Forces of Nature and JOY: Water Dragon 2012

wilderness

If you know me, chances are that at some point I’ve talked your ear off about some outdoor adventure I had in Montana, involving everything from wolverine encounters to getting attacked by a goshawk. Well this post will also be a little “Pilgrim at  Tinker Creek”-ish, but it involves more elemental ideas. Recently I’ve been having dreams about mountains and cougars, which for me represent challenge, danger, personal power, love, protectiveness, and intense fear of failure/the unknown/loss. This makes sense due to the great changes in my life right now. But I realized I am getting caught up in the details too strongly, that I’m missing the forest for the trees, and that in order to move forward correctly I must remember a simple yet important quality: joy.

In the YiJing, the Lake represents Joyousness.

This hexagram, like sun, is one of the eight formed by doubling of a trigram. The trigram Tui denotes the youngest daughter; it is symbolized by the smiling lake, and its attribute is joyousness. Contrary to appearances, it is not the yielding quality of the top line that accounts for joy here. The attribute of the yielding or dark principle is not joy but melancholy. However, joy is indicated by the fact that there are two strong lines within, expressing themselves through the medium of gentleness.

True joy, therefore, rests on firmness and strength within, manifesting itself outwardly as yielding and gentle.

THE JUDGMENT

THE JOYOUS. Success.
Perseverance is favorable.

The joyous mood is infectious and therefore brings success. But joy must be based on steadfastness if it is not to degenerate into uncontrolled mirth. Truth and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in social intercourse. In this way one assumes the right attitude toward God and man and achieves something. Under certain conditions, intimidation without gentleness may achieve something momentarily, but not for all time. When, on the other hand, the hearts of men are won by friendliness, they are led to take all hardships upon themselves willingly, and if need be will not shun death itself, so great is the power of joy over men.

THE IMAGE

Lakes resting one on the other:
The image of THE JOYOUS.
Thus the superior man joins with his friends
For discussion and practice.

A lake evaporates upward and thus gradually dries up; but when two lakes are joined they do not dry up so readily, for one replenishes the other. It is the same in the field of knowledge. Knowledge should be a refreshing and vitalizing force. It becomes so only through stimulating intercourse with congenial friends with whom one holds discussion and practices application of the truths of life. In this way learning becomes many-sided and takes on a cheerful lightness, whereas there is always something ponderous and one- sided about the learning of the self-taught.

Here is the story part:

first basin

This year the mountain snowpack reached a short-term record, so the thaw came later in the summer than usual- rivers still raged and mountain meadows still glowed brilliant green well into September. We started our trip on a warm September morning to make the 6 mile jaunt to an alpine lake, and immediately upon passing the trailhead we heard a huge thunk. We jumped in alarm, but soon discovered that a bizarre twin-conjoined pinecone full of pitch had happily leapt out of the tree towards us. Maybe I was being romantic but I took that as a good sign. The rest of the walk up was pleasant- the flowers were out in full force and the valley smelled amazing, encouraged by the intense high-altitude sunlight.

gentians

We trotted up rockslides, past large stands of angelica, gentian, arnica, michaud’s mugwort, and many other healing herbs that I can now appreciate from a medical standpoint as well as aesthetically. When we got to the lake we immediately searched for mountain goats, but it appeared deserted. Usually we hear pikas announcing their resonant ‘cheeps’ but heard nothing.  We slowly meandered around the perimeter of the large lake, thinking about lunch and possibly a nap in the brilliant sun.

streamside angelica

After my family settled down in a meadow for lunch, I decided to explore the lake itself. Since the weather was so hot and it was late in the season, the lake had significantly warmed. Normally the lake water imparts the painful-bone type of cold sensation immediately, quickly followed by the hypothermic sensation in less than a minute. Its depths harbor enormous trout that were seeded into the lake via a helicopter drop (yes they just let large masses of fish plunge hundreds of feet into a lake). The surviving trout have grown gigantic and most of them elude fishers’ best attempts year after year, including my own.

the lake

On this day, the shallow perimeter of the lake was warm enough to wade in, and the drop-off allowed for a shallow dive with muscle function only partially compromised. I’m a big fan of jumping into cold lakes and rivers, but I certainly don’t have the tough skin of a true outdoorswoman, so I took my time wading along the shore. Small fish materialized from the sand between my toes, nibbled at my feet and darted away- then they came back for a second ticklish nibble. I didn’t know the fish in this lake were so playful! From a scientific standpoint they probably enjoyed the salt on my skin, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy anthropomorphising them, right?

willows, water, mountain

I made my way around a stand of waist-high willows to a small sandy beach, stretched out on the shore, and wondered if anything interesting would happen this trip. I only had a short time visiting the woods this year, but even with limited time I hope to see something amazing- an animal I’ve never encountered before, animals behaving in an interesting way, or possibly discovering a cave or nearby hidden spot that I’d never been to. As I was lying there idly pondering, a great wind swooped down from a snow-covered rockslide and ruffled the lake, tingled my skin and shook the willows over my head. I began to feel giddy, and my breathing slowed down.

winding trail, windy canyon

This may sound odd, but wind in high mountain passes and valleys can inspire a whole host of feelings in people, depending on an indefinable mixture of place, weather, season, and intention. I may venture into strange territory here, but I have found that particularly windy areas inspire feelings of humility and even a sense of threat if the force of wind is strong enough. The power of wind is mysterious; it can literally shake people to their core or sweep them off their feet, which is undesirable on passes or any precarious position with a steep drop. In Chinese Medicine, wind is seen as a conveyor of ‘external evils,’ which is currently interpreted as something like a virus invading our bodies, pollen inciting an allergic reaction, or any kind of dangerous influence penetrating the body (chemical, nuclear, and environmental toxin exposure fits here).

out to the prairies

For the same reason that wind can be seen as a threat, it can embody profoundly beneficial qualities. Wind can reach places that other things cannot. The wind carries smells and chemical messengers that allow ecosystems to communicate in an incredibly complex way, uniting insects with flowers miles away and alerting bears to the presence of a ladybug swarm a few valleys over. For humans, wind can bring the smell of rain, fire, animals, or a field of berries, and its presence or absence can tell us about the lay of the land. In the wilderness, we rely on wind to send us messages about our environment, and to ensure our own survival within the ecosystem of which we are a part.

When I’m in the presence of a strong wind out in the wilderness (granted that it didn’t have beginnings in my brother’s trail snack), I reflexively pay attention for signs of danger. I hadn’t thought  about this until just now, but it has become an instinct for me to check, due to the times I’ve smelled bears, wildfires, or the pre-lightning storm smell of ozone- and been forced to act upon that information quickly. When none of those smells are communicated, the next instinct is to check for food or water.

Well here I was, glorying in the center of a flowering valley, on the shore of a pristine lake, with tiny healing herbs encircling the shore (the fuzziest yarrow I’d ever seen, small alpine strawberries, tiny arnica, shrubby willow). It sounds cheesy because it was. Cue the terrible Disney song ‘colors of the wind.’ Everything around me was sending messages of safety, security, fertility, and tranquility. At that time, that particular place was incredibly ideal for humans to visit. A month later or a month earlier would have created an entirely different picture, but at that moment the alpine basin created a space in which humans could find themselves at ease.

Back to the wind and the lake. As the wind swept across the water, sending a sheen of darkness sliding along the surface, I suddenly felt in my bones the absolute connection of all the elements of this glacier-fed lake. Thanks to the water for providing such a beautiful display of the wind which allowed this feeling to be born and transmuted into joy. Even the sand on which I lay reflected all elements of the basin precisely: it was composed of tiny pieces of driftwood, iridescent insect exoskeletons, rounded crystals, and bits of the mountain’s bones that had been ground finely by glacier and then lapped by water. I found mountain goat hair on a tiny yarrow plant nearby, and watched dark shadows circle in the depths of the lake.

lake, pristine lake

Back to the YiJing:

“The trigram Tui… is symbolized by the smiling lake, and its attribute is joyousness. Contrary to appearances, it is not the yielding quality of the top line that accounts for joy here. The attribute of the yielding or dark principle is not joy but melancholy. However, joy is indicated by the fact that there are two strong lines within, expressing themselves through the medium of gentleness.”

The trigram shows two ‘yang’ lines followed by one ‘yin’ line. The strong yang lines to me represent the active ability of the lake to nourish its surroundings, and the inherent power of the alpine lake which pours out into a torrential waterfall. The yielding yin line creates an open space in which to recognize subtleties of one’s surroundings, in order to act correctly in response. The wind can only travel through open space, and it is this wind that brings information and connects the infinite elements in social discourse. At the same time, the yin element is the one that embodies manifestation, while the yang element embodies action. I interpret the melancholy aspect of the yin line to allow one to face an inherently unjust reality in order to allow manifestation to happen correctly and in a way that considers all sides. This manifestation in the realm of social affairs is shown to be grounded in the firmness, strength, and inner truth represented by the inner yang lines.

glacier

The lake is fed continuously by the snowmelt all summer. The wind that I felt sweep down to brush my skin originated from a large rockslide covered in snow, which would soon be dusted with a new layer of snow as autumn began. The act of replenishing this lake has allowed the valley to thrive, and the lake in turn can nourish the plants surrounding its shores, the valley below, and the plains that the river irrigates 40 miles away. The expression of this interaction itself occurred to me as pure joy, with each element and each plant seemingly using every bit of its being to live exactly in that moment. The alpine environment is brutal, and moments like this are rare. All of the life in this region faces great adversity, which brings me to another beautiful aspect of this trigram:

“When, on the other hand, the hearts of men are won by friendliness, they are led to take all hardships upon themselves willingly, and if need be will not shun death itself, so great is the power of joy over men.”

It seems to me that this nourishing alpine valley was showing me why humans exist.  The infinite moment of clarity came and went, and it left a roaring of wind in my ears followed by complete silence. Then I began to notice the lapping of the lake, the tiny movements of plants, the glint of fish rising, and my own breath. I felt so happy that all I could do was smile and breathe some more. This moment continues to nourish me during times of adversity, and it encourages me to treat each person with respect. We are all seeking this joy, which is the most tender and most powerful quality of social discourse. Note: I was not under the influence of any psychedelics during this experience, just happy.

playing!

I became giddy enough after the wind swept across the lake several times, that I built up my courage to dive in. I began to walk out into the drop-off, and each time I prepared to dive the wind kicked up strongly, catching me as I dove.

going in

I could see the small fish skittering through the sand as I flailed ungracefully toward shore, slightly more frozen after each dive. I felt all of my tissues slow their metabolism, and I caught a taste of how fish must feel in winter. Then as I warmed up on shore, I felt the sun re-designing my flesh in a pattern of joy, as circulation returned and I began to feel slap-happy.

Of course any time one shocks the body like that, a sense of relief is felt when the body is recovering, but the elements of the day seemed to flood me with a sense of playfulness. The interaction of wind, water, fish, and light while I was swimming gave me the sense that I was actually playing with the lake itself, in a kind of game. This joyful game seemed to me like an expression of how the valley itself communicated- at its heart, a giant grin, a game- all the old sayings are true!

Now take this idea into the year of the Black Water Dragon! Be powerful and creative, find success and return from failure, but keep in mind the need for, and the power of, joy.

dark water

The Art of the Bath, Chinese Herbs, and Transdermal Celebrations

The bath.

A container, a liquid. A human (or other animal) to bathe in this liquid.

Macaques bathing in hot spring, courtesy fungur.blogspot.com

More Relaxing Monkeys! Soooo relaxed. Courtesy fungur.blogspot.com

 

The power of the bath has been celebrated by myths, enjoyed by many cultures, immortalized in film, and sadly overlooked by many citizens of the modern world.

Here we have Cleopatra bathing in a huge tub of milk:

Milk baths may be beautifying, but other ingredients can be more practical for stress relief and muscle relaxing. For example, my neck and shoulders easily become solid pieces of gristle due to old athletic injuries. I find myself rolling my neck at odd times, not to stretch but rather to test whether or not I could indeed roll my neck at all.

ENTER: AWESOME CHINESE HERBAL BATH.

Of course. The boiling of herbs for half an hour, the addition of this herbal decoction to a hot hot bath, and the complete immersion and foot massage during the bath itself, with sea salts. Hmmm. The cold shower afterward and subsequent ginger tea before going to sleep. These things were all at my fingertips and I had yet to incorporate them into a routine.

Thank you, Awesome Chinese Herb Bath, for I am now revitalized, warm, and ready to face an entire Portland winter. The seemingly mundane event of taking a relaxing bath (satirized in this Onion article) sparked a runaway mental forest fire of herbal bath ideas for my clients who have more severe types of stress and pain. I began to offer herbal bath and herbal soak options which can help relieve pain, reduce inflammation, relax ligaments, and heal injuries. Success! A way to really extend the treatment effect, while giving patients the tools to treat themselves in a preventive way. Hooray for preventive medicine that is actually fun.

I’d like to think that I’m doing my part to promote a bath culture in the US. One day we may approach the sophistication of the Taiwanese, South Korean, or Thai cultures in regard to hot springs/foot baths/saunas/generally excellent water-based external herbal therapy. The following video illustrates the importance of the hot spring in Taiwan: you will notice that several people are sitting by the side of a busy road, at night, soaking their feet in something resembling a ditch by the road but which is actually a piping-hot rejuvenating hot spring. THAT is dedication.

So… what actually happens when one bathes? Why is it relaxing? What happens to the skin and blood vessels? What kinds of molecules traverse the dermis?

Some may be reminded of the ability for certain controlled substances to pass the epidermal barrier, such as nicotine or LSD. The band Ween has illustrated this effect with their song “Transdermal Celebration.”

Taking a bath in a Chinese herbal tea has not created that particular effect yet (to my knowledge), but sometimes one forgets how it feels to be relaxed and can consequently feel a little tipsy when the tense muscles let go. Because the skin functions as a protective barrier, we might expect that only a select few substances can penetrate its defenses, and we may have been lead to believe this in popular culture. Yet this barrier is awfully porous, for better or for worse. Skin penetration is a complex topic which the pharmaceutical industry has spent many hours and dollars investigating, primarily as it applies to adhesive patches. Lynn Margetts and Richard Sawyer report in their 2007 article Transdermal drug delivery: principles and opioid therapy published by the Oxford Journal’s Continuing Education in Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain (1):

The application of medications to the skin to ease ailments is a practice that has been utilized by humankind over the millennia and has included the application of poultices, gels, ointments, creams, and pastes. These applications were primarily intended for a local topical effect. The use of adhesive skin patches to deliver drugs systemically is a relatively new phenomenon.1

The first adhesive transdermal delivery system (TDDS) patch was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1979 (scopolamine patch for motion sickness). Nitroglycerine patches were approved in 1981. This method of delivery became widely recognized when nicotine patches for smoking cessation were introduced in 1991.

TDDS offer pharmacological advantages over the oral route and improved patient acceptability and compliance. As such, they have been an important area of pharmaceutical research and development over the last few decades.

Here is a kind of site-map for the investigation of skin penetration (ok, snicker):

From the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine's Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Not pretty. All kinds of things can penetrate the epidermis, and many factors can influence skin permeability. Continuing to quote from Margetts and Sawyer:

Skin structure

The skin is the largest organ in the body; it protects against the influx of toxins and the efflux of water and is largely impermeable to the penetration of foreign molecules. Human skin consists of three main layers: the epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis (Fig. 1). The epidermis, in particular the stratum corneum, acts as the major barrier to drug absorption. The stratum corneum contains only 20% of water and is a highly lipophilic membrane; it is 10–20 µm thick depending on its state of hydration. The thickness of the epidermis varies from 0.06 mm on eyelids to 0.8 mm on the soles of the feet.

Fig. 1 Cross-section of the skin

An applied drug must traverse these structural layers, encountering several lipophilic and hydrophilic domains on the way to the dermis where absorption into the systemic circulation is rapid due to the large capillary bed. Removing the stratum corneum speeds the diffusion of small water-soluble molecules into the systemic circulation by up to 1000 times.2 Alternatively, hydrophilic compounds can reach the dermis via shunt pathways such as hair follicles, sweat glands, nerve endings, and blood and lymph vessels. These routes contribute minimally to steady-state drug flux. The dermis is the thickest layer of the skin (3–5 mm) and possesses hair follicles, sweat glands, nerve endings, and blood and lymph vessels. It acts as the systemic absorption site for drugs.

There are variations between individuals in the rate at which drugs are absorbed via the skin due to factors such as thickness of the stratum corneum, skin hydration, underlying skin diseases or injuries, ethnic differences, and body temperature.

So apparently, compounds which dissolve in water can traverse the epidermis to reach the dermis in many ways, and their potency is slightly unpredictable! The hot bath may not be the most efficient transdermal delivery system, but for the purpose of administering low doses of herb-derived compounds it can be highly effective. In a hot bath, the sweat glands and hair follicles open and relax, allowing for greater absorption of chemical compounds. The increased blood flow due to the higher temperature creates increased capillary permeability as well. Basically, in the hot bath, the epidermal sentries fall asleep and start drooling, while multitudes of herb-derived compounds ride into town on water molecules. Yeehaw!

So ask your acupuncturist about setting up a nice herbal tea which can be used in the bath. This is a cheap, satisfying, effective way to reduce muscle tension and pain from chronic musculoskeletal complaints.

You can make one at home by using rosemary and lavender, with some ginger thrown in. Take a half cup each of rosemary leaves and lavender flowers, add two inches of thinly sliced ginger, and boil for 20 minutes. Strain and add to a hot bath (careful not to burn yourself!), then add a half cup of apple cider vinegar or cooking wine to the bath. Soak for half an hour. You can even make a cup of green tea and hold the tea bag over each eye for added de-stressing of the eyes and head. If you’re really ambitious, after the bath take a quick cold shower and then bundle up. This is both invigorating and relaxing, so appropriate for morning or evening.

Have fun and let me know what you come up with!

Note: It is important to use non-toxic herbs for a bath tea, due to the large surface area exposed and the inability to regulate dosages in a predictable way. Pregnant women should use extreme caution when taking herbal baths, and always consult a health care provider before trying this therapy. And of course don’t use an herbal bath if you have open wounds, swollen traumatic injury, or any sensitive blood pressure condition.

If you don’t feel like throwing yourself into the tub, there is the option of creating an abbreviated and focused “bath” of the afflicted body part. One of the most common ways to administer potent external herbs is via the steam compress. Andrew Ellis, the founder of the excellent Spring Wind line of external plasters and compresses, provides clear directions for using his external herbal products. Andrew Ellis has written a succinct document titled Treatment of the Three Stages of Sinew Damage Employing External Applications (2). (snip:)

Successful treatment of trauma requires an understanding of its pathology. After initial trauma the local blood vessels dilate, blood flow to the region increases and fluids are exuded into the inflammatory focus. The result is the swelling, rubor and pain associated with inflammation. The principal of treatment at this point is to move blood, clear heat, dissipate swelling and relieve pain. Acupuncture and application of soft plasters or liniments form the basis of treatment. Soaks, steams and compresses are avoided because they aggravate inflammation by dilating blood vessels and encouraging hyperemia.

After a few days the circulatory system begins to clear away damaged tissues and swelling and pain decrease. At this point the local area begins to turn deep-red and purple indicating stasis of blood and qi. The treatment principle at this juncture is to soothe the sinews, dissipate stasis and quicken blood. Massage (above and below the traumatized location), liniments, steams, soaks, acupuncture and soft plasters are primary treatment.

When pain and swelling have subsided and what remains is the nagging pain of an enduring injury or pain that is exacerbated by damp or cold, the principle of treatment is to move qi, quicken collaterals, disperse cold, dispel damp, dissipate stasis and relax sinews.

Acupuncture and moxabustion are useful in treatment of this stage of traumatic damage as are massage (including the traumatized location and employing massage salves or liniments), steams, soaks, hot compresses and the application of hard plasters.
…
Steam-Soaks
Place an herb pack in four cups of water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 25 minutes. Immediately put the water (with herb bag still immersed) in an appropriately sized basin and hold the affected limb over the steaming liquid. When the decoction cools enough to allow the patient to bath the affected limb, the traumatized region should be totally immersed. Total soak-steam time should be 20-25 minutes. This procedure should be performed two times a day.
Adding two tablespoons of rice wine to the water at the beginning of the process will enhance the effect of the steam-soak. The liquid can be re-heated and used for three to four days.
• For large areas or for multiple injuries the above doses can be doubled.
• The herb bags can be used as hot compresses at the end of the soaking process.

Steam-soaks as a Compress
Many areas, such as the shoulder, knee, hip and back, are difficult to soak. In such cases, cook an herb pack in two cups of water. Bring to a boil and simmer 25 minutes. Remove the bag and as soon as it cools enough to apply place it on the affected spot. Put a hot-pack or a hot water bottle over the compress to keep it hot and leave on for 20-25 minutes. Adding two tablespoons of rice wine to the water at the beginning of the process will enhance the effect.

It is important to cover the region that has been treated with the soak or compress. In most cases a soft plaster or plaster will be applied after a steam soak thus fulfilling this requirement. If however, no dressing is to be applied the patient must otherwise cover the traumatized region and protect it from wind and cold.

Contraindications and Cautions
Steam-soaks should not be used to treat areas that are still swollen. Care must be taken to avoid scalding. Ideally, the soak water or compress should be as hot as the patient can tolerate but not so hot that it burns the skin

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A couple bath-related videos for your enjoyment:

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References:

1. Margetts, Lyn & Sawyer, Richard (2007). Transdermal drug delivery: principles and opioid therapy. Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain. 7 (5): 171-176. Retrieved from: http://ceaccp.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/5/171.full

2. Ellis, Andrew. Treatment of the Three Stages of Sinew Damage Employing External Applications. Spring Wind Herbs, Inc. Retrieved from: http://www.lhasaoms.com/email/SW_TraumaDoc1.pdf