Hello everyone,
I hope you are all doing well. It’s been awhile since my last update, and its been a bit of a wild and crazy time for many! An interesting day for me was Election Day, which also happened to be the day I started work in a new way in Portland, so I’ll start with that.
I was hired as an in-house acupuncturist for NWEA – “Northwest Evaluation Association” – an international corporation that works with exam testing. This large group of 500+ people occupies a building that is just across the street from the Lansu Chinese Gardens, in old Chinatown, Portland. NWEA graciously helped me paint and set up a small room in their midst. The employees have insurance, and this setup allows easy access to sign up and drop in for a treatment during work. This is a fairly new model as far I can see – I’m so happy to be initiating it here. For NWEA employees I’ll be giving an introduction about Acupuncture and Chinese medicine on February 6th at 11:30. I might also talk about the Year of the Rooster a bit (see below).
Also in Portland, I have a place a couple days of the week at 2700 SE 26th Ave. This is a place to see people who want to see me in Portland who are not part of NWEA, and also a place to store and prepare herbs. To schedule, best for now to email me directly – centerforchinesemedicine@gmail.com. Until the new website is up, scheduling can’t be done online for the SE practice.
The Ashland practice at Center for Chinese Medicine continues! A good flow has been established over time, and the online scheduling is working well. I’m in town every 2 weeks (well..except for heavy snowfall). Dates are listed on my homepage. I also want to mention we’re looking for a massage therapist to rent a room and to share the office with Jody Herriott.
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Now for the fun part.
My take on the Chinese New Year sequence is completely influenced by Liu Ming, the founder of my acupuncture college and teacher/friend who passed on in 2015. I will try to carry forth even a bit of the flavor of the wisdom he was so awesome at presenting.
Stepping back from the usual analysis that is typical of western astrologers and occult types, let’s set the stage a bit. Chinese astrogeomancy is much more than ‘astrology’ and how the planets influence us, etc. Originally the province of entire sectors of the Chinese classical government – the many systems of this stemmed from the precise documentation of events, weather conditions, political and social events, directionality and behavior over many cultures and places within Asia over a period of hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. The calculations of observable cycles was made more in the realm of mathematics rather than the planets, although the planets were related. A lot of the information became a bit of a mess, which was assisted in being untangled by Jesuit missionaries at some point in time…was that right Robert Fenwick?
In classical times, knowledge of this material was considered part of the proper education of healers, doctors, scholars, and officials in China. Even more recently during the SARS epidemic, some of the old doctors in Hong Kong brought forward their analysis of what kinds of food stuffs could be used to help strengthen the population against the epidemic disorder. Based on old ancient information from astrogeomancy predicting the cycle’s affect on weather and hot and damp climates, recommendations were made.
A reliable cycle has been the 60-year cycle (which then alternates into yin and yang as 120 years, the span of a ‘full’ human birth). When we make it to the age of 60 we are considered ‘grown up’ in a sense. There are 12 animals that personify the Qi of each year, and 5 Elements possible for each.
The Fire Monkey year ends on January 27th, with the Fire Rooster up next. It’s the year of those born in 1957. One cycle is the setup for the next, and on and on.
The Fire Monkey is unwinding pretty much as one would have expected, with some fireworks. The Monkey is personified sometimes as an overthinking human, who at its best can somehow can untangle a problem nobody else can. Hopefully some of that happened for you. A lot of the collective mental focus went to the political, we may be tiring of that as the year comes to an end. Was there any really doubt deep down which presidential candidate embodied the Fire Monkey Qi the best? Maybe it was Bernie. The Monkey fundamentally doesn’t want to directly lead. This all needs to get sorted out in the next energetic phase. By… the Rooster.
But of course the state of the world plays a part in how it works out. It’s considered entirely our choice how to use or ignore it as far as the longevity/success of our society/culture. Shooting ourselves in the foot seems to be an option we can choose – but we could change that.
Given the strain on environmental resources, and perhaps the very structure of our health/immune capacity at-large up being up for challenge – I think its useful to take a modern approach in looking at the material and see if it has any helpful application. If not exactly ‘science’ at least its not a hysterical psychological and profit-motived analysis that is trying to ‘help us’. Seems we’re abandoning all kinds of modern authority – scientific, religious, the press….maybe because these sources often serve to separate rather than unite.
A basic premise here is that the year presents ‘what’s on the table’, what the course is, what is most digestible for the year. Can you assimilate the Rooster’s flinty up-rightness? Will you miss the free-wheeling Monkey, somehow?
One way of measuring this is by one’s personal year– a reliable measure of our superficial character as shared by everyone else born in that year.
However, superficiality can be underrated.
It’s by accepting and adapting to our own skin-deep character that we can learn to accept others as having different ways of approaching life. If not to appreciate each other, at least to tolerate each other.
As the last few weeks of the year wind down, it’s considered a good time to let go. Retreat if you can, clean up a little, dream a little, don’t embark on grand plans as what is coming is very different. The Fire Monkey has been a year of minor explosions and major unpredictability, and it’s not over yet. The previous year of the Wood Sheep developed in a way that created a collective desire for new, perhaps immature, approaches. The Fire Monkey delivered with a lot of ‘creative’ ideas being thrown around to see what would stick. And the Fire Rooster will sort through all that and determine what’s useful, and what’s not. Critically, analytically and with precision. The Rooster is certain the sun is rising in the morning. More on him at a later date.
This year I will resume the New Year talks I was doing at the Jacksonville Chinese New Year event. This year, it will be from 1-2 pm on February 18th at City Hall in J’ville
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Health-wise, it is a great year for precise diagnosis, application and treatment. A focused physical routine should be doable. Stay on track so there’s no need later to reach for conventional modern medical modalities. Precision can be applied early – acupuncture works well to align and keep the Qi in the proper ‘channels’. Regular treatments (bi-monthly/monthly/seasonally) should work very well to sync up the body/energy/mind – to get right back on track before one is further down the muddy road. It’s a great time to get a clear assessment of one’s condition and what to do – and then proceed as planned – on all levels.
Crowing and strutting around, and letting yourself be heard, will become fashionable in the Rooster year. So go ahead and get those new duds and welcome the dawn!
Ken