The Wisdom of Heart and Head in Practice
Healing in the realm of the conscious and unconscious mind
There is a cosmological constant-relationship between the Heart, Xin and the Mind, Shen.
When I began studying Traditional Chinese Medicine ( TCM) in 2007 in Berkeley I was stepping out of Western mindset in health and into ancient wisdom for healing guided by natural and cosmologic law.
School scratches the surface and it gives vectors to move along when needing to reference a disease pattern, herb concotion and point selection. We gather our tomes around us, search in our lecture notes for Cold Damp, Yin deficiency, Liver Qi stagnation and Bi syndrome.
My brother Ed and I started at the same time at different schools. We worked together in San Francisco at Opera Plaza and from time to time we pulled our box of herb samples and ran the memory drill when we had a cancellation or no show. Category, Hot-cold, what organs, how many qian. When wok fired in vinegar what happens? With this herb good with that one no good. The four gates, Ma Dan Yang Heavenly points. The Ghosts and Spirit points. Qi from from the Jing well at the tips of our fingers and toes to the deep and vast He Sea points up our limbs. The watercourse ways in our body where qi moves like a passenger in a boat from village to village to give its offerings to the community. It is natural order and our relationship to nature.
If we are whole then there can be no other.
Our Heart and our head speak in unison to make this so. If in equilbrium then it is made so and we are in a state of mental-emotional, physical and spiritual wellness. If we believe we are ill then illness will strike at us. If we do not take care of those houses that hold the temples that reside within us demise will find us.
Our emotional state It is at the root of all dis-ease. This is Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Origin of 20th Century Western Based Medicine: The Cure for Wellness
Current Western Medicine was rooted in the underpinnings of Billionaire John D Rockerfeller and his collaboration with Abraham Flexner. Flexner visited 155 “natural” hospitals in the nation and wrote a report advocating for Science based education and outcomes (the origin of Evidenced Based Medicine) and with the mite of Washington D.C., paved the way to what was called “Rockerfeller Medicine.” This was based on his petrochemical/oil derived pharmaceuticals. Hospitals, medical education, journals and organizations were developed (that still stand today) to push out these products that we now know as patented synthetic biopharmaceuticals. Naturally occurring cures cannot be patented. Western Medicine holds the monopoly on the Sick Care Industry today.
Rockerfeller and Flexner worked to rid the world of natural health and healing, by de-certifying schools and naturopathic/homeopathic hospitals accreditation. From this horrible ruin of banishing God’s resources they themselves felt it necessary to be God themselves. Today we continue to see the ever advancing marching away from our notions that we are apart of Nature, embued and grown out of and into something to be feared and loathed.
I found myself at a crossroads in health and healing. Before I entered into TCM, I was fully ensconced in Western Idealism around health, had a “good” job and saw a lot of patients and was able to read each one’s history in navigating sinking ships of disease states. I realized how ineffective I was at healing. I was one drop in the sea of their being and there I began to see many contradictions in Health Care as we know it today.
So many un-doings occurred during this time. It was liberating to begin to lose my intolerance and righteous indignation for other disciplines as quack medicine. I awakened to the propaganda of mainstream. I found that putting aside my all consuming unconsciously hammered in belief systems was the best medicine for my patients and clients. I became a funnel once again. Gathering knowledge and wisdom from traditional practices and sit ins with experts in healing realms around the world and witness for myself miracle cures by touch, needles, teas, hearted guidance and connection. Community of cells, like a village or city after an orage (storm) began to rebuild and make better.
The say we are lost until we are found.
Letting go of the Ego
Roshi D.T.Suzuki says:
“The ego shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.”
I was more willing, more gentle, and patient. My eyes and ears were open and my mind was cleared of the debris of judgement to become more learned. It came into focus moreso when I was able to crack this shell and place my want and desires of control aside.
Who Says What is What?
I only survived in Western based rehabilitation care in a hospital setting only because I was allowed to work outside my scope of practice as an Integrative Physio. My physical medicine and rehab bosses left me alone because I had high satisfaction scores and seemingly better outcomes. Patients walked out with an aura about them some would say.
I was told, “When your treatment room door closes that is between you and your patient. We don’t need to know what you do, just that you are making gains” That was an attestation to keep educating myself in the traditional practices of energetic and quantum healing.
It was a blessing and each door that opened brought forth a new understanding of how deeply I was conditioned to hold to a pattern of thought that was drilled day after day on the same orders of what someone believed was “right.”
Who decided what was right came to me one day. Who really owns the patents on truth for one, the whole?
Healing practices forges a new understanding about how we judge and where our own judgements are rooted. Traditional practices look at the totality and cosmic relationships and constellatory x factor for understanding. Traditional practices teach listening skills acutely. In Medicine it is said that 80% of the Diagnosis comes in the first 5 minutes and largely through observation and physical examination. The yellow or black rings around the eyes points one to the liver and kidney. The thining, grey/white hair or frail nails shines lights in these organ systems as unbalanced.
My PT Mentor in school Marty Jewell would say:
“ See with your hands, feel with your eyes.”
Befitting for healing and healers.
Suffering as a Vehicle into Wisdom Healing
Genuine Healers, Elders, Medicine Men/Women, Shamans, go through levels of suffering like a temporary disruptive disease. Some in near death corridors and return. Their own experiencing and capacity to rebound to health is the antidote to scarce and limiting beliefs. Wisdom is codified and matures now with each patient interaction. With every encounter that turns into the necessary relationships that feed and nourish our Wise Practice. Patients and clients hear, see and feel the message of health and wholeness and with each encounter understand greater meaning in the suffered state and how to navigate out of the moors of painful places.
Healers find a deep and inner calm, a well of Peace built on the presence of the Heart and its connection to the Divine Source.
Be that healer and wisdom holder for everyone’s sake. Yourself. Your family. Your patients/clients. Your acquaintances. It is necessary in the world today fraught with more suffering and persistent pain conditions now so overwhelming the overseers cannot make up names for syndromes fast enough.
“Be a light unto yourself.” jiddu k
What is The Secret?
The secret is first and foremost gifting Love back to yourself. Loving yourself whole and without resistance. This is the gift we give to those who would sit on our tables and ask for help for they are just a fractal, a reflection of ourselves and the work at our feet to be whole once again. It is the natural order. Once we understand that the world conspires for unison and only in unison can we be living in a state of Wholeness will we be able to come into full bloom as a wise healer. That is a healthy state of being. Joy. Happiness found and we meet and embrace life not fight life.
Lead with Love.
Everyday speak these words. Before every patient visit remember. Make it a habit such that it the body now knows it better than your mind. The world changes. You change and the possibility that other worlds are deeply affected will change. You can count on it.
Turn your hearted selves into the wind and create a channel without current so that your patients may float in a moment of reverential quietude and stillness.
Healing needs stillness.
Healing needs quiet.
Healing needs Love.
Healing needs time to transform,
Where would you begin?
Qu’est -ce que l’amour dit aujourd’hui?
What would love say today?
Hi it is Traditional Chinese Medicine and Thank you.
What is TCM? Really good article.