The nuts and bolts of the Chinese medicine awareness experiement
In two articles, Abdallah and I have begun to lay out the foundations for a project that is, in some ways, the extension of the Year of Sagely Living. There hasn’t been much discussion generated around those two articles. There are two possible reasons for this and they both come down to our failure to express the essence of the project appropriately. I will offer two articles - one today and one tomorrow - that attempt to explain the project clearly and also highlight its importance.
First, here, I’d like to just lay out in very clear prose what it is we are proposing and, briefly, why.
Record of a journey
Blogging is, at its best, the record of some person’s (or people’s) particular way through life. Even when the blog isn’t personal, it represents a particular take on some particular aspect of the experience of living. Deepest Health has always been mostly about exploring Classical Chinese medicine from the perspective of one student, myself. In this journey, I’ve revealed my own struggles and a-ha moments. I’ve also attempted to share the knowledge I’ve gained in my schooling in an effort to make good information about Chinese medicine more available. As I grow and change, so does the blog.
I’ve walked across a threshold in my study - the threshold from theory to practice. In doing so, I’ve learned deeply the importance of rock-solid theory. More than that, I’ve learned about the inseperability of theory and practice. They inform and shape one another. One of the places where theory and practice interpenetrate for me is in the realm of Chinese medical symbolism. What I’ve learned about the symbols of Chinese medicine from a few professors, most overtly Heiner Fruehauf, is the way that Chinese medicine is actually built on a system of symbols and a method of symbolic perception and thinking that is at least somewhat alien to contemporary Western consciousness. I’ve tried to make that way of thinking and perceiving less alien for myself and, through my blog, for you.
In clinic, I don’t think that much about the Chinese medicine organ clock. But, I do think a lot about symbols. I think about the symbolism of the pulse. About how to read it, how to match it up with patient experience. I think about how the pulses are written about in Classical texts and the deep symbolic meaning present in every character. I think about the symbol of the human face, a microcosmic representation of the whole body. I consider the symbolic diagnostic methods of Worsley style five element acupuncture. I wonder about the concise descriptions of symptoms patterns in the Shang Han Lun, and begin to understand the deep symbolic nature of the characters that make up those descriptions. I see how all of my professors seek to understand this way of thinking, seek to incorporate it into their practice, despite how they feel about more overt conversations about the subject.
There is no class that can teach me how to think symbolically. There is no seminar that can rearrange your mind so you think less analytically and more holistically. There is only lived experience. There is only gentle but persistent effort. Nature and patients as teachers.
Wait, didn’t I say this was going to be clear?
Yes, yes yes… To provide a “why” for the rambling “what” above, please accept the following. I believe that by teaching myself to think symbolically, to deeply perceive the infinite richness of patients and nature and the world at large, I will gain information that will make me a better clinician. There are lots of ways to teach myself these skills. There are lots of layers to be unfolded. The project that Abdallah and I are proposing is simply to record our journey to gain this particular way of thinking and perceiving. Just as everything it will grow and change, but here are the essential elements:
So what is this going to look like?
Records of our efforts in the form of text articles : This is more of the same as far as Deepest Health is concerned. You can expect frequent reports on how our efforts are progressing. Sometimes this will come in the form of an article about a formula or an herb, something like you’ve seen here before. But, it will attempt to go deeper by incorporating multi-sensory lived experience. Sometimes it might be a new type of article that reports back on a specific experience along the lines of what I’ve described above. For instance, if one week I find myself especially attracted to understanding the Chinese medicine concept of fire, I might write an article about all of my multifaceted research on the subject. This could incorporate lines and interpretation of those lines from various Classical texts. It could incorporate my own musings about patients and myself as related to fire. It might posit connections between lines in the Classical texts, formulas that I have recently prescribed and some aspect of popular culture that makes clear some important relationship. It could involve a series of photographs around Portland as well as a recording of some firedancers on a mountaintop. Which brings me to the next point…
Multimedia integration : What we are proposing is that only by laying open ALL of our senses are we able to really understand the wisdom of the ancients. How many of us really understand the five odors and colors used in diagnosis? How many of us really understand the five flavors of herbs? This understanding is important to have on an intellectual level, of course, and textual analysis is important for that. But equally important is our lived experience of these things. Now, while we would be hard pressed to offer scents and flavors on the Internet, we can certainly talk about scents and flavors. But, what will really set this project, and ultimately this blog, apart is the inclusion of audio and visual content to help illustrate concepts.
I have been experimenting with audio and have been very impressed with the medium. I recently purchased some new equipment that will help me deliver higher quality audio to Deepest Health readers/listeners. I would love to continue to offer record of conversations, as well as music and soundscapes that illustrate particular points. Imagine the impact of not only reading an article about Shaoyang fire, but hearing audio that is evocative of this primal force and seeing photographs and drawings that seek to explore the concept further! We will offer audio as well as pictures, artwork and video. Some of it will be strictly in service of elucidating particular concepts, but also just to continue to enrich the site’s content - as with interviews, video of my talking head, and so on.
Some of what we put forward may be pure folly! You may watch a particular video, hear an audio, or read an article and think : By jove, they’ve gone off the deep end! And that’s when audience participation comes in. We want lively conversation! We want response! Further, as we explore the project you may find that you hear, see, smell and feel things that go along with (or contradict) what we are putting forward. We’ll post it! Put it forward! Let us create a living database of information that goes beyond the simple recounting of TCM textbooks. The future of Chinese medicine on the Internet, no less! :) But, it is important to note that for me, the Classical texts are the ground from which all I think about springs and ultimately it is what I want to keep connected to at all times. I believe this will help us from going too far afield, proposing theories and ideas that are radically disconnected from the thousands of years of clinical experience that we are fortunate to have access to as students and practitioners.
I hope this helps explain what we’re after. More to come.
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Tags: Blogging, content, internet, multimedia, nature, patterns, study, symbolism, The Project, Theory, video, Year of Sagely LivingRelated posts
Symbolism, Chinese medicine and the birth of a new project
I’ve been working on a series about the Chinese medicine organ systems for the past few weeks. We’ve already covered the Lung, and then the Large Intestine in two parts. During that time, my understanding of the symbolism (including what’s available through the Chinese medicine organ clock) that is shot through Chinese medical literature has changed, deepened, opened up.
When I first started studying with Heiner Fruehauf, I was entranced by all the symbolism he introduced in his lectures at NCNM. I wasn’t sure if what he was talking about would bear clinical fruit, but I knew the ring of truth was there and I was resolved to understand it. Doctors that I worked with later put more or less emphasis on the symbolism, but regardless, the kind of imaginative and symbolic thinking was always a part of what they taught - because this kind of thinking is at the root of the development and practice of Chinese medicine.
What is a symbol? A symbol is something used to represent something else. It POINTS at something else. Generally, we use material representations to represent immaterial things - like how a religious symbol can be used to represent God, or human beings’ relationship to God. When I talk about symbolic thinking, I take it a bit farther. Everything can be a symbol. The human body is in resonance with the universe, in resonance with nature, and all of these things create a symbol field that points at something immaterial - the unifying concept behind all of those symbols. This is, of course, a quite Platonic concept. There is a perfect concept/idea of metal-ness, of which all METAL symbols here on Earth are only an imperfect representation. The fact is that the symbol field creates a kind of embodied conversation about this “concept/idea.” I want to point out that I’m not even sure that the Platonic idealist view of reality applies in the particular situation I’m describing, but many people will say that it does. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just say that all of the symbols I discuss are part of an overall embodied conversation that is attempting to describe a particular concept that may, or may not, be perfectly present anywhere in the world.
Confusing? Yeah, when I describe it that way it probably is pretty confusing. But, it’s important to understand. When I talk about the Stomach on the Chinese organ clock, you’ll hear me discuss the Dragon, Yangming, Earth, various acupuncture points and formulas, herbs and Classical passages, constellations, Earthly branches. What does all of this mean? It is part of a multi-sensory conversation attempting to define the Chinese medicine concept of the organ Stomach. But, it can go so far beyond that. Every time I walk out my door, I see Stomach. I see it in the muscle cars roaring past, I see it in the gourmet restaurants that dot my beloved city of Portland. I see it in the Earth yellow faces and wild smiles of friends and family, I see it in the high and dry Earth in mounds around the bike path. I hear it in certain songs, certain lines in movies. I hear about it in world news event reports. I smell it on the breath of my dog (gross!) and in my compost pile. Sometimes, the universe practically SCREAMS Stomach. It is a multi-sensory experience, a lived experience. Ultimately, all of this feeds back into me as a practitioner, my understanding of the human being and the universe, and bears important clinical results.
This is why it is so disturbing how some contemporary Chinese medicine practitioners have reduced “Stomach” to the Western medical organ. Of course, we can use that idea as part of the symbol field. How rich it is to include the information from Western medicine, but what a tiny little drop in the bucket it is - and how misunderstood. But, that little gripe is not what this post is about.
This post is about nothing less than the rebirth of Deepest Health. I am happy to say that Deepest Health is about to undergo a revolution in order to begin a revolution. A revolution of thought and feeling around Chinese medicine. You will still see the same great information that you’ve come to expect - but so much more. We want to create something that can’t be described in a sentence, but here are some half attempts by the project’s creators:
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