Deepest Health: Exploring Classical Chinese Medicine » Cultivation

The sages of Chinese antiquity stood facing South

Eric — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:51:45 +0000

Today, on a walk I was taught an important lesson by some late migrating geese. In the late summer and autumn, we get a whole lot of geese flying overhead in my neighborhood. We live pretty close to a couple of wildlife refuges, one being specifically devoted to waterfowl. In general, in Portland, the autumn is always accompanied by the resonant, melodic sound of Canadian geese fleeing Canada. It’s one of those things that is commonplace, yet never seems to lose its magic. I’ve noticed a lot of things in Autumn are like that – the leaves turning, the miracle of the harvest, the start of formal schooling and so on.

Anyway, today I had one of those magic moments – fog bank just rolled in, walking on a hill in clear view of the setting full moon and the rising sun reflecting pink and crimson off of morning clouds. Mushrooms bursting from beneath damp fallen leaves. People out, coffee in hand, walking overly excited dogs. That nestled place between Lung and Large Intestine time – things cracking forth, but the calm and presence of the early morning still laying on its soothing balm. Very nice.

Then there were the geese. There were seven or eight of them, so just a paltry flock. There was some confusion (not uncommon) where they seemed to be trying to figure out which way to go. Now, I know enough about geese to know that just because they seem to be flying North doesn’t mean they’re lost – often they’re just heading to a feeding or resting ground. It’s the larger direction that matters, not my little snapshot views. But, that doesn’t matter for my story. There was some confusion in the sky, and about half started heading clearly North, the other half clearly South. One goose was caught – she flew North, she flew South, she started calling loudly – she seemed pretty distressed by the whole thing.

Finally, she broke South – doing double time to catch up with her chosen group and they continued off into the distance. As I watched them cruise, I got a series of images as I faced South – the direction that all Sages must face, the direction that helps us make sense of so much Chinese medicine physiology and pathology. Mostly, I just got a sense of great peace, of openness, of newness and warmth and a bright future. I thought – good choice, little goose.

Now, I’ve been particularly prone to reading signs in everything these last few weeks, so pardon me. But, the whole drama (!) seemed curiously familiar. I think it might seem familiar to some of you, as well.

At NCNM, I was introduced to a wide variety of schools of thought regarding medicine – herbalism in particular. Without getting too much into it, let’s just say that people can get a little spirited about what they see as the “truth” of the matter. I certainly have been guilty of this. As students, I think we were looking for something to hold on to. Something to call our own – or rather – something to say, “This is right, this is true and I know it, I subscribe to it.” Some way to make sense of the seemingly insurmountable task of learning a medicine that is thousands of years old and must be translated into what we have available in contemporary times.***

I’ve sometimes felt torn because of my particular proclivities and the wrinkles and folds of my personal situation. I had moments when I didn’t want to practice medicine at all. It seemed too impossible to figure out what was right – the clinical stage didn’t clarify things any better than the classroom and I just felt totally overwhelmed. I had moments where I wanted to have a time travel machine and visit Han dynasty and ask Zhang Zhongjing what the whole deal was really about. There were also times when I felt pretty confident, pretty sure, and even a little fanatical about what I was learning. Those times were always followed by a lesson (pride precedes a fall, afterall).

In the last month, things have settled out. I felt very much like that goose for the last year or so, and I’ve started flying in a particular direction. It hasn’t been without its consequences. Moving towards one thing almost always means leaving another behind. Some good goose friends had to be parted from, on some level. I only have so much time and attention. I have had to repeatedly remind myself that the direction I’m turning away from is not WRONG, just different. Demonizing people who think differently from we do only serves to make us demons in the eyes of others. It never serves the quest for knowledge and healing.

You know? Darnit if I don’t feel just like I felt on that hilltop watching those geese disappear. Warmth, openness, a surge of energy, signs from all over God and Creation. It’s not that the other way is wrong, it’s just that this way is right. It leads to more, not less. It opens me into an endless realm of possibility and sweetness. I have already seen the results in my acupuncture, in my herbal prescriptions, in my presence with my patients, and in my bank account.

So, to any of you who are feeling this – particularly you students – take heart. You will find your way. Sit quietly with yourself, go on walks, get treatment, sing songs, talk to animals and go through your rebirth. Getting born is rarely pain-free, but it always opens into a whole universe of experience that was previously unavailable to you. I promise.

—

***Note : I’m not saying that ancient medicine isn’t directly relevant to contemporary times and people. Please. I’m just saying that some of the things they had available, we don’t have available – or very nearly (Fulonggan, for one – Sheng Fuzi for another – there are legal implications for some acupuncture techniques). Further, while there is truly nothing new under the sun – people do have a different way of living, eating, and even dying today and we would be idiots not to at least consider that fact sometimes, even if we are just “treating what we see,” and even if we are (correctly) not taking into account Western disease names and categories, etc…

The sages of Chinese antiquity stood facing South

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A very long Chinese medicine engagement

Eric — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:00:45 +0000

I want to try something new. Many of my readers have asked me to do more discussion of the Classical texts. I have been hesitant because my command of Chinese is not great and the available translations are mostly disappointing (if my teachers are to be believed). However, my need to dive into them continuously and do whatever I am able to with them is becoming more important.

My thought is that the web of readers (some of you being accomplished translators) will catch any egregious errors… hopefully…

Actually, therein lies the articulation of a problem. I have been taught about Classical texts using two main methods. The first method is more rigorously scholarly and does demand an ever developing Chinese language ability. This method is very useful for getting practical information that can be reasoned through and communicated to others. It forms the basis of the science of Chinese medicine and it is very important that it be done with respect, humility and precision. From this method comes the various conversations about terminology, the importance of historical understanding and so on. To be clear – this method of working with Classical texts leads very clearly to directly applicable information in a very obvious way. So, if I read the first line of the Shanghan Lun:

“Tai yang zhi wei bing, mai fu, tou xiang jaing tong er wu han.”

(Wiseman/Ye/Mitchell translation) In disease of the greater yang, the pulse is floating, the head and nape are stiff and painful, and there is aversion to cold.

I can take any translations available and my own (growing) command of Chinese language, a battery of dictionaries and a grounded historical understanding of the text and apply these tools rigorously to the line in order to comprehend its meaning. In my case, I will combine this with the oral transmission I have received, mostly from Arnaud Versluys and his teachers, to obtain immediately practically relevant tools that I can use immediately in clinic. The Shanghan Lun lends itself especially well to this kind of grounded perspective, but I believe any of our canonical texts are capable of this type of rendering.

This kind of perspective might lead me to consider the meaning of the stiff nape : I can think about the Bladder channel (Taiyang) and its passing through the neck and the influence of cold on tissues. I can consider the meaning of the “pulse is floating,” does this mean the entire pulse? Just one position? What if I see these symptoms and a pulse that is deep? I can consider the full meaning of “aversion to cold.” I might compare it to “fear of cold” and consider the changing use of those terms through time. I may ask my teachers questions about how literally I should take these terms, and whether a slight aversion is sufficient. I could look at the Taiyang formulas as a family and consider how they all, in some way, answer these conditions. All of this information will be DIRECTLY applicable in the clinic.

I have also learned a more symbolic, more spiritual (if you will allow me the luxury of the word) method of working with Classical texts. This method demands that I relax my grip on the reins a little bit and let my mind and spirit wander. Here, lots of potentially irrelevant material is allowed to come through including anything I’ve ever learned in my life, everything I’ve seen and heard, in whatever topic – Chinese medicine related or not. I am encouraged to dwell in this non-logical space and allow connections to be made. I may draw in historical perspective, especially as that history includes analysis of myth, religion and everyday spirituality of ancient people. I do not worry much about the historical record. I am more interested here in the text as a devotional medium, to some extent. The Yijing lends itself especially well to this kind of contemplative reading, but I have done it as well with the Neijing and even the Shanghan Lun.

However, I do not then use these fanciful translations to treat patients in a direct way. I do not take my more personal and spiritual reading of the text and use my insights there directly to treat patients. I also do not attempt to pass off these readings as scholarly material. I am using the text as a medium for those parts of my consciousness that are more subtle and less accepted in the daily work world. All of that being said, these insights certainly do inform me as a practitioner. First of all, they get me into a meditative space that impacts me positively throughout the day (much like other spiritual practice). There is another aspect as well – one I was reminded of while listening to public radio the other day.

On a program called Radiolab, they were doing a story about sleep. Here they discussed recent scientific research into the function of dreaming in animals, including human beings. There was a lot to enjoy about the program, but I was struck by one point in particular. One researcher posited that we dream, in part, to make connections between things that we would not have seen had our more analytical consciousness been active as it is, normally, when we are awake. In other words, we sleep to solve problems by coming up with novel solutions that may have seemed impossible to the waking brain. There are many stories (true or not) of dramatic discoveries being made through dreaming when a symbol catalyzed a reaction in the brain that helped bridge a gap that existed for the person working on the problem – for instance the discovery of benzene’s ring structure coming from the researcher’s dream of a snake biting its own tail.

I see this second type of Classical text reading in this way. It engages my more-than consciousness, my synthetic awareness. While I will not be able to publish my meditations in a scholarly journal, they are still potentially helpful when I am problem solving as well as having the other benefits I have described above. Sometimes, this kind of consciousness may allow me to engage with the texts from the other perspective in a new and interesting way. It may help my brain to make connections that were much more difficult otherwise. I believe as long as I maintain the distinction for myself, and keep aware of the different utility of each method, I will be of more help to my patients. I know that there will be those among you who will disagree with me on a number of points, but looking at things this way really helps me to take advantage of the gifts I have received in my education.

Over time, I will share both types of readings with you, my readers, and encourage any interested parties to do so as well (*cough* Brandt *cough*). The most important rule I want to maintain is for any commenters to be aware of these different modes of reading. I think a recent, uh… discussion in the Deepest Health comments may have been helped by such a distinction in the minds of ALL parties. Both types of reading are valuable, but we must give each its due.

I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts in the comments.

A very long Chinese medicine engagement

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5 Things to Look forward to after graduation : Chinese medicine post-graduate education

Eric — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:11:23 +0000

Since the arrival of my friend Brandt Stickley, I have been unfortunately unable to devote the amount of time I would like to living out our wild Portland-area Awareness Project dreams. We had so many late night chat and Skype conversations, whipping one another into a sleepless frenzy about the power and possibility in symbolism. The symbolism of the Classical texts of Chinese medicine, the symbolism of the body, of acupuncture points and herbal formulas, of ancient poetry and contemporary culture – but most of all – the symbolism living all around us in lived experience.

Well, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I can TASTE the completion of this degree. I can FEEL the reality of my impending licensure. Our clinic is already running. We have meetings every week. I’m totally ready to see patients – and already have several ready to go. This deal is sealed, God willing things are now operating on the gravity created by hard work and not a little bit of Grace. Running a business takes time, lots of it. But, the fact is, I’ve been working hard on that all along. I set myself up precisely so I would actually experience some ease and freedom after graduation.

So, I thought I would make a list of the five things I’m most looking forward to doing after I graduate. This does not include the usual suspects : getting more sleep, spending more time with family and friends, taking fewer tests, etc… It also doesn’t include the very exciting new developments of running a business full-time, getting back into (and developing my skills within) blogging and – of course – developing as a clinician and scholar in Chinese medicine. All five of these things I see as being major contributors to the invigoration, development and eventual worldwide flourishing of the Awareness Project.

- City Safari - : Portland is, I think, one of the most wonderful cities in the world. It is easily the greatest city I have ever visited. There is simply no end to the nooks and crannies to be explored. From the urban mettle of the Eastside Industrial district (spitting distance to our clinic) to the gilded streets of the Pearl, the well-worn sidewalks of the Belmont and Hawthorne neighborhoods and all the other incredible districts and ‘hoods. Add to that the abundant Hill Walk opportunities, countless little pockets of Wildness all over the city, endless cultural events, used bookstores galore, junk sales, free boxes, chickens running wild, food carts, curiosities around every corner. It’s too much to think about, much too much to write. It is a place that draws together many interesting things. I love to walk, I love to bike, and one of my favorite things is to just go where the wind blows me. These blown about moments are ripe for deepening awareness, pregnant with the possibility of seeing more deeply into reality – informing my practice and my purpose.

- Getting to know the Watershed – : Beyond the city limits, a smorgasboard of outdoor space awaits. From NCNM, I can see two mountains – absolutely surrounded with verdant forest, sublime foothills, rushing rivers and not a few glorious swimming holes. Both up and down the valley we have hotsprings, old growth, wine country, waterfalls and a hundred underused hiking trails and tent camping spots. This is to say nothing for the miles of undeveloped beaches, the endless expanses of highland desert, dunes, caves and lakes from outerspace. It’s not hard to understand why so many people love this state. Just as the city safari, the kind of surprises and encounters that come about while wandering the wildness of the world is an awareness building experience.

- Reading (and experiencing) Widely – : I have a reading list a mile long. There is a lot I want to read within the field, but even more outside of it. There is just so much to learn, so much to imagine, so many people writing down so many incredible things. Finally, finally – I may have some time to take it all in. The reality is that I will probably stay more or less in the range of Chinese medicine related materials – but for me – that field is pretty broad. I also have a whole lot of Continental Philosophy to burrow into. Also, Rorty. Oh, and I started playing roleplaying games again, so there’s plenty to read there. All of this helps build a richness of worldview that can only help me as a practitioner. Like some guy once told me.

- Learning and Using Chinese language – : The most important new project I’m taking on over the next decade is to deeply learn Chinese language. I’ve got a lot of materials for homestudy, as I won’t be able to afford (or stomach) formal education for at least a year or two. I’m hoping between that and the resources of my peers and friends, I’ll be able to make a go at it. I’m going to be doing the arduous task learned in Classical Texts classes at NCNM – going through texts character by character, and trying to drink them in. I believe that a mastery of this language is a crucial key in unlocking my potential in the field. I don’t intend to put that off, if I can help it. The deeper I fall into the symbols of the language, the deeper my awareness, the more profound my connection, the more effective the medicine. Or so some other guy told me.

- Redoubling my efforts in Self Cultivation - : I have experienced first-hand the difference between the treatments of practitioners who attend closely to their self-cultivation and those who do not. I don’t expect to be a saint, and I don’t expect any other practitioner to be. However, the degree to which we learn to become still, to connect deeply (both inward and outward) and care for our health on every level is the degree to which we will become not just technicians, but deeply skilled care providers. I have been working on this throughout my four years at NCNM, but I must admit that the rigors of my life have sometimes made me less than totally devoted to practice. I’m looking forward to a chance to change that.

Onward!

Eric

5 Things to Look forward to after graduation : Chinese medicine post-graduate education

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What is a watershed?

Eric — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:49:27 +0000

So, you may remember all this talk about the Awareness project. The idea was (and is, though evolved now) that we wanted to bring all of our senses to bear IN THE WORLD as people nourished by particular types of practices to really live what the Classics tell us about. This in turn would be productive of particular kinds of character traits that would, in turn, inform our medical practice and so on. A kind of evolutionary development watered at the deepest level by taking seriously the Classical literature – particularly that of our spiritual traditions and our medical traditions.

Something like that.

Anyway – you might have thought we forgot. We didn’t. It just needed some time to come to maturity. It’s still doing that… coming to maturity. It takes time. You know, you may want to drink that bottle of wine or that puerh tea RIGHT NOW, because it smells good, looks good already. But, in fullness, better things come.

So there’s lots of talk about, lots to share. It’s all relevant to Chinese medicine, don’t worry. But, I’ll ask you to get and stay open – because that’s what’s required of all of us. Not just in understanding this project, this blog. But in medicine, in life, in this evolution of humanity in which we find ourselves embedded. Get and stay open. Ok?

So, despite my basic discomfort with hearing my own voice – amplified by the fact that this is very much off the cuff, unedited, unscripted and raw – I bring you some insights from today’s walk through Tideman Johnson Natural Area (which I think I mispronounce in the first audio!). This is one of my favorite places to walk in the world, and I do so daily.

—

Note: The bird image is not my own, but resembled the scene I witnessed in many details.

The walk I take is about 1.5 miles, through a couple of neighborhoods and ultimately into the Johnson Creek watershed area of the incredible Spring Water Corridor we have nearby. As soon as I descend into the valley, I am hit by a mélange of odor, of sound, of sensations on my skin. Water dominates the place, with it all of the things that go along with the Oregon wet – rotting leaves, nutria, a hundred birds of different species hunting bugs in the bark and fallen pine needles, the rushing of nearly flooding Johnson Creek, woodsmoke, stalwart bikers passing me on the trail, a hundred trails going into the brush. I recorded this (forgive my snippy comment about another blog I’ll not mention in text – it was a moment of weakness).

Crows and Eagles audio

I continued on my walk – in fact at the end of that breathless audio you can hear me descending yet again to arrive at a fork in the creek accompanied by a waterfall.

Johnson Creek Flooding audio

There was this bunch of roots congregating in an eddy just beyond this photo. I wrote the following:

there is beauty/in the pine bough/sanded/smooth/clean as silk as silk has ever been

the clean lines/suggestions of wanton utility

but give me the roots/gnarled/open/sore/full of soil/insects/worms

waterlogged or exposed

eating the earth/utility no mere suggestion

I sat there a while thinking about a conversation that Brandt and I have been having – for over a year now. Thinking about how it is coming into its own, and I into mine. About how my whole family is bound up into this thing, and my whole life, everything about it. And I thought this is as good a time as any to start talking about Watershed.

It’s a term I’ll use a lot. It’s a movement, it’s a movement that’s already always been there. It’s the evolution of the Year of Sagely Living and the Awareness Project. It’s the culmination of the hard work and dreams of a lot of people. It will be a clinic. It will be a fork in the river (as seen from both directions).

What is a watershed?

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Still learning Chinese medicine : through the birth canal

Eric — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:13:41 +0000

It’s a cardinal rule in blogging that one shouldn’t write too many “sorry I’ve been away” posts. They tend to convey weakness, over-involvement in one’s own process and generally turn readers off – particularly first-time readers. If you’re a first time reader, may I suggest that you hunt through the Articles page or look to the archives and calendar in the right hand columns (scroll down!) for some of the great content that has been pumped out here at Deepest Health. All that to say, this is sort of a “sorry I’ve been away” post. :)

But – with a twist! Content will be deftly woven throughout – perhaps particularly useful for my peers across the country and around the world who are in their final year of Chinese medicine school. But even you savvy practitioners will be able to recognize something of yourself in my words – and hopefully you will be able to offer some wisdom and insight to those of us still on the “other side.”

I’ve been thinking about writing for about two weeks – I looked back at a couple of posts I wrote recently and realized that I had resolved to write more frequently. The idea was to just put out there what I was learning. A noble goal – and one to which I am still committed. The fact of the matter is that I’ve been learning a lot, a whole lot. But something happened to me during the summer term – sometime around August, I think. It was a combination of several things:

My clinic adventures dealt a mighty blow to my self-confidence.
Various personal explorations and experiences left me in a very introspective frame of mind.
I got tired of being on the computer so much.
I started several seminar/discipleship series that commanded a huge amount of attention and time (they’re still doing that).

As I thought about writing on Deepest Health, I began to have this curious sensation of looking over my last 6 months or so and seeing the time for what it has been. It took me a while to fully render the image and be able to put it into words. It’s nothing short of being born again. No part of my life has been immune to the birthing process. It’s been a squirming, squalling, squishy, endorphin-heavy mess. I can only imagine this is part of many folks’ education process in Chinese medicine. This may be particularly true in programs that have discipleship components or choose to teach in a more Classical manner. I imagine that for some more TCM oriented students, the final year might feel different.

Why do I say this?

At NCNM, when engaged with whole-heartedly, nothing short of a total rearrangement of the Self takes place. Now, there are plenty of little nagging problems at the school. It’s a relatively new program with lofty ideals, and institutions often take a long… long time to work out kinks. Still, the overall structure of the thing is sound, and I think it’s making a decent practitioner out of me. However, it’s been a hell of a ride. The first year, my entire sense of the universe and myself was shattered. Swallowed whole, partially digested, regurgitated and reconstituted. Yes, my friends, my entire experience of life became something like an owl pellet. There’s no prettying that one up.

The second year was about finding my way. I found myself strongly attracted to herbal medicine and found that I had a natural affinity for learning herbs and their personalities. Then I met Arnaud Versluys, which ignited my love for the TEXTS of Classical Chinese Medicine. It’s important to say that, during the year before, Heiner Fruehauf had already enflamed my passion for the medicine, for imaginative thinking and for the core principles and ethos of the Classical Chinese way of doing things. These two streams of thought converged, and with my fragile confidence with the herbs, I became aware that I actually COULD do this with the rest of my life.

The third year was nothing short of a blitzkrieg of information – my self-confidence increased as I came to understand formulas. In Clinical Observation, I felt I was finally able to get some kind of diagnosis from a patient before the doctor spoke. My spiritual and personal development began to shift, however, and this started to destabilize my already fragile sense of who I am in this medicine. This destabilization continued through the summer between my third and fourth years, with the added stress of actually being IN CLINIC with patients. This is when the long slow push through the birth canal began in earnest.

I truly have had the sensation of being squeezed, almost to the point where I can’t really think. My ability to drum up any meta commentary about anything has been dramatically reduced. I haven’t had the time or energy to do much but just experience what’s in front of me. I haven’t been studying as deeply or as broadly as I was before. There’s no doubt in my mind that the departure from NCNM of my most active mentor, Arnaud Versluys, shook me in ways that took me a while to recover from. In fact, that experience made me question pretty much everything – in a similar way to my first year adventures. But there is the sensation of increased pressure and urgency due to my impending graduation (June 2009).

All of this has resulted, only in the last couple of days, in a completely reordered list of priorities and best practices. I have been in personal development and spiritual flux for about ten years, and I have the curious sensation of having found a set of practices that I’m going to be sticking with for a while. This has coincided with a similar stabilization in the realm of Chinese medicine practice. Over the coming days, I’d like to share these things with my readers. I hope it will be of some help to those of you who might be undergoing a similar experience.

The summary is this, my friends: It’s been a rough one, I’m stepping out of the long dark and I’m happy to be back. Thanks for your encouragement and patience.

Eric

Still learning Chinese medicine : through the birth canal

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Deepest Health Chinese Medicine Podcast : Episode 10 : End of term clinical reflections

Eric — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:16:28 +0000

Welcome to another Episode of the Deepest Health Podcast! In this episode, I discuss my reflections as I come to the end of my first term/quarter in clinic at NCNM. I reiterate the importance of memorization and excellent patient care, but then go in a philosophical direction on a couple of topics. First, I discuss my experience of being able to separate the disease from the person experiencing the disease. Second, I talk about the paradoxical reactions of some patients to treatment. I wrap up the podcast by a discussion of utilizing our many human gifts, referring often to the quintissential “Renaissance Man,” Leonardo da Vinci.

In the podcast, I reference a blog – but cannot remember the name of the blog, so cannot link to the post that inspired my da Vinci explorations. If you, for some strange reason, know what I’m talking about – let me know and I’ll link it. I also reference a book I’m currently reading about da Vinci and the practices one might take from his life. You can click on the link below to check it out.

Deepest Health Chinese Medicine Podcast : Episode 10 : End of term clinical reflections

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Deepest Health Chinese Medicine podcast : Episode 9 : Interview with Dr. Heiner Fruehauf, Part II

Eric — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:00:03 +0000

Here’s the second part of Friday’s podcast interview with Heiner Fruehauf. If you missed the first portion, you can access it by following the link to Deepest Health Classical Chinese Medicine podcast, Episode 8. There you can also find links to Heiner’s various web presences and learn about what he’s doing now. I hope to offer more information on the Classical Pearls product he recently released, as well as offering Deepest Health readers a great option for signing up with the Associates Forum at Classicalchinesemedicine.org.

Thanks for listening!
Eric

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Deepest Health Chinese Medicine podcast : Episode 9 : Interview with Dr. Heiner Fruehauf, Part II

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Deepest Health Chinese Medicine Podcast : Episode 8 : Interview with Dr. Heiner Fruehauf

Eric — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:21:29 +0000

Hello everyone -

I’m happy to offer an interview for this edition of the podcast. Dr. Heiner Fruehauf, founding professor of the school of Classical Chinese Medicine at National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, OR, agreed to talk with Deepest Health readers about the nature of Classical Chinese Medicine. I’m incredibly grateful to Heiner for offering his time and wisdom – I think it will be a treat for all of you.

Dr. Fruehauf has been a great inspiration to me as I navigate the deep waters of this discipline, and he is beloved by students of Chinese medicine all over the world. He currently practices at his clinic in Corbett, OR as well as teaching classes at NCNM. He runs the incredible website, Classicalchinesemedicine.org, which is an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning more about the roots of Chinese medicine. In fact, I have an exciting proposition for folks concerning a discounted membership to the site that I will talk about in a separate post sometime this coming week. Stay tuned. If you haven’t perused the great free content Heiner has put up on the site, do visit and check it out.

I want to mention that Dr. Fruehauf also recently launched a line of high quality, professional grade herbal capsules based on Classical principles for a variety of common conditions. Check out the site and see what you think. Every effort has been made to ensure that this is a high quality product. This product is unrivaled by anything on the market of which I am aware.

This podcast was split into two parts – the first of which you can access below. The second part will be released on Monday or Tuesday. Each section is around 30 minutes long. Enjoy!

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Deepest Health Chinese Medicine Podcast : Episode 8 : Interview with Dr. Heiner Fruehauf

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