Spring is here now in full swing, with Nature coming alive after her winter sleep. Tree buds and blossoms on display, green seedlings poking their way up out of the garden soil, birds and other animals scurrying around tending to their nests – springtime is a period of vigorous growth and activity.
We’ve probably all been told to eat a healthy and varied diet but what does that actually mean?
In a recent review of research articles about nutrition and health, one of the clues was that eating a larger variety of vegetables and fruits can lead to a reduced risk of a number of common diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
In Traditional Oriental Medicine, all of the practitioner’s senses are used during diagnosis in order to help determine patterns of imbalance which may be causing sickness and symptoms in a person’s health.
As previously seen in Part 1, visual diagnosis was the first of four diagnostic examination methods described in the earliest textbooks of acupuncture written 2,000 years ago.
Traditional Oriental Medicine is unique in that it is not just disease or sickness which is looked at during diagnosis, but also the underlying imbalances within a person’s body which may have contributed to the symptoms in the first place.
Looking, or visual diagnosis, is the first of four main diagnostic methods described in the earliest textbooks. For example, the Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine), written over 2,000 years ago, mentions about observing both the patient’s colour as well as their Shin, or spirit.
Many of the diagnostic methods used in Traditional Japanese acupuncture are based on the practitioner using their physical sensory organs to detect changes and imbalances in their patients.
For example, diagnosis by smelling body odours is a fundamental technique and was recorded in medical textbooks over 2,000 years ago.
As mentioned in previous articles, one of the most important theories in Traditional Japanese acupuncture and shiatsu massage is that of the “Five Phases of Transformation”. Part 1 described how these five phases known as Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water are used to categorize a wide variety of natural phenomena. Part 2 explained the Generating Cycle, the first of several relationships which describe how the various phases inter-relate to each other in Nature.
One of the most important theories in Traditional Japanese acupuncture and shiatsu is that of the “Five Phases of Transformation”, sometimes also referred to as the Five Elements. As described in Part 1, these five phases are known as Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water and are used to categorize a wide range of dynamic processes of transformation and change within Nature.
“All the principles of heaven and earth are living inside you. Life itself is the truth, and this will never change. Everything in heaven and earth breathes. Breath is the thread that ties creation together.“
