energy medicine and energy fields

Acupuncture as effective energy medicine

Would any of us be here now if we did not believe in acupuncture as effective energy medicine? Acupuncture is perhaps the original "energy" medicine. With each treatment I receive I am continually amazed at acupuncture's strength and power in assisting one's own healing process. Acupuncture has the power to tonify, sedate, strengthen, purge, clear, renew, and refresh, amongst many additional processes.

Kirlian photography
Kirlian photography is just another example to me of our energy fields. We all radiate subtle energy fields whether or not we are aware of them. Kirlian developed a way to photograph one's aura, a method which may seem simply to "prove" the concept exists and can be captured. However, when one develops his or her psychic abilities or plays with energy and their own personal spatial field, one can see how they affect other beings simply through control of their own energy. Photos of these subtle bodies aren't necessary. It's similar to resonance and vibrations. We carry with us what we are creating ourselves and can match the vibration of others' or affect others with our actions.

Human intent as it affects health
I believe human intention has an extremely powerful effect on health. As our Qi Gong teacher reminds us, there are three focuses in Qi Gong, intention, breath, and posture. I've worked a lot with intention in my Qi Gong practice as well as in my life and seen the results. When we focus the mind and the will, we achieve the desired result. Human intention from the practitioner's perspective is also, I believe, crucial to the patient's own healing process. If we agree to another person's care, we trust they are working in their best ethic to care for us. If they are fully present and intentional with their actions, with each needle insertion, as the case may be for the acupuncturists, they can have dramatic affects on the patient's health. If they are not aware and conscious and intentional in the needling process, the treatment may not be nearly as effective as it's working with energy and energy responds to intelligence.
The intent can work in reversal too, as we can think ourselves sick. As Eckhart Tolle supports, "The power of now."

comments for week 12

My computer is not letting me post a comment directly on the posting, so here goes! I just read Joy of the Day's posting for "I know I'm a living system because..." and I want to thank you for bringing up the emotional component! I completely neglected that aspect in my posting. Perhaps it is emotions that allow us to distinguish between living beings and living "objects" such as lettuce. Now, do all living beings have spirit too?

week 12!

I know I'm a "living system" because...

I just last week had a discussion with a dear friend of mine over this exact topic of what criteria classify a being as living. The discussion ensued after I mentioned my ambiguous dietary ethics in that I do not eat animal flesh except for occasional fish. I was sharing how I prefer not to eat something that was killed (ahimsa: non-violence) just for my consumption purposes , and that somehow I made an exception with fish. I still haven't figured this one out yet myself and taken the transition fully away from my occasional wild seafood. My friend raised the question: “How do you know lettuce doesn't scream when it's harvested from the fields?...” and thus our talk continued over what is alive, anyway? I choose not to eat most meat based on the principle of ahimsa...however where do we draw the distinction over what's living and not living? What classifies something as a living system? Everything on the planet has a relationship with the sun at some point during its time here on Earth. Does that classify it as living? We all exchange Qi and atoms, so does that classify? I'm not so sure how I know when a being is living. I'm looking at the article in our assignment on it and I agree, “how do we know when the list is complete?” I consider myself to be a living system because I respire, perspire, transpire(!), take in energy from food and the sun, and defecate. Not all beings do this, for example that head of lettuce, and I still consider them to be living systems.

Biophysics and me

Biophysics seems to belong to all “categories” of science! Bio: life, physics: the science that deals with matter, energy, motion, and force. Biophysics: the science that deals with all of the above. Biophysics and me? Biophysics seems to be exploring all realms of life and even recognizing the relationship of life and “God,” and acknowledging the vast unknowns and uncertainties of the universe. (I appreciated the article on the “hunt for God particle...”) Biophysics also seems to have the most room for growth and interpretation within its “science,” whereas others are more exact and linear. The Eastern philosophy favoring Western minds such as those of many TCM students can, I think, relate to teachings of biophysics.

Can I synthesize East and West?

After this course I wish I could say yes, I can synthesize East and West. The best I could do is say that we are an interconnected world and Eastern philosophies permeate the West and Western permeate the East. I think both are contributing to one another and building upon the other. I also want to acknowledge that notions of West and East is not an entire world view inclusion. East and West here is referring to Eastern philosophy of China and West to classical Western physicists. As one of the readings noted, "When physicists and Eastern mystics attempt to put their understanding into words they sound amazingly similar." Both Western and Eastern cultures have histories of human understanding. The largest difference, in my opinion, is time. In the West, I think we have largely discounted the Indigenous people's knowledge, leaving them out of the picture entirely and do not consider that when comparing "west" versus "east." Having said that, we are then looking at a culture that's hundreds of years old versus thousands. The philosophical understandings here in the West are beginning to resemble those of the East and many are inspired by the East. Eastern thought has had more time for knowledge accumulation. "For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory...[we must turn] to those kinds of epistemiological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence." Niehls Bohr, 1958.

E-Prime

Grass is green compared to Grass registers as green to most human eyes.
In English Prime the user seems to take more responsibility for his or her words by acknowledging the differences amongst everyone and claiming what he or she perceives instead of declaring a blanket statement. E-Prime seems more conducive to non-violent communication than standard English as it allows space for clear, equal conversation and not blaming another for what they say. E-Prime does perhaps initially take more effort for the user than Standard English as it is not the commonly taught way of speaking. For example, I could have just now said E-Prime takes more effort than Standard English, period. That sentence appears to me to allow little room for conversation between two people instead of a debate that could lead to a sense of one person is right and the other is wrong.
I am reminded of elementary school grammar classes where children complete lessons in identifying "facts" versus "opinions" statements. A sentence like the grass is green would appear, and that would be declared as fact. The grass is green. The sky is blue. Many of us were probably taught to identify such statements as facts. I wonder how our culture would differ today if education included acknowledging our own personal observations instead of making assumptions such as the grass is green, when really, I may see the grass as green and my friend sees it as yellow.
In writing this posting I am reminded of the article on differences in English versus Chinese; how English speakers are conditioned to obey more rules when we speak than the Chinese, and, by extension, we are conditioned to obey many rules, to be subordinate to an abstract system. The author mentioned how the Western mind is not as free to express itself as the Chinese one: the abstract language system takes up human space, diminishes, and restricts the expressive spirit of the speaker. (English speakers being bound by formal obligations of he, she, it, present, past, future, etc., and Chinese speakers free of such changes). The English Prime, by including the space-time-personal relationship, seems to be creating fragments out of what some may see as absolutes as well as even more rules to obey in the language. While I see the benefits of E-Prime, do we want more rules with language? Are we conditioning ourselves to obey more rules that diminish our freedom of expression with words? Or perhaps are we, with E-Prime, moving more towards a community consciousness that includes the differences in opinion from person to person and allows for greater freedom of expression? Or, perhaps, are we increasingly fragmenting our language and writing-system and minimizing our chances of accumulating knowledge even further, whereas the Chinese meaning-based writing system maximizes the accumulation of knowledge from generation to generation?

Cogito ergo sum

Descarte. Famous for, amongst many things, the title of this blog, cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. Thought exists. Consciousness exists. As we explored in last week's readings, consciousness and chaos share a relationship. I am glad that western science has moved beyond Cartesian "reductionism" (all phenomena would eventually be expalined by reducing them to the sum of their particles) with developments in the 20th and early 21st century in quantum mechanics and chaos theory. To say, for example, that most of the universe is dead, is, in my opinion, a dangerously egocentric and anthropocentric standpoint on life, as well as an example of Cartesian thought of the illusion that a separate individual self exists. I like what was noted in our readings in response to this, in the "new science's thinking" that "we are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves."
The Cartesian-Newtonian universe strongly differs from Eastern philosophy. Even when we look at the simple basic eastern though of Qi we see that there is not such thing as a separate self! We are constantly surrounded by and influenced by the currents of life-the river of every-flowing water.

Newton's three laws and me

First law: Objects at rest remain at rest...ah, thanks for the permission, Newton! Shall we rest now?
...And objects in motion remain in motion in a straight line at constant velocity. A force must be applied to change the state of motion of an object. I do have times where I just cannot stop for it I do, my resting self will, you guessed it, remain at rest. The force applied to change the momentum of life may be as simple as Gravity pulling me down to sit. Other times it's gravity tugging on my eyelids to close or (bringing us to the 3rd law), another object whose force collides with me.

Second Law: The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the force acting on it, and inversely proportional to its mass. F = ma I ride my bike to school. The force of my own movement, coming originally from the food and air I take in to build my qi, is equal to the mass of the collective unit-me, the bike, my schoolbag, times our acceleration. In other words, I accelerate down the street on my bike because of the inverse relationship of my Force and my mass.

Third Law: If two objects interact, say in a collision, the force exerted by object 1 on object 2 is matched by a force of exertion by object 2 on object 1 of the same size, but in opposite direction. m1v1 = m2v2
I am in motion on the dance floor. Another dancer intentionally collides with me, generating an improv dance between the two of us. This dancer wants to play hard and so do I. We begin leaning in to one another and pushing against the other. Our motion cancels each other out and we end up in one spot, as we are generating equal forces upon the other.

Our "energy efficient" culture

First lawy of thermodynamics: Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It merely changes shape. One could then say we are "energy efficient" because we are not generating or losing any energy. Reality, though, is that the by-product of most reactions is heat given off to the atmosphere. This plus the carbon, nitrogen, particulate matter, and volatile organic chemicals we generate by burning coal and oil leave us with the well known greenhouse effect. To say we are energy efficient is, in my opinion, accurate in only a very narrow scope of the equation.

Chaos Theory

Ordered Chaos

Sounds very familiar. Our lives are created from ordered chaos. Entropy gives rise to order gives rise to entropy...and within it we co-exist. As one of the articles from our readings noted: “There are two forces in the universe that govern the creation and dissolution of order and disorder...autopoiesis and entropy...Both forces enhance relationality and stave off the static.”

I see these two forces all the time within my own life. I attempt to maintain some structure and discipline with my daily schedule to stave off too much entropy and distraction. Sometimes it all falls away and the entropy sinks in and I just have to breathe and be with what arises. As I accept the entropy the easier it is for the order and attempted structure to return.

Fractals as patterns of complex systems

Fractals are irregular fragments. Fractal patterns are patterns of ordered chaos. Human activity arises from the fractal patterns. We are all connected-our activity all arises from the fractal patterns of existence. We can reflect this very vividly to one another simply in our existence from conception to birth to life to death. Chaos giving rise to order-cells put together in human form-and decaying back to chaos and immaterial substances with death.

Consciousness out of chaos

One author of our readings for the week posed one of the “fundamental questions in the study of the mind: the question of how our conscious mind integrates information distributed amongst billions of spatially separated neurons to generate the unity of conscious experience.” “The essential notion is that the whole cloth of consciousness is woven of a tightly knit patchwork of subprocesses, each made possible and supported on all sides by the totality of the cloth itself, while at the same time contributing its part to the creation of the totality.” Consciousness out of chaos reminds me of the creation of a mandala-temporary order of particles to be appreciated and meditated upon for a short while and then destroyed again; non-attachment, impermanence. We temporarily grasp information and make sense of it and then poof it's gone or stored in our cells somewhere, creating chaos again.

Energy and Qi. Vibrations.

Hey all. Blogger wasn't working for me last time. Sorry for the delay in posting these!!

Energy and Qi...

This is the subject of my midterm paper. I will try not to overlap too much with my paper in this blog.

In my opinion, Qi and energy have many correlations and in some instances, but not all, can be synonymous with one another. To some physicists, Qi may be termed energy since Qi expresses the continuum of matter and energy as it is now understood in particle physics. Qi, as I understand it, is the basis of all phenomena of the universe and provides continuity between coarse, material forms and tenuous, rarefied, non-material energies. This concept of Qi does not exactly fit in to the Western duality of materialism and idealism. Qi is more complex than just calling it energy. Given that Qi is the basis of all phenomena of the universe, I'd say that what western physicists call energy can always also be called Qi. However, Qi cannot always also be called energy. To me Qi is more complex than simply calling it energy. It could be translated as life force, vital energy, vital force, material force, matter, ether, matter-energy, prana, ki, ji. I don't see energy as having the same implicit meanings. Qi manifests simultaneously on the psycho-spiritual level and the emotional level. It is in a constant state of flux and varying degrees of aggregation. When Qi is dispersed, it gives rise to more subtle forms of matter such as spirit, vapor, and steam. When Qi condenses, energy transforms and accumulates into physical shape. In the law of conservation, energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. In modern physics, all forms of energy exhibit mass and all mass is a form of energy. In the law of conservation energy and qi are synonymous with one another, the eastern concept or Qi fits the law. However, Qi does not necessarily have mass. (How can we determine the mass of Spirit?) Qi is more complex than simply calling it energy.

Vibrations

I don't know that we can call vibrations good or bad so much as simply a phenomena that exists and contributes to life on the planet. As we saw in this week's readings, vibrations contribute to earthquakes which can cause tsunamis or just freeways to collapse (the Dec. 26^th earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Indonesia, and the Nimitz freeway), matching vibrations can cause a poorly designed bridge to collapse (the Tacoma Narrows example), and vibrations of singing bowls and music can be used for sound healing to calm the nervous system, break up mental energies, and ground and balance energies. Judging these phenomena as good or bad is not for me to say. Yes, people do die in some of these instances, and that is as much a part of life as the earthquake that contributed to the death.

resonance

“Resonance occurs when two interconnected objects share the same vibrational frequency. When one of the objects is vibrating, it forces the second object into vibrational motion. The result is a large vibration, and if a sound wave within the audible range of human hearing is produced, a loud sound is heard.” http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/sound/U11L4b.html

Resonance in my world often occurs in human form, where something someone says or does “resonates” with an experience or belief I have or have shared in my past. Like the tuning forks that begin vibrating at the same vibration as their equivalent tuning fork when that vibrating fork is held still, I have matched the vibration of certain experiences or conversations in my life that resonate with something within me. Stimulating conversation is a simple example of this phenomena. One person shares, their words resonate with the other, and conversation flows naturally back and forth as each person dives deeper in to what the conversation is bringing up for them. The quality of resonance is that the vibration, once again like the tuning forks, that one person is holding is sending the other into vibrational motion as well.

A personal example is that I receive an email from someone I do not know very well. Her words and way of sharing her story of what is going on for her at the moment remind me of a lot of what I have experienced and had not put in to words in the way she did so well in the letter. Her vibration sends me in to an equivalent vibrating motion that moves me to share my own experience and inquire more in to her thoughts. The dialog flows back and forth with enthusiasm and gusto as we continue resonating with one another in high vibrational motion. We gain deeper understanding of our own selves through the stimulation the dialog brings as we continue resonating with one another.

Like the opera singer who first taps the wineglass to find its natural frequency of vibration then sings the same note back to shatter it, we are tapping in to one another's natural frequency and sending similar responses back, not with the intent of shattering the other so much as enlivening the other.