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ICM Garden Project: The Greening of Falknerstrasse from Above

5/3/2019

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As I sit basking in the sunlight of the arriving spring, I can feel the inspiration to do and to create. Things bubble in my being, just as the shoots of the plants start to tickle the earth with its impatient need to find the warm sunshine. The red shoots in the picture are of Peony, which is a Chinese medicinal plant.  Spring is a time of ideas, sometimes they rush at us at crazy speeds but some may take time to manifest, sometimes years. 
 
Sometime last spring, I walked down the street to ICM, along Falknerstrasse. It's where the tram passes through. I realized how un-green it was. I looked up to our practice on the 4th floor and realized that we have 2 beautiful little balconies, that we almost never come out on. I watched all year through how the sunlight from the eastern sky shines onto them and how the angle of light changes through the year. It inspired me to begin something new already then. This Spring, we will initiate our ICM Garden Project. It will be the "greening of Falknerstrasse" starting from the top, hopefully downward. 
 
What has happened since this seed was planted last year in my mind/being, is a sort of quiet observation process. Every time I came to ICM in the morning as I prepared the treatment space, I was observing the sunlight and the sensing the Qi of the space. I've also been researching what containers and seeds to sow, as well as when. This process has begun to change my view of things on so many levels. It's crazy, exciting, depressing sometimes yet wonderful! How something so small can have an impact on my life and change how I live life.
 
It's like this. First, I really wanted to recycle as well as I could, to stop or at least limit consuming/buying. So I tried to find out more about plastic containers, such as PET bottles and other plastics containers, to be used as planting containers. Here I opened a "can of worms" that I cannot turn away from. What I found out made me realise that we take too many things for granted and that we need to be more vigilant. So I've decided to get good old terracotta pots for our garden project, which we will use for a long time instead of recycling any unsafe plastic. We, at ICM, my family and myself are limiting our use of plastics as much as we can, especially those dealing with food and drink, as well as planting food in. I don't want to get too deeply into this topic here, so I will reference a blog I have been reading about plastics, www.myplasticfreelife.com. 

I am reading more about Permaculture, which is pretty cool and I hope to garden/live more in this manner, as I find many similarities to Chinese medicine. I will write more about it in future posts. At home we have started a bokashi compost, in addition to our garden compost we have had for 5 years. These will be feeding our little project at ICM along with fertile soil for growth, as well as many other ideas and actions. 
 
We will begin this month of March with growing seeds, mostly herbal plants like basil, coriander, calendula and even the ever popular Chinese herb, Gou Qi Zi. Let spring live through you, be the hand that plants the seed, that grows the tree and let the ideas blossom. It is what the world needs right now.  

​Photo by Elaine
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    Elaine Yap

    I am a Chinese Medicine practitioner at ICM, mother of 2 boys, living on my third continent. I love to share my perspectives on healing, TCM, gardening, social change and life.

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Institut für Chinesische Medizin ICM GmbH | Falknerstrasse 4 | 4001 Basel | Tel. 061 272 88 89 | Fax 061 271 42 64 | info@icm-basel.ch ​
  • Acupuncture
    • Acupuncture
  • TCM
    • History
    • Methods of Treatment
    • Diagnostics
  • Treatment Modalities
    • Acupuncture
    • Auricular Acupuncture
    • Electroacupuncture
    • Chinese Herbal Medicine
    • Tui Na /An Mo Massage
    • Moxibustion
    • Cupping >
      • Physical therapy
    • Qi Gong
    • Tai Ji Quan
    • Gua Sha
    • Chinese Nutritional Therapy
    • Wai Qi Liao Fa
  • Team
    • Elaine Yap
    • Nadine Ledergerber
    • Gabi Rahm
    • Frank Hediger
    • Noriko Matsumoto-Loosli
    • Olivier Schmidlin
    • Timo Goepfert
  • ICM Treatment Information
    • Treatment Rooms
    • Treatment at ICM
    • Treatment Costs
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