individual formulas files in rich text format).

During this process, as I said in my last article, I started to become very excited about the information I have on my computer. I remembered classes I had long forgotten. My mind was jogged about a couple of key statements said by this or that professor. I suddenly had an insight into a patient that I have been struggling with. I became quite engaged with learning more about the issue that this particular patient is facing, and did a quick search in Devonthink – uncovering a WEALTH of information I didn’t remember I had. This made me think about writing an article about that patient, so I created a Devonthink “group” for that purpose, and started subdividing the folder into the various stages of blogging workflow.

Which brings me back to my point – Devonthink has done what Ecto alone could not do. It has made me feel like a writer again. More than that, it has reminded me of the excitement of learning to be a scholar. I find myself excited to research. I have folders for my projects that are quickly subdivided and everything I find gets dumped in there – I am particularly impressed with how easy and fun it makes web research. Now, I have developed a whole new work flow for blog writing that combines the power of Ecto and Devonthink and leverages all of the amazing information on my computer and the even vaster sea available on the Internet. I am no longer stymied by a research project or a particularly hard blog article – it may take time – but I know I have a structure to hold me while I move through the process. It’s amazing.

Back to Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang!

So – I just wanted to write a simple article on this incredible Chinese medicine herbal formula while also exploring Devonthink. First, I wanted to get some basic information about the formula. I pulled the basic information out of the quick reference chart I use almost every day in clinic. Because I know that the artificial intelligence works best when information is more discrete, I put the herbs/dosages, pulse, common signs and symptoms, TCM understanding, Classical quotes, related formulas and clinical notes all into separate rich text files. This took me about 3 minutes, and I will never have to do it again. I expect I will do this, over time, with all of the formulas. Now, because I haven’t done it for all of the formulas, the potential of Devonthink is not fully exploited. It cannot show me the maximum interconnections because not all of the data is entered.

However, when I highlighted the file with the dosages in it, I was quickly shown all of the charts I’ve created where this formula appears, as well as all of my notes from Arnaud Versluys where he mentioned the formula. It even picked up where I had written the formula name a little differently (saying Linggui Zhugan Tang, for instance) though it saw those files as being less related. It also took me to a document I created in a class with Heiner Fruehauf where he talked about his use of this formula. I hadn’t even remembered him talking about it! I’d better give you some of this information, or I might have a revolt on my hands. Unfortunately, I’m not able to divulge everything I have in my database about this formula – as some of it was given in the context of discipleship. I’m sure all of you have information like that – how wonderful would it be to be able to connect that information with all of the other information you have on your computer. I mean, for me, being able to quickly cross reference the TCM information with the stuff I get from Arnaud, Heiner and my other great teachers is just invaluable.

Basic information about LGZGT (all contained in my initial DB, found with about 5 seconds of searching)

Fuling 12g (4 liang) : In the Tangye Jing, Fuling is the water herb of the earth (sweet) class. In the Shennong Bencao Jing, is said to be sweet and neutral. Note: for Fuling and all other herbs, much more information from the Classics emerged. I may expand on this brief exposition in the future, but this is enough information for demonstration purposes.

Guizhi 9g (3 liang, bark removed) : In the Tangye Jing, Guizhi is the wood herb of the wood (pungent) class. In the SNBCJ it is said to be pungent and warm.

Baizhu 6g (2 liang) : In the Tangye Jing, Baizhu is the earth herb of the water (bitter) class.

Gancao 6g (2 liang) : In the Tangye Jing, Gancao is the wood herb of the earth (sweet) class.

In the system of pulse diagnosis I learned, we would think about this formula when we saw a tight pulse in the chi positions, particularly on the left hand and we may see a thin, slippery rolling up pulse in the cun positions. We might also see a depressed quality in the cun positions, which some people might think of as either deep or soggy, or even absent. Obviously, the pulse is a complicated thing and everyone seems to have their own opinions – this is simply what I look for.

Shanghan Lun line about the formula (only English included here for brevity)

“When, in cold damage, after vomiting or precipitation, there is counterflow fullness below the heart, the qi surges upward to the chest, the person experiences dizzy head upon standing, and the pulse is sunken and tight, if sweating is promoted, the channels will be stirred and there will be quivering and trembling then Fuling Guizhi Baizhu Gancao Tang governs.” (roughly taken from the Wiseman Mitchell Ye version).

General clinical manifestations outside of what is stated in the line

This is actually where my Devonthink research started to break down. This is less a fault of the software and more a fault of how badly I’ve organized my information up until now. Much is trapped in audio, or combined all in a single document (difficult for the AI of Devonthink, and also not readily searched by any application I’ve found), my clinic notes are scattered all over God and creation and I keep far, far too much swimming in my head when it comes to this kind of thing. All of that being said, some information came forward in my search through my database.

In general, we will find people to have some kind of accumulation of water – usually in the throat or lungs. They may have a chronic cough, or just a constant tickle in the throat. Some even just wake up with a little phlegm. They will also often have a sensation of fullness in the chest, but vague. They will also often have palpitations, a general sensation of being “off balance” or even dizzy. Many of these clients, I’ve found, are overweight or have a hard time regulating their weight. Now, some of these clinical manifestations demand additional herbs. If there is a significant cough, for instance, we would probably add Ganjiang + Wuweizi.

This article is already ridiculously long. However, let it suffice to say that I found many documents I had downloaded from the internet or scanned from books at the library – all pertaining to this formula or one of its variants. Again, as I further uncover, digitize, clarify and organize my vast library of data not only will I have the great experience of reengaging with that material but I will make it easier to access and more accessible to the AI of Devonthink.

Thanks for reading!

Using Devonthink to learn and write about the Chinese herbal formula Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang

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How Devonthink is blowing my mind and rekindling my love for Chinese Medicine (Part 1/2)

Eric — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:28:48 +0000

I have a passion for organizing information in efficient ways. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade trying to find a system that meets the demands I place on it. As a Chinese medicine practitioner, why am I so obsessed with information management? Isn’t that something better left to corporate managers and computer science professionals?

Taking advantage of what I’ve received

Over the last four years, I have been unbelievably blessed. I found National College of Natural Medicine at a perfect time for the Classical Chinese Medicine program. Their curriculum had just been revamped – we would be the first class to get the full curriculum from beginning to end. This had its upsides and downsides. We were guinea pigs for some things that probably needed a little more development, but we also got some golden moments with teachers who, by the end of our tenure there, would no longer be with the college.

It’s not just school. I’ve also had the privilege to correspond with practitioners all over the world, get free issues of journals, free ebooks and just a ton of incredible information. Add to this the fact that I’ve become increasingly skilled at finding the information on the web, and you’ve got a whoooooole lot of information. It’s in audio, video, a variety of text formats, hand-drawn, computer generated – sort of a mess, really. I’ve managed this information (mostly) using an ok set of folders on the computer and the search capabilities of Spotlight, Quicksilver and – recently - Pathfinder. This has been serviceable, but has somehow just failed to satisfy. My productivity has been limited, and most of all, I just wasn’t using the information I had. I became numb to the dearth of fantastic knowledge that was trapped in my machine!

On the other hand – let’s face it. I’m a nerd. Or, maybe my partner, Amanda Barp is right when she says that I’m a bit of a Maven. What’s that? Malcom Gladwell in his excellent book, The Tipping Point, discusses three types of agents that participate in the production of “epidemics” (of ideas). If you want to learn more, check out the link above (I will get a small kick back if you purchase through my link). But here’s a summary of the maven by my friend and yours, Wikipedia:

“Mavens are “information specialists”, or “people we rely upon to connect us with new information.”They accumulate knowledge, especially about the marketplace, and know how to share it with others. Gladwell cites Mark Alpert as a prototypical Maven who is “almost pathologically helpful”, further adding, “he can’t help himself”.In this vein, Alpert himself concedes, “A Maven is someone who wants to solve other people’s problems, generally by solving his own”. According to Gladwell, Mavens start “word-of-mouth epidemics”due to their knowledge, social skills, and ability to communicate. As Gladwell states, “Mavens are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know”.

I appreciate my partner’s efforts to find a word for whatever it is that I am. I think this is just a gentle way of saying I’m a nerd. But, that’s fine. :)

Why not just memorize it all? Isn’t your brain better for this kind of thing?

Yes, maybe. But, I think I have access to and interest in more information than my brain is capable of processing right now. With experience and time, it may migrate to my head. I find that when I use something several times, it becomes easy to remember. I do memorize a fair bit, and there are many things that I am actively working on memorizing, but there’s a lot of other information that I would like to have quick access to, but my brain won’t hold right now. Yes, you could make the argument that I shouldn’t worry about all of that extra information, that I should just focus on one thing, etc… But, that’s not how I’m built, and that’s not what’s worked for me. When I’m 90 and I finally retire from public life, maybe I’ll throw away all the computers and such and just sit on the patio, drinking Gandi Huang (Fresh Shengdi) and reading the Neijing. Who knows. Stranger things have happened.

Of course, you might also object that people have had this kind of technology for a long time – books. :) I have nothing against books. In fact, I love them. But, there are a few problems. First, the vast majority of the information I want easy access to is in the form of audio recordings, handwritten notes and packets of pre-printed notes that are badly or not organized. Second, while tables of contents and indexes are all fine and good – it’s still not the most efficient way to get information out. Not to mention that some books (I’m talking to you Maoshing Ni) have TERRIBLE indexes. Simply unusable. Finally, it’s not JUST “finding” the information that I’m interested in. This will become clear when I talk about software solutions in a few short minutes.

As it stands, I am making my computer will be my “extended brain” holding those things I can’t remember, while my real brain holds the things I use more frequently. It works for me. Beyond that, working on this project has stimulated new connections in my thinking and reminded me of things I had learned when I was too busy to learn anything. Most of all, in this post-school era, it has rekindled my passion for deeply learning Chinese medicine. Speaking of connections – well… I’ll talk about that in a minute.

What I’ve tried in the past

Note – I’m an avid, avid Mac user. I cannot accept a single argument why a person who can/wants to get a computer would get anything else. That’s all there is to it – it’s my bias. Thusly, much of what I say below is going to be mostly relevant to a Mac audience. There are solutions on Windows machines that may approximate some of this functionality.

Finder, folders (discussed briefly above)

Why it works : Simple, intuitive. If you know macs, you know the Finder. Using folders is analogous to using paper folders in unplugged life. Because of this, it’s rather intuitive. You label a folder, you put stuff that fits the label into the folder. When you’re looking for something, you just try to remember where you put it. If you were reasonably good at labelling, you’ll find what you’re looking for rather quickly. Add to this the functionality of Spotlight (searches for files and folders on your machine in a pretty thorough way) and it would see that you have a pretty elegant, functional system.

Doesn’t work : Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. Sometimes it’s quite hard to find what you’ve filed. This may have mostly to do with the user’s inability to create a great folder naming system, but it’s also due to Spotlight’s limitations. Spotlight can’t search all file types, and for reasons unknown to me, it just doesn’t seem to index everything. Quicksilver (a quicklaunch application that has decent search capability) and Pathfinder (an alternative to the Finder) both expand on Spotlight and – for the most part – this system worked ok for me. The problem is that it’s incredibly linear – way more linear than the information I hold on my computer.

Mindmapping (Mindjet for Mac), Personalbrain

Note: I’ve discussed mindmapping before in this article about Chinese medicine mindmapping and elsewhere in more minor ways.

Works : These software applications allow you to structure information in a way that is, allegedly, similar to your brain’s structure. In this way, you are more able to see connections, and often, more able to remember details. It’s still simple to use, the learning curve is relatively gentle. It’s also pretty to look at. Personal Brain is less “elegant” looking but much more powerful, and I found it to be a superior tool in finding connections between Chinese herbal formulas – the main type of information I’m looking to organize. What both of these applications are best at, though, is facilitating the brainstorming process. I’ve found them both to be invaluable in sketching out complicated papers, blog posts and doing various types of planning (business, financial). Then, one can review that information with an eye for finding the most important bits and organizing them.

Doesn’t work : Easily accessing files is a hit or miss proposition, so it’s really more helpful when you’re just storing small bits of text. For instance, it’s no problem to organize a bunch of formula names and short statements about their effectiveness, but attaching files in an easily accessible way about those formulas is just not going to happen. I could see this working for someone with relatively modest needs, but it just doesn’t work for me. Search within the maps is also somewhat difficult, particularly with Mindjet.

Omnifocus and Omnioutliner

I use Omnifocus for my Getting Things Done (TM) system, and when I teach others how I use GTD, I suggest they do so as well. For my money, it’s the purest implementer of GTD I know. In the last six months, I’ve had a whole lot of new projects drop on my lap, and have also had a couple of changes in my general state (from student to owner of two businesses, among others) and OF has kept me (mostly) clear. The parts that aren’t clear are entirely due to my sometimes shaky implementation of a few key features of the system – not the software.

I’ve started using it for storing lots more – project files and the link – using Applescripts to link to folders that store the information (files, etc) that I need for any given project (including blog articles) That even extended to holding information about CM, which is why I include it here. It’s not REALLY a solution on the par with the rest of these, but you *COULD* create an infrastructure for storing large amounts of information in outline form, if that was your preference. I’d say, though, that you would have to have a relatively discrete amount of information or have links to external sources, as it would become unwieldy, be very difficult to search well and hard to get information out quickly. Ultimately, I don’t want to use OF for holding my project support and reference information because it impacts the effectiveness of my GTD system. We can’t have that now, can we?

Yojimbo and Evernote

I’ve used them both rather briefly. I like them, and think they could be servicable solutions to the information management problems I face. They are quite similar pieces of software, with different feel. Evernote’s claim to greatness is its accessibility – if you have an iPhone, you can access your data anywhere – easily. You can even takes photos with your iPhone and quickly and easily put them in your database. I did this when I was researching plants and herbs – taking pictures on my walks, or in herb stores. It can even do text recognition within the photos, so if you were to take a picture, for example, of the cover ofa book you were interested in – you could search for that title quickly and easily from within the Evernote application. Pretty cool. It is really an “ubiquitous capture” tool of the highest order, as is required for great GTD implementation.

Yojimbo is a little harder to access anywhere, though now they have a for-cost add-on called Webjimbo. The interface is a little more clunky, but really it’s very similar to Evernote – with maybe a little less time going into development. I actually use it exclusively for my passwords, various logins (for blogging, etc) and information like that, as it has an encryption feature and is easily accessible while I’m on the Internet. I don’t use Evernote at all, because there isn’t anything it does that Omnifocus (iPhone and Mac app – ubiquitous capture and GTD system) + Yojimbo (passwords and logins) + Devonthink doesn’t do a hundred times better. And no, I don’t mind using three applications. Sometimes, specialization is a good thing.

Which brings me to what I’m crowing about – Devonthink. I CAN NOT WRITE ENOUGH SUPERLATIVE STATEMENTS TO ADEQUATELY EXPLAIN MY LOVE FOR THIS SOFTWARE – I have had this program on my computer for a bit (got it as a part of a bundle some time back), but forgot about it and was recently reminded to check it out. I’d like to explain how much I love Devonthink and why I think every Chinese medicine practitioner should buy it and use it religiously. But, that will have to wait for my next post. :)

I do hope that those of you who aren’t computer wonks will stick around – because I will show you how this relates to Chinese medicine in a way that I think anyone can understand. Even if you’re never going to use a computer application like this, I think you might find the piece valuable. It speaks to the importance of the information we receive in our training and what it means to be in a constant process of learning. Thanks for having patience with my nerd-like behavior.

How Devonthink is blowing my mind and rekindling my love for Chinese Medicine (Part 1/2)

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