On my recent appearance on the awesome Rune Soup podcast, which you can access HERE. we closed with a consideration of what Covid might be communicating to us. I think that might be where, in the state of consciousness that I now realizing I was channelling, the real transmission goes into effect. It does seem that it resonated with folks, and it also segued into the reflection upon what kind of practitioner I urge people to seek out. That circles around again to an old trope that I have championed for years; I think the defining characteristic of a practitioner who purports to be classically-oriented pivots around her relationship to the texts, but not just as canonical documents. It depends upon striving to be an upper-level physician, and recognizing that the texts are channels into that state of awareness. The upper level physician, in turn, is characterized as one who sees into the unseen. This is also illuminated by that saying that with regards to Shen one sees it as if clouds have parted- the sage alone sees it. So, by constellating these few statements together, we see that the two poles of focusing on the classical texts (for me that includes: Yi Jing, Nei Jing, Dao de Jing, Huainanzi, Zhuangzi, Shang Han Za Bing Lun) and seeing the unseen must be related. That is, that rather than seeing the texts as just canonical they are recognized as the very means by which one peers into the unseen. That has been my experience. The Shang Han Lun seized me, and not the other way around.
After the interview aired, I took a few minutes to think about my assertion regarding the Earth and Metal, Taiyin and Yangming patterns that I described. My friend Ross Rosen rightly pointed out that this is reflected in the Shen-Hammer Pulse Diagnosis quality that we call Flooding Excess. The sensation of this quality, which can be felt over the whole pulse, as a wave form, or in a single position, is a powerful sensation that surges above the superficial Qi-Depth before dropping away from the fingers suddenly and precipitously. If we consider the gesture of this sensation, then it represents an impulse that overwhelms the body’s ability to contain it, and also exceeds the capacity of the Yangming function to close and descend the peak expression of Yang. For this reason, it as as closely associated with manic episodes as it is with infections. Consider, how deeply we could unpack those two correlations. In particular, what it would imply for our understanding of mania if we view its management as restoring the function of closure, and containment, and not clearing fire, or purging yangming. It seems to me that it then opens a path for us to also consider that we can observe a 60/40 split between terrain theory and germ theory, as well as providing a window into holding the virus as both a potentially deadly objective phenomena, and a semiotic intensity reflecting a wider, cultural and social meaning. That is just the type of thinking that I was alluding to throughout the whole interview, and which is ultimately well summed up in Gordon White’s phrase: Big Table Animism.
Taiyin is often represented as Earth, and Yangming is often represented as Metal. Within the Taiyin we have the Lung and Spleen, and within the Yangming the Stomach and Large Intestine. However, when viewed through the lens of 5 Phases, the Lung and Large Intestine are metal, and the Stomach and Spleen represent Earth. All of these assertions are correct simultaneously. That web of interrelationship can be visualized: imagine yourself standing at the intersection of all of those systems as they auto-poietically unfold into relationship: if you do so we will have discovered Chinese medicine channel theory, because that is what the channels really even am. Next imagine those channels as essentially fugitive lines-of-flight expressed as time interacting with awareness, and awareness dynamically interpenetrating the external environment all the way to the furthest reaches of the cosmos. And at the same time, a gestural mirror of all those factors perceived as the cosmos simultaneously flowing back into the Self though concentric circles of climate, terrain, history, society, culture, family, genetics, lifestyle, and physiology. Germ theory seems a bit quaint in the context, but not wrong or non-existent by any means. And for that matter, imagine washing your hands with the awareness of the act’s cosmic dimensions. Like I said, Medicine is applied philosophy and Magic is applied cosmology. And oftentimes, the lines between medicine and magic are, well, expressions of the same emptiness.
The formulas that I have prescribed most for treating suspected and confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been Chai Hu Gui Zhi Gan Jiang Tang, combined with elements of Wei Jing Tang and Xiao Xian Xiong Tang. There were others, but iterations of this combination were common. One way I could expand those formulas is to say that CHGZGJT is a Shaoyang-Taiyang-Taiyin remedy, Wei Jing Tang is a Taiyin Lung Abscess formula, yet related to Yangming due to its anti-inflammatory qualities, and XXXT is found in the Taiyang chapter, but describes a state of chest-bind with heat, and phlegm. So, although I was describing the cultural and socio-political circumstances that I see at play (as well as the climactic factors described with great eloquence by my colleague Bryan McMahon HERE) it does turn out, upon reflection that my assertion was not off-base even if totally spontaneous and stream-of-consciousness.
In essence I described a state in which a compromised Earth, with nutrition deficits, and processed foods playing a key role, as well as the breakdown of social community or family connections around food, and the irrepressible onslaught of the Industrial Growth economy (think of Elon Musk’s recent exploded rocket launch, and just how many of those satellites need to be launched to further the establishment of 5G networks) as a concurrent and long-term factor, and then the effect of these two impacts exploring the point of contact between the systems in the Lungs of those who are most compromised either from the decline of aging or the ravages of atmospheric environmental pollution.
Now let’s look at that dynamic through the lens of consciousness. Doctor Hammer associates the Lung as Metal with the capacity for metanoia, and the ability to invest the self with the authority and autonomy of evolution, while at the same time awakening more and more complex, nuanced and inclusive awarenesses of the responsibilities that inhere in freedom, and the extension of that same opportunity in a just and equitable framework for greater and greater circles of connection- all the way from prison abolition to a Gaian cosmo-centric holism. Only through gaining access to the substantial reality of this evolution within the embodied state of Earth can we ever hope to have a stable instantiation of that freedom. And this will be predicated on deeply nourishing the ties that bind us together in family and community through initiatives like mutual aid and direct representation at local and bioregional levels. And within that katabasis, it will take a leap of consciousness, as Gebser would describe it, to realize in increasing manifestation the dawn of a consciousness that returns to encompass the Water of our being within the entirety of its expression, just as the Kidney is held to be the root that contains the whole scope of our life force, yet governs the transition between Life and Death at each moment, as individuals, and as All-that-is.