Traditional Chinese Medicine
The Fire Season of the Heart
Summer season, The Great Yang, has definitely arrived and with it, the heat, humidity and the occasional emotional crankiness that is common when temperatures soar. This is the phase of the Fire Element in Chinese medicine, and the Heart, assigned to emotional and spiritual balance, is the representative organ. While the Heart aligns with Fire, it is heat that can actually agitate and disrupt the Heart’s function and flow, and so we are instructed to be mindful of how to keep our body and mind flowing with ease, as if a cool stream is moving through our head, limbs, and torso. The Heart is referred to as “the sovereign emperor” in the kingdom of the body, and all systems work together to ensure the Heart is well served, for an upset emperor can wreak havoc in the body.
Acupuncture for Treating Addiction
People seeking treatment for addiction typically have a complex road to recovery. Everyone’s story is different, and people have different needs and respond to treatment in their own time and in their own way. What many people might not be familiar with are the supplemental therapies that can be used to help promote healing and recovery. One of those supplemental therapies is the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) acupuncture protocol. continue reading
Cultivate Your Inner Stillness
Greetings my precious people!!!
For the first time ever, I decided to take a ‘summer sabbatical’ in the month of June to cultivate some much needed rest, and experience “being” instead of “doing.” Chinese medicine extols the value and virtue of living in accordance with the seasons, and while Summer is the high point of the active yang energetic, we are also in the year of the Yin Water Rabbit, where we are reminded of rest, retreats, and the gifts of cultivating an inner stillness. So a summer sabbatical seemed quite appropriate!!
Baked Strawberry French Toast Recipe
Support your Heart with this deliciously decadent breakfast recipe. For a twist, add a mixture of fresh raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries to the batter before baking.
You Have the Ability to Heal Your Self: A Simple Qigong Practice to Support Immunity
One of the oldest and most famous of all qigong sequences is ‘Ba Duan Jin’, or ‘Eight Pieces of Brocade’, also known as ‘Eight Treasures’. This practice can be traced back to the Song dynasty, which lasted in China from 960-1279CE. During this period, China was noted as the most advanced civilization on earth and responsible for the invention of the mass printing of books, gunpowder, and the compass. General Yue Fei (a Song era military general, poet, and calligrapher) is often noted as the originator of the set of exercises that became Eight Pieces of Brocade as a way to keep his soldiers healthy and ready for battle.
