15Feb
15Nov
Sciatica: My Story
Personal Experience
The experience of a typical sciatica pain on the right side of my body stretched over a period of several years. Most of the time my lower back and leg pain was agonizing and I had to be super careful to keep my back, hip and leg warm at all times.
Searching for Pain Relief
When young, I was an avid cross country skier and remember having several minor accidents where I landed on my tail bone. I believe that those experiences were the beginning of my lower back pain, which through the years developed into a herniated disk and full-blown sciatica.
I searched and used many forms of therapy, particularly natural pain relief with Acupuncture and Chinese healing herbs, but the pain kept coming back when the weather was cold and damp. I had to be careful and use the above methods as soon as the first symptoms emerged.
Sciatica Exercises
As in any form of back pain therapy, it is important for you to know what the cause of sciatica is before you design an exercise program. After the diagnostic assessment, an acupuncturist or a physiotherapist can be of help.
In my case I learned that moving and doing exercises is better than bed rest. My choice was to incorporate a few Yoga stretches into my Non-invasive Acupuncture and Chi Kung self-healing program. This combination was helpful for many years.
A Small Surgery to Relieve Pain.
As I mentioned earlier, the cause of my pain was a herniated disc pressing on the root of the sciatic nerve. Finally, a micro-operation was done, which relieved the pressure and pain. For this, I am extremely thankful to our Western medicine and the skillful surgeon who performed the task!
Just in case you or your loved ones back and leg pain are caused by a herniated or a degenerative disc, have this checked out by an MRI or X-ray. If your doctor recommends a micro-operation, please consider it for it is a safe, one-day procedure which can make you permanently free of sciatica.
Suggestions
My body is still sensitive to cold and damp, and I continue to use the DIY acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, but now as a strengthening and preventive measure. This way my body stays completely pain-free and supple, I don’t get colds, I have good stamina, and I am happy. And I wish the same to you!
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the kidneys are the foundation of life. As we get older the aches and pains we experience are usually associated with Kidney Yin and/or Yang weakness.
One or a few visits to a well trained Chinese Medicine doctor in your area could give you an understanding of your body’s strengths and weaknesses. By asking questions you would know which of the patterns of disharmony are predominant in your particular situation and learn about the needle-less acupuncture for healing and rejuvenation.
Please read and purchase our strategies and tools, which will enable you to live in glorious freedom from all pain. Click to see the program outline:
Return to your Brilliance!
15Nov
Chinese Herbal Medicine
A short Introduction
While the use of Natural Healing Remedies grew primarily to help cure illnesses, healing herbs were, and still are, also used to maintain youthful vigour and smooth flow of Chi through our physical networks.
Ideally herbs are used for prevention. There is an old saying, ‘It’s better to dig a well before you run out of the water.’
However, the classification of Chinese Healing Herbs developed because of the need to cure illnesses with complex symptoms.
What makes these substances correct dis-harmonies or help revitalize the person who is using them?
Human beings and herbs have one thing in common – both are of nature, which encompasses the entire material universe and its phenomena.
The root of the word nature is Nasci< Latin – to be born. The cells of plants, animals and humans are in perpetual renewal, nothing ever dies, forms only change according to the movement of Chi with its myriad qualities.
Being born is an essential character in all things and beings, not isolated, not even a part but the integrated whole. Being in renewal is innate – of nature!
Natural healing remedies are of nature, not broken down into chemical components like drugs, but working in a roundabout way, holistically resonating with the same kind of Chi.
Marshall McLuhan said, “Matter does not matter!”
Since all Life is radiation and resonance, let us forget matter for a moment!
Vibrating, resonating life includes plant, animal and mineral kingdoms as well as human life, nature’s most complex expression.
Life’s very purpose is its process – to evolve naturally, to remain harmonious.
The mineral kingdom is a simple form of vibratory life fossilized into a certain frequency. In vegetation, the cells breathe in and out the changes in constant continuum and each cell re-creates itself naturally in the process of life and death.
This diversified continuum is directed by Wu Chi, the Primal Creative Energy, manifesting in all and everything. It is harmonizing and creating new combinations according to two of the basic laws in Creation. . .
Motion and Attraction of Similar Radiations. ‘Birds of the Feather Flock Together!’
The overall harmonious co-operative is Tao – the Way, a still point within everything while causing movement – like an axis in the centre of a wheel.
It seems that healing herbs with a particular quality and magnetism – a particular vibratory frequency, are drawn to a similar ‘milieu’. Through it, the herbs’ qualities affect the channel and organ functions and through that the entire body.
Therapeutic potential of an herb depends on its taste and temperature as well as its ability to move within the channel network. The herb must also be able to lead or to harmonize and support actions of other herbs in a formula.
Variations in combinations create possibilities for different actions.
The practitioner works on the basis that natural healing remedies do not cure, but they assist and support nature in her ongoing process to harmonize and nurture life.
For a certain deficiency in the body, such as of blood (Anemia), the herbs can supply certain constituents so the body may improve its blood. This way an overall vital force is strengthened and harmonized.
Here is an example from my own experience. When I was studying Chinese Medicine in the eighties, the pressure to study day and night had built to such an extent that I was totally exhausted, began to have palpitations and chest pains.
After examining me, my teacher prescribed a common patent formula called “Gui Pi Wan’. Soon the pains were gone, and this medicine has come handy through the years whenever I am overworked and need an energy boost.
Also, ‘Let your food be medicine and medicine be your food’ is another old Chinese proverb.
A twentieth-century scholar Lin Yutang wrote: “The Chinese do not draw the distinction between food and medicine. What is good for the body is medicine and at the same time food.”
Daily meals are often flavoured and supplemented with the same herbs the herbalists use in their formulas.
The essential message of this short introduction to Chinese Healing Herbs is that the wonderful nature we all share within and without, is a subtle co-operative vibrating creatively, being born in an ongoing continuity and newness.
The connections are intricate yet each part fits into the greater whole. This working together seems to be the primary aim of nature when we view its uniqueness, its harmony and its beauty.
Animals search in nature for those plants that benefit their well-being.
Shouldn’t we as human beings, who have been bestowed with greater co-operative intelligence also accept, that it is wise to look for answers in nature, of which we are the most evolved and exultant expression?
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15Nov
Human Blood
Human Blood as a Radiating Force and Bridge to greater Consciousness
The meaning of Human Blood (Xue) in Chinese Medicine is different from its Western counterpart. The name Blood in Western medicine is generally understood by its precise parameters of chemistry and histology. On this page, we specifically mean blood according to the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
According to TCM, the Fundamental Substances within the human body are Jing, Chi, Shen, Blood and Body Fluids
Body fluids are derived from food and especially from drink. They warm and nourish the muscles and moisten the skin. Within the body, they lubricate the joints, tone the brain and moisten the orifices.
Human Blood, being instrumental in all-over metabolism of the body contains a large amount of fluids. And sweat, urine and saliva are all formed from body fluids.
While one of the five fundamental substances, and although important for instance in flushing out toxins, the fluids are considered as ‘less refined, less essential and less deep’ than Blood, Jing, Chi and Shen.
Blood, Jing, Chi and Shen
Human Blood, being the life-giving substance which circulates throughout the body, is also regarded as a radiating Force, yet with a definite sensitivity to the influence of varied qualities of Chi Energy. Blood depends on Chi even for its formation from air and food as well as for its ability to move and remain in the blood vessels.
Chi and blood are intimately related and most of the acupuncture channels reside along the blood vessels. Blood is receptive Yin in relation to Chi, which in general has active Yang characteristics.
Chi is considered to be the commander of Blood, while Blood is the mother of Chi. (As the mother of vital energy, is it not wisdom to nourish the Blood with best quality food, drink, good thoughts and actions as well as a natural, regular lifestyle?)
Since in relation to Chi, Blood is Yin, it then is receptive to the active Chi, particularly of the Heart Chi – Shen or Spirit. In the Organ Functions section, you’ll read that Heart, considered ‘the Sovereign Fire – the Emperor’, controls the Blood and blood vessels.
Jing Chi, the Primal Intelligence operating within every cell of the body and Shen, the Spirit are the powerful, radiating forces within the blood. With this, all divisions dissolve and the Blood is just one aspect of the unified functioning of the human being.
Does this not begin to clarify the mystery of human blood! Abd-ru-shin speaks of it “In the Light of Truth”: ‘Blood is meant to form the bridge for the activity of the spirit on earth’.
Blood as a Radiating Force and Bridge to Human Spirit Consciousness.
Accepting Blood Radiation as the Bridge to Human Spirit, it then can also be instrumental for expanding consciousness through the work on Jing, Chi and Shen.(Please read the Chi Guide page).
Realization of this is stupendous, almost overwhelming. Think, it can bridge the gap that has existed ever since the purely intellectual capacity claimed the primary directing role for humans, who therefore became seemingly separated from the laws of nature and spiritual dimensions of life.
And it is only a seeming separation – for the laws of cosmos operate unfailingly. We have recklessly used our inner and outer natural resources, and in spite of many clever advances made in science and technology, we now see dire consequences of this in nature and in individual lives. According to Tao and all other spiritual teachings, we reap what we sow!’
Bridging the Gap between the old and new Medicine.
Understanding what Blood in Chinese Medicine means, can help bring the old and new medicine to a new, integrated level, where each one can contribute with clarity and trust for the benefit of mankind.
Dr. Maurice Bucke (1839-1902) was a progressive psychiatrist and the author of ‘Cosmic Consciousness’, a classic study of higher consciousness. In his work as a psychiatrist, he initiated new approaches in treating the mentally ill. But imagine, had he known about the exalted role of Human Blood, he might have used a simple blood transfusion along with dietary changes as well as work on Jing, Chi and Shen with amazing results.
The useful discoveries made in the last century – radiology – ultra-sound – magnetic resonance imagery etc. speak even in their names about the Radiation Connection that is Fundamental to Life.
And the efforts and discoveries in quantum physics, for instance, quantum objects being perceived by scientists as light waves OR particles also point toward this connection.
However, it is impossible to observe quantum objects with scientific instruments, the same way as Chi cannot be proven by them. Chi exists on the level of a different concept of time and space. Similarly, acupuncture/herbal treatments and meditation can be proven only by their beneficial results. Chinese Medicine has been practised for thousands of years on that basis.
The acceptance of the unified field theory as ‘One Expanding Life directed by the ultimate Chi Guide’ is only a question of time. Our consciousness is taking its inevitable leap. This will make everything New!
‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.’ – Albert Einstein
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15Nov
CHI Energy Transformation
Chi Energy transformation within the Five Phases or Elements is central to Chinese tradition.
Five tastes of pungent, salty, sour, bitter and sweet are used in everyday cooking to affect the flavour of food, and five tones in music make music sound truly Chinese.
Melting and mixing of colours white, dark blue or black, green, red and yellow are used in chi energy transformation if something disagreeable is sensed in the environment.
The Five Phases or Elements of Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth are regarded as five features inherent in all living things and should be understood as processes or tendencies in chi energy transformation rather than concrete physical manifestations.
The processes express the interdependence and restraint that is evident even in tiniest particles of life. The Five Phases are one with the natural progression toward balancing Yin and Yang, while each phase simultaneously represents its own related functions and qualities.
Nature is intelligent beyond our comprehension through its constant chi energy transformations. We can only fathom that within every cell of each living organism is a ‘Tao code’, which determines the form, function and quality of the cell’s unique expression of life.
And that expression, when not interfered with from its alignment with Tao, is always life-giving and harmonious, even in time of decay as the beauty ‘burns’ to ashes and nourishing continues in a new way.
The Interaction of Five Phases within the Body
The cyclic interaction within the body mirrors that of the Five Phases in greater nature. In the practice of Chinese Medicine, they are used in diagnosis and treatment.
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Metal – Lung/Large intestine – represents autumn, decline but also substance, strength and structure. The colour is white, the flavour pungent and the negative emotions are grief and sadness; positive courage, dignity, appropriateness.
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Water – Kidney/Urinary bladder. The associated season is Winter when nature is at rest before starting another cycle of growth. The colour is black or dark blue, the flavour is salty and the emotion fear or fright, which through the chi energy transformation becomes alert stillness and gentleness.
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Wood – Liver/Gall Bladder – is associated with spring and activity, constantly growing and rapidly changing. The colour is green, the flavour sour and the negative emotions, when Chi is not flowing naturally, are anger, resentment, jealousy; positive are kindness, forgiveness and assertiveness.
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Fire – Heart/Small Intestine and Pericardium/Triple Warmer – is associated with summer. It represents a function which has reached its maximum stage before it begins to decline – Fire is dynamic and moving, brilliant in its activity. The colour is red, the flavour bitter and the negative emotions are hate, impatience; when transformed they are love, joy, gratitude, creative enthusiasm, honour, etc.
Earth – Spleen-Pancreas/Stomach – is associated with the harvest time. It is the patient and nourishing mediator, it represents balance and neutrality. The colour is yellow, the flavour bland or sweet and the negative emotions are worry and over thinking; positive is fairness and openness – and singing is associated with the free flow of spleen Chi. You can learn more by watching the following short video. The Five Phases correspond to each other through nourishing and controlling cycles. Metal nourishes Water, Water nourishes Wood, Wood nourishes Fire, Fire nourishes Earth, Earth nourishes Metal.
In the controlling or destructing cycle Metal shapes Wood, Water quells Fire, Wood controls Earth, Fire forms Metal and Earth controls Water.
Each element within the phases relates to the functioning and chi energy transformation of the internal organs. It promotes the following element and controls the element across the cycle.
However, if the organ function is unbalanced, that organ, not being able to complete the chi energy transformation within the natural meridian circuit, may act adversely across the cycle.
For instance, if Chi within the heart is unbalanced it may overact on the lung (since fire controls metal) causing congestion. This results in a lack of oxygen, which can lead to congestive heart failure.
The law for nourishment and control is an important consideration in any treatment plan. “In order to bring the body into harmony, one observes and keeps constant the standard of the Five Phases of Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal.” – Neijing.
In this constant chi energy transformation, we could describe Chi as matter OR matter as Chi. Divisions dissolve . . . AHA! Could we correlate this to the ongoing quandary about quantum objects which Einstein described as being light waves OR particles?
“The cosmos itself is an integral whole, a web of inter-related things and events . . . Within this web of relationships and change, any entity can be defined only by its function and has significance only as a part of the whole pattern.” – ‘The Web That Has No Weaver’ by Ted Kapchuk.
When we habitually attune to the unseen, unified dynamics of life we learn to understand the interrelationships or patterns within the web of our wonderful creation.
By doing this we can knowingly assist Mother Nature in her constant chi energy transformations, and balancing Yin and Yang, not only within our own being but also within the greater cosmos.
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10Jul
