divination - arborvitae school of traditional herbalism · divination is not a shortcut divination...
TRANSCRIPT
Divi-What? Divi-Who?
Divination: Obtaining insight
through a “random” process
Randomness = the window through
which synchronicity can operate.
Divination as the art of “provoking an omen”
(Robert Moss’ phrase)
Divination Methods A tiny sample
I Ching (China)
Tarot (Europe)
Cowrie Shells
(Afro-Caribbean)
Temple Oracle
Sticks (China)
Ifa (West Africa)
Mo dice (Tibet)
Runes (Nordic)
Ogham (Celtic)
In many (most?) traditional cultures,
divination is part and parcel of medicine.
The idea is to seek advice from another
plane: from ancestors, deities, helpful spirits,
the higher self or the collective unconscious
Hocus Pocus…or Cutting Edge
Technology?
“Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic”
-Arthur C Clarke
Quantum entanglement and non-linearity help
explain how divination might work. Modern physics
may finally be catching up to ancient ways of
knowing.
Today’s Goals:
1. Show that these methods are still
relevant and practical now
2. Introduce the Yijing (I Ching) in the context of
Chinese Medicine and cosmology
before diving into the Yijing, let’s have a little
fun with randomness
-Write down the name of three herbs on separate slips of paper. The first three that come to mind are fine.
-Formulate a question to which the answer is an herb. For example, “what’s a good herb for me to get to know at this time?” or “what plant would help my friend Steve?”
-With your question in mind, draw one slip from the collective pile.
-Anything interesting to report?
Disclaimer: Divination is not a shortcut
Divination techniques are no substitute for diagnostic skills, in-depth knowledge of materia medica, thorough intake, or any other aspect of clinical work.
Divination works best when we apply all of the above
to the best of our ability and only then turn to
the power of randomness to take us beyond our
limitations.
This applies to things like pendulums as well.
Divination Ground Rules • Don’t ask if you already know.
• Put yourself in order first. You have to be a clear channel.
• Find your edge, then divine to go beyond it.
• Put some skin in the game—find a juicy question. But don’t
ask unless you’re ready for an answer.
• Question certainty of interpretation. There’s usually another
way to look at it. A given response may resonate on many
levels.
• Stay with the tension of not knowing and follow the
thread…
But first, a little background…
Cosmogenesis in a Slide
Wuji primal unity
Yin/Yang polarity Qi
interaction, multiplication
The “10,000
Things”
All phenomena can be boiled down to Yin and Yang—
Just like any sound or picture can be encoded digitally using only 1’s and 0’s.
The Yijing is based on a similar binary,
digital language.
—> World’s Oldest Computer
Its basic letters are yang and yin lines
Digital Language
Yin (Broken) and Yang (Whole) lines combine
to form three-line “trigrams”.
There are 2 = 8 possible three-line combos,
so 8 trigrams.
3
Trigrams
Yang
Bright
Sharp
Active
Energy
Yin
Dark
Soft
Passive
Matter
Heaven and Earth Father and Mother of the Gua
Thunder and Wind
Abrupt
Intense
Cracking
Forceful
Gallbladder
(Yang wood)
Slow
Gentle
Penetrating
Subtle
Liver
(Yin wood)
Bagua “Post-Heaven” Arrangement
Fire
Earth
Lake
Heaven
Water
Mountain
Thunder
Wind / Wood
Note: These trigrams are read from the innermost line out
Bagua “Post-Heaven” Arrangement
Fire
Earth
Lake
Heaven
Water
Mountain
Thunder
Wind / Wood
Note: These trigrams are read from the innermost line out
RECAP
-Yin and Yang combine to form 8 trigrams (bagua)
-Each trigram has its own characteristics
and each corresponds to an element (not one-to-one)
Element Trigram
Wood
Fire
Earth
Metal
Water
Thunder, Wind
Fire
Mountain, Earth
Heaven, Lake
Water
The trigrams combine to form “hexagrams”
There are 8 x 8 = 64 different hexagrams.
Hexagram 1, Heaven below Heaven
Hexagram 2, Earth below Earth
Hexagram 3, Thunder below Water
…
Hexagram 64, Water below Fire
…
Hexagrams
Meanings of the Hexagrams derive in part
from the meanings of the trigrams.
E.g. Hexagram 36 Mingyi
Fire above, Earth below
Standard meanings: Brightness Hiding, Hidden Potential
Medical context: Digestive Fire, Grounded Awareness
Hexagram Anatomy Hexagram 11
Trigrams: Heaven below Earth
Name: Tai - “Peace”,”Harmony”
Judgement text: “The small departs, the great approaches. Auspicious. Offering.”
Changing line texts: six additional phrases, only
some of which are relevant for a given cast. e.g. “6 in the fourth position: Flutter, flutter. Not sharing with associates, Confusion”
Additional info from cosmology…
The ‘Organ Clock’
source: https://365qigong.wordpress.com/2013/01/
Organ clock correspondences
Organ Network
Lung
Large Intestine
Stomach
Spleen
Heart
Small Intestine
Bladder
Kidney
Pericardium
Triple Warmer
Gallbladder
Liver
Hexagram
11
34
43
1*
44
33
12
20
23
2*
24
19
Animal
Tiger
Rabbit
Dragon
Snake
Horse
Ram/Goat
Monkey
Cock/Owl
Dog
Pig
Rat
Ox
The Lung and Hexagram 11
Hexagram: 11 Tai
Zodiac Animal: Tiger
First month of Chinese year (Feb-March)
Lung organ network functions:
-distribution of ‘fresh water’ (qi)
-‘upper source of water’
-keeps the vessels pressurized
-governs the pores
-rules the voice
Elements: Metal (lung zang), Wood (spring), Earth (taiyin)
RECAP
We’ve seen that there are hexagrams
corresponding to the 12 organs and the 5 elements.
What about other Chinese Medicine concepts such
as ‘excess’, ‘deficiency’, ‘jing’, ‘shen’, etc?
Excess - Hexagram 28 Da Guo
Deficiency - Hexagram 9 Xiao Xu
Jing - Hexagram 48 Jing (different character)
Shen - Hexagram 30 Li (Fire)
also Hexagram 44 Gou (goes with Heart)
A few More
hexagrams in the medical context
Hexagram 12 Pi
-Paired with Hexagram 11 (inverse of it)
-Translated “blockage, obstruction”
-Goes with the Bladder, the organ of boundaries
In medicine, Pi refers to a “hardness below the heart”
i.e. a subjective or objective feeling of stuckness at the solar plexus, often diagnosed by abdominal palpation.
When Pi is present, there is a blockage between upper and lower, heavenly and earthly. Pi often comes with insomnia and digestive distress.
Herbal treatment method is to harmonize along the vertical axis with a formula like Banxia Xie Xin Tang
Banxia Xie Xin Tang Pinellia Drain the Heart Decoction
-Harmonizing Method
-Treats pattern of Fire not descending into Earth.
Fire floating -> insomnia. Earth cold -> digestive trouble
-Combines warm (sweet and pungent) herbs with cold (bitter) ones to restore healthy dynamics between middle and upper burners.
12g Banxia (Pinellia)
3g Huanglian (Coptis)
9g Huangqin (Scute)
9g Ganjiang (Dry Ginger)
9g Renshen/Dangshen (Ginseng/Codonopsis)
9g Dazao (Jujube)
6g Zhigancao (Roasted Licorice)
Hexagram 18 Gu
-Rotten food offerings - worms in a pot
-State of stagnation, corruption, decay
-Connects to ancestral influences and
parasitic conditions
Dr. Heiner Fruehauf revived Gu
as a clinical concept and has used it
successfully in the treatment of
Lyme disease and chronic digestive
parasitism.
Integrating Divination into a Clinical session
(A) Divining with the client present
(B) Divining on the (absent) client’s behalf
-Both challenging, but in different ways.
In person, one key is to be willing to explore the symbols that come up with the patient, who may know better you than you how they’re relevant.
Consulting the Yi methods
Origins - reading cracks in turtle shells
Oldest standardized method - *yarrow stalks*
Common today - coin method
Coin Method
3 coin flips for each of the 6 lines —> 18 flips in all
Heads count as 3, Tails count as 2.
Sum the 3’s and 2’s in each group of three flips.
For example, HTH = 3+2+3 = 8.
e.g. HTH TTT HHT THT THT HTH
{Bear with this bit of math, it’ll only hurt for a second}
* Each group of three flips will sum to either 6, 7, 8, or 9 *
For example, the sequence above yields 8 6 8 7 7 8
Note: the first number corresponds to
the bottom line of your hexagram(s).
6 - Old Yin (Yin line — — changing to Yang line —
—)
7 - Young Yang (fixed Yang line ——)
8 - Young Yin (fixed Yin line — —)
9 - Old Yang (Yang line —— changing to Yin line —
—)
“But what does it mean?!” We’re getting there—just a couple more steps.
Here’s the KEY:
Thus, 7 7 7 8 7 7 would look like this
(starting always from the bottom):
While 666666 looks like: —>
with all the lines
changing from yin
to yang.
Yijing as a Psychological Tool
- Seems to tell you what you need to hear, providing
just the right image for the situation
- Case examples: Hexagram 29, 45—>2, 48
- Useful for big questions, too. “What on earth am I here
for?” Health flows from being aligned with one’s
purpose.
Changing: Zhouyi:: The Heart of the Yijing by the late Liu Ming
Yo Ching: Ancient knowledge for Streets Today by True Player
The Complete I Ching by Alfred Huang
Check out my article series at ChineseMedicineCentral.com.
I’m available for Yijing instruction, one-on-one or in small groups.
Contact: [email protected]
axismundihealingarts.com
http://pages.pacificcoast.net/~wh/Index.html - links to various translations.
Yijing Resources