lördag 29 januari 2011

Semester 2 started

Yes. It has. All students are still here. Some of the first tests are done and beyond us; some worked well, some less so. We just started going through the Bladder channel, the longest channel of them all at 60+ points.

We have started to go deeper into the causes of disease in Chinese medicine, both the internal and external ones. Students have for the first time in class done tests on their own Five Element makeup, so that they start to understand which Elements that are part of their main personality, body-structure and health.

More clinic is being had, both video- and observation clinic. Physiology is back, as it will be once a week for the next two-and-a-half years. First year´s Physiology will turn into Patophysiology year 2, followed by Western differential diagnosis year 3. All this is part of making the course a Msci (Master of Sciences, or with three years, Bachelor of Sciences, civilingenjörsexamen) instead of something to do with the arts. The university seems to have a very strong bias towards Western medicine and science in their set-up compared to many schools. I talked to someone who does the Chinese herb course for the same amount of time, and they are doing massive amounts of western chemistry to pick apart the herbs, something which has as little to do with chinese herbal medicine as Physiology has to do with learning acupuncture. Oh well. Not much to do about it. The only good thing about it so far is giving me more and more knowledge about how good Western science works (”We´re not really sure about anything, but we keep looking at it”) contrary to bad Western science (”This is the way it is, we know that for sure”) which is always amusing. A brilliant book I read on the side for fun, is Bill Bryson´s A Brief History of almost Everything, which goes through Western science with both depth, lightness, precision, and humour.

We have also started a class in what is called Tuina, which it isn´t, but a version of massage techniques called anmo from China. I trained in qigong tuina, which is even more rare to find and really works less with the physical body than the mind and energy itself.

...and...yeah. That´s probably a brief overview of things right now.

It´s soon Chinese New Year. Year of the Metal Rabbit coming up.

Seen in London

For Margaret: a cab-firm proudly labelling their cars ”Wedding Taxi´s”.

A middle-aged, worn woman at the bus-stop early one morning, who was reading a book called Tempt me to Darkness. The cover showed some very tasteful flesh and promised hinted pleasures over boxes of chocolate inside.

A balloon, flying happy and red on the roof of Spitalfield Market, lost, lost, by a small hand.

A private hire cab driver outside a theatre premiere in the West End, who on his passenger seat had a laptop that seemed to be showing gay porn while he was waiting for his client to come out.

A sign: Dulwich Ukulele Group looking for more interested members!.

Seen. In London. And all these faces. All, so many, so varied, and most of them, so human.

torsdag 20 januari 2011

Full moon over London

and the homeless are fighting in the alleys. A man stands at Tottenham Court Station and takes pictures of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road; the voluntary corps of motorcyclists who block the city´s roving car-cameras are out, some of them in V-masks; a beautiful black woman on the bus smells of Africa, sandalwood, spices – so strong I´m almost there; the little kid at the Chinese take-away has eczema around his mouth at eight months old; there´s a charge in the air, a charge, but more quiet in this time of winter that is still isn´t really Spring.

But the evenings are clearer already, there´s a feeling of happiness and freedom and movement hiding just around the corner, like a director proudly standing in the wings, watching his actors hold the house in their hands.

I walk through London streets thinking of diagnostics in Chinese medicine. I look at people, a training I have done in huge amounts over the years. The goal is to be able to watch someone and set a first basic diagnosis in five seconds. In that time you see a lot; huge amounts of information is collated and discriminated, immediatly analyzed, cross-checked, deductions and inductions made. You also see if they have any particular tensions or injuries that change their body, and form ideas of how that might have impacted their health or might do in the future.

"The skilful doctor knows by observation, the mediocre doctor by interrogation, the ordinary doctor by palpation."
Zhang Zhongjing, 200 AD, author of Shang Han Lun

With time and training, you gain the skill of seeing their energy and shen, ”spirit”: their spark of life and connection to the outside world. This primarily resides in the heart and one of the places it shows is in the eyes, but it has many layers to it. Then you think of how you might treat this, and how to weave that together with the other treatment.

Full moon over London. Hark, listen to those sirens in the night.

onsdag 19 januari 2011

The Governing vessel and Conception vessel: Du and Ren channels and different layers of energy-work in Chinese medicine and Daoism


Some of the meridians we have gone through lately are not common meridians. The main meridians that seen as ”meridians” are the 12 that are paired and linked to the internal organs – what are called the yin and yang meridians, some of which we´ve looked at here before. These are usually called jing. On top of these are the luo; a network throughout the body of small energy-flows, like a fine mesh and web nourishing everything with qi. Some acupoints are specifically linked to link: they are called luo-points, and aid the flow between one meridian or organ and another.

The two latest ones are not part of these, however. They belong to a group called the Eight Extraordinary meridians – the Eight Extras, for short. We will look at these later. Usually they are not part of the main sequence of meridians except for two: the Governing and Conception meridians, the Du mai and Ren mai, which are the channels we have looked at before Christmas and now on the course. The other six have no points on them, they are only reached from other meridians and are pretty special cases. The Du and Ren, however, have their own points directly.

The Du and Ren mai are the body´s two main yang and yin channels. The Du goes up the spine; the Ren down on the front of the body from the mouth to the genitals.

They are said to form earlier in the fetus than the 12 yin and yang meridians and the luo. They are the main systems for yin and yang energy as a whole in the person: Du, going up the spine, into the brain, up over the head and down to the mouth, governs yang energy. Ren, going from the mouth down to the genitals and passing all down the soft, yin front of the body, governs yin.

These two are linked to a huge number of procesess and treatments in the body. In some qigongs and in Daoist spiritual practice, they also form part of the work called the xiaojiutian, or the Small Heavenly Orbit, where the practitioner moves qi through them in a circuit, sometimes stopping at specific points for specific work there. This is a technique that has been much misunderstood in the West. It shouldn´t really be part of health qigong. It´s Daoist training for spiritual work. The older traditions will prepare and train the body and mind in various ways for a long time so that the orbit opens up softly and gently by itself before doing anything conscious with it. In many systems that have come in fragments to the West, the Small Heavenly Orbit is done forcefully, or simply with the person trying to push qi through a tense body and mind, a practice that is much riskier for both physical and mental health than the softer one.

The Du channel treatments focus a lot on health of the spine, health of Yang energy in the body, and the health of being upright – the zhengqi. It also has a major facet of the connection between spine, brain and heart. All the Eight Extras border Daoist work rather than Chinese medicine, and like in other parts of Chinese medicine, there are many treatments that can only be done by a person with enough energy and clarity in their system. The people who wrote them down had it, later practitioners might not. Sometimes they call treatments ”arcaic” or ”ineffective”, without knowing that they themselves simply don´t have enough qi or clear intent to pull them off.

The Ren channel treats yin of the body, and on it we also find the so called front mu points, direct gateways to some of the internal organs and their functions, points which are placed on the Ren channel itself and has a strong effect.

The Conception and Governing vessels are like midnight and midday, they are the polar axis of the body ...there is one source and two branches, one goes to the front and the other to the back of the body... When we try to divide these, we see that yin and yang are inseparable. When we try to see them as one, we see that it is an indivisble whole.” Li Shizhen, quoted from Deadman, A Manual of Acupuncture.

Various kinds of qigong and Tai Chi work the fascia and flows of the front and back of the body, including the channels. It´s generally seen as much more effective to have training that focuses on working the fascia, releasing it and relaxing it, rather than just working qi in the channels themselves: if the fascia is tense and not moving as one piece, the channels themselves will still be blocked, no matter how much one tries to move energy through them. In Daoist energy work, the Ren and Du are quite superficially placed. There are several further depths into the body with channels. Another one, next layer in from the Ren, and also one of the Eight Extras, is the Chongmai – the Thrusting Channel. But there are other flows even deeper than these, that form core work in classical Daoist work. Good training, however, will take the practitioner deeper in layers, letting the body open naturally, like a flower – much the same way a skilled acupuncturist will allow the system of a patient to open up too.

London in 2011: year of the Metal Rabbit (it´s got huje teef like this)

It´s another year gone by since the Romans left their forts here. Another year gone by since Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament, later giving rise to the graphic comic V for Vendetta which in turn became a movie which in turn popularized the mask that V wore, and which now is being worn today by the supporters of Wikileaks called Anonymous.

Boris Johnson is still mayor (see above). He still rides his bike about town, occasionally being involved in saving someone from traffic accidents, which he did once. Berkeley Square still stands in the postal code called West 1 in central London (W1), but it is very rare to find an nightingale sing here, like the old song says it would.

Life in modern London is both hard yet easier than probably ever before in history. It is a city of 12 million people; the capital of the United Kingdom – some would even say the capital of Europe in our time (I hope the French aren´t reading this).

It is the year of the Metal Rabbit, if we´re going to talk Chinese Zodiac. 2011. A lucky year, it´s said. Let´s hope. The New Year is on the 6th of February. Last year was the year of the Metal Tiger. So much Metal. Let´s hope it´s gold, not knives.

London in January 2011...it´s a nation still fighting a war. As always. I don´t think there´s been a generation of Englishmen that have lived without England being involved in a war somewhere. Many nations do this just as a way to keep the nation together. It´s cheap (not in money), dirty, and it works, so politicians kind of stick with the formula and just keep things going. Even Caesar knew this when he fought the bloody annoying ”savage tribes” that inhabited both France, Germany and the island he travelled to and visited. The Celts, or Celtoi, were forced back to the north of England where a line was drawn and a wall was built and treaties made that they should stay behind it and never venture south. This was Hadrian´s Wall. It still stands, even though Rome fell a long, long time ago.

Or, as Caesar himself writes: ”On learning the enemy´s plan of campaign, Caesar led his army to the Thames in order to enter Cassivellaunus´ territory.The river is fordable at one point only, and even there with difficulty. At this place he found large enemy forces drawn up on the opposite bank. The bank was also fenced by sharp stakes fixed along the edge, and he was told by prisoners and deserters that similar ones were concealed in the river-bed. He sent the cavalry across first and then at once ordered the infantry to follow. But the infantry went with such speed and impetuosity, although they had only their heads above the water, that they attacked at the same moment as the cavalry. The enmy was overpowered and fled from the river-bank.” ...which only is one paragraph out of Caesar´s PR piece De Bello Gallico, On the Gallic Wars (and yes, he refers to himself in third person all through the book). He was 46 years old that day, and his death by knives from his peers in the sacred grounds of the Senate lies ten years away. This combat took place between Roman soldiers and celts 2055 years ago. In the newspapers today, Boris Johnson announced that they intend to go through with building an island on the Thames for a new airport. London needs more air-travel.

England has a new government, headed by a comedian duo called David Cameron and Nick Clegg, who seem intent on making the nation go faster down the drain than the impopular but possibly more efficient Gordon Brown. Tony Blair is busy spending the reminder of his life manufacturing excuses of why the dead from the war in Iraq aren´t his fault, you see.

Ipods are everywhere on the trains and buses; Ipads are coming now too, but more rare, seen only sometimes, and then new and wondrous in their thinness. Wifi is spreading through cafés but not everywhere: mainly in the chains, like Starbucks, Costas, Prêt (Prêt a Porter, a green food chain of sustabinable food, Ready to Go, pronounced by the locals as Prette, like soldiers in the Great War pronounced the town of three huge battles as Wipers – Ypres, site of horrible fighting three times). I once met a man who fought there. The last living cavalryman of England, he was, and, just like Caesar, he is dead now.

Preparations are taking place. The Olympics of 2012 are coming. The subway system is being given a huge once-over; as is the plumming, buildings, streets... As someone who has travelled a lot in London I just marvel at the idea that putting Olympics in central London will work. The city has no more place for traffic, no more place for people The only way to go is up (famous last words of the builders of the Tower of Babel).

And, finally, here´s the video the title aluded too. I knew you were kept waiting for it at the edge of your seat.

The Small Intestine Channel and the Large Intestine Channel

Aren´t really linked, but I realized I forgot to do posts about them so we will neatly fold them into this same post, just like they are so neatly folded inside our bodies.

The large intestine is linked to the Metal Element; the small intestine is linked to the Fire Element. This goes into a coming post on the zangfu, the internal organs of Chinese medicine. The large intestine is the paired organ of the lungs, in Metal; the small intestine is the paired organ of the heart, in Fire. (...which goes into another post about the basics of the Five Elements which is...ummm, being written as we speak...)

Metal and the lungs are seen as an Element that refines. The lungs take energy from the air (kongqi, ”air energy”) and converts it to usable energy inside the body, an alchemical process in itself. The Metal Element concerns itself with discrimination, in the original connotation of the word, dividing things up to make them more correct and precise, refining them. The large intestine here is seen as refining the crude matter of our body into faeces and then allowing our body to release it and be free of it – discriminating, getting rid of that which is no longer useful, separating. When the Metal Element is unbalanced, people can often get stuck in just the lung part, which is very cerebral in Metal, and start ignoring and forgetting about the ”cruder” more physical part of the large intestine. From a purely Chinese medical viewpoint, this will often bring with it lack of working large intestines, and thus problems with digestion and stools, and more problems later with the functions of the lungs themselves in form of tension or inbalances in breathing, clear mental ability and free airways and healthy skin.

The Large Intestine channel is a yang channel that begins in the hands. It has 20 points and on it we find one of the most used points in acupuncture: Large Intestine 4, Hegu, Joining Valley, which is in the web between the thumb and index finger. This area is called Hukou in the Internal Martial Arts and qigong: the Tiger´s Mouth. It is always worked with in specific ways, sometimes kept open, sometimes partially closed, depending on what training is done, and there is always a slight movement in it and the hand all through the training. Most training is done with the space between index and thumb softly open, as this opens qi out into the hands and activates the Lung and Large Intestine meridians as well. Some Internal Martial Arts use it in ways to strengthen sinews, qi or tendons in various ways, but most of it in the beginning is done with it softly open while the hand simultaneously is being relaxed. The Large Intestine channel ends at the base of the nail of the thumb (or begins, if we´re going by how the points and flows go, same as for Small Intestine).

The small intestine is linked to the Fire Element where it pairs with the heart – the heart is the zang organ, the small intestine the fu. It receives food and drink after digestion by the stomach and spleen. It then separates this into pure and impure; the pure is sent to the spleen to nourish the body – ying qi, the nourishing qi. The impure is sent to the large intestine to be excreted. Heat in the heart, in Chinese medicine, can be transferred to its paired organ, the small intestine. Heat is one of several factors, the so called six external pathogens, liu xie, who can affect our health both from the outside and inside. The Small Intestine channel has 18 points and ends at the base of the nail of the little finger on the hands.


måndag 17 januari 2011

In the middle of creative chaos

Back in London. I see a train-conductor going off shift, carrying a copy of Don Quixote in his pudgy hands. He is in his fifties, bald, with glasses, slightly overweight: wonder if he sees his days, his life, this life, like fighting windmills.

A week ago I saw the old woman sit on the very ledge to London. They have punched - stabbed – a hole in Charing Cross Road and then sealed it, digging to the right instead. There are a few older houses in the middle of one of the busiest places in London, and there are still flats. The buildings themselves are from the 1900´s. They have torn down many buildings here now. But there, on what is suddenly a balcony out into a building site and traffic, with her apartment behind her, sitting in January weather, an old woman on a chair, smoking a cigarette as I pass by on a bus below.

She lives in what used to be hell in London: St Giles, the sink, home of the poorest of the poor. Now behind her, it is remade in huge skyrises that looks like made out of plastic and steel, a child´s toys where the people used to live in squalor and deprivation that is hard to even believe of London in the Victorian 1800´s.

One day the trains are cancelled. Sunday. Going back, I forget, and go to the station anyway. Sent on a run-around for buses that turn out not to exist I finally come to another platform, for another train, and go to another suburb where I have to change, and manage to get the right bus and then the right train. Flustered, tired, I think, the silly things we do with our life.

Rain, on the night streets of London. Chinese voices behind me on the bus.

Thinking. Preparing for the coming semester. Taking that breath before diving in. No, that´s wrong: I don´t think like that. Just already in there, planning.

I am now studying full time at two universities in two different countries. At least they´re on the same continent. Doing full time through web-based studies in Sweden lets me get the student loans I should have gotten for the course in England...ridiculous.

Bought more books: pediatric acupuncture, ear-acupuncture, Daoist classical healing practices through chinese medicine and ritual...and more needles. Sitting here in a Starbucks, writing this, a moving unit in the middle of creative chaos.

fredag 7 januari 2011

Warning!

A sign on the sidewalk saying ”Warning! For icicles!”

Always nice to know more specifically.

Last rites

The homeless man
was drawing
the queen of spades
on the sidewalk

the crazy lady
on Oxford Street
playing scottish reels
on her tin whistle

the reel that opens the doors in the hills

guiding the court of the sidhe

and then there was me

laying down

the weird-wrought silver key

in the middle
of
Trafalgar Square.