Call for guest writers at Deepest Health
Hey everyone,
The summer is wrapping up for us at NCNM, which means a ramping up of school-related activity for me. Add to that the fact that my best friends are getting married (and both my partner and I are in the wedding) is a recipe for light content here on Deepest Health. So, I’d like to put a call out for guest authors. I’m particularly interested in offering articles from guest authors on the following three topics:
1. Back to school : Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine students all over the US and elsewhere in the Northern hemisphere are heading back to school. What advice do you have for them? This can range from product reviews to lists of “must have” books and supplies, etc…
2. Basic information from a unique perspective : For instance, what can you tell us about some commonly used acupuncture points, but put a twist on them using the classics?
3. Clinical stories : If you’re a storyteller and would like to share some of your most poignant lessons, whether in the classroom or clinic, I’m happy to publish stories like that as well.
Criteria for authors - I can’t publish just anything on Deepest Health, of course. A site’s got to have standards, after all. :) You need to be able to write in English with a reasonable degree of accuracy and have decent flow. You need to be able to proofread your articles and come up with engaging titles for them. You need to be in the field of Chinese medicine, whether as a student, teacher or practitioner. I reserve the right to say no to anyone. I will probably receive more requests than I can publish, but may keep folks’ names on a list to contact if another guest writing opportunity arrives. Let me know if you would rather I not put your name on that list.
Benefits of being a guest writer - If you run a blog or website, the benefits of being a guest writer are numerous. Deepest Health gets a fair amount of targeted traffic, and because a link to your site will be provided in the text of the post, you will get visitors heading over to your site to learn more about the person behind the article. The link will also provide some “link juice” from Google, helping your search engine rankings. Even if you’re not a website owner, you will be able to get your name and your writing out there for folks in your field to read. You will also obtain the massive personal benefits I get from having a blog - chief among them solidifying what you know and exposing what you don’t… a benefit that usually only comes from writing.
If you would like to write an article, and meet the criteria, please send your article along with a statement about who you are, where you go to school/teach/practice and any other relevant information to deepesthealth @ gmail . com (without the spaces). It’s critical that the article not be published anywhere else on the web, so don’t bother sending me rehashed content. If I choose your article, I will let you know and we can go from there!
One more note, folks : I will not be able to put together my regular Friday podcast this week. I’m so sorry! I will return to normalcy next week, no worries.
Thanks,
Eric
If you like what you read here, you may want to keep updated by using my RSS feed. Want to know more about RSS/feeds? - read more here. Thanks for visiting!
Tags: articles, author, Blogging, guest-post, Learning, rest, students, summer, writingRelated posts
A year of blogging about Classical Chinese Medicine
We’re running up on the one year anniversary of Deepest Health!* Can you believe it? One year and we’re up to almost 250 daily subscribers (thank you!) and a very respectable daily traffic number that averages around 15,000 page views a month. We also recently reached a search engine benchmark - receiving Pagerank 5! All of this despite the toll that my busy schedule has taken on my posting frequency. I want to thank each and every one of my readers for interacting with me, teaching me, promoting the site and just generally being awesome. Thanks!
I’ve been doing some thinking about where I would like the site to be in another year. The fact is that I would like to see more readers, more subscribers, and more conversation going on. This requires MORE content creation on my part, and I recognize that. I’ve been getting plenty of emails from readers wishing I would go back to my super frequent posting schedule of last summer. I’ve been thinking about whether I want to make blogging a priority again.
My posting frequency has plummeted for a variety of reasons, but it comes down to three major problems.
1. I’m way busy.
2. Getting more readers made me a little afraid to “speak my mind” especially when some of my readers are professors and quite active practitioners in the field.
3. I started to become unsure about what readers wanted.
These reasons are bad ones. To address number one - I’ll always be busy. I can’t let that get in my way. We’ve all had the experience of suddenly finding time for something we’re motivated to make a priority (new love, anyone?) just as we’ve all experienced the converse (taxes, anyone?) So, I guess that’s debunked. Number two is just crass fear. I’m a student. In a little more than a year, I’ll be a new practitioner. I’ve never claimed to be anything else, right? I know I’ve said this before. It scares me a little to know that my professors, my esteemed colleagues and practitioners with lots more experience are reading my words. However, the response has been overwhelmingly positive and it seems like folks want to see me writing more often - so I guess I’m going to have to consolidate my Kidneys and get on with it. T
To address the third issue - it is still a problem. Everyone seems to like something a little different. The most significant problem I have is the worry about writing for practitioners and dorky students (like me) and leaving average folks and brand new students without anything compelling to read. I’m just going to have to hope it works out. I’ve tried writing articles for new patients before, and it just didn’t move me very much. Every once in a while I feel like I put out something of interest to the general public, and those posts are rewarded with good traffic, but I don’t want that to be a focus.
In the end the greatest barrier is a combination of all of these. Because of my fear and lack of comprehension about what readers want has led to my spending WAAAAY too much time with each article. This has made it impossible for me to consider fitting posting regularly into my schedule. With these myths busted, hopefully I can get on with producing excellent content for all of you who are interested in reading it.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this public display of what is a private process. It’s like talking to yourself to work out a problem when you think nobody can hear, only I know you can hear. Such is the blogging life.
Eric
*Note: Deepest Health has actually been around in some form for almost 2 years, but I really began writing in earnest in June 2007
Tags: Blogging, content, focus, health, overwhelm, rest, students, summer, teaRelated posts
Learning how to keep life in balance
It’s time for my March Year of Sagely Living update! I believe that my efforts were successful, overall. My true goal this month was two-fold. First, I wanted to pay close attention to the two hour time periods associated with each organ system on the Chinese medicine organ clock. Second, I wanted to create and maintain space for my family and myself amid the festering chaos of medical school.
Attempting to pay attention to the times associated with the organ clock was more difficult than it may sound. I found that I looked at the clock and really paid attention at the same times each day. This was usually around mealtimes, when I had a natural break in my work cycle. Regardless, it was valuable to take a few minutes to really absorb the energy of those times. Interestingly, I noticed that my ability to clearly take in the energy of the “day time” organ systems became stronger as the sun became stronger. I also found that my ability to access the energy of each organ system was easier during the period associated with that organ system. I tested this by doing meditations on organ systems during other than their associated times.
I noticed how attempting to align my daily activities with the various organ system times yielded some appreciable benefit. For instance, eating breakfast closer to “Stomach time” (7-9am) definitely yielded less indigestion given the same meal than eating breakfast closer to “Heart time” (11am - 1pm) or even earlier during “Lung time” (3-5am). I also noticed that the general cycle of the 12 organ systems and their associated time made a lot of sense and following this flow more often than not created a harmonious feeling within me. By the end of March (aside from some rocky times during Finals week) I had settled into the following pattern (taken and edited from my journal notes):
- Waking up and doing breathing exercises doing Lung time (3-5 am) considerably easier than any other time, yields greater benefit in energy through the day. I always found that taking a nice walk, alone and in a natural area, yielded a lot of intuitive insight and positive emotional breakthroughs.
- Going to the bathroom between 5 and 7am (Large Intestine time) seems easier, more complete and now that I do this I find that I have far fewer digestive problems overall - all things being equal. Maybe a funny thing to point out, but important from a medical standpoint.
- Eating as close as possible to 8 am (in the 7-9am period, Stomach time) seems to yield relatively few digestive problems through the day. You can see above for more explanation.
- Avoiding too much exercise during the 9-11am time frame (Spleen time) seems to enhance my digestion. I like to spend this time doing more “passive” work like reading, easy writing projects and hanging out in the back yard. When I have to go to a difficult class during this time, I invariably have indigestion.
- Heart time (11am-1pm) is especially well used doing work that connects firmly to my purpose. I find that if I do creative writing projects, formulas study and conscious business development during this time I get really good work done. Much harder to do anything else like eating, doing menial work, heavy physical activity, etc…
- 1-3pm is a great time for more menial or “have to” projects. I connected this with the Small Intestine’s function as the fu organ of the Heart - it transmits the vision and purpose of the Heart which is best expressed through SACRIFICE. Perhaps most interestingly, I found this to be the best time for lunch. When I eat closer to noon, it tends to upset my digestion.
- 3-5pm was a little difficult to nail down. In my journal I have listed the following observations: good time for spiritual activity like prayer and devotional reading, best time for just sitting with family, excellent period for a daily review. In the end, I think that Bladder time is best for more “visioning” activities, taking a larger view of my life and embracing that aspect of daily living.
- Kidney time 5-7pm seems best suited for evening walks and deep relaxation. For instance, Qigong during Kidney time seems to be particularly fruitful - which is a surprise. I’ve always done my Qigong in the morning.
- 7-9pm, Pericardium time, is absolutely beautiful for sharing a meal with my family and really nourishing my connection with them. This was the best family time and I experienced no trouble with digestion as long as I ate by 9pm. After 9pm, I just wasn’t hungry.
- Triple burner time, from 9-11pm, is when I must go to bed. If I stay up much into Gallbladder time, I’m in trouble - when it gets to be about midnight, I’m usually up until 3 or so. I just can’t settle down. I think this makes a lot of sense given the mysterious Triple Burner network, the organ system of dreams, of in-betweens and of delving deeply into the Yin.
- I didn’t have much experience of either Gall Bladder or Liver time, although I did have a stretch of insomnia that would have me waking smack dab in the middle of the two (always right around 1:30am) needing desperately to go for a walk or eat something terribly bad for me. :)
All of this being said, I’m not entirely sure how I feel these two hour periods should be viewed and used. I can’t say that the experience was so profound that I would want to live my life aligning my activities closely with them. It’s also quite difficult for me to do as little work as the organ system cycle seems to demand. But it did remind me that I need to make sure to take time for myself and for my family. It also made me much more intense about continuing to wake up around 5am to do walking and breathing. SUCH a benefit - I can recommend it to absolutely everyone. But there was, for me, clear benefit in the exercise. Overall, I think a few basic lessons were learned by engaging in this habit during the month of March:
- The general progression is valuable to experience.
- Great alterations away from the basic progression usually yields feelings of dis-ease.
- For the purpose of understanding organ systems, spending time observing nature or human society during key periods is very instructive.
- I think that further research could be helpful, especially in terms of learning more about chrono-acupuncture.
- It may be that like everything, there are acceptable individual variations from the norm that are still supportive of health. However, straying far from the basics is probably never healthy.
The other major goal, making sure to leave weekends open for my family and myself, was the most wonderful part of March’s Year of Sagely Living activity. I was very good at keeping this time open, even when I had a lot of very pressing work to do. I would frequently do work on Saturday mornings, but often it was in tandem with my partner. I can’t tell you what this did for my psyche. Even though my finals week was extremely difficult, I was able to weather it and did wonderfully well on my tests. I felt that I integrated a lot more of what I was learning and feel more open to the lessons of next term even though we only get a week off. I am going to continue this habit because it was so powerful.
I think that this is one of the most potent lessons we can teach our future (and current) patients - our culture asks us to be “on” ALL the time. We are told that if we aren’t willing to “go hard” we should “go home.” I do believe in the immense power of hard work and I believe that many people are working far below their capacity. However, it is an absolute MUST to leave time to reconnect with the source of your personal power. This means your friends and family, visioning your personal and professional life and simply having time to relax in your garden or go for leisurely walks. While these activities don’t pay much per hour and they can often be VERY hard to justify in a maelstrom of work commitments, they are what ultimately pays the greatest dividends.
Coming next, my commitment for the month of April. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.
Eric
Tags: activity, Acupuncture, balance, chinese-organ-clock, Organ systems, organ-clock, rest, Year of Sagely LivingRelated posts
7 keys to understanding the Classical Chinese Medicine concept of organs
I’d like to piggyback off of the organ clock post and introduce the Chinese medicine theory of organs in a little more
depth. It’s important to understand that there is not just one right way to view the body. There is no more validity in viewing it in the Western medicine manner than there is in viewing it in the Chinese medicine manner. Each system (and many others) have taken different features of the human being to be primary, each system has used their own conceptual understanding to render a viable picture of the body and its interactions. Perhaps most importantly, each system uses their vision of the human being to craft effective treatments. It seems that different systems will create different spheres of effectiveness - a topic for a future post. With no further ado, here are seven things you need to know to enhance your understanding of Chinese medicine organ systems.
- There are twelve organ systems in Chinese medicine: Heart, Small Intestine, Bladder, Kidney, Pericardium, Triple Burner, Gall Bladder, Liver, Lung, Large Intestine, Stomach and Spleen. The typical convention is to capitalize when we are talking about Chinese organ systems and not to capitalize when we are referring to the anatomical organ known to Western medicine. Another convention is to refer to the in the singular. So, for instance, the Lung organ system includes the Lungs, but we don’t say - for example - The emotion of the Lungs is grief.
- They’re not ORGANS. Probably the most important thing to understand is that the Classical Chinese view is not based on materialism. Although the ancient Chinese did investigate the inside of the body and were clearly aware of the physical structures that Western medicine now names “organs” this is not primary for the medicine’s understanding. The organ is included in a larger concept that is often called the “organ system,” which you have already seen me use many times. This organ system includes the physical organ, it’s associated channel(s), the tissues, surfaces, functions and other bodily features associated with that organ and other more rarefied aspects of the system.
- The organs work together as a dynamic whole. While each system has specific functions and can be talked about in isolation, the beauty of the Chinese medical view of the body only becomes truly apparent when you focus on the interconnections. No system is complete without seeing its relationship to the rest. This can make it a little confusing to study because our brains seem to find it simpler to focus on one mono-dimensional thing at a time. TCM has largely lost its understanding of the physiological interactions of the organs except where those interactions are extremely simplified.
- The organs are a reflection of the macrocosm. This principle relates back to Chinese philosophical understanding of the holographic nature of reality. For a complete review of the holographic worldview, see Michael Talbot’s The Holographic Universe. The basic gist of this philosophy is that the fundamental nature of reality is reflected in its smallest pieces just as much as in its largest. The small reflect the large, and the large reflect the small - they’re both reflecting something much deeper than themselves. In Chinese medicine we study this principle all the time. On one level, each organ is a reflection of all the others - the parts reflect the whole. On another level, the total complex of organs and each organ individually reflect some aspect of nature. For example, the Heart reflects the nature of our Sun and acts as such within the body. Understanding these layers of meaning help us to fully comprehend the human body, and studying the human body through this lens helps us to gain a greater understanding about the Universe. It’s funny like that.
- Following from that, then, the organ systems can be understood using natural and governmental symbolism. For me personally, learning about the Chinese concept of the body was much easier once I learned to think about it as an ecosystem or as a country. With the former, I could simply walk in nature in a mindful way and reflect on the various features I found there. IS the Heart like the Sun? What would that mean if it were? How does that bear out in diagnosis? In treatment? I think this practice does its work on more subtle levels as well - it must be why we are constantly urged to spend time in nature as CCM students. Using metaphors about the government helped me a great deal in understanding the functional relationships between organ systems. If the Heart is like the Emperor (or the King, possibly the President) then what relationships should I see between it and the Lung, which is said to be like the Prime Minister (or Presidential Cabinet?).
- The organs’ interrelationships are therapeutically useful. Far from being a simple intellectual exercise, understanding the organ systems as networks of interrelationship bears out in treatment. An example: imagine we are looking at some kind of problem that - through the intake process, including tongue and pulse taking - we come to understand as being centered in the Heart organ system. A TCM process of differentiation would then focus on the Heart, most likely, only adding other organ systems in limited circumstances (such as adding Lung if there are breathing difficulties). A more nuanced approach will consider the interrelationships using various systems, such as five-element or six conformation. Using a five element approach, we might wonder whether fire is failing to be generated by wood, or whether it is being over-controlled by water. We would search for symptoms that might suggest this, we would recheck the pulse to see whether we had missed something. There are specific systems to use when doing these investigations, but the key is simply to dive deeply into the physiology in order to comprehend pathology. It will yield excellent treatment.
- Even with this complex understanding - the organ systems are not PRIMARY. In a sense, the organ systems are simply a useful way of organizing the overwhelming amount of information we can get from studying the human body. It is a convenient way because it has clear physical correlates. But we must also consider the fluids of the body (Qi, Blood, Jing, Shen, JinYe) as well as any more subtle aspects of the human being. We must also keep in mind that the body is not just a jumble of parts, but a integral functioning whole - when we treat we are not “tonifying the Kidney” but instead having a specific kind of impact on an infinitely complicated system using a particular technique. Maybe that’s splitting hairs, but it seems an important distinction.
There’s a lot more to know - but that’s a good start. Please put any questions or thoughts in the comments!
Eric Grey
Tags: classical-chinese-medicine, exercise, five phases, flu, focus, health, Learning, liver, lung, materialism, nature, organ system, Organ systems, organizing, overwhelm, pericardium, philosophy, pulse, rest, spleen, students, study, studying, symbolism, tea, Theory, traditional-chinese-medicine, visionRelated posts
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