cultivating health

Oct

2014

Instructions to the Yellow Emperor

Xi Wangmu’s Instructions

to The Yellow Emperor

Drinking and gobbling up food, your body will never be light. Fretting and worrying, your Spirit will never be pure. Craving sounds and sights, your Heart will never be calm. Without calmness of Heart, your Spirit will never be numinous. Not numinous of Spirit, the Tao cannot work its wonders. Success is not in homage or worship, which rather make you suffer and exhaust the body. Success is in deepening the Spirit powers of your Heart. There is no effort needed, the Tao of Immortality is there!

NOW YOU CAN LIVE LONG

Oct

2014

Fall Foods to Cultivate Health

✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.

With chill in the air it is of particular importance to recognize our need for nourishing foods. Along with the cold, autumn brings the seasonal influence of dryness. Fall is a time of contraction; when our bodies and the natural surroundings tighten and contract to maintain warmth. Rather than salads, raw juices, and foods that are chilled, which appeal in summer and late summer seasons, in transitioning to fall it becomes essential that our food be nourishing, grounding, and that it secure warmth within.

In fall we build our bodily stores for winter. Nuts are good food and whole grains such as millet and sweet rice are a must. Paramount in autumn are roasted root vegetables such as parsnip, sweet potato, beets, turnip, rutabaga, leeks, and carrots, which provide nourishing starches, vitamins, build protein-rich stores, and offer a balanced warming nature that is especially beneficial now. Winter squashes offer similar nourishment to that of root vegetables. Cooking methods of roasting, stewing, sautéing, and mashing offer plenty of versatility in the preparation of root vegetables and winter squashes. Ripened pears and persimmon are autumn’s perfect medicinal fruit offerings which nourish and replenish the yin of the lungs and stomach, bringing balance to the effects of seasonal dryness.

With there always being a fine line between nourishing and clogging the body, it is best to keep food portions reasonably light and to cook everything well now, and throughout the upcoming more inactive season of winter to therefore enhance digestion. Nourishment from food is the source of strengthening Wei Qi which wards externally pernicious wind invasion and prevents colds and flu from setting in. This is now the time to reduce coffee and other stimulant foods. In the phase of autumn, slowing down, building reserves, and grounding for the eventuality of winter, we remain in rhythm with the expectations of the season, and continue regardless of the excesses of the season, to cultivate good health and wisdom.

With all best wishes for

good health and well being

Aug

2014

Cholesterol from a TCM Perspective

Did you know that Yang-energy fight or flight hormones associated with stress rhythms can cause an elevation in cholesterol?

Traditional Chinese Yin-Yang theory is adaptable to classify all universal phenomena, including the modern dietary-lifestyle staples that play into most health conditions. Coffee, sugar, and alcohol, among the more ubiquitous, have an overwhelming and weakening effect on the interconnected systems of the body. In the polarity of Yin-Yang, these substances are seen to liberate a lot of Yang Qi, which is to say the active, warming, dynamic aspects of the functioning, material form. Stress hormones have a similar effect in liberating Yang Qi.

In Yin-Yang theory of TCM, to balance excessive Yang, the body functionally secretes Yin to compensate to bring balance to the Yang excess, which includes secretion of the inherently densely Yin substance of cholesterol. Due to factors of over-consumption of strongly Yang-natured substances, and possible familial predisposition, often this compensation of Yin in the form of cholesterol occurs to pathological levels. Much more than avoiding eggs (which can be refuted as irrelevant) to prevent or reduce cholesterol are the dietary factors of coffee, sugar, and alcohol that are far more debilitating. In Chinese medical theory balancing Yin and Yang is key to physical health and mental well being. Eliminating stress and the dietary factors that liberate an abundance of Yang Qi in the body is the first step to reducing elevated Yin-levels of cholesterol, and it is the final step in maintaining healthy blood cholesterol.

Oct

2013

Over-Thinking

Worry and anxiety are examples of excessive thinking recognized by traditional Chinese medicine as injurious to the harmony of the Spleen. The Spleen, in tandem with the Stomach, constitute the digestive process. The Spleen also secures residence to the intellect, or Yi. Pensiveness, brooding, compulsive thought, study and the like, disrupt the Spleen functions of absorbing nutrients and subsequently generating blood. Mental processing, a function of Yi, can drain Spleen Qi. Blood carries nutrients required for cellular regeneration. Aging is ultimately a weakening of nutrient absorption. This often gets people’s attention.

When the Spleen is healthy, Yi communicates with frequencies of one’s world with clarity so thought process is directed into action in an integrated way where the individual is largely contented and not overly attached to concerns or outcomes. Emotional entanglement, as will too much sitting, allow mental process the range to become a source of obfuscation and illness. This has significance also for the great many who daily gaze at their cellphones, taking in the world of ideas, making comparisons and evaluations that then need to be digested – drawing on the function of Spleen Qi. This may seem like a small piece, but it is an important one.

‘Racing and hunting craze the mind.
No strife, then no blame.’ -I Ching