I woke up this morning to the unexpected flakes of snow falling as I opened the window. It's April, early spring. Snow in April is not surprising, unexpected due to the last month of sunshine but not surprising. Humans have known that snow is possible even in spring. Our classical Chinese Medical text, Yellow Emperor Classic of Internal Medicine (Huang Di Nei Jing), written 3000 years ago, speaks of it. Spring is a time of changes, of warmth and cold, of winds. Hence, we must be careful not to open too soon. Not t-shirt weather just yet, keep the jacket on.
 
Paying heed to this. Our garden project has already begun since the middle of last month. We have out vessels for planting ready on the balcony, earth awaits to be filled into these vessels. Seeds have been planted but inside, in a little "greenhouse," to keep the warmth and moisture ever present. The seedlings are thriving. We have basil, hyssop, coriander, gou qi zi, echinacea, to name a few. We wait till the middle of April to set the seedlings into their vessels outside, observing the weather to ensure that they have the best temperature and environment for growth. A garden, as we humans, needs to be nurtured. Sometimes, that means waiting for the right moment to move forward.   


​Photo by Elaine 

Since a few weeks it's officially Spring! Beautiful rays of sunlight, spring rains, blossoming trees and plants, sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes...If you experience Seasonal Allergic Rhinitis or Hay Fever, then you know what I am talking about. It can be frustrating to see the beautiful spring unfold and know that all this blossoming is going to make you sneeze. From the Western medical point of view, it is an inflammation of inner nose to an allergen. In Chinese Medicine, it is often viewed as a deficiency in the Lung and Kidney's Defensive Qi/Wei Qi, which then leads to the body's overreaction. In acute situations, this may produce a cold or heat condition with some invasion of what we call wind in the nose, leading to sneezing, or in the eyes, which leads to itching, reddening and irritation. If severe, it may move deeper into the body affecting breathing, causing asthma.
 
So, what is Wei Qi? In Chinese Medicine, there is the idea of Qi, sometimes translated as vital energy, that exists in all living things and there are different kinds of Qi in the human body. One of them is Wei Qi. Translated as Defensive or Protective Qi, as it circulates and protects the exterior of the body, such as on/in the skin, the muscles and sinews. It deals with the outer world and helps us adapt to external changes. So Wei Qi is responsible for protecting our bodies from colds, flus, pollen, climatic changes and even psycho-emotional stressors. Returning to the theme of Seasonal Allergic Rhinitis, it is then very important to tone and strengthen the Wei Qi. Often, the strategy is Wei Qi Strengthening in pre-allergy season, such as in autumn or in winter or early spring depending on when the acute symptoms begin. We do this with acupuncture, herbs and even self-massage techniques. Also, what you eat and getting enough sleep affects the Wei Qi.    
 
I personally am affected by Seasonal Allergic Rhinitis, which I have begun to call "Seasonal Irritation," and I have developed a personal strategy to cope with the issue over the years. I believe that words have power. If we attach ourselves to a particular "dis-ease," we will manifest the disease like a textbook. I have found that it's much easier to manage the symptoms and this phase of the year, which for me is about a month, since I began calling it Seasonal Irritation. I take my Chinese herbs pre-season and during the acute phase, do my acupuncture and limit exposure to the pollen. I do my Qi Gong exercises to stimulate the Wei Qi and my Yoga breathing techniques, which all help me cope. I have learned to adapt to the season, just as winter makes me put on a warm coat, spring urges me to take care of my Wei Qi.
 
We live in a time of extreme change, which maybe was always so since the beginning of time. What we do in the here and now, determines the future. I end this post with a quote from the book 'Ravens of Avalon' by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson, "What you cannot do is to keep things as they have been. All things transforming into another until the world itself is changed. Bend or break - it's up to you." 
 

​Photo by Pixabay Peter Dargatz

As I sit basking in the sunlight of the arriving spring, I can feel the inspiration to do and to create. Things bubble in my being, just as the shoots of the plants start to tickle the earth with its impatient need to find the warm sunshine. The red shoots in the picture are of Peony, which is a Chinese medicinal plant.  Spring is a time of ideas, sometimes they rush at us at crazy speeds but some may take time to manifest, sometimes years. 
 
Sometime last spring, I walked down the street to ICM, along Falknerstrasse. It's where the tram passes through. I realized how un-green it was. I looked up to our practice on the 4th floor and realized that we have 2 beautiful little balconies, that we almost never come out on. I watched all year through how the sunlight from the eastern sky shines onto them and how the angle of light changes through the year. It inspired me to begin something new already then. This Spring, we will initiate our ICM Garden Project. It will be the "greening of Falknerstrasse" starting from the top, hopefully downward. 
 
What has happened since this seed was planted last year in my mind/being, is a sort of quiet observation process. Every time I came to ICM in the morning as I prepared the treatment space, I was observing the sunlight and the sensing the Qi of the space. I've also been researching what containers and seeds to sow, as well as when. This process has begun to change my view of things on so many levels. It's crazy, exciting, depressing sometimes yet wonderful! How something so small can have an impact on my life and change how I live life.
 
It's like this. First, I really wanted to recycle as well as I could, to stop or at least limit consuming/buying. So I tried to find out more about plastic containers, such as PET bottles and other plastics containers, to be used as planting containers. Here I opened a "can of worms" that I cannot turn away from. What I found out made me realise that we take too many things for granted and that we need to be more vigilant, so I've decided to get good old terracotta pots for our garden project, which we will use for a long time instead of recycling any unsafe plastic. We, at ICM, my family and myself are limiting our use of plastics as much as we can, especially those dealing with food and drink, as well as planting food in. I don't want to get too deeply into this topic here, so I will reference a blog I have been reading about plastics, www.myplasticfreelife.com. 

I am reading more about Permaculture, which is pretty cool and I hope to garden/live more in this manner, as I find many similarities to Chinese medicine. I will write more about it in future posts. At home we have started a bokashi compost, in addition to our garden compost we have had for 5 years. These will be feeding our little project at ICM along with fertile soil for growth, as well as many other ideas and actions. 
 
We will begin this month of March with growing seeds, mostly herbal plants like basil, coriander, calendula and even the ever popular Chinese herb, Gou Qi Zi. Let spring live through you, be the hand that plants the seed, that grows the tree and let the ideas blossom. It is what the world needs right now.  

​Photo by Elaine

The Chinese New Year begins today. So much of Chinese culture, whether medicine, astrology or cooking, incorporates the philosophy of the five-elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Each element has its characteristics and follows 2 cycles of interaction, the generating (clockwise circle in diagram) as well as the controlling (the pentagram in diagram). Even each season is related to an element: spring to wood, summer to fire, late summer to earth, autumn to metal and winter to water. This year is the year of the Earth Pig. The Chinese revere this animal as a symbol of wealth and abundance.  

The Chinese follow parallel to the regular (Gregorian) calendar a traditional lunar-solar calendar. The Chinese New Year lands either on the second or third new moon after the winter solstice. Each year is associated with an animal, 12 altogether, and with one of the five element that changes every third year. So the same animal and element comes by again in 60 years. There is are many stories associated with the order of the animals. As a child, I recall seeing a calendar with a picture of the animals in the order of the years arriving to greet Buddha. I have heard of another one with the same animal order coming to greet the Jade Emperor. I imagine this is the Daoist version as opposed to the former, a Buddhist version. The animals obviously possess their strengths and weaknesses, affecting how the year will turn out. Depending on your element and animal, which also has its own related element, these also determine how your year unfolds. Personally, I do see some correlations to the traits of the animals and elements on the year's events, but my belief is that we create our own reality with our actions.
 
This is the beginning of spring for the Chinese. I remember going to the market with my parents as a child to the get new year decorations and food imported from China, as we do not have four seasons in Malaysia. Cherry tree branches with buds was a standard, symbolizing the start of spring, which I could never really understand in the scorching heat and constant growth of plants in the tropics. I don't think I really understood spring until I moved to the west and experienced it for myself. Right now, looking outside with snow flurries still falling or frost on the grass, the feeling of spring hasn't really set in here, yet if you really look deeper you will notice that some plants have already begun that springy action of breaking through earth to manifest its destiny to blossom, like the daffodils in my garden. They are just waiting for the most perfect moment to blossom their delicate blooms of golden. This happens just when the light and temperature are ideal. Something I learnt from planting and reading about Narcissus is that their leaves need to be left alone till they wilt and become brown, which you can then cut off, as these allows bulbs to store enough energy for the next year. For such a short time in the year, for maybe 2 to 4 weeks, these blossoms are at its fullest and then spend the majority of the year storing under the earth in a kind of hibernation.

​So different it is with us humans in our day. We spend little time sleeping or having time to contemplate. We give a lot of energy for action but little for quiet, self-reflection. We wonder then why we are often so tired or rundown. Maybe it's time we learn something from the plants around us and take time for quiet reflection and storing, go to bed a little earlier and spend time during the day doing calming things such as reading or even just breathing. So that when spring officially hits, at the vernal equinox on March 21st, with bright sunshine and blossoming plants, we can manifest our life blossoms with a feeling of powerful strength and be able to maintain this all season long.
 
 
 
Photo by user:Bru-nO pixabay
Diagram by Elaine

Right at the beginning of my studies in Chinese Medicine in San Francisco, one of our professors asked us why we were studying the medicine. As I began to ponder on the reasons for it, I realized that part of it had an aspect of tradition and my lineage. My family name Yap (Chinese character on the right of the stamp in picture), or Yè in Mandarin, means "leaf." I never met my grandparents, as they had passed before I was born, so I only had the stories of the Yap Chinese Medical pharmacy from my mother. My grandfather, from what I understand was a farmer in China, who had left around the turn of the 20th century for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Malaya in that time). He sold imported herbs from China and learned to pick his own from the local jungles. I imagine my fascination with plants and healing may not just be unique to me but rather a continuation of a lineage of "plant people." 
 
I grew up in Malaysia, spent my twenties studying in the US and for the last 15 years I have been practicing Chinese Medicine in Basel, Switzerland. I find my experiences of living in 3 different continents very enriching, not just the experience of traditions, language and food, but also the energetics of the environment, plants and people. I have come to realize that I am an embodiment of East-meets-West. I feel Western on the inside yet Eastern on the outside.
 
Movement is nourishment for me. I started training in ballet at 5. It taught me control of my physical body, spatial awareness and ability to move in rhythm to music. As I began my Chinese Medicine studies, I also began a journey with Qi Gong and Tai Ji Quan. These were, still are, for me the application and manifesting of Qi, the practice of the theories I was learning in Chinese Medicine school and books. They opened an awareness of the energetic world that exists simultaneously to our physical. Over the past few years, I have started a practice of Yoga. I love stretching my body and mind. Yoga provides me with a space to play with my body-mind, to find balance in sometimes uncomfortable positions but still being able to breathe deeply.   
 
I like listening to stories, of people and plants - of how and where they grow, of things and beings they used to play with, and how they become who they are now. I like practicing Chinese Medicine as it provides me with this possibility. Chinese Medicine has also given me new perspectives to view the world we live in and help me develop skills in sensing as well as observing. 
 
It is this that I want to share with others in this blog, the stories and perspectives I have gained, with the hope that it will inspire others to be excited about life, the earth, people, animals and plants. That life is simple, if we allow it to be. To go back to having that child-like wonder of simple things. Dig your hands into the earth and plant a seed, stand on one leg and fall off balance, to go back to the source of who we really are as living beings on this planet.  

​Photo by Elaine