personal transformation

Feb

2016

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.

The 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.

Jan

2015

Nature Makes Whole

Truth is evident but often ignored or yet unrealized. This moment is the path.

We suffer the blocks of our own emotions and grievances. To bring about homeostasis and harmony sometimes we must shift in our perceptions and awareness to change the experience. As microcosms of the great universal whole, the forces and flow of nature offer self-organizing and self-correcting resonance. The process of healing and growth happens in this moment. Allow the simplicity of nature to guide you.

Nov

2014

Living in the Tao

Reverently entering nature and observing the flow of streams, rivers, and waterfalls is, in itself, one of the natural remedies for a troubled mind. Water benefits the ten thousand things and yet does not compete with them. Water dwells in places the masses of people detest. People detest such places not because they are bad, but because they are unfamiliar; they are held back by fear of the unknown or thrust forward in fearful arrogance, in either manner not trusting in the Tao.

Photo by Marc Newland

Fear is the emotion that ultimately causes the most difficulties. Learning to move gracefully around obstacles, like water does, is one of the aims of practicing T’ai Qi. Joining the flow of Tao, wherever it may go, leads one to unusual places, but places meant to be visited by those who have devoted themselves to the Tao.

Each of us a different face of the same journey. Adapted from Spirit of Peace, by Subhuti Dharmananda.

Sep

2014

‘The Clouds Should Know Me By Now’

Leaves fall, where no green earth remains. A person at ease wears this plain, white robe. With simplicity and plainness one’s original nature is still. Therefore, what need is there to practice “Calming of the Heart?”

Chia-Tao 779-843

Buddhist poet of the middle Tang dynasty

Translation by Mike O’Connor & Red Pine

Oct

2013

Rules and Judgement, Su Wen Ch.70

Judgment [lun cai] and mind [zhi yi] must be based upon laws and rules. If one follows the classics, observing the calculations and accordingly, practicing [medicine] with due reverence to these rules, will be of benefit and set an example for all humankind. If the way is carefully observed, myriad diseases can be cured. Qi and Blood will assume a proper balance, and the Mandate of Heaven will last long.

Pertaining to Rules and Judgements

• If one punishes where there is no transgression, this is a great error.

• If one rebels against the grand norms of nature, True Qi cannot be restored.

• If a practitioner treats a repletion as if it were a depletion, if s/he considers evil Qi as if it were true Qi, and if s/he [applies needles] disregarding what is right to do, plunders Qi, and in that, removes proper Qi [of the patient].

SuWen Ch.70, Based on Translations by Paul Unschuld

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.

Oct

2012

CELESTIAL POETRY

Ancient Chinese cosmology that has guided oriental medicine for millennia is as infinite as the stars, deep as oceans, predictable as the earthly rhythms of the seasons; deriving meaning through timeless truth.

“If we can not measure, we can not know,” is the western-mindedness that threatens to divert the true and artful understanding of ourselves as unfolding aspects of nature known by scholars & sages of this ancient medicine. As practitioners of this healing path, and in this modern world climate, we must still continuously follow and help others to recognize the Tao, and therefore, their own healing. Observing and becoming one with nature allows us to know our inner nature. “Re-thinking” & “Adapting” Chinese medicine for westerners will potentially render the core of this medicine extinct.