Get the point:musings from the Acupuncture Chair. The Spring season is finally here! One way to help enhance your transition from Winter to Spring is to go barefoot on the grass and massage the ball of your foot in a clockwise motion into the earth. This will open up a major acupuncture point on the bottom of your foot, which is called Bubbling or Gushing Spring. It is the first point on the Kidney meridian. It is a Wood point on this pathway which encourages a bubbling up of energy for the Springtime, just like a spring from within the ground gushes forth. This will enhance your health as you begin to enjoy the blooming and bursting forth energy of this season.
Author Archive
Spring Energy is Rising
Friday, March 26th, 2010The Yin and Yang of Snow
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010Get the Point: Musings from the Acupuncture Chair–We are deeply immersed in a record-breaking snowfall which beautifully illustrates a major guiding principle of Asian medicine. When nature is balanced around us, we experience harmony and good health within our inner nature. When the climate and elements of nature become too excessive (yang) or deficient (yin) within a particular season, then we in turn experience an inner imbalance which can lead to disharmony and dis-ease.
If we experience too little snowfall, as we have in the past few winters, then we remain too busy and too driven to stop and attend to the Water element of Winter within which is nurtured by rest, contemplation and silence. A beautiful snowfall creating a special day off of rest actually nurtures our health and leads to less frequent disease in the Spring. Today’s snowfall is soon to become a blizzard with high winds and a dangerous icy component. It has become an excessive winter condition which can lead to increased dis-ease as the excess cold aggravates many chronic ailments and may create excess fear, especially with power outages and increased economic loss in these times. Acupuncturists are trained to see that this fear, in and of itself, can contribute to the creation of illness.
Therefore, it is important to keep yourself relaxed and calm today, centered in the nurturing thoughts of nature’s healing promise that the warmth and light of Springtime are only weeks away.
Bright Eyes for the Winter
Friday, January 22nd, 2010Get the Point: musings from the Acupuncture Chair, Lynn Mitchell. The Winter season brings us cold weather, crystal clear blue skies and brilliant starlight. This quality is reflected in the body and manifest in an acupuncture point on the inner canthus of the eye, known as BRIGHT EYES. This point evokes our ability, when in a healthy and vital state, to see ourselves, our surroundings and our future with Brightness and Clarity.
Bright Eyes is the first point on the Bladder meridian, which is the longest meridian on the body and also corresponds to the Winter season and to flow and movement, especially along the spinal cord. The meridian starts at the inner eye, moves up and over the head and down along the back, through the hips and back of our knees and exits at the side of the foot.
Therefore in diagnosis and treatment, when an acupuncturist looks for the brightness emanating from the client’s eyes, she is also questioning and looking at deeper levels for the brightness of the flow and movement in all aspects of their life. If these levels are blocked or “frozen” with the winter cold or the immobilization of chronic illness, she may open up this point with an acupuncture needle to re-establish flow, clarity and brightness to the whole system.
Unblocking this one point may help clear the way for better health and a brighter future. This is just one example of how utilizing the “spirit” of an acupuncture point during a seasonal treatment, reflective of the beauty and clarity of the nature of the season we are immersed in, can have profound results for our healing.
Bright blessings from Lynn Mitchell, Acupuncture Chair
