Beautiful video celebrating the health benefits of tea
I thought that Deepest Health readers might enjoy this video passed along to me by Pettygrove Classical Chinese Medicine clinic director, Beth French. She has submitted it as her application for the Calm-a-Sutra tea scholarship, so if you like it be sure to share it far and wide. It reminds me of one of my favorite health benefits of drinking tea - time to stop and breathe.
We’re going to have some great podcast interviews with Tea Monk Paul Rosenberg within the month - look for them coming soon.
Click on the video below to view it - feel free to share your reactions and favorite tea stories in the comments.
Eric
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Tags: health, tea, videoRelated 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
Quick housekeeping announcement
Hey folks,
I don’t know if it really matters or not, but I’m exclusively using http://deepesthealth.com instead of http://www.deepesthealth.com when I tell folks about my site. It’s also the preferred domain at Google. So, if you’ve got me in a blogroll or linked to an article, if you could use the non-www version, that would be great. Thanks!
Eric
Tags: Blogroll, health, teaRelated posts
Isn’t Chinese medicine just a bunch of spiritual mumbo-jumbo pseudo-science?
There are quite a few folks who would like to discount Chinese medicine out of hand. These people are unlikely to be convinced of its benefits until Western materialistic methods so thoroughly confirm it that there is no shadow of a doubt. Really, this group of people want to see all concepts of Chinese medicine translated into Western terms - eventually rendering Chinese medicine as just a quaint alternative way to discuss In my opinion, this promised land of verification is unlikely to be achieved. Much of the benefit of Classical Chinese medicine simply cannot be verified by the current commonly accepted forms of study. This is not to say that some level of verification is impossible to achieve - I think some level can and will be achieved. It simply isn’t likely to come from the land of double-blind placebo controlled studies or the realm of extraction, purification and verification of individual chemicals within herbs. No such verification is necessary, as Chinese medicine grows from its own ground and has internally consistent methods of testing and verification that have yielded a medicine that is remarkably safe and effective.
There are other people who, instead of discounting the medicine out of hand, simply want to strip it of all of the elements that seem to conflict with the findings of materialism. This is what Mao and Co. did when they took the diverse and interrelated parts of ancient Chinese medicine, sanitized them and gave birth to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This is what many people continue to do. The argument is that discussions of Spirit, demons, elementals and possession are superstition, while Qi and Blood are medicine. To make Chinese medicine relevant, they say, we need to purge it of all of that silly nonsense and retain that which is more reasonable.
To be sure, there are things that should be included in the official canon of Chinese medicine and there are things that should not be included. But to purge things simply because they relate to non-material aspects of being or involve language that some people are uncomfortable with is irresponsible. We need to understand what these things mean, interpret them within their ancient context and understand their relevance. It may be that we find different language is more appropriate for our contemporary context to describe some of these concepts - or it may be simply that we need to discard our prejudice and embrace more complex medical terminology.
Let’s take one concrete example - the concept of Shen 神, often translated as Spirit. Shen is said to be the domain of the Heart, it is also said to be the light of consciousness, the animating principle. It is present in every part of the body, carried in the blood, but it is uniquely carried in the Heart. The primary pathology involving Shen, “Shen Disturbance” is often likened to various forms of mental illness. To illustrate, in the Neijing, Qi Bo says, “神 有 餘 則 笑 不休 ， 神 不 足 則 悲” which can be translated as “When Shen is in an excess state, one has hysteria or mania. When Shen is in a deficient state, one has depression or profound sadness.” Here we can see the emotional dimensions of the Shen. It would be tempting to leave it at that, but elsewhere in the Neijing and other texts we find many different functions and concepts attributed to the Shen. Some of these functions and concepts do relate more to “spiritual” matters as they are seen in many Western cultures. Shen includes all of these things.
I think it is this multifaceted nature of Chinese medical terminology that puts people off of it and compels them to demand that it be as monodimensional as other forms of medicine. Because many terms cannot be easily defined or put in a one-to-one relationship with easily recognized Western medical concepts, people simply dismiss it. However, it is this complexity that make the medicine so powerful. If we take the time to study these concepts, to understand them intellectually as well as experientially we can understand a complex disease like clinical depression much better. I have used this approach trying to understand my own medical problems and have found it to be very helpful in finding new treatment directions.
Eric
Tags: clinic, disease, herbs, language, materialism, nature, neijing, Science, study, tea, traditional-chinese-medicineRelated posts
Top 5 underappreciated benefits of tea
One of the greatest pleasures in life is excellent tea. Personally, I prefer pu-er tea but can appreciate a great oolong and even an excellent smoky black. I am currently expanding my tastes into Japanese greens as well. I’m fortunate to live in a city, Portland that loves great tea. My good friend Paul Rosenberg owns a world-class tea business based here called Sacred Tea. He is a man full of integrity and absolutely dedicated to sharing a very deep understanding of tea and life in general with his lucky customers. I always love visiting with him - he always has something old and wonderful to share and plenty of stories to go with it. But when the stories stop and it’s just us and the tea, that’s when I realize the powers of this seemingly simple beverage. I want to encourage you to visit his site. He is offering tasting sets that will allow you to experience truly incredible teas for a very affordable cost, packaged with the care and beauty with which Paul is uniquely able to provide.
Tea certainly has many health benefits, reported by many sources. That’s great - but it doesn’t get to the heart of the power of tea. I could list the health benefits of tea from a Chinese medicine perspective and at some point I will probably do that - but in this hectic five minutes sitting between box towers in the middle of moving my home I will simply tell you the five least appreciated benefits of tea from my perspective.
1. Invitation to slow down: Give me a simple pot, a cup, and a couple of grams of excellent tea and you give me the space to simply BE. Life is hectic for many of us and it’s hard to find time to just let the mind float, to experience life and to let go of worries. Tea provides a reason to relax and a lovely experience while doing so. I encourage you to get a nice little pot and cup and to purchase good quality tea, even if you can only afford a little bit. This enhances the experience of “specialness” that really helps one to fully engage in the moment. It’s a mini vacation! In a cup!
2. Engagement of all the senses: As I have learned more about tea, I have begun to realize how it engages all of your senses. Your eyes take in the beauty of the leaf both before and during steeping. You can also appreciate the beauty of your tea ware, the steam rising from your cup and of course the sights all around you as you drink. You can smell the complex aromas of your tea before, during and after steeping. You may detect soil, grape, ocean and many more scents that will greatly enhance your appreciation. Although sound isn’t an intrinsic part of the tea experience, I hope you will try to “listen” to what the tea is telling you. Where is it from? Was it harvested and processed with love and care? What is its history? Certainly touch is involved. Feel the tea before you steep it. Is it heavier or lighter than you expected? What is the quality of the leaf? After steeping, handle the soaked leaves. You will also get the pleasant experience of the warmth of the tea being transmitted into your hands as you drink. Finally, the mother of all tea drinking sensations - taste. You can taste tea in a similar way to tasting wine, and that can be fun if you’ve never done it before. Clear your palate and then suck the tea in briskly with plenty of air. Let it course over your tongue and mouth and try to describe the flavors. But when that is done, simply enjoy the tea. Let its complexity and history unfold. Enjoy yourself! Who knows when you will meet this tea again?
3. Appreciation of other cultures: When you begin to learn about the teas you are drinking you will begin to learn about the cultures that produced them. Tea is a vital part of many cultures’ history and just as learning about Chinese medicine sometimes provokes self-education about Chinese culture, tea drinking can promote people to learn about other peoples and places. It’s important to know where your tea comes from and how it is traditionally consumed.
4. Spiritual benefits: In many ways, everything I have been talking about could be part of a “spiritual experience” of tea. If you pay close attention to the tea, if you allow the experience to enfold you - it is nothing short of transcendental. Consider incorporating tea into your daily meditation or journaling time. I like to wake early in the morning and steep special teas while I watch the sun come up just before doing QiGong. I find that it works on me in a similar way to meditation. It calms my mind and opens me to more subtle experiences of this divine universe in which we live.
5. Balancing of your internal environment: Although I will not go into great depth here about health benefits of tea, I do want to mention one thing. I believe many teas, especially those that are aged, resonate with the Earth element in five element symbolism. As such, they provide a “center” for everything in your body. Drinking great tea, especially pu-er, provides a stabilizing and balancing effect that is immediately apparent. Although some teas do have a high caffeine content (like oolong, for instance) many are close to caffeine free and even some that are not provide a mellowing effect that balances your whole system.
Tags: food, pu-er, pu-erh, spirituality, tea, tea-culture
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