Bach Flower Essences and Chinese Medicine

Pablo Noriega, Loey Colebeck

• Publisher: Healing Arts Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781620555712
• eBook ISBN: 9781620555729
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Alternative & Complementary Medicine

A guide to applying the power and wisdom of Chinese Medicine to Bach Flower Therapy • Includes detailed write-ups about the indications and effects of each of the original 38 Bach flower remedies according to Chinese Medicine • Explains the relationships between specific emotions, symptoms, and regions of the body according to Chinese Medicine • Offers a complementary method of Flower Essence evaluation using physical conditions to access the emotions Bach flower essences provide excellent tools for balancing energetic disturbances generated by emotions. Yet people often have trouble clearly expressing their feelings and emotions, making selection of a specific flower essence difficult. Drawing upon the centuries-old relationships established in Chinese Medicine between emotions and physical disorders, Pablo Noriega shows how to use a person's descriptions of their complaints and chronic conditions combined with Flower-type personality traits to diagnose which flower essence to prescribe in each unique case. The author includes a full primer on Chinese Medicine, exploring in detail the main principles: Yin and Yang; the Five Elements and their associated Organs; Blood and Energy; the Virtues, the behaviors that can strengthen the Elements; and the Psyches, the energetic spirit of each Organ. He reveals the direct correspondences between specific emotions, symptoms, and regions of the body and how the Flowers help regulate Spirit and work on the emotional foundations of many common chronic disorders. Providing detailed profiles about each of the original 38 Bach flower remedies according to Chinese Medicine, Noriega explains how to prescribe flower essences for prevention of predisposed conditions, for healing of acute and chronic ailments, and for disorders that arise from stagnant energy and yin-yang imbalances. Offering flower essence therapists new possibilities for evaluation and treatment, this guide also helps Chinese Medicine practitioners incorporate Flower Essences into their practice.

Part 1

An Introduction to Chinese Medicine

1

Yin Yang

These two words no longer sound strange to us. Their diffusion in the West has been astounding, even to the point of being used to brand various products. Along with the modern Tai Chi symbol (

), yin and yang have spread throughout the West, and there are probably more people who have heard these words than those who haven’t.

This mass diffusion is quite new. In ancient times, knowledge that allowed access to wisdom and traditional sciences was transmitted to just a few people or groups and in a rather restricted manner. Large-scale diffusion of knowledge necessarily simplifies its contents, so with that in mind, let’s dedicate some time to get to know more about this exciting view of the universe.

The sages of ancient times, like Laozi and Zhuang Zhu, tell us of the impenetrable origin of the universe: Dao. They revealed to us that it is a unity of two aspects.

One aspect transcends, unmanifest, that of nonbeing, the origin of all things that also sustains and nourishes all things. It is the primordial void, mentioned in texts as Wuji, out of which the manifest world is generated. This is a state of nondifferentiation in which original universal Energy is full and complete, with no distinction between one thing and another, with no thing having emerged as an individual separate from unity.

The other aspect is imminent, manifest, the multiplicity of things. It is said that it arises after the birth of Heaven and Earth.

We must remember that even though we are talking about them separately, these two facets form part of a unity. The Dao transcends this explicatory duality.

In the process of manifestation, Energy takes on two differentiated aspects, yin and yang. Yang is the active pole, and yin is the static pole. Form and shape are produced out of the interaction of these two poles.

The ancient sages drew on yin and yang to describe the nature of things and the changes of Heaven and Earth. This conception of the universe is the root and base of all the traditional Chinese sciences from art to engineering.

Like in other areas of knowledge in China, yin and yang build a fundamental pillar in the practice of medicine, both in theory and practice.

Yin and yang were linked to the Sun and the Moon and their characteristics. Their meaning naturally expanded until it applied to the shadow side and the sunny side of a mountain. They could literally be translated as shadow and light, respectively, or better yet, light and no light. In written Chinese, the character that corresponds to yin refers to that side of a mountain or hill that does not receive light, and the character corresponding to yang describes the side that is illuminated.

Going upon what the characters reveal to us about yin and yang, we can begin to understand which sorts of things could be attributed to yin and which others to yang. Try to evoke the feeling and appearance of a shadowed side of a hill. It is darker, cooler, less shiny, and the eyes can rest a bit, less damaged by brightness.

On the other hand, on the side with full sun, everything is in plain view and details that are difficult to see in the shadow are visible here. More Heat can be felt and everything tends to be more active.

Continuing with the characters, they both, in part, mean “hill, mound, or mountain.” The character related to yang also shows us the Sun sending its rays of light from the horizon, denoting activity, Movement, Heat, projection. The character related to yin, along with the part representing “mountain,” includes the characters “now and clouds.” These two words refer to a moment in which there is less light as a cloud places itself between the Sun and Earth. The cloud also carries water, Dampness. The load that the cloud carries is heavier than the pure light of the Sun’s rays.

We have been mentioning some attributes related to what the characters for yin and yang insinuate; the notions of a sunny side and shadowed side of a mountain help us to deduce these attributes. So, that which is related to Heat, light, daytime, activity, and lightness are manifestations of the yang condition. Cold, dark, night, stillness, and heaviness are expressions of the yin condition.

With this, we begin to have some parameters for classifying objects and phenomena according to the yin-yang criteria, just as they were viewed in the classical texts of Chinese culture, and, of course, in the most important Chinese Medicine texts.

Nothing escapes classification in yin and yang. In the manifest world, we find in every object or phenomenon a “sunny” or “cloudy” aspect—the two opposing sides whose emblematic representatives are yin and yang. These opposing aspects are in conflict but are also interdependent.

Yin yang invites us to notice a union of opposites, which certainly modifies the usual Western point of view where opposites would not appear to have any relationship with each other, as if they were two separate things.

Out of unity, duality arises. We can, then, view duality as something that reminds us of unity and carries us toward unity. This becomes a less arduous task when we understand that opposites are not disconnected, that they are mutually influential, and that together they generate the development of events, complete each other, and explain each other.

Since ancient times, yin and yang were used to understand and explain changes in nature. Continuous transformation, or change, is, as it’s been said many times, the only constant. If we think in terms of absolute and relative, Movement, growth, and decline are absolute; they are permanently happening. Immobility and balance are relative.

The Huang Di Nei Jing says “Yin Yang is a universal law, the key for analyzing and synthesizing the many objective things, the source of all change and the internal grounds for birth, evolution and extinction. Despite the existence of endless secrets in the world, they are without exception born of Yin and Yang. Thus, diagnosis and treatment of illness must be based on the essential problem of Yin and Yang” (Lu, A Complete Translation of The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine and the Difficult Classic).

TABLE 1.1. SOME YIN-YANG RELATIONSHIPS
	Yin		Yang
	Darkness		Light
	Moon		Sun
	Square		Circle
	Space		Time
	North		South
	West		East
	Right		Left
	Shadow		Clarity
	Cold		Heat
	Internal		External
	Matter		Energy
	Substantial		Insubstantial
	Tangible		Intangible
	Contraction		Expansion
	Depression		Excitement
	Stillness		Movement
	Rest		Activity
	Water		Fire
	Body		Spirit
	Feminine		Masculine
	Receive		Emit
	Internal genitals		External genitals
	Night		Day
	Below		Above
	Dampness		Dryness
	Emptiness		Fullness
	Hypersomnia		Insomnia
	Lack of appetite		Appetite
	Hypothermia		Fever
	Chronic illnesses		Acute illnesses
	Congestion		Inflammation
	Heavy		Light

Ever-Present Yin and Yang

Once something comes to be in the manifest world, yin and yang are always there. No matter what it is that we may be looking at, considering in theory, or perceiving in any of the ways that humans can perceive, we are in the presence of these two aspects.

If we are able to take this constant into account, we will be capable of contacting both sides of any situation from a perspective of the whole. It is habitual to perceive only one aspect of a thing or a situation, leaving us ignorant about inherent ...

Table of contents

• Cover Image
• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Acknowledgments
• Table of Contents
• Translator’s Foreword
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction: Chinese Medicine and Bach Flower Therapy
• Part 1: An Introduction to Chinese Medicine
• Part 2: Bach Flowers from a Chinese Medical Perspective
• Appendix 1: Navigation Charts
• Appendix 2: Ancient Roots: Words of Wisdom
• Footnotes
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
• Books of Related Interest
• Copyright & Permissions
• Index