Continuing on my last post, we are now in the time of the Lung. What the Lung does for us physiologically is respiration; the gas exchange of the whole body. This is what we call Breath.
 
As a teenager, I was a rhythmic gymnast and ballet dancer. I often noticed that I was out of breath after a strenuous ballet combination and my gymnastic routines, which lasted an intense 90-seconds. None of my teachers or coaches ever mentioned anything to me until I was about 19, after I had retired from competitive gymnastics. My modern contemporary dance teacher, who was also trained in classical Chinese dance, Ballet, Pilates and Alexander Technique, mentioned that I wasn't breathing while dancing. A light went on in me, I told her that I was aware that I was out of breath after exercises but I never knew why. I then asked her, "Can you teach me how to breathe?" I heard myself then and thought how absurd that sounded to me, something supposedly so natural as breathing and I needed to learn how to do it. Since then, it has become one of my life's exploration - to breathe consciously.
 
When a baby first comes into the world, it is what we look for as a sign of life, the Breath. Only when the child achieves her/his first cry, do we then relax. Even in the Bible, it states:
 
"And the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis, 2:7 King James Version)
 
Many cultures and spiritual faiths around the world believe that the Breath is not just what keeps us alive; it is our connection to the Divine. We are alive because there is a higher connection or purpose that flows through us. Yet no one ever teaches us to breathe in school or at home, which is maybe changing as I am writing since more are becoming conscious of their Breath and are beginning practices, like meditation, QiGong and Yoga, which emphasize Breath.
 
In Chinese Medicine, not only is Breath, what we in the modern world imagine as oxygen and carbon dioxide, what we take into our lungs and expel out through our nose/mouth; it is also that which surrounds us, is within us and creates the entire universe.
 
"But even before speaking of forms xing 形 , we must introduce the form-without-specific-form, that which bends itself to become all forms: the Breaths Qi  氣 ."  
(Larre, Rochat:1995, 21)
 
Qi, sometimes spelled Chi, is one of those words that cannot or has not really been translated into Western language. If you read an English or German Chinese medical text book, you will see that Qi is simply written as Qi. But the sinologists and Chinese medical scholars, Larre and Rochat, translate Qi as Breaths; Breaths that encompasses all. Sometimes Qi is translated as Vital Energy or Life Force. Some concepts are very cultural yet we know that there is a force that flows within all living beings on earth and beyond. Even Hindu philosophy speaks of Prana, the Sanskrit word for Breath or Life Force, which seems to correlate with the Chinese.

In order to understand the character Qi  氣 , one has to look at the pictograph in 2 parts. When we take this part of the pictograph  气 ,it means air, gas or vapour. The second part mi 米 is rice. Together they make Qi, referring to "the grain of rice that bursts with cooking or digestion releases a vapor that rises up and accumulates 气  ." (Larre, Rochat, 1995: 168) So Qi is therefore more substantial than air. It is the essence of life. It is that which moves us, gives life to us humans and all living beings around us. If Qi were just to be air, then an expanded balloon would be alive, but it is not. As such, Qi is something more tangible than air but still is elusive to our material-focused mind. 

As you may have observed, my little journey in search of Breath has taken me much further than breathing in and out; it has opened a doorway to a whole new world, rich in meaning, understanding and awareness. As we have entered the season of the Lung, I would like to share a few of the breathing practices I have learned over the years in the next few posts. 


Reference

• Bible, King James Version. www.kingjamesbibleonline.org
• Larre, Claude/ Rochat de la Vallée, Elisabeth (1995) : Rooted in Spirit. New York: Station Hill Press.

​Image Ki Hanja from Wikimedia Commons

Over a month ago, we were discussing the coming of autumn in my yoga class. A few of us spoke of the "dread" of the change from summer to fall season; the change of light and temperature. I find this time of year has its beauty but it is not simple to adapt to. From the full openness that the summer warmth has created in us, we begin the journey back inward of autumn. The darkness and the coolness outside forces us inward, our bodies are pushed to close the pores of our skin in order to conserve warmth. Since I began studying Chinese Medicine, I have begun to understand and appreciate each season of the year better and observe how my body/being changes with them.
 
As Claude Larre and Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée, sinologists and Chinese Medicine scholars describe in The Secret Treatise of the Spiritual Orchid:
 
"To rise in order to fall, and to fall in order to rise, that makes circulation. It is so high that we cannot perceive the essence of it. It is so universal that everything, everybody, every animal and every plant is affected and is under the same natural movement of tian yun. The progression of this is seen through the four seasons [...] Spring manifests itself everywhere as some beginning of life or renewing of the beginning of life [...] Summer takes what has been started and progresses along the line up to an acme, to the highest point of that progress, and then suddenly, in order to protect life and to protect the universe, it has to reverse its movement. So on some uncertain morning in the autumn time, the quality of air is very different. It's shocking. Something has started to reverse. It means that the yin which has been there but covered, unable to manifest itself except as a hidden, sustaining power, is now able to arise in its own right." (Larre, Rochat 1992: 7)
 
This "uncertain morning in autumn" is upon us now and we knew it was coming. Nevertheless, it is "shocking" for our beings, just as a metallic object touches our bare skin; a certain coldness makes us contract inward. This is the effect and energetic movement of Metal, to be more inward focused and passive, more Yin.
 
From the 5-Element perspective, Metal is associated with the organs of Lung and Large Intestine. It is not surprising then that many of us will experience Lung and digestive themes, such as a cold/ flu or those with asthma can have a flare-up or a gastrointestinal virus (stomach flu) at this time of year. As with all the elements there is an emotion associated with Metal, it is sadness/ grief. The direction is the West, where the sun sets. Makes sense, doesn't it? The Yang, like the sun and daylight, is setting, and the Yin, the moon and night, is rising. The climate becomes dry, making our skin dry. This is that clear manifestation of the energy moving inward, no longer nourishing the most external parts of us, as with the trees. In humans, the skin and in trees, the leaves. 
 
For me, this is a beginning of a death that will happen in winter. But through this death, comes new life next spring. Can we find beauty in death? Yes, I believe so. I look to the trees, the Japanese Maple tree, Acer palmatum, especially. We have a few in our garden. One in particular has a longer process of a "glorious death." He, I sense him as male, is green and robustly thick all summer. Then, just as that "uncertain morning in autumn" comes, he transforms his green leaves into a rusty red. Then suddenly comes the piercing frost at the end of autumn and then begins that magnificent, crimson red phase till he drops his leaves completely for his winter's sleep. The Japanese have a practice in this time of year, momijigari, "the hunt for deep red leaves." Many go on a "pilgrimage" to places where the Maple trees are transforming life to death, to appreciate this beautiful process. I personally have not yet been to Japan but I know that I will be at least once in this lifetime on a momijigari.
 
As I have mentioned before in other posts, I look to the trees for life's wisdom. Even in this time of contraction and closing in, there is beauty and purpose for the inward movement. It is as Larre and Rochat state, it is "in order to protect life and to protect the universe."


Reference
Larre, Claude/ Rochat de la Vallée, Elisabeth (1992) : The Secret Treatise of the Spiritual Orchid. Nei Jing Su Wen Chapter 8. Cambridge: Monkey Press.

Images by Elaine ​

I remember my first meeting with Echinacea in the late 1990s. I was at the end of my Bachelor's degree in the US. I recall being totally stressed out, as many students (and other people) are, having exams, papers due, part-time job and just worrying about life. I was also involved in dance and one of my dance professors/ choreographers, who I was working closely with on a performance, introduced me to Echinacea. She gave me her bottle of almost-finished Echinacea tincture to try, when she heard that I was having another bout of sore-throat which would progress to a cough, that I often had when I was stressed out. But that didn't help my throat and I went on to have a cough.
 
Fast forward 10 years later and I had finished studying Chinese Medicine, became a practitioner, moved to Switzerland and my children have already been born. I wasn't so prone to getting sick but when it came, it would begin with the throat. I knew how to treat it with Chinese herbal formulae but I somehow felt that I needed something simpler, a single herb. I am often aware of my throat, how it feels and the subtle changes that occur before I actually get a cold or flu. I started to experiment on myself, I tried Echinacea tincture on myself, which isn't in the Chinese Materia Medica, by the way. It is now over 10 years that I faithfully carry my Echinacea tincture in my medicine bag when I travel or have it always in my home. My kids have grown up taking the Echinacea tablets when they had a runny nose or when we got on planes, as an immune system strengthener and instead of candy to relieve ear pressure. I have grown Echinacea now in my garden for a few years and finally this year, she is thriving in a pot at my front door, grown from seed. She hasn't been simple to grow since the slugs and snails have feasted on her in my garden every year and she never could survive.
 
Echinacea purpurea or Purple Coneflower is a native of the Great Plains of North America and is a member of the Asteraceae or Sunflower family. The name Echinacea is Greek, meaning "Spiny One," referring to spiny sea urchins and purpurea to the reddish-purple color. There are a few other species of Echinacea some have yellow or white petals, E. purpurea, E. augustifolia and E. pallida are the ones used in medicine. She, I experience her as female, is a hardy plant, with a beautiful orange-yellow-green spikey cone-shaped head in the center and a skirt of light-purple petals. Amazingly beautiful! Sometimes when I stare into the cones from above, I get a trip, observing the formation of the spikes that form the cone - spiraling clockwise, anti-clockwise in never-ending complexity inward and outward. She attracts bees and butterflies (and slugs too!). Like many perennials, she blossoms only from the second year on, if planted from seed, from July to September.   
 
The part of the plant that is often used for medicine is the root but all parts are used. As I stated before in other posts, Chinese Medicine categorizes food and medicine by temperature, tastes, organs it affects and functions. Echinacea has a cool temperature, with spicy, bitter and slightly sweet tastes. She affects the Lungs but I have found some sources that also state that she affects the Liver, Urinary Bladder and Stomach. She helps to clear Wind-Heat (TCM diagnosis for some colds and flus) and Lung Heat, where the heat has passed deeper into the Lung manifesting bronchitis symptoms like fever and yellowish nasal secretions or cough with yellow-green phlegm. I have never tried her for Bladder themes or insect/snake-bites but she has been documented to be used by the Native Americans of the Great Plains, like the Cheyenne, Kiowa and Lakota Sioux, for various ailments for over hundreds of years. 
 
It is my experience that Echinacea should be used as an individual herb only in acute situations for a short period of time, about 3 but no more than 10 days, at least 3 times a day. I have heard experiences of patients, who used Echinacea daily for over 2 years and found that it wasn't effective anymore. I can understand this; it's like overusing any substance over an extended period of time will reduce its effectiveness for acute issues. Use of Echinacea over a longer period of time should be in combination with other herbs, such as with other Wei Qi (Defensive Qi) tonics, in order to strengthen the immune system.
 
Echinacea has been my doorway-opener into Western herbs. Literally, she helps me protect my body's doorways, my throat and Lungs from invasion from bacteria and viruses. Lots of scientific research is being done on Echinacea in this field. As with all herbs and with nature, use with respect and honor them. They will respond to us as we to them.  



​Images by Elaine