The Journey to Well-being is paved with good intentions

Perhaps if I make fewer good intentions, and just go with the Tao (that is, not become attached to the result), I won't have to deal with fallout :)

Since writing the last post, I went to an herbal consultation at the school. I was given two types of treatment, and provided with some instructions:

1. The following point prescription was used:

• HT8 on the left, and HT7 on the right hand were chosen, based on palpation of which was most tender between HT8, HT7, and HT4
• CV17 was chosen between KD25 and CV17 based on palpation
• KD7 was added to due to KD Yang xu, and cold extremity symptoms
  

1. Moxa Box was applied around umbilicus area to heat the Middle Jiao and Lower Jiao
2. Bag of nutritive herbs was given to make into stew, and a book on Jook/Congree was lent from the library

The instructions were to make a rice porridge with very mild and tonifying medicinal herbs - goji berries, longan fruit, lotus seed, black dates, red dates, astragalus, job's tears, honey fried licorice, and cinnamon. I did not have the right kind of rice to make the porridge, plus the porridge has to be cooked overnight so as to imbue it with the most tonifying Qi. People who have Qi and blood deficiency and who cannot digest herbs, normally have to first tonify the Spleen and Stomach very gently.

Following the treatment, I went home for a few hours, and then left to go to Kona. I needed to get out of the cold clammy weather, buy a few other tonifying ingredients for the Jook (porridge), and to buy a space heater for my room. Generally the instructions were to eat only very easy to digest foods, and to avoid all cold foods for a while, so I decided I needed to go to Kona for one other reason - Pho. It was yummy and I felt great for the rest of the evening even though my heart was still giving me some issues. Upon returning home, I put the ingredients in the crock pot and went to bed.

Evaluation of the Treatment:

Only five needles were used in my treatment given how low my Qi was and general state of my Spleen. The needles created a very interesting sensation of the heart pain and tightness moving out of my chest and heart area into my posterior axillary region around the area of SP9/SP10, and moving down and against the normal flow of the small intestine meridian.

Its interesting to note that my recent weeks of stress led to constrained emotions which the heart was no longer able to spill out into other organs. My body was spilling this into the small intestine channel over the past two weeks as a way of expunging the heat built up from emotional constraint. This pain was most acute in the week prior to the two days of angina-like pain. Apparently the small intestine was no longer able to handle the constraint the heart was attempting to shed. This led to the posterior axillary pain stopping and being replaced with the angina pain in the hours directly preceding the onset of the heart pain.

It is was strange to notice the change in pain during the treatment as the prior two day's worth of heart constraint were driven out of the heart back out through the small intestine channel under my armpits. While the treatment was effective in changing the nature of the pain away from the heart and back into the small intestine channel, it did little in the way of clearing the heat and constraint out of the system. At that juncture I assume that the highest priority was to protect the heart - and in that, it was mildly effective as the heart pain remained with me in a greatly decreased capacity for a day after the treatment.

Saturday:

After eating my nasty-tasting porridge in the morning and doing some half-hearted attempts at studying, I decided I needed to go to the beach and to take a book along with me. I took the Zen of Oz, a great little book which actually helped me realize that I had let myself loose the spark in my life, and as a result I've been shifting the blame and frustration outside of me at the people I am surrounded by on a day to day basis, and the circumstances around me. That realization alone was enough to lift a bit of the burden I was feeling and the deadness resulting from the lack of decisiveness and frustration over my situation. After leaving the beach I went to the Queen's shops to eat fresh hot ramen soup. There was a Mardi Gras celebration taking place, and a 7-member group of old-timers were playing New Orleans Hot Jazz. It was so great to hear - it was exactly what I needed - some great music to feed my soul an nourish with music what hasn't been nourished for so long.

I've not been looking after myself and complaining a lot about what I don't have here, what's missing, and what I don't think I will be able to get. That complaining and frustration, grief, and worry over the future created all of these constrained emotions to build up and cause my health problems. I've known this, but up until Saturday I was not seeing the whole pattern and its interrelationships. The realization has not released me from the realities of my circumstances, but it did allow me to become present to how I am at choice with how I react to my circumstances. My emotional situation is still tenuous, but I'm not going to let it deteriorate further.

Sunday:

I cooked borsch and medicinal chicken soup during most of the day. The borsch is light, and full of favor, and the chicken soup is thick and nourishing. I'm continuing on my Spleen regimen, and both Sunday and Monday have seen marked improvement in my energy. I first decocted herbs in cheese cloth - codonopsis, atractylodes, poria cocos, dioscoria, jujube dates. To the broth I added goji berries, then my vegetables, browned chicken, and spices. At the end I added a cup of rice and a cup of barley. It turned out extremely well and everyone in the house very much enjoyed it. In fact, there's enough soup for the whole week. I'm glad its good because basically all I can eat for a week is medicinal rice porridge, and medicinal chicken soup. Porridge for breakfast, and soup for lunch and dinner. I hate mono diets, but my body is reacting well to it and craves it, so I'm not complaining.

A new friend, one of the 2nd year students came over to watch the Oscars in the evening, and upon seeing me trying to massage my sore shoulders came over and worked on them for a little while. After hearing my whole story about the angina pain and shouldr pain, she recommended to bleed the Small Intestine Jing Well points to clear the heat from the channel, and to add PC6 to open up the Yin Wei Mai and add LI4 and LV3 to smooth my Liver Qi and drain some the heat down. After I performed the above, I felt all the pain wash away. It was amazing - I was so happy. Not only did I sleep the best I had for weeks, the pain from my shoulders was gone. Moreover, I was so happy that I understood why she recommended what she did. It made complete sense based on my studies, even with symptoms as odd as mine. Something must be sticking :)

Monday:

After taking a long walk around the residential streets of Waimea, I felt rejuvenated. The pain in the shoulders reasserted itself in the evening. I drained the Jing Wells again, but it did not work quite as well. Probably because I didn't have lancets, so I could not get them to bleed as much as I needed to both nights. I did not repeat the other points this time. I had my roommate massage my back and in so doing he found that both of my back Heart Shu points were completely hollow, empty and cold to the touch. My other roommate commented that the indentation at those spots could be visibly seen, even without palpation.

This coincided with what I had known through study with my Sensei during clinic. One woman had come in who had suffered from severe depression and grief all of her life. In her case I saw and felt that her Heart Back Shu points were also impacted. Sensei stated that while western medicine had diagnosed her condition as arthritis of the heart, she diagnosed it as a broken heart. A condition of grief and sadness after years of emotional pain.

Though seeing this similar pattern play out on my back was a disconcerting, in many ways it was reassuring. There was visible tangible and repeatable evidence of this medicine's analytics and diagnostic methods matching the reality of what the body indicates through palpation and simple observation.

Years of frustration, and most recent 6 months of acute grief and worry had completely worn out my heart, and caused heat to build up in my system as indicated by the red tip to my otherwise pale and dusky tongue (a sign also indicative of blood deficiency with some stasis).

Tuesday:

During lunch today, I asked my roommate to apply moxa to my heart Back Shu points. He also found a deficiency on palpation in my Large Intestine, and Spleen Shu points. After the application of moxa to the the heart Shu, I became very emotional and tears started to well in my eyes. Upon addition of the other points, I became exhausted but settled, and took a 20 minute nap before class.

By the end of the evening, the stimulation to my heart Shu points caused me to again experience frustration and anger, and for a little while worry - emotions that were not being expressed but rather repressed for weeks. Though I don't like the result, I think its healthy, as my heart pain has not returned since Saturday, and my shoulder pain today is greatly diminished.

I have another appointment on Friday. I hope to receive moxa daily on my Heart Shu, and Spleen Shu in the meantime.

Summary:

I have a choice - I can either rebel and be angry at the collateral circumstances resultant from my choice to pursue this career, or I can choose the collateral circumstances. I chose to do this program. I did not choose the circumstances and repercussions of doing this program, living on this island, and living with other people. I'm still suffering over it. And once I accept and choose my suffering, perhaps the suffering will unravel into conscious acknowledgment of what I'm attached to which is creating the suffering in my life. I've not let go of these attachments, and they've been very strong. I am not yet sure whether I want to let go of the attachments, or continue harboring them. What I do know is that if I continue to hold onto these attachments I will either have to leave this island and this program, or I will suffer and have these or worse health problems in the future.

I have not brought full awareness to this topic, and I've not meditated on it. I've not had the time, nor energy, nor desire to do so. I know that I will have to confront these issues, but I am suspending doing so until I've regained some of my former strength. Right now I'm avoiding doing so, but I know I'm avoiding doing so consciously and for a reason. It takes intellectual effort - at least for me. And right now, I'm fresh out. I'm happy to have come this far in my realizations, even though I know its not far enough to become content with my lot, let alone happy and confident in my decision. I've been resigned to it for months.

In summary though - I believe that all of these events are helping me learn very practically and personally the inner workings of this medicine, how it diagnoses and treats disease. I just wish these lessons weren't so hard to learn. I thought I was through a hard lesson patch with Saturn retrograde for two years of my life in 2006-2007 - but little did I know that I'd be signing up for more so quickly, and with so little rest in between.