Wendy

Handmade Moxa


A colleague in my office recently gave me some pure, aged, Japanese moxa from MoonGate Moxa Source.

I immediately used the Homare on two cases of arthritic pain and am happy to recommend it.

The incense is lovely, also!

www.ElementalChanges.com Pure Moxa

 Please share these photos with accurate credit siting to: ELEMENTAL CHANGES • www.ElementalChanges.com

 Please share these photos with accurate credit siting to: ELEMENTAL CHANGES • www.ElementalChanges.com

 Please share these photos with accurate credit siting to: ELEMENTAL CHANGES • www.ElementalChanges.com

 Please share these photos with accurate credit siting to: ELEMENTAL CHANGES • www.ElementalChanges.com

Please only share these photos with accurate credit siting to: ELEMENTAL CHANGES • www.ElementalChanges.com

thread moxa, direct moxa, moxibustion,

okyu, japan, incense, chinese medicine, moxa floss,

tcm, acupuncture, japanese incense, mugwort,

acupuncture treatment, moxa, artemisia vulgaris,

miyabi, homare, matsu

Elemental Changes - Asheville Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Understanding Qi and QiGong

We are part of nature and its cycles. If we go against natural cycles sickness results, so it is in our best interest to follow the way of nature. This is the meaning of Tao. This is an excellent video discourse and demonstration overviewing principles of Qi, Tao, Qigong, acupuncture and Chinese herbs. Cultivating understanding and practice in the way Qi flows, and knowing how to regulate it correctly, one should be able to live a healthy, long life.

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Cupping Therapy in TCM

Cupping, Báguàn 拔罐, is a traditional technique that uses specialized glass or bamboo cups on particular surface areas of the body. A vacuum seal is created by using a small flame as a source to suction out air, although suction can be created using a hand-held pump device and a slightly different type of glass cup that it attaches to. The suction that is created within any of these types of cups releases the flow of QI in the muscle layers, helping to alleviate wind headache, colds and flu with body aching, ‘Bi’ or painful syndromes, as well as useful for detoxification, and asthma. Reddish or purple circular markings may remain at the local area for several days following a cupping treatment as stagnation is drawn from deeper layers of tissue up to the surface. This is a completely natural result.

This practitioner has excellent technique in the application of fire into the cups and getting good suction.

 

Wendy's Chop

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Wu Wei 无为 Action Through Non-Action

✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.

Do not burden yourself with depressing thoughts, do not get anxious about future events that may never happen, and do not dwell on things that are well in the past. All of these emotions dissipate the brightness of Shen (Heart Spirit). If we over-extend our Heart we will harm its Qi. If this happens, Jing (Kidney Essence) will also suffer damage, and the Shen, consequently, will lose its residence.

Doctrines of both Confucius and his student Mencius taught to refrain from striving, inflexibility, egotism, self-righteousness, expectation, and the use of force at any level. Even though both masters never said much about medicine, the art of nourishing the Spirit and Essence was understood. Wu Wei is a common truth in Taoist Chinese practices that can help to preserve this interdependent relationship between the Heart and the Kidney and show the path of Tao.

Dreaming of Butterflies. Yuan Dynasty.

An understanding of Eastern philosophy benefits us today as much as ever. The ‘causality’ approach to life is very often anathema to the timeless Tao (or Way) of the Universe. Countless scenarios play out before us that we become compelled to change. Do we engage in interactions through which we intend to prevent, prepare, or secure an outcome? Any force-of-will moves to create specified responses to our desires. Whatever must be asserted and managed is necessarily skewed to a particular perspective and liable to subsequent folly.

The wisdom of the Tao values balance, receptivity and emptiness. Many problems arise from re-acting, striving, and controlling.

Tao is eternally inactive,
and yet nothing is left undone

A Taoist pivot is active in cultivating awareness of the ways of the universe and one’s part herein. Cultivating a state of being that flows and responds with minimal action for our efforts reflects Wu Wei. This is not an expression of laziness or a lack of interest, but rather effortless efficiency. Guided by elemental rhythms of the natural world, as well as supernatural and alchemical influence, a classical Taoist finds an earthly pivot in Wu Wei. Letting all things play out, not engaged by will and ego, but keenly observant of an authentic progression of every moment, is Wu Wei. We are neither caring nor uncaring and yet Wu Wei does not imply overlooking those who are afflicted. Wu Wei may be considered an experience of one’s life path that is clear of rote emotional reactions, favoring a pivot where one acts rather than reacts, and one allows rather than resists changes. Our progress occurs naturally when we act in harmony and seek no progress at the expense of our genuine devotion to the ways of the Sage. Correcting our own thoughts, attitudes, and actions sets a course for whole-hearted improvement.

Action by non-action thereby allows evolution to take place instead of revolution and conditions that might further extremes.

The Taoist path of Wu Wei is neither difficult nor easy. By observing and simply ‘being’ we come to sense the natural and the supernatural and align with the way of Tao. Mirroring the universe we become whole. Our experiences and interests in the outside world become synergistic and complete. “Cherish the people and order the kingdom, and you can do without meddlesome action.” “If kings and nobles could but hold fast to this principle, all things would work.” Remember, these ideas are most valuable when they are absorbed slowly and applied loosely to everyday life. 

The Tao that Can Be Named

is Not The Eternal Tao

www.ElementalChanges.com Yin_Yang

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Alchemy of Chinese Herbs

Photography Wendy Brown

Herbs and roots are life-nourishing.

They are sustenance as well as medicine,

and convey nature’s forces. 

Through their connection to the natural world, herbs and roots of Chinese medicine imbue their resonance with these forces within us.

Regulated by the rhythms of Yin and Yang, influenced by the 5 elements (sun, soil, minerals, water, and other trees and plants), and through their ability to adapt to the climatic factors of heat and cold, wind, dryness and dampness, herbs renew our resilience. 

The immortal Mágū, collecting medicinal roots, fruits and plants

Immortal Mágū collecting medicinal roots, fruits and plants

Chinese medicine has a long history of practices that propagate life; practices to nourish and prolong life through our mental-physical-spiritual oneness with nature. Such concepts and knowledge of creating rarified, spiritual states of being and longevity have passed through Taoist lineages, preserving the Three Treasures Jīng, Qì and Shen.

BURDOCK ROOT

The energetic nature of herbs and other organic substantive matter, in their particular parts, collected and prepared specifically to confer the essence of their elemental forces, guide and help to make whole.

 

 

 

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Acupuncture Detox for Chemical Addiction Cessation

✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.

Auricular acupuncture is clinically proven to be the most effective natural method of chemical detoxification. Chemical addictions are insidious, and acupuncture can reduce cravings and lessen associated withdrawal symptoms that plague people in the process of quitting, and which so often sabotage success. It must be established, however, that acupuncture is not a magical cure. Although it does effectively mute and redirect the buildup of craving energy and bestows resilience to the human vessel, acupuncture treatment for cessation of addiction does not turn cravings off per se. A commitment from the patient to move forward with treatment and the healing process can only be made on a personal level by the patient. The physical and psycho-emotional health of an individual develops as it overcomes and transforms the shackles of chemical addictions, and acupuncture helps significantly.

My own hand-drawn design - aren't you impressed?

my drawing-design of the 5 auricular points

The Treatment: 5 auricular(ear) acupuncture points have proven highly effective for breaking addiction. Investigations into the efficacy of acu-detox have repeatedly demonstrated that acupuncture stimulates endorphin release, the body’s ‘feel-good’ hormones. At the same time, specifically, the principles of Chinese medicine show that acupuncture needling heals by stimulating a person’s inherent Qi. Harmonious Qi flow circulates and adjusts within the body, creating equilibrium that preserves and strengthens organ function and grants the organism structurally and emotionally flexibility. Adjusting Qi to release calming, pain-inhibiting endorphins amounts to a most successful natural method of successfully getting a handle on addiction to move beyond destructive habits toward freedom and health.Chemically addicting agents enter the Heart orifice, altering and injuring Shen (spirit that resides in the Heart), thus causing obfuscation of the Heart sovereign’s sensing and processing of thought. Addictions exhaust blood and shorten lifespan. In Chinese medicine, tobacco, specifically, is categorized as having a pungent taste and a hot, toxic nature. Tobacco use depletes Jing (essence of the kidney), which lends explanation to the particular toxicity of tobacco during pregnancy. According to Chinese medicine, tobacco pathologically dries vital fluids and Jing-Essence, on top of the focal harmful effects on the lungs, which is why it is considered to be largely, if not likely entirely, without medicinal benefit.

Tobacco was introduced in China in 1575. The last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chong Zhen (1611 –1644), enacted laws against smoking and by the Qing Dynasty it became known medically that tobacco scorches Kidney Jing and the vital fluids with its pungent and drying nature, damaging the lungs, throat, and stomach, as well. Tobacco was noted to lessen the perception of food and drink tastes, and to make the tongue coating dark yellow, or eventually black, indicating heat toxicity critically building up in the body. I offer to assist patients break their substance addiction, and most commonly for nicotine cessation. 

Wendy's Chop

Note from Wendy: Having gained hands-on knowledge from fieldwork and training in New York City and Boston area facilities that successfully apply the 5-point auricular method; Having participated in treating heavily drug and alcohol-addicted populations by applying the 5-point ear detox acupuncture method, and witnessing the noteworthy results it yields in the three decades that I have offered this method to patients; I invite you to please share this post with anyone interested in quitting their chemical addiction.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved. ELEMENTAL CHANGES Oriental Medical Arts.

 

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Burdock

Medicinally, burdock root, leaf, and seed are quite different. In traditional Chinese medicine, Niú Bàng Zǐ 牛旁子, or the dried fruiting seeds of Arctium lappa L., are collected in early autumn and then sun-dried. These seeds are the primarily used part of the wild burdock plant in Chinese medicine, having an acrid, slightly bitter flavor and slight cold nature that goes to the lung and stomach meridians. Niú Bàng Zǐ yields, in decoction, significant antipyretic and antibacterial effects that detoxify various conditions.

BURDOCK ROOT

WILD BURDOCK ROOT

Wild burdock root, known as gobō 牛蒡, was introduced to Japan from China around 940 AD and has been eaten as a vegetable since. Burdock root assists in lowering blood sugar and cholesterol. It reduces the accumulation of food stasis, phlegm, toxins, and waste in the body from constipation. Burdock root is considered useful in preventing and treating stroke and some cancers, and contains a range of B vitamins that make it beneficial for buffering the liver. Burdock root can be added to stir-fries, made into pickles and condiments, and has an enticing texture.

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Incense and Rooting the Spirit

✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.

The sense orifice of smell can have strong effects on the aspect of Spirit known in Chinese medicine as Shen. Burning clean, resinous incense can open the Heart-Spirit, and in part, enhances our remembering of what is important. Incense prepared with quality medicinal substances has the ability, as thought in shamanic and alchemical traditions, to sedate the illusory, fleeting, there-then-it’s-gone-again nature of wind. Resinous materials can help to seal ‘holes’ or chinks in our protective Wei aspect of QI, while profoundly stabilizing our inner world and anchoring the Spirit.

Meditative practice is useful to guide awareness toward releasing the longings, set-backs, temptations, ideas, belongings and so forth, that cause the Shen to be stirred. The transformative properties of burning medicinal herbs and materials in the form of incense is a harmonizing backdrop. With understanding from a settledness of Spirit we may more wholly embrace worldly existence.

www.ElementalChanges.com IncenseThe following link offers incense recipes. 

http://bearmedicineherbals.com/incense.html

Important Note: Resin is an immunological secretion used by trees to help protect the tree from potential pests and pathogens, often secreted after the outer surface of the tree has been breached. Harvesters, please respect the importance of resin for a tree and refrain from *ever* ripping off chunks that may endanger it! Resin, differentiated from sap, is found deeper inside the tree and transports water, nutrients, hormones and other vital fluids through the tree.

Sit gracefully with a single stick of incense; drift among the white clouds wild as a river heron. -Loy Ching-Yuen, Book of the Heart.

Sit gracefully with a single stick of incense; drift among the white clouds wild as a river heron. -Loy Ching-Yuen, Book of the Heart.

Posted by Wendy in analytical

The Arts of Internal Cultivation

✍️Wᴇɴᴅʏ Bʀᴏᴡɴ, Lic. Ac.

MIRCOCOSMIC ORBIT  

SIX HEALING SOUNDS

To understand the Tao, people of antiquity lived lives in accordance with the interplay of yin and yang. Eating and acting moderately, they refrained from dissipating strength through unseemly behavior, and thus, conserved Jing essence and lived out their years. This same timeless path unfolds today.

Six Healing Sounds

Six Healing Sounds

The Six Healing Sounds is an inner art that transforms subtle energy accumulated in and around the organs. Practicing the ‘Six healing sounds and Inner smile’ daily can dissipate static energy in the form of lingering heat around the organs that diminishes vitality and weighs on mental-emotional disposition. Transformed and liberated into vital Qi, the energy may further be circulated throughout the body, guided intentionally through other forms such as the microcosmic orbit.

Microcosmic Orbit

Microcosmic Orbit


Microcosmic orbit is a Taoist inner-cultivation practice. Through breathing to circulate Qi, Qi passes through the points/energy centers linking the Ren [front-midline] and Du [back-midline] channels. On inhalation, yang waxes and yin wanes; on exhalation, yin waxes and yang wanes, and the heavenly circle flows.

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Taoist Inner Landscape

MASTERY OF ONE’S INNER LANDSCAPE

We are encapsulations of space-time motions, channels forming in the sea of formless and refining Essence.

www.ElementalChanges.com Nèijīng tú Continue reading →

Posted by Wendy in analytical