​A few days ago, I looked into a book that was passed on to me and extremely invaluable as I attended university in the 1990s - an English dictionary. Since my last post about Sweet Potatoes and Roots, I have been contemplating this word "Root." So I looked in to find the definition of Root and I find 12 different possibilities as a noun and as a verb. Most of them have something to do with having a "base" or "core" or "source," whether referring to human, plant, language or mathematics, and even to encourage. Fascinating, isn't it? 
 
Many of the Herbal Medicines in the Chinese Materia Medica are Roots. One that particularly stands out is Ginger and is listed in a few different forms. They are fresh Ginger (Rhizoma Zingiberis Recens, 生姜 Shēng Jīang), Ginger peel (Cortex Rhizoma Zingiberis Recens, 生姜皮 Shēng Jīang Pí), dried Ginger (Rhizoma Zingiberis Officinalis, 干姜 Gān Jīang) and quick-fried Ginger (Zingiberis Rhizoma Praeparata, 炮姜Páo Jīang).
 
In its fresh form, just like we get them here in the normal grocery store, Rhizoma Zingiberis Recens, 生姜 Shēng Jīang, is a food-grade herb. As such, one can cook it with other ingredients to enhance the taste of that particular food, like fish, meat or vegetables. In some Asian supermarkets, you may find young ginger, that which is yellowish in color with a green stem protruding out of the rhizome. This form is a little less warming than the older brown version. Herbal decoctions regularly containing multiple Herbs, prescribed by a Chinese medical practitioner, often includes Ginger to harmonize the Herbal Formula combinations; aiding better absorption of the Herbs into the body and to prevent possible toxic side-effects from other potent Herbs. In fact, I have read that Ginger can be used as a remedy for food poisoning, and in fact is cooked with fish in order to neutralize toxins in many traditions. 
 
In the everyday, we can grate it, make an Herbal infusion out of it just by adding hot water and letting it steep for 10 minutes just as a beverage. This can be very helpful too if you had symptoms like chills and/or fever caused by the common cold virus. In fact, making a foot-bath or a whole-body-bath with this infusion till one gets warm and sweaty would also help expel what we call "Wind-Cold Invasion" in Chinese Medicine. If you wanted to enhance the digestive effect of Ginger, then you can throw in a couple of slices of Ginger into a pot with water and cook it for at least 15 minutes. This infusion would be less spicy but more warming for the Stomach, good for stopping nausea and vomiting in pregnancy or otherwise, help relieve bloating and digestive distress. Shēng Jīang enters the Lung, Spleen and Stomach, is spicy and warm. In contrast, Shēng Jīang Pí, Ginger Peel is spicy-cool and is good for edema and promoting urination. 
 
As with anything, too much of a good thing transforms it to a hindrance. If you tend to heat in your system, then too much Ginger will overheat you. A spicy flavor will circulate Qi and too much circulation will dry out the body. Use moderately or speak with your practitioner, if Ginger is appropriate for you. I find that this is one of the many simple Herbal foods that I almost always have at home or with me when I travel. One of our favorite meals is rice with chicken, cooked with Ginger, soya sauce and Sesame oil; a simple but scrumptious recipe passed down to me from my mother. Like so much around the world, people have used food as medicine since time in memorial. It is only us modern urban-dwelling, city-folk, who are often times disconnected from nature, who question the validity of food as being able to affect our health or never really realizing that what we put into our bodies might affect who we are. Just because something doesn't come in a form of a pill, doesn't make it less potent. In fact, it is this that I challenge; something in its purest form, like the Ginger Root, may be the strongest medicine as it is whole. In its wholeness, it helps us to find unity in ourselves, to reconnect us to our source, to our core. 
 
 
 
 
Image Ginger Root by Engin Akyurt on pexels.com
 

​​We just passed the phase of the Autumnal Equinox, around the 21st of September here in the Northern hemisphere. The "change" from Late Summer to Autumn has reared its severe head. Here, we have been presented with 20-degree temperature difference overnight; warm and sunny in the day hitting mid-20s, then down to 5 degrees in the night. Our bodies, with pores wide open like windows of our houses in Summer, were shocked into closure. If not, we got sick with a cold or digestive distress, forcing us to stay in bed under warm covers, which in a way is a form of drastic closure. 
 
After the Autumnal Equinox passes, the light of the sun diminishes every day; over a minute at sunrise and over 2 minutes at sunset. What does this do to living beings on this hemisphere? It makes us, animals and plants, focus more inward; our energies begin to be more Yin concentrated. It is then not surprising that we modern humans stay more indoors, as it is colder, darker and we feel less active, possibly even tired. If you have been feeling this way these past few weeks, there is nothing wrong with you. Nature and the weather affects us because we are a part of nature. What we can do is to honor this connection by taking time to do quiet things, to rest and sleep more. Also, to eat certain foods that will help the process of moving inward, such as with root vegetables. There is this idea in Chinese Medicine and other forms of Complementary Medicine that "like treats like"; if we want to feel more rooted, we should ingest roots, as they will guide our energetic body to create more "rooted connections."
 
One of my favorites is Sweet Potato, 番薯 Fān Shǔ, Ipomoeas batatas in Latin. That's the plant pictured above. For the past few years, we have been planting this wonderful vegetable in our garden as it is a plant that almost all parts - leaf, stem, flower and root, are edible. Its leaves are heart-shaped and they creep and hang off the edge of our veggie-raised-beds, with its blossom so like the Morning Glory. They can propagate by leaf-cuttings but if you had a root that was sprouting, like many root vegetables, you can put this root in a bit of water to allow the sprout to grow leaves and then place them in the Earth. One can boil the roots in water with a little salt, add them to curries, fry/ bake them like Sweet Potato fries or make Sweet Potato pie with walnuts, like they do in the US for Thanksgiving. In East Asia, we make Rice Congee with Sweet Potato roots, deep fry them with a batter to make tempura in Japanese cuisine or in ball-form as a sweet snack in Malaysia (fān shǔ dàn) or served in a sweet soup in China. We also eat the leaves and stems, in the Spring-Summer seasons, as a stir-fry like you can with spinach, with a little garlic and soy sauce. They are beautiful beings that thrive in sunny, warm conditions, but are very sensitive to frost, as they are originally from Central/ South America like the regular potato. As such, it is now soon time to harvest the roots in our garden.
 
In Chinese Medicine, Sweet Potato is sweet in flavor, neutral to cooling in temperature and, affects the Spleen, Stomach, Large Intestine and Kidney meridians. When a food or herb is naturally sweet in flavor, it often will tonify Qi. As such Sweet Potato's functions include strengthening Spleen to promote Qi, increase mother's milk production, as well as helps support bowel movements, remove toxins from the body, builds the Yin in the body, which then treats dryness and inflammation. From a Western nutritional perspective, its orange color already suggests that it is high in Beta-Carotene, Vitamin A. Sweet Potato is also high in Vitamin C and E, potassium and fiber. Its natural sweetness and being a root vegetable, versus fruits, has a low-glycemic index and can help stabilize blood-sugar imbalances such as diabetes. Hence, one can eat it as a dessert without having any processed sugar or fructose. I know people who do not tolerate night-shade vegetables, such as potatoes and tomatoes, but Sweet Potatoes are not night-shades, as such very agreeable with those who have these issues. As often the case with most things, too much of a good thing transforms it to a hindrance. Eat it or anything with consciousness, LESS IS MORE.  
 
I find the Sweet Potato plant so versatile and resilient, taking root all over the world; from the Americas to Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe through the Columbian Exchange, but also it has been found that Polynesia had cultivated this plant before the British came to the islands. We can learn a lot from this plant in being adaptable yet being able to root almost in every continent on the Earth. Best of all to go inward to find our own roots at this time of year.
 
 
 
Image Sweet Potato Plant and Blossom by Elaine
Image Sweet Potato Roots by Suanpa on Pixabay

​I never really thought about when my journey to becoming a healer began until a few years ago. As a child, my mom would get us kids to give her leg massages in the evening, after a long day standing. I guess, it was her way of keeping in Touch and connection to us, as we in my Asian family didn't continue getting hugs when we reached school-age. Often during these moments of Touch, we would share about my day in school or stories from my mom about her childhood. I can now see that the seed of becoming a healer was being planted then when I was about 7 years old; that I would one day choose the path of Touch as my livelihood. Of course, like in gardening, one can plant many seeds but only some will come to fruition, with the right amount of nourishment and environment conducive to growth for that particular seed. As I began studying Chinese Medicine over 20 years ago, I became aware how Touch came very naturally to my hands. What I had felt in my hands and my being as a younger person, became illuminated through the view of Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, Qi Gong and Tui Na hand techniques.
 
Many methods of massage exist all over the world, as I stated in my last blogpost. I imagine that different traditions imparted this knowledge very differently: orally, by physical demonstration and/or by writing and drawing. As historians look for clues as to the when massage began to exist in human societies, they are finding images from Egypt and writings in Mesopotamia around 2000 BCE, writings around 700 BCE in China and Greece and 500 BCE India and Thailand. These culture where we have found physical evidence of massage or the laying-of-hands, are cultures that recorded information in the form of writing and drawing early on, as such we have evidence of massage's existence. However, I am confident that humans already knew of massage and healing with hands much earlier on than the physical evidence shows. We, in the Chinese tradition, are lucky to have written records passed down to us in an unbroken line till this day.   
 
A few posts back, I began introducing Acupuncture Points, which I would like to continue doing. There are 303 Acu-Points on the Regular Organ Meridians; this is not including Acu-Points on the Extraordinary Meridians of the Ren and Du Mai, or the Extra-Points such as the Hua-Tuo-Jia-Ji Points. If we add these together, there would be 390 Acu-Points. Yet there would still be even more Extra Acu-Points that don't lie on a particular channel but are used symptomatically. But let us just say that there are 390 Acu-Points on the body and of these, there are 90 that lie on the back, on and along the spine, as well as the shoulders blades. This accounts for almost a quarter of the Acu-Points on the whole body. This is not a coincidence. The back of the body is what we in Chinese Medicine describe as the Yang aspect of the body. The longest Yang channel, the Urinary Bladder with 67 Acu-Points, has  most of its Acu-Points on the posterior body. Many of these Acu-Points have direct connections to internal organs, as such can directly influence the state of these organs. For instance, BL-15 心俞 Xīn Shū, translated as Heart Transporter, treats issues with the Heart organ such as heart and chest pain, palpitations and arrhythmia. Interestingly when we look at how Western anatomy locates the Heart organ, at the level of the 5th and the 6th rib on the left side of the body, it correlates with the Chinese Medical location of BL-15, at the level below the 5th vertebra. For Chinese Medicine, the Heart also houses the Mind; when we say mind, we refer to the Spirit and the emotions. Some of the other indications for this Acu-Point are also poor memory, anxiety, disorientation, mania-depression and insomnia. As one can observe, this is an important point. Now imagine 88 other Acu-Points like this on the back, connecting to almost all the main internal organs like the Lung, Liver and Kidneys. Then, we realize that the back is a very crucial aspect of the body. In treating these points on the back externally, we can affect the body internally.
 

​Acu-Points can be utilized with different methods in Chinese Medicine. An Acu-Point like BL-15 can be stimulated by metal in the form of Acupuncture needles, by plant and flame with Moxibustion, by external vacuum pressure with glass Cupping, friction with a ceramic spoon with Gua Sha and by hand with Tuī Ná-Àn Mó. My view is that the most versatile and most needed of all methods in our times is the touch of the hand. It is the most basic of all methods, that if a practitioner did not have the ability to touch with the hand, in my opinion, the other methods would be less effective. It is for me like my mom used to say, when we grumbled about not having cutlery to eat with when we were out and about, "Hands were made before spoons." If the skill of the hand is not present, then any tool that is held in the hand would not be able to compensate for the lack of skill. Tuī means to push, Ná is to grasp, Àn is to press and Mó is to rub in circular motion. So, the name for the Chinese system of massage is after 4 techniques that are used in treatment. There are obviously many more hand techniques in the massage. Tuī Ná-Àn Mó can be very vigorous and forceful, resembling chiropractic manipulation; which would make it more a Yang style Tui Na. But it can also be gentle, subtle and mild, sometimes no more than just laying-of-hands on a body area or finger pressure on some Acu-Point; which would be a Yin Style Tui Na. This depends on the practitioner and the needs of the patient. Whether Yin or Yang, the goal of the treatment is to affect the body-mind as a whole in a beneficial way.
 
Very often I have found in my practice of Tui Na that I tend to massage the back, stimulating the Acu-Points, like BL-15 to affect the whole body and their internal organs. In the process of doing that the muscle and fasciae tension from daily life can be released as well as other acute issues like pain resolved, allowing free flow of Qi and Blood through the body. Tui Na doesn't just provide symptomatic relief but deep release of blockages as well as strengthening of the whole body. Like in Acupuncture with needles, each Acu-Point can be stimulated with the hand. What has come to my awareness is that new scientific research is showing why we need or desire our backs to be massaged. Professor Francis McGlone, a neuroscientist, has been researching how a nerve fiber called C-tactile afferent, which responds to gentle touch that activates the area of the brain for positive feelings, is abound on our backs compared to any other area of the body. He hypothesizes that having more C-tactile afferent fibers on our backs has to do with our evolutionary need for social-bonding, as we can't really reach our own backs in order to massage it, but someone else can. Thus, strengthens our social bonds to each other. Professor McGlone's findings fascinates me, as it explains to me what the tradition of medicine I chose to practice is doing from another perspective. The ancient Chinese saw Acu-Points on the back and the current Western science sees C-tactile afferent. Whatever it is, we, as individual human beings, feel it and sense how it affects our lives. In Touch, we bond. Through bonding, we create relationships. In relationships, we find connection. Thus, enabling healing.  
 




Image Tui Na by Okapi     
Image Back Acu-Points by Elaine

The Chinese character for Centre or Middle is, 中 Zhōng in Mandarin. I recently looked up a Wiktionary etymology of this character and it describes 2 versions of this pictogram: one being a target, the rectangle box being shot through by an arrow, the second, derived possibly from a more ancient character as in the image above, being a flagpole with a drum being beaten by the wind, placed in the centre of a field to gather people together and to detect the direction of the wind. The meaning of this character, Zhōng, is either "middle" or "centre" or "to hit the centre" or "to attain."  

It is quite unknown to many that the name for the country China is not what Chinese people call their own country. They call their country Zhōng Guó,中國, meaning "Middle State" or "Middle Country." The modern mainland Chinese call their country Zhōng Huá Rén Mín Gòng Hé Guó, People's Republic of China. "China" was a name given to them by the Persians, or possibly ancient Indians and then adopted by the Europeans. There are many reasons that led to the people of China calling their country Zhōng Guó, which archaeological sources date back to the period known as the Warring States Period, ca. 471 to 221 BCE. But what has then occurred is that the medicine that we called Chinese Medicine, which is called in Mandarin Zhōng Yī,中醫, directly translates as "Middle Medicine." 

It only recently occurred to me that a "Medicine of the Middle" is about finding the Centre, which for me also refers to finding balance. This is true of Chinese Medicine, there is a focus in finding balance within the individual; the individual within her/his social-emotional, physical and spiritual environment. The concepts of Yin-Yang and the Five Phases/Elements, which are the basis of Chinese Medicine, are about balance. Over 10 years ago, I was in a course for Shonishin, Japanese Children's Acupuncture, with Dr. Thomas Wernicke. He got us to lay like babies, in order that we understand the perspective of the world that babies have. One of the important growth milestones for a baby is rolling, either from belly to back or reverse, which typically occurs between the 4th and 6th month in a healthy child. Before a baby can perform this, it must first find its midline, that means hands and feet, right and left must be able to connect with each other. Once they can perform this on a regular basis, the body will be able to tip sideways, and they begin their movement journey towards being upright. This was an illuminating moment for me. I became more aware of my own Centre as well as how important it is to be Centred in order to be alive and thriving. 
  
It has been a few years now since I began practicing Yoga. What has drawn me to practice it regularly in recent years has been the connection I sense with myself internally and externally as well as, what I perceive as a playfulness with my own body(-mind). After spending my early years of life till my 20s dancing on my feet and the next few decades practicing rooting through my feet-legs through Tai Ji Quan/Qi Gong, I find being upside-down on my head, arm and hands just fabulously exciting. My most recent goal is the Handstand; the description of Handstand is very deceiving as it not just about trying to stand on the hands. Through this process, I am evolving a new awareness of balance and my Centre, not just in the literal sense but also in my life. I am finding that balance is not a static place/event; it is a constant fluctuation between stillness and movement. Some days I achieve balance on my hands for 3 seconds and another for just a milli-second. I receive minute information from different body parts like the base of my hand or my phalanges (the bones of my fingers) on where my balance is. I find that I am in constant "conversation" with my body and its different parts. It brings me into the here-and-now, because if for one split second of handstanding I lose my focus, I may fall painfully on my head. I accept all these gratefully as I know deep inside me, a cauldron of deep knowing is in the brewing.
 
As we just passed the Autumn Equinox (time of equal day and night) last week, I had the feeling that balance is being called for. We can all definitely find a little more balance in our lives and what better way than to become aware of our Centres. Take a moment of quietness and stillness in either standing, sitting or lying. Become aware of your body in space. Then, ask yourself, "Where is my Centre?" and just listen to your body answering.
 
 
 
Image Headstand by Aron H.
Image Zhōng Bronz Inscription and Silk Script from Wiktionary
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