children’s healthcare

Feb

2014

TREATMENT OF CHILDREN BY ORIENTAL MEDICINE

Increasingly, children are growing up here in the West with acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine as a routine part of promoting health and treating the onslaught of childhood health complaints. Children, like adults, suffer from imbalances of QI which are vital to get to the root of. However, our young friends are not mini-adults; their energy is delicate and formative. What happens with them in the capacity of their care and habits that are formed is greatly determined by factors beyond their control.

Confucius presenting the Guatama Buddha baby to Lao t’zu.

By helping to educate parents on care for children in the wisdom of oriental medicine, and relying on these treatment methods, prevents imbalances and pathogenic factors from settling in that further weaken, pattern, and chart a course for the child’s future health. Various childhood infectious diseases, as well as problems with diet, food cravings, sleep, and emotions commonly effect children and can be well-addressed through the practices and support of oriental medicine. Good health and well-being of a child is likely to increase happiness of the family.

Dec

2012

THE SOVEREIGN NUMBER 9 ☯

Moon Bridge, Beijing, China ☯ Creatively adapted by E.C.O.M.A.

The highest number in Chinese numerology is 9, which is often associated with the Heart. In addition to the numbers 5 and 12 in symbolic categorization of phenomena, according to numbers, 9 plays an important role in ancient Chinese cosmology. 9 is the number symbolic from which all else transpires. Sacred books such as the Tao te Ching and the Huangdi NeiJing were often written in 81 chapters [i.e. 9 x 9], indicating that the content of said book is inspired by a Heavenly source and descriptive of Heavenly measures. In medical texts, there are occasional references to a resonance between the 9 provinces on Earth [Jiu Zhou] and the 9 orifices of humans [Jiu Qiao]. -Heiner Fruehauf

If you wish to read the relevant passage in context, an excellent [and the only complete] English translation is published, ‘The Huainanzi.’: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14204-5/the-huainanzi. Interestingly, the somewhat enigmatic term Jiu Jie, or the Nine Regions of Heaven, is only used once in ancient Chinese literature, namely this passage from The Huainanzi. Most traditional commentators of this passage mention that the number 9 refers to the 8 directions of the bagua, accounting for the center.