The Zen of Healing

Chinese Medicine and particularly Five Element Acupuncture recognizes a fifth season, that of the Late Summer, which we are in now… belonging to the Earth Element. It’s a transitional time not only between Summer (Fire) and Autumn (Metal), but some texts also put Earth as a transitional element between the other elements as well… giving [...]

According to the theory behind Classical Five Element Acupuncture, each of the five elements has a particular emotion related to it. The emotion of the Wood Element is Anger. First let me say that all five of the emotions are healthy to feel and express… despite our Western culture being particularly hard on Anger and [...]

More of Nature is showing herself through the Spring season and energy of the Wood Element. Many people are experiencing major shifts in their life right now… as Nature opens its seeds and pushes through the ground to share it’s newfound glory, as should we! One of the best ways to kickoff or enhance these [...]

Though it may not feel like it for those of us in Seattle… the tulips, daffodils, and crocuses are telling us loud and clear that Spring is here. With that, comes all of the very powerful energetics of the Wood element and the meridians that govern that energy within us, the Liver and Gallbladder. We’ve [...]

Here we have the final installment on the power of the Water Element. I’ve talked about the “Will” of Water – the innate force of Nature that can overcome all things; the “Essence” of Water – our inherited storehouse of vital energy that holds the blueprint to our very being and gives us access to [...]

As previously mentioned… I feel Water is the most powerful of the five elements. In my last post, I talked about the “will” of water, its sheer power to overcome anything that comes in its path. This is an example of its power from Nature’s perspective. Let’s bring it back into the body (which is [...]

I briefly talked about “will” as it pertains to the Water Element in a previous post, however lets now take a closer look. Of the Five Elements, Water is the most powerful. Let’s look at it from Nature’s point of view. On the one hand, we are well aware of its destructive capacity when the [...]

The leaves, fruits (except for a few persimmons – see previous post), flowers, all of Nature’s gifts have fallen to the ground, and found their way back into the earth, back to its source… the Tao. The cycle of life, like the calendar year, has reached both an end, and a new beginning. This new [...]

Its an uncharacteristic winter here in Seattle. We generally don’t see temperatures below freezing, let alone snow (usually small amounts) until the mid to end of the season. I did a bit of digging and this is the whitest Christmas in the Pacific Northwest since 1861… estimating between 10-20″ (depending on how north) inches of [...]

Jennifer Dubowsky L.Ac, a wonderfully experienced practitioner out of Chicago, does a great job of talking about the esoteric concepts of Yin and Yang: The concept of Yin and Yang is said to date back nearly 6,000 years and has been attributed to a philosopher named Fu Shi. It is a familiar symbol that expresses [...]