Technological teaching : social networking for natural medicine practitioners and a study update
I’ve been working with Saturday features these last few months. I like the idea of a links post, but they don’t get much traffic and they’re sort of boring to write. I figure it makes more sense to offer something of real value while enjoying the process myself. So, on this cloudy Oregon summer morning, I’d like to try something new. On Saturdays, until I find something that works even better, I’ll offer a technological teaching geared toward the natural medicine crowd. Remember when I wrote about why every healthcare provider should have a blog and the ensuing discussion about the apparent misgivings most natural medicine practitioners seem to have about technology? Well, I have a passion for bringing our profession up to speed - we belong on the Internet - people need us! Every week, I’ll try to think of something new to point out. It will still be links-based, but the links won’t just be stuff I think is interesting. Instead, the links will be part of the teaching.
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Before I continue with the technological teaching, I wanted to refer back to another post I made recently about studying Chinese medicine. As school approaches (my last year!) I find myself being forced to think increasingly of how to get myself back into the mindset for institutional education. I’ve also continued to notice my knowledge deficiencies while in clinic. Not to mention, I’m supposed to be working on the thesis required for my Classical Chinese Medicine degree at NCNM. I find that in the summer, I naturally turn away from intense study and towards other things (like blogging) but now it’s time to turn back. In the article referenced above, I decided to try a new method of studying that would allow me to cycle through topics each day. As usual, I bit off a little more than I could chew. In this case, I simply picked too many topics. I found that it was too difficult to keep the categories discreet, and often because of the natural flow of my weeks I was “into” particular topics on particular days.
To refine the process, I will suggest the following topics be studied each day - with the complete group to be studied at least every two weeks. This allows for a more natural decision making process when I sit down to study, yet still ensures that I actually work on each topic. This last part is important, because I find that sometimes I get a little too obsessed with one topic and my knowledge and skill in the other crucial areas suffers.
Topics:
- Formulas : names, dosages, signs/symptoms (especially pulses) and all associated information
- Points : mostly just location and categories for now
- Diagnostics : working more closely with pulses, tongues and other diagnostic information
- Pathology : six conformations/shang han, 19 lines/5 evils, Zangfu/TCM and Western when desired
- Physiology : working with the information I have to keep diving deeper into the physiology of Chinese medicine organ systems and their interrelationships
- Symbolism : working more explicitly with the information I’ve gleaned from Classical texts and my professors at NCNM
If this succeeds, I’d like to see how it works to share something I’ve learned from each topic each week. I know that some of you students out there have been missing the more basic posts I used to write, and my explicit study in these various areas might bear some fruit as far as sharable content is concerned. Stay tuned.
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Now, what about technology? To keep this post as short as possible, I won’t launch into any diatribes. I hope to just show people how valuable the Internet can be and how crucial it is that we, as healthcare providers, link into this rapidly growing method of connection and communication. Today, I’d like to talk a little bit about…
**Social networking**
Human beings are social animals. Some have lamented the invention of the computer, and then the Internet, claiming that it negatively impacts social relationships between people. Now, of course, I think this is a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg question since for our society to accept such a technology implies that we had already gone far afield. That is, of course, if this lamentation has any basis. I’m not ready to deliver a proclamation on that just yet, but I do believe that any such insinuation is probably overstated. Anyway, the thing has doubtless been improved by the invention of blogging and, most recently, the flourishing of social networking tools.
Both blogging and social networking tools share something in common - they encourage conversation among people. You are all mostly familiar with blogging, I assume. You may be less familiar with the various social networking tools. There are quite a few types, and those who are more detail oriented than myself could probably explain them in encyclopedic fashion. But, to keep it real, I offer these simple categories and definitions:
1. Social networking sites that are more about keeping people updated and sharing more static information: These sites are usually larger and more feature-rich. They invite people to develop a very full profile, often include advertising and other monetization, and frequently connect with other types of content (like static websites containing large amounts of information). Most of these do include aspects of the second type, but most people don’t use them that way. I’m thinking here of sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, Gaia.com and Rootdown.us (links to these sites that allow you to add me easily as a friend are below).
These sites require some set up to be most functional. You go in, set up a profile and add a picture, add groups and interests, find your friends and colleagues and gradually over time will build a group of people (a network) that is easy to connect with. In my experience, the social aspects of these sites are relatively deemphasized. What I mean is that there’s not much conversation going on and often, particularly among the over-25 set, updates are infrequent. They are still very valuable, however. I have found lots of long-lost friends using these tools, plus the integration of microblogging tools (see below) allow for more conversational interaction. The more robust nature of these tools allows for a wider range of functionality as well. For instance, on Gaia.com - a social networking site for “conscious living” - you can write blog entries, list your favorite books, search for information on a variety of alternative lifestyle topics and be informed of upcoming events you may be interested in.
2. Social networking sites that are more about conversing and sharing developing information : These tools are often grouped under the word “microblogging.” Microblogging is a way of sharing short bits of information (under 150 characters) frequently. Using these sites, you set up a small profile and add friends. You can easily update the services (eventually even using your mobile phone) and read others’ updates and in doing so, you have a good sense for what your contacts are doing in any given day. Lots of news bytes are shared using this service - it can be interesting to watch the unfolding of a given story as percieved by people all over the world in all different socio-political circumstances. It’s also an easy way to share links to your latest blog content or ask people for support for charity causes or for promoting your content on sites like Digg and Stumbleupon (which are also, technically, social media sites - but are very different so I won’t cover them here). Twitter and Plurk are the two most popular microblogging services. See links below.
Why should you get involved?
These sites are a great way to start establishing yourself as a presence on the Internet. The conversations you have with others will gradually introduce you into the online flow - which can be very helpful if you ever plan to promote yourself or your clinic online. It’s also a fantastic way to meet people from all over the world and to begin to see things through eyes other than your own. I also find it a very helpful way to keep up with friends, family and colleagues that I otherwise would need to have an hour-long “catching up” conversation with each time I met up with them. Some may say that this is degrading normal human interaction, but I’ve found it only to enrich the relationships I have with people “in real life.”
Join me in the social media revolution - add me as a friend!
Here are my links for the various social media sites. You can click here to add me to your profile and we will be able to see one another’s updates. If you have any questions or anything to share about social media, go ahead and leave a comment at the end of this post and I’ll answer any and all questions as well as participating in any ensuing conversation. I look forward to seeing you all there. :) Note: Some of these links are not going to lead you to my profile, but to the page where you can sign up for an account. Once you do that, you can add me - sometimes using the links below or just by searching for me by my username or password.
- Facebook (I think I’m found as Eric Grey in this service)
- Myspace (I should note that I don’t use this service as much as the others, I’m pylonian here)
- Gaia.com (I’m pylonian on this service)
- Rootdown.us (I’m deepesthealth on this service)
- Linkedin (I believe I’m just Eric Grey on this service)
- Twitter (I’m pylonian here)
- Plurk (I’m deepesthealth here)
It’s worth noting that there are a variety of social networking sites that are specifically aimed at particular groups of people or particular kinds of content. For instance, there is a social networking site for Muslims, as well as one just for sharing information about Travel. There are also photosharing social networks like Flickr. Rootdown.us (listed above) is one such type of site - geared particularly towards people interested in Chinese medicine. I should note that Rootdown isn’t a social networking site as such, but incorporates some of those elements - a practice becoming increasingly common on the Internet.
If you’re interested, here’s a Wikipedia list of most of the popular social networking websites.
Thanks for reading,
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: Blogging, education, fun, internet, links, student, study, studying, Technology, websitesRelated 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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Simple solution to a complicated study problem
In the post I wrote recently about transitioning to a more self-motivated form of studying, I presented a fairly complicated problem. When you leave the comfy confines of rigorous acaemic life, it becomes difficult to keep focused on scholarly achievement. Okay, that sounds simple. Really, it isn’t. It’s complicated by a whole host of life factors, personal habits and actual needs. I started to work my way through the problem, and ended up a bit more confused than I started out, as friend and blogger G. Michael Reynolds probably could have predicted. :)
Ultimately, the issue is that I’m pretty good at figuring out what’s wrong but not so fantastic at finding solutions. Sometimes. When I do find solutions, I’m sometimes a little dense when it comes to implementing those solutions. But, this blog is - in part - about solutions! What a conundrum. So this is a short post to indicate that I’m trying a new solution for my vexing problem.
For the next eight weeks (until school at NCNM starts back up and things change) I’m going to study for an hour every morning, right after my Qigong practice. It’s only an hour, what harm can it do? This doesn’t mean I’ll never study more than that - but it does mean I won’t feel bad for not doing so. Why only an hour? Well, I’ve got several other obligatory hours in my day and it’s also an amount of time I can fit into even the busiest days in my schedule. An hour also seems to be the minimum amount of time I can study and actually get something out of it.
For this simple study method, I’m going to be dividing my work into fourteen subsections (okay, so maybe it gets a little complicated - but actually just so it gets easy again):
- Acupuncture Points
- Section 1 : locations and cautions
- Section 2 : categories and relationships
- Section 3 : basic (tcm) and advanced (ccm) functions
- Section 4 : important combinations
- Chinese herbs
- Section 5 : single herbs - basic set, wei (flavor) and qi (temperature) both according to TCM and according to the Shennong Ben Cao Jing
- Section 6 : single herbs - advanced set, which basically includes all the herbs we need for the board exam but haven’t learned yet
- Section 7 : formulas - formula names (english and chinese), herbs included, dosages
- Section 8 : formulas - associated pulses (tcm and arnaud)
- Section 9 : formulas - basic and advanced functions
- Chinese medical symbolism and pathology
- Section 10 : symbolism - twelve organ networks and all associated symbolism
- Section 11 : TCM/Zangfu basic physiology and pathology
- Section 12 : The Liuqi (Six conformations)
- Section 13 : Five element physiology/pathology and the 19 Lines of pathology (Neijing)
- Section 14 : Cancer (research project)
Is there other stuff to learn? Sure, but this is the stuff that’s the most important to me right now. I’ve taken all of my notes (electronic and paper) and flashcards and put them in stacks. Obviously the electronic and paper-based information resides in different places. Every day after Qigong, I’ll sit down, pick up a stack and go for it. That means I’ll get through the entire cycle of section 4 times. I’ll report back how it goes. If you have a method for studying such a diverse amount of material in a systematic and effective way, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Anyone? Anyone?
Eric
Tags: chinese-medicine, erics-habits, scholar, Student Life, study, studyingRelated posts
How to make the transition from forced study to self-motivated study
Now that I am in my fourth year of schooling in Classical Chinese Medicine, the “academic” pressures lessen in a number of ways. We have a few classes outside of clinic, but they are not academically rigorous in the way that Acupuncture points and Herbal formulas classes were. Our focus now is clinic and our Chinese medicine focused thesis. The latter is, of course, academic - but it’s a very different thing to write a thesis than to study for and take an exam. Since the end of last term, I’ve been struggling to figure out whether and how much - but most of all HOW - to study without the pressure of exams.
Some of you may wonder - if no exams, why study? Every shift, I find things that I’ve forgotten or don’t know. Every shift I realize the importance of having key information readily available in the mind. Every shift I realize that while I know some, I *don’t* know even more. By the end of my first shift I realized that this summer is going to be a time of profound transformation as well as intense study. So, I’ve devised a plan and have been determining how I can dive even more deeply into the material.
There seem to be three key problems:
1. No regular testing to act as carrot and stick leading me forward.
2. Clinic and thesis to balance with other kinds of study.
3. Lack of confidence in what I need to be studying because I don’t have anyone helping me to understand where I should apply my focus.
Solutions for Problem 1 : No regular testing - the need for the carrot and the stick
Even the most engaged student sometimes will need some help to get motivated. It’s probably an artifact of our No-Child-Left-Behind like culture of education, but testing often serves as a motivational force for people. The carrot has many facets. There is the feeling of a job well done, the praise or relationship development with your instructor, the admiration of your colleagues (!), advancement to higher levels of learning, possible scholarship benefits and so on. The stick likewise has many aspects, most of which are simply the reverse of the “carrot” features above. No one can deny that, regardless of your dedication and internal sense of motivation, we are all motivated to some extent by the carrot and stick approach.
However, I’ve always maintained that in the practice of medicine and similar fields, things are different. When I studied Philosophy, it was crucial that I remember key points, that I be able to build an appropriate argument, see flaws in logic, etc… I had to learn the material that I was studying, sure. But, noone’s health and wellbeing was going to be impacted by how well (or not) I learned various arguments for the existence of God. Nobody’s ability to run around and play with their kids rested on my ability to memorize 42 logical fallacies and their refutation.
In my study of Chinese medicine, every sentence uttered by an instructor could be the key that unlocks a pathological process in a patient. Each formula I memorize takes me one step closer to being able to quickly and elegantly devise a perfect treatment for someone who comes to our clinic. I don’t allow that to stifle me, I also don’t have the arrogance to think that my treatment is going to be what is “saving” or “fixing” people. But, I do see a greater human significance in what I’m studying now compared to everything I have studied before.
I suppose one could see all that I’ve just said as a further instantiation of the carrot and stick - but I think it’s more than that. There’s also the fact that the vast majority of what I’m learning fits into a system of knowledge that is more than it seems. It’s a method of living (see - year of Sagely living), it’s a system for rearranging myself spiritually, for learning to interact more appropriately with the world…
What does this have to do with lack of motivation? Well, here are three tools I use to keep me motivated despite the lack of testing. I’m going to word these in such a way that I feel they can be applied to folks studying pretty much any subject that has a practical application in a similar way to medicine.
1. Get clinical/practical
Though I’m not being tested in the traditional sense right now, every clinic shift is a test. Will I understand how to fit the symptoms and signs into a pattern I can understand, will I be able to come up with at least a few points that would help the person, can I think of a decent formula to send them home with? In some way, this kind of testing is even more intense than the stuff that involves pen, paper and a ticking clock in the background. So, I dive as deeply as I can into the practical applications of what I am learning. Further, I realize that when I leave the site of that practical application, there’s still work to be done. After clinic shifts, I review the cases, analyze the formulas, consider alternative points and herbs, imagine future treatments, investigate the person’s Western diagnoses and prescriptions and so on. This is the real stuff. At first it seemed intimidating. But now, it’s just plain exciting.
Even more importantly, I remember that I’m dealing with human lives as I discussed above. What I’m learning, and how well I learn it, matters. That’s tremendously motivational.
2. Understand what it does for you, personally
Most true professions are meant to shape the professional. You don’t become a lawyer without examining your own life and embodying some kind of lawyer-ness. Perhaps in the law case it would manifest in becoming very cognizant of how the law relates to you personally, learning about historical figures in the field of law and emulating them and generally making yourself into the kind of person who is a great lawyer (and also a lawyer who is a great person). Of course, not all professions reach this lofty goal and even fewer people actually take this seriously.
In Chinese medicine, as I’ve discussed before, this is actually CRUCIAL. Self-cultivating and letting the medicine become part of us isn’t just icing on the cake - it’s the cake. What I’ve been doing is seeing how not studying this material has really been impacting me in larger ways. I’m less likely to do my Qigong and other exercise, I’m less likely to eat well, I’m less likely to adhere to my spiritual discipline, I become a vaguely irritated person in general. Observing this in myself has helped me to understand the deep transformation that this medicine is creating in me. So, as a solution to the lack of motivation, I focus on the many ways that study of Chinese medicine improves me as a person.
I have created a list of five main areas that are significantly improved when I engage deeply with Chinese medicine study. I have created an “ultimate” goal for each of these, with mini-goals that act as signposts along the way. I review these at the beginning and end of each day and allow myself to meditate on each for a couple of minutes. This helps recharge me on a very deep level. Quickly, as an example:
One of my “areas” is that of my physical health and well-being. My “ultimate goal” is to be at my ideal weight, with specific strength goals that are measurable and to have an abiding sense of buoyant energy throughout my day. One of my mini goals is a specific weight and body fat number, another is that I wake reliably at 5am with minimal grogginess. I review these each morning when I wake (not always at 5am!!!) and when I go to sleep at night. I allow myself to think about how my Chinese medicine study reinforces these goals (by helping me learn more about the human body, by learning about my place in the macrocosm, by deepening me in a vigorous Qigong practice, etc…) and how my doing these things reinforces my Chinese medicine study (by giving me more energy and ability to focus, by helping to ensure vigor into my elderly years, etc…) It’s been a profound practice.
3. Less desirable solution - focus on bigger carrots and sticks
Obviously, there are always carrots and sticks that we can use for external motivation. The most persistent looming for me is my board exams. I will be taking these throughout my fourth year and in the summer afterward. It’s never too early to study for these exams and they can provide me with a basic structure. I don’t feel that this is an ideal way to motivate myself, but sometimes it’s the only thing that works. Certainly even post-licensure there may be similar external motivators. Perhaps you could mention a few in the comments?
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There are two more problems I’d like to look at, as described above. First, the issue of balancing study with thesis/clinical work. Second, dealing with the lack of confidence that I’m studying the correct things. I’ll discuss these in a separate post to be released soon. Please also expect another podcast this week - I’m hoping to work on my production and general quality of the podcast. If you have any ideas for what I should discuss, let me know in the comments!
Eric
Tags: chinese-medicine, Student Life, study-methods, studyingRelated posts
Understanding Chinese herbs using Classical Chinese Medical thinking
Sometimes I learn small things that turn out to be very useful. I would like to start sharing these as bite sized treats interspersed in between the thicker cuts that many of you are accustomed to here on Deepest Health. Today, I would like to offer one of those which is a way of thinking about herbs (and, thus, formulas) that I initially learned from my mentor, Dr. Arnaud Versluys. It’s a simple thing, maybe, but hopefully helpful to you.
In our Classical Chinese Medicine education here in Portland, OR, we are given a variety of types of information. I’ve talked about this several times before. We are sometimes told that truly Classical Chinese Medicine includes the information in the standard TCM system and includes information in the Western/allopathic system, but then goes outside of those reaching back to the Classical texts and cultivated ways of knowing. All of this information must be explored and, ultimately, integrated. We are encouraged to find that which really drives us and dive deep into that, but always asked to keep our minds open to the whole symbol field of information that human striving has uncovered.
In that spirit, consider the study of Chinese herbs. There’s a huge amount of information one could associate with any given single herb. The information has many different aspects - let us consider the relative materiality and the relative size (in time and/or space) of the information. We can create two axes. One from grossly material to highly immaterial, and one from microscopic to quite macroscopic. We can find useful information anywhere in the field created by these two axes. Let me provide a partial list of information along these two axes that I use to understand single Chinese herbs. The information will be listed from more material and more microscopic to less material and more macroscopic (obviously not a perfect gradation).
- Specific biochemical constituents, chemical bonding (for example, discussion of specific alkaloids)
- Classes of biochemical constituents, herb-herb interaction (for example, what are alkaloids?)
- Western medical physiological understanding (for example, discussion of the endocrine system)
- This might include information from Western medical studies/clinical trials
- Habitat and other botanical information (what kind of plant is this?)
- Chinese herbal category information (qi, flavor, channel affinity) and dosage information
- Contradictions (both Chinese and Western)
- Use of the herb through history in China (what formulas? what doctors? what contexts?)
- Understanding via various systems of differentiation (Ba Gan/8 Pillars, 6 Conformations, 5 Element)
- Information in various Classical texts concerning this herb other than what’s already been covered in another category
- Symbolism behind any of the previous categories of information (for instance, given the relevant habitat in which the herb grows - how can we understand it symbolically)
- Use of categories of information associated with the organ clock (If this is a Spleen herb, how can the symbolism of the snake help us think about it?
Let’s just look at a quick example on a very basic level using just some of the partial list above. Bai Shao, anyone?
白芍 Bái Sháo (Yào)
Biochemical constituents/other minute level Western information
- Paeoniflorin, albiflorin, oxypaeonifloring, benzoylpaeoniflorin, paeonin, hydorxypaeoniflorin (glycosides), gallotannin, d-catechin, eugeniin (tannins), benzoic acid, proteins and other constituents
- To extend this into the next category, we might be interested to look more deeply at the general function of glycosides and tannins, their function in the body and the families of things on the planet that either create or use them in high amounts. Of course this must all be evaluated symbolically.
- Herb-herb interaction? We might consider that Bai Shao is often paired with Gui Zhi, look into the chemical constituents of Gui Zhi and investigate, from a Western standpoint, what those interactions tend to produce.
- Herb-drug interaction? What drugs does Bai Shao resemble? What drugs does Bai Shao work poorly with? For instance, one is asked to have care when using Bai Shao for patients on anti-coagulants. What does this mean?
We could definitely find many clinical studies about Bai Shao and isolate what pharmacological effects allopathic medical researchers have found. A quick look tells me that some researchers have found that Bai Shao has:
- CNS suppressant, gastrointestinal, antibiotic, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, anti-platelet and cardiovascula effects
Habitat and other botanical information
Bensky tells us that Bai Shao is Paeonia lactiflora with the bark removed and that Chi Shao is a wildcrafted version of the same species - with bark intact. It would be interesting to know more about this distinction and to understand whether this distinction held during the Han dynasty. Anyone with information to that effect?
It is native to a large part of the area from Tibet through China up to Russia. It enjoys a wide range of habitats and the entire plant can be used medicinally or as food. This may help us to understand its rather broad range of effects and its extensive use in the classics.
Chinese herbal category information, inclusion in formulas
- Wei/Flavor: Bitter and sour
- Qi/Temperature: Slightly cold/cool
- Channel affinity: Liver and Spleen
- Dosage: Typically 6-15 grams
A quick search at Rootdown.us shows us that Bai Shao is included in 48 formulas. As the formula database is not complete on that site (it’s growing every day!) I’m certain the number is much higher. We could look at the usage of Bai Shao in each of those formulas and come to some conclusions about what kinds of effects it has and use those findings to further dive into the symbolism associated with the herb.
Use of the herb through the history of Chinese medicine, inclusion in various Classical texts
How did Zhang Zhong Jing use Bai Shao? How is this different from the way later physicians used it? What is said about Bai Shao in the Shennong Ben Cao Jing? This entry is getting a bit too long already, so I won’t delve into these questions — but you can see how the information would be very useful in coming to a full understanding of Bai Shao.
Understanding some of the above information more symbolically
Just as a quick example take the broad habitat adaptation of Bai Shao. It’s a relatively easy plant to grow - and it grows quickly. The Earth seems to want to give it to us in abundance. An herb that adaptable has to be important for the basic physiology of the body - one might think. Perhaps it lends itself to a certain adaptability in us as well.
Various systems of differentiation
Again, to save time I will be very brief. One way to understand Bai Shao is that it backs Wood off of Earth. This doesn’t mean that Wood has to be very excessive. Earth merely needs to be a bit under the weather (so to speak) and the normal amount of Wood will be too much for it. This is part of the way we can come to understand Bai Shao’s use in Xiao Jian Zhong Tang. One symptom one might find in a XJZT syndrome is mild muscle cramping or mild abdominal cramping due to a weak Earth being unable to resist the basically “normal” Wood energy. Bai Shao mildly backs Wood off of Earth so it can recover.
Organ clock and other high level theoretical constructs
Bai Shao is basically a Wood herb. How can we use the symbolism behind the Wood organs - Liver and Gallbladder, to come to a fuller understanding of Bai Shao? We can consider, perhaps, the symbol of the Ox or the Wood constellations in Chinese astronomy. We could look at the clock pair of the Liver and try to uncover any mysteries there.
—
Ok, so this turned out a little longer than I expected. My gut level instinct is simply this. While I am not personally interested in going down every little rabbit hole that the current information culture serves up for me, I am certainly open to embracing a wide variety of information sources. I find that when I am able to see an herb (and by extension a formula) from many angles, my relationship with it deepens. I can only assume that this is molding me into a better clinician. I’d be very interested to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this topic in the comments. Go on - take a chance!
Eric
Tags: chinese-herb, chinese-herbs, formula-science, formulas, herbs, integrative-medicine, scholar, study-methods, studying, western research
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