We live in a world that is out of balance. The planet itself is not out of balance of course, it just does what it has always done. The imbalance I’m talking about is within us; we just project that on to everything else.
Did you know that between the war years of 1940 and 1945 there were no bananas in the UK. When the banana returned to Britain on 30 December 1945, it was the first time some children had ever seen one. It’s hard to believe in our modern age, when everything is available all year round, that something as commonplace as a banana wasn’t available. I suppose it must sound just as crazy to a teenager when we tell them that we grew up without mobile phones or the internet, or that there were only three channels on the TV. How did we ever survive without looking at Instagram every two minutes?
Imbalance and disconnection
It is near impossible to live a balanced life in a society that is anything but balanced. Many of the people I see in my practice tell me the same story: they are working long hours, eating on the go, punishing themselves in the gym and not getting enough rest. And then that’s when I see them, when they are exhausted. Sometimes they are ill or have an injury that won’t clear up on its own. Or they just don’t feel good; they are not sleeping well, have digestive problems, anxiety, depression, fertility issues….
Having whatever you want whenever you want it comes at a price. Not just to the planet, which is well documented, but to the health of every one of us living on the planet. We have lost our connection to nature. When something like Coronavirus comes along it just highlights this disconnection. We see ourselves as something other from the planet, as if we just dropped here a few hundred years ago, like the Conquistadors arriving in South America to plunder the land. We speak of fighting disease and a war against germs, finding a cure to kill the enemy.
Imbalance on Mars
The world we live in now positively encourages this disconnection with nature. We treat the planet like it is an inanimate object, here simply to be exploited, stripped bare of all its natural resources. Now we are even planning to colonize the Moon and further afield, when we all know what colonization really means. Exploitation.
Our reductionist worldview encourages the belief that we live on a rock where everything is for the taking and what isn’t, is simply out to get us and must be destroyed. We apply this view to the macrocosm as well as to the microcosm. Germs and viruses are part of the same planet we exist on. They are not Aliens that have found their way to earth intent on destroying humans. Coronavirus is not a ‘new’ virus, it’s just the usual suspects repackaged.
What has changed, of course, is our ability to live with such viruses. As the planet’s Qi has weakened, so too has our own.
Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.
Man has created false daylight and a summer with no end. Energetically this means we are always in Yang mode, always growing and expanding. This goes against the universal law that Yang cannot exist without Yin. The world is changing so rapidly that we can’t keep up with it. 5G is being rolled out even though we don’t understand how it might affect our health. The one thing that is certainly harmful to our health, above COVID19, is fear. As I have explained previously, the root of all illness is emotional. Any emotion that is persistent or intense will have a negative effect. So, just because we cannot see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Before the Industrial Revolution life was different. Work was dictated greatly by the sun and seasons. We ate according to the seasons and to the greater extent, locally. More exotic food stuffs were a rare treat, not staples like they are today. As foods weren’t available all year round, it’s storage and preservation had to be managed skilfully. Now, as all food is available, it feels normal eating salads and smoothies in the winter.
Tuning into the Seasons
The naturalistic philosophy behind Chinese Medicine gives us some idea of how we should be living in rhythm with the seasons. At the moment Nature is telling us to rest. We are still in the Yin time of year (at the time of writing this anyway) when all living things are conserving their energy ready to burst forth in the spring. Winter is also when the Water energy is at its strongest, so it’s a time when the reservoirs are able to refill. Without this opportunity to do so the reservoirs would be empty for when they are most needed, in the summer, the Yang time of year. How can we fill our Qi reservoirs if we never stop?
Societies that rely on the land to exist have an intimate relationship with the seasonal energies, and they have a genuine sense of what it means to be in harmony with them. If the farmer fails to plant the seed in the springtime, he would have missed the moment when the summer arrived. Without the growth of the spring (wood) and the maturity of the summer (fire) there would be no harvest (earth).
Reconnecting with nature
Although simply washing your hands regularly is effective, here a few other things you can add to your daily routine to not only reconnect to nature, but also boost your immune system:
- Sleep. We need more of it in the winter and less in the summer, so don’t feel guilty if you would rather be in bed on a cold winter’s night.
- Exercise. As for sleep, we need more rest in the winter.
- Eat well. Try to have a colourful diet with many different flavours.
- Don’t have a tv in your bedroom. If you do, then cover it up at night.
- Leave your phone and ipad in another room
- Turn the Wifi off when you go to bed. This is becoming difficult as many things in the home are now controlled via wifi. Or you just forget to do it.
- Have a few moments of silence in your day. Resist the temptation to put the TV on at home, or the radio in the car.
- Try not to carry your mobile on your person. Put it in your rucksack or handbag.
- Use the earphones instead of holding your phone close to your head.
- Leave the car at home when you can. Go for a walk.
If you have any questions about acupuncture, or any of the topics in my blogs, please do contact me. Find out more about me, or my treatments here.
