sloth. scaper. pissors

Nefertiti ~ Goddess of Fertility

Art Quilt by Heather Pylem do the clicky thing to see more

Rabbiting On: what’s up Doc?

“Rabbits dressed up and on parade”

2011 The Season of Metal Energy

In Chinese medicine, autumn is the season of the element Metal (or air). Grief is the emotion of the Metal element. We all experience loss, separation, and “letting go,” and we appropriately feel grief at those times. Grief cleanses us of what is no longer needed in our lives. When the energy of Metal is blocked or imbalanced within us, our expression of grief likewise becomes imbalanced and inappropriate. It may be excessive and ongoing. Or, in the other extreme, it may be absent, as in those who cannot express their grief.

Just as metals give value to the earth (gold and silver, minerals and trace elements), the Metal element within us gives our sense of self-worth. Each of us is a miracle of creation, more valuable and special than anything we could ever pursue; each of us has a unique and priceless contribution to make. Yet when our Metal energy is imbalanced, we cannot sense our value; so we compensate by seeking what we think will add to our worth: status, money, power, conquest – none of them bad or wrong of themselves, although our pursuit of them can be a symptom. Once we have acquired these things, however, we remain strangely unfulfilled.

Persons with a Metal imbalance seek respect, quality, and recognition from the outside because they feel the lack of worth within. These are people who have difficulty “letting go” because they identify their own worth with “things” – achievements, attachments, collections, possessions, attitudes stored in the cluttered attic of the mind.

It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
It’s all the rabbit shit you stumble over on your way down!!!

Red Pill Junkie, The Daily Grail

Lung : Very Great Abyss.

In the course of our lives, we may become polluted-bodily, mentally, and spiritually. Many of us, for example, have been told from childhood that we were “bad,” that we were failures, disappointments, losers, not good enough. Such negativity may come in faster than we can eliminate it, and everything new we take in becomes tainted by the poison within us. We may feel we’re in a rut, with garbage piled everywhere. We can’t find a way out, nor barely see for the darkness that surrounds us. For an acupuncturist to take us into the “Middle Palace” at this stage would be foolish, overwhelming.

First, we must be taken out of this toxic pit-this very great abyss.

Colon : Support and Rush Out.

For a patient who has been unable to “let go” for a long time, it feels almost normal to collect more and more garbage. To let go is a frightening prospect-what will be left? But when the trees let go of the past year’s leaves, nature has something new in store. The end of one cycle gives rise to the next. As we let go of what we thought was ourself-physical waste, old habits, beliefs, assumptions, and identifications-we are supported by a new vision of who we are without all that old “stuff.” Sometimes we can’t let go little by little. We may be too stuck. We may need to let it rush out, supported by a new and clearer vision of our true selves, the inner treasure. At the right time, then, this acupuncture point, “Support and Rush Out,” and no other, may be the one to turn the course of disease.

Welcome Fragrance.

When our Lungs and Colon function as nature ordained they should in our body/mind/spirit, then simply living our lives through the highs and lows, through sunshine and dark clouds-every moment, every new experience-can in its own way be a treasure, a Welcome Fragrance.

~ Sourced The Institute of Classical Five-Element Acupuncture