Donald Trump’s Homeopathic Remedy, a Postscript. Does he need Benzene petroleum?

Imagine a worker installing a solar panel on someone’s house has fallen and been badly injured. Now a front-page newspaper article appears condemning Solar Energy as terrifyingly dangerous. Then, to rub in the point a few days later, another article appears warning people not to “buy into the promise of solar energy.” Something exactly like this has just happened in regard to homeopathy. Hmm. Do you suppose a newspaper can have been duped by big Pharm?

Feb 21,2017, front-page news on the Boston Globe:  Homeopathic remedies harmed hundreds of babies, families say, as FDA investigated for years. By Sheila Kaplan @bySheilaKaplan

About time someone did something about that terrifying medicine homeopathy, right? But get this, homeopathy is not only dangerous, it can’t possibly work! How nefarious is that?

Let’s hear it for fear and hysteria, shock, awe and handwringing! Oh, just in case you didn’t get the message, a few days later, another caution: “Don’t Buy into the Promise”

The Globe lacks a Science editor and so a team of four huddled together before resolving to put Sheila Kaplan’s article on the front page. I called up one of those deciders, editor Chris Chenlund to ask when the Globe had retired its famous Spotlight investigations as there were so many interesting gaps in Kaplan’s story. I followed that up with a letter to Chris Chenlund, excerpts from which are below. If you smell something rotten as I do, then let the Globe know too.

Hi Chris,

We talked on the phone about the front-page placement of a frightening, homeopathy-related article. Now in fairness and in the interest of education I am asking you to provide the public with basic and easily fact-checkable truths about homeopathy such as this:

• Homeopathy is a licensed medical specialty in Nevada, Arizona and Connecticut. Nevada in fact has its own Homeopathic Medical Board of Overseers (on a par with the conventional medicine board). Many other states allow the practice as a matter of health care freedom.
• Homeopathic products are so dilute the originating substance is no longer detectable by any laboratory test. Yet the remedies work (in a way that Nobel Prize winning virologists now can explain; se Luc de Montagnier’s work).
• In many civilized countries around the world homeopathic medical practice is restricted to only the most highly trained physicians. (How do you suppose this possible if homeopathy is unproven and unscientific?)
• There is a reason why highly diluted substances work medically that is rarely explained. It has to do with the fact that in classical practice a remedy is not randomly prescribed or purchased as in over-the-counter products (that though less effective are very safe). The Globe’s vaunted Spotlight antennae should have sprung to life given the impossibility of a true homeopathic causing a problem to an otherwise healthy child. The possibility that a shock and awe story has been concocted or that sabotage of some sort has occurred would have to be considered.
• A classical homeopathic remedy is prescribed only when the practitioner or physician has accurately determined a state of “likeness” mirroring the toxic effect of a substance. In the diagnostic matching game, a DILUTE version of the matching substance given to the client then and only then has the power to unlock a healing response. For this reason classically prescribed homeopathics possess the status of a DRUG when prescribed in accordance with the Law of Similars but not otherwise. That’s been official FDA doctrine since at least 1938.
• An important service attends letting the public in on these “secret” facts. Unwillingness puts the public at risk of hysteria with regard homeopathy as a whole, as when either as the result either of concocted shock and awe stories, or industrial sabotage a well-founded and safe medical practice and its products are smeared. Consider a parallel where  a worker is injured, falling off a roof while installing a solar panel. Consequently, the mission and industry of renewal solar energy is attacked as dangerous.
• Here is a challenge to the Globe’s integrity that I frankly expect the newspaper will decline. Innocuous as my article suggestion is, higher ups controlled by Big Pharm interests will likely squelch the information. Please prove me wrong.

Best regards,

Jerry Kantor, Lic. Ac., CCH, Instructor Harvard Medical School

Before winning his three gold medals at the Rio Olympic games in 2016 Usain Bolt traveled to Germany to visit the physician he had been seeing since the age of sixteen. The doctor, Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt helped Bolt to overcome a hamstring tear that had previously forced him to withdraw from the Jamaica National Senior Championships. For the Olympics it was a pelvic issue that Muller-Wohlfahrt enabled Bolt to overcome. Though trained in numerous medical techniques including homeopathy the treatment Dr. Muller-Wohlfahrt provided Usain Bolt was incorrectly reported to be homeopathic and falsely characterized as controversial.

Homeopathy involves administration of a dilute substance in accordance with the Law of Similars, using like to cure like. Here, Dr. Muller-Wohlfahrt injected a non-homeopathic medicine called Hyalart, extracted from the crest of fowl cocks from the Caribbean, as well as a form of honey.

Connection with homeopathy, ingredients derived from bees

But a connection with homeopathy exists. Contrary to general opinion that conventional medicine and homeopathy are completely opposed, the two approaches can overlap. The principal ingredient of Hyalart for example, the enzyme Hyaluronidase breaks down Hyaluronic acid. It enables fertilization by means of reducing the viscosity of the ovum’s surface (due to the presence of hyaluronan). The presence of hyaluronidase in the acromium of mammalian sperm cells is like a warhead explosive allowing a sperm cell to blast its way into the oocyte (or ovum or egg). What is the relevance of this? Hyaluronic acid is also found in bee venom where it accounts for the inflammatory of effect of a bee sting. The remedy Apis (derived from bee venom) plays a significant part in the treatment of infertility such as due to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome where Apis’ anti-inflammatory effect serves to harmonize estrogen/androgen balance.

The Law of Similars accounts for why Apis reduces pain and swelling (when that symptom is better from cool applications). But the crude (non-diluted) and painful effectiveness of bee stings to alleviate conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis is well known.

Bee sting therapy and Dr. Muller-Wohlfahrt’s prescription of hyaluronidase-containing Hyalart (and honey) for Usain Bolt’s muscular inflammation are thus plainly kindred.

Homeopathic treatment of Usain Bolt’s scoliosis

Remarkably, the immortal sprinter Bolt was born with curvature of the spine. Again, he credits Dr. Muller-Wohlfahrt with enabling him to overcome the condition and rescuing his track and field career. While the details of Muller-Wohlfahrt’s earlier treatments are not public it can be supposed that included would be at least three homeopathic remedies well known for their ability to prompt straightening of the spine. These are:

Calcarea Phosphorica, Calcarea Fluorica, and Silica.

Pre and post adolescent girls can be wickedly mean.  Rachel Simmons’s 2008 book Odd Girl Out explains this phenomenon in term of relational aggression (RA), behavior wreaking havoc by damaging or manipulating relationships within a peer group.  As opposed to other (especially male) types of bullying, relational aggression is not overt. It is harder to detect than physical aggression but every bit as devastating if not more so.  Homeopathic remedies can undermine the social tensions lending themselves to RA bulling.

Girls involved in relational aggression typically fall into one or another roles I will discuss. The categories are adapted from http://www.d11.org/pip/Parents/Mean%20Girls.pdf.  A homeopathic remedy able to defuse each role’s raison d’etre is suggested (others are possible).  My approach works at the level of the individual, reversing harm done and supporting the girl’s psyche so that she can withstand resist relational aggression’s gravitational pull. In the future provided logistics can be overcome, it is hoped that key remedies are introduced into school settings so that the issue of RA can be dealt with at a public health level.

In particular, Magnesium Muriaticum and Magnesium Carbonicum that treat terror of the loss of a relationship are key. So is Lycopodium, a remedy addressing insecurity stoking the feeling that interactions always have winners and losers.

The Queen
Supremely confident and able to manipulate her friends. Charming, unintimidatable. Rules a clique by force of personality. Demanding of loyalty. Disarming to adults (who are taken in). Does not feel responsible for the hurt feelings of those beneath her.

Remedy Lachesis

The Sidekick
Although she sees the Queen as ultimate authority advises her as to how to dress, think, feel, etc. In this way she partakes of the power. The price she pays is suppressing her genuine opinions, lying for the Queen and being pushed around by her.

Remedy: Cinnabaris

 The Gossip
With a nurturing personality but secretive. Readily befriending of others who willingly share their secrets with her. She makes opportune use of private information for social gain. Rarely excluded but deeply implicated in RA.

Remedy: Natrum Muriaticum

The Floater
A girl who moves freely among groups and dislikes conflict due to being easy going. Not competitive and naïve, but with sufficient self-esteem to stand up to the Queen. If lucky she can fly under the radar.

Remedy: Berylium

The Bystander
Is a girl for whom the loss of a relationship equates with the withdrawal of love. May even hide her academic accomplishments so as not to draw unwelcome attention to herself as separate from her peers.

Remedies:  Magnesium Carbonicum and Magnesium Muriaticum

The Wannabee
Feels compelled to fit in. Other girls’ opinions and wants supercede her own.

A chamelion desperate to look perfectly correct in her garb, hairstyle and bearing. Loves to gossip—phone and email are vital to her. Subconsciously invested in hiding her poor self-esteem.

Remedy: Thuja

The Target
She is a scapegoat, an anger expression valve for other girl’s resentments.

Excluded, helpless and isolated. In the course of masking her own hurt feelings she attracts victimization scenarios.

Remedy: Lac Caninum

 As they never quite say in television commercials, talk to your homeopath about addressing trauma resulting from relational aggression!

Psychology Today offers ten ways to overcome toxic resentment in this article. Homeopathy also works to help us forgive, forget, and reconnect with positive energy. Let’s check out four homeopathic remedies for entrenched disappointment.

Sepia Resentment because disappointed too many times

Repeated disappointments occurring within a relationship that started out with chemistry and optimism eventually entrench themselves. The result is a hard-to-kick resentment that can include physical as well as emotional and mental symptoms. In the Sepia remedy state for example, a woman (most often the case) finds that in general her energy stagnates: the abdomen bloats, skin lesions never entirely heal, hot flushes and exhaustion are frequent. The emotional profile includes apathy, aversion to being contradicted and sarcastic wit.  On the mental plane a confusion of psycho-sexual identity crops up as in her thinking: “Who am I anymore — a treasured love object or a workhorse? It’s no longer clear to me.” We can reduce the theme to a single sound bite: Hope has become toxic. Via Sepia’s snapping her out of this dismal state the possibility of a reciprocally supportive reconnection with her spouse arising gains a fighting chance.

Folliculinum Resentful because treated like a doormat

In the previous instance concerning Sepia we noticed resentment susceptibility being rooted in a positive quality, the natural optimism of the woman. In Folliculinum a similarly positive quality sets the table for entrenched disappointment: an “I can and should fix this” mentality. Such a woman (as it is mostly, but not in every instance) attracts a man who both exasperated by and inclined to exploit her tendency to martyrdom over a long period of time comes to dominate her with his will. The result, a remedy state very much like Sepia includes features such as hormonal dysregulation, slowness of illness recovery, and fatigue. Unlike the Sepia woman the Folliculinum woman is not kidding herself. Unconfused, she is fully aware of having been treated like a doormat and resents it. How fortunate that the remedy can free her from this mindset. As a further note, made from ovarian hormone Folliculinum rebalances the hormones of a woman who after lengthy reliance on birth control pills is now coming off of them.

Ammonium Carbonicum Resentful because my father is a hypocrite

Initially, every boy believes his father is a god. This means that even if a strict disciplinarian the father has values issuing from on high. But should that father become both mean and hypocritical, resentment festers in that boy. Though striving mightily to hide his anger, he can grow up embittered. In such an instance, meaning an Ammonium Carbonicum remedy state, he comes to suffer from having to suppress his rage. What emerges is a state of general uncleanliness with breathing difficulty, biting and burning pains, a sensitivity to damp, cold weather and even obesity that the Ammonium Carbonicum remedy can work its magic to evict.

Ammonium Fluoratum Resentful about being denied sex or money

In this second version of an ammonium remedy, fickleness, greed and sexual cupidity that homeopaths associate with fluoride are grafted onto Ammonium’s bitterness theme. The result is a remedy that releases man or a woman from entrenched bitterness relating to sex or money having been withheld. The state can arise either “legitimately,” for example after injury or illness has rendered a sexually virile partner dysfunctional. Or it may be rooted in an individual’s past experience of disappointed idealism or denial following a history of being entitled. How cool is that? A remedy to expunge the toxic charge of denied sex!

As they almost but never quite say in the television commercials, if you are stuck in resentment talk to your homeopath!

For some overeaters the expression eating “like there is no tomorrow” is a good compulsion describing idiom. Why do common expressions become entrenched as idioms? The answer is that they convey a truth related to a familiar experience.

A short digression:

“He went blind with rage” is idiomatic but “He went deaf with rage” is not. How come anger is associated with the sense of sight but not the sense of hearing? The answer is that sight and anger are entwined within our psyche. Traditional Chinese Medical theory makes this point emphatically. Our core myths do so too only less directly: In Genesis Adam and Eve are evicted from the Garden of Eden because first Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and would make one wise. She took the fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband and he ate.  The consequence was an angry reaction from God who seeing them hiding, seemingly out of sight behind a tree, banished them from Paradise. Generally speaking, the problem with sight is that it is panoramic, meaning we always see more than we want. Envisioning a better world is one thing, bringing it about is another. This is often angering.

But back to overeating:

The homeopathic remedy Psorinum, a nosode (made from the product of a disease, scabies) treats a variety of conditions, especially of the skin.  For an excellent overview of this remedy read Peter Morrell’s article:

People needing Psorinum suffer from a specific kind of anxiety, what homeopaths refer to as poverty consciousness. They feel that they never have quite enough. In fact, the Psorinum state is like having a relentless accountant inside one’s head. A bookkeeper who obsesses about what is coming in and what is going out. The ledger he minds is never balanced hence you experience terrible anxiety about the future. Psorinum’s materia medica includes voracious appetite. This is a symptom we can now decode: The individual needing Psorinum overeats out of a delusion that in the future he will starve. He literally eats “like there is no tomorrow.”

Other remedies your homeopath may want to differentiate among include:

• Anacardium, where the client eats out of a need to quiet an inner struggle between his good angel and his bad angel. Such a person feels better from the act of cramming food which helps stuff down terrible feelings of inadequacy.
• Lac Caninum where he has a canine, meaning voracious appetite. His overeating reflects poor self-esteem and guilt, a sense that he will be punished before he gets a chance to finish his meal.
• Antimonium Crudum where she  eats huge amounts of food out of delusion that nothing satisfies. She eats in a vain attempt to find something satisfying.

So remember, if you are eating like there is no tomorrow or for any reason you yourself do not understand, talk to your homeopath. The answer may be at hand.

Imagine a carpenter with five tools in his kit: A hammer, a screwdriver, a hacksaw, pliers, and sketch pad.  Does he venture out on a job snarling, ”Damn it! Today I’m going to use only my screwdriver?” Or conversely heading to work does he declare, “I hate my hammer. Today I’m just not going to use it?”

Not too often!

The carpenter worth his salt respects his tools and before placing it back in his kit uses each one in accordance with its need.

Engineered to possess a pathogen resisting immune system we are also from birth, equipped with a toolkit of five core emotions. Each tool is indispensible to repairing a broken situation or renovating a shabby state of affairs. Over or under use of any one emotional tool is bad workmanship causing the framework of our psyche to wobble. Proper utilization of an emotional tool is cathartic, meaning a satisfactory outcome always results.

My analogy likening emotions to tools derives from Traditional Chinese Medicine’ Five Phase theory. More about this can be learned here.

I am reminded of the actor Spencer Tracy’s description of his girlfriend Katharine Hepburn: “Not much meat on her but what there is is cherce.” Though bare bones and practical, the psychology Chinese medicine offers is also cherce.

The Tools

 1.  The hammer of Anger

A situation arises demanding immediate and forceful action. The best thing is to fashion your force into creative action. Expressing your anger then is like smashing down on a nail. Take out your hammer if you are insulted or frustrated! People fearing that natural expression of anger prompts loss of control or violence suppress their indignation. Here, they are misusing the other side of the hammer, the claw used to extract nails. The claw can be likened to contrition, an emotional need to apologize or retract angry words or actions. The claw is overused or used to self-claw when we despise ourselves for being angry or overdoing the apology. We then rage and shake in useless frustration. Dysfunctional self-clawing anger known as vexation is not cathartic since it makes us feel worse not better. The homeopathic remedy normalizing use of both sides of the hammer and thereby ridding us of the tendency to vexation is Staphysagria. Individuals can also fall in love with and over rely on their hammer: Someone with a hair trigger temper for example, who is easily provoked into rage will need a remedy such as Anacardium or Stramonium.

 2.  The screwdriver of Anxiety

Imagine you are starving while lost in a wilderness and espy a mushroom. Eating it will either poison or nourish you. The screwdriver of anxiety tightens, heightening situational focus. Your hands sweat and your mouth goes dry as you lift the mushroom toward your moth. But suddenly anxiety constrains the impulse. Improved “performance” due to anxiety, in this case avoidance of a poisonous foodstuff or the partaking of a miniscule nibble may have saved your life.  Reluctance to use the screwdriver of anxiety stokes recklessness. A reckless individual thus requires a homeopathic remedy such as Medorrhinum. Excessive use of the screwdriver on the other hand use is incapacitating. A homeopathic remedy to diminish excessive anxiety is Arsenicum Album.

3.  The hacksaw of Sadness

The bond was strong between you and your beloved grandmother. And now she is gone. Or, once solid your five-year relationship is broken. Have you wept cathartically? Grieved the loss to completion so that you can move on?  If not, the hacksaw of sadness has yet to cut: Despite an appropriate interval’s passage the bond is not severed. Grief remains locked in place. You are sad but unable to cry. The homeopathic remedy Natrum Muriaticum is then called for. Overuse of the hacksaw of sadness on the other hand suggests the remedy Pulsatilla. Here, you cry at the drop of a hat. No matter how hard you saw away at a loss, longstanding memory of having been previously abandoned makes the effort futile.

4.  The Pliers of Fear

When fear grips us like pliers we freeze before hasty action is taken. The pliers of fear allow grasping of the situation. So expeditiously we can choose between fighting or fleeing. When the pliers of fear do not relax a routine non-threatening situation can escalate to life of death proportions. The homeopathic remedy Veratrum Album may then be called for. On the other hand, someone in whom fear has inculcated an escapism reaction may become audacious and insensitive to pain. Incapable of finding his pliers this individual needs homeopathic Opium.

5.  The Sketchpad of Joy

Finally, the project is completely worked out. We see it in its entirety. Such joy to view the big picture, everything hanging together, the blueprint of our envisioned project. The time has arrived to actualize what exists on paper. The glory of its vision must give way to the drudgery of execution. Dwelling forever in joy is not possible. An individual lost in visions or prone to excess of ego has not learned to put away his sketchpad. A homeopathic remedy known to upend this applecart is Sulphur. But let us consider someone whose sketchpad is crumpled and jumbled within the toolbox. Disappointment and resentment has smudged the big picture, the overriding blessings of her life. Overwrought, depressed and unclear as to where she is in life the remedy Sepia is called for.

Additional notes….

* Our tools can do a lot, but only within reason

A normal toolkit can be used to build a shed in our backyard. But don’t expect to build a skyscraper with them. Similarly, a big trauma or abuse occurring in childhood when our emotional tools inadequately measure up to the task of repudiating trauma will be a problem. Some tools will be worn out and others put to disuse.

* Tranquility does not mean the absence of toolkit emotions

What tranquility should instead signify is calm awareness of our emotional toolkit’s being close at hand.

*A related version of the toolkit, Pixar’s animated film, Inside Out

An entertaining film with a point of view akin to that expressed above is Pixar’s animation, Inside Out. The film’s depiction of five inhabiting core emotions differs from the version presented here in the substitution of Disgust for my (and Traditional Chinese Medicine’s) choice, the emotion Anxiety.

Is there ever a bad time to set the record straight? In mythology Mercury is the god of communication. Now is as good a time as any to get our facts straight.  Medical truths concerning the element named in Mercury’s honor should be properly communicated.

A factoid is an untruth repeated so often that it gets taken as true.  A factoid example is equating homeopathic medicine with medical quackery.  Not only false, the exact opposite is true.

The term quack was first and justifiably applied to medical doctors guilty of prescribing high levels of the toxic metal mercury for syphilis but also for a wide range of other ailments. In ancient times mercury was called quicksilver and so doctors routinely giving Mercury to their patients became known as quickers. In common usage the term was shortened to quick. Then, as patients underwent neurological decline and soon expired this word morphed into quack.  

Medical history shows that more often than not it was homeopathic physicians who were burdened with cleaning up the mess left by their allopathic (non-homeopathic) medical colleagues. In order to help the quickened and failing patients they had inherited homeopaths applied the Law of Similars (using like to cure like). Their work involved developing a non-toxic version of mercury, but also other highly dilute medications known as remedies still in use today. To learn more about the homeopathic Mercury read Jonathan Hardy’s excellent profile of the remedy.

Possibly to deflect from the unpleasant history of quackery mainstream apologists speculate that the word quaksalver containing the Dutch, kwakken (to impulsively fling an object) as in heedlessly flinging a worthless remedy at a sick individual is at the root of quack. http://mentalfloss.com/article/33558/why-fake-doctor-called-quack.  But a clinical hallmark of mercury poisoning is in fact, mercuriality, meaning changeability and impulsivity! It is far likelier that the term quaksalver is itself derived from quicksilver.

It’s time the pot stopped calling the kettle quack.

A moving scene occurs in the Hollywood film Bridge of Spies when the spy Rudolph Abel tells his lawyer James Donovan about of a family friend:

Standing there like that you reminded me of the man that used to come to our house when I was young. My father used to say: “watch this man’. So I did. Every time he came. And never once did he do anything remarkable.

This one time, I was at the age of your son, our house was overrun by partisan border guards. Dozens of them. My father was beaten, my mother was beaten, and this man, my father’s friend, he was beaten. And I watched this man. Every time they hit him, he stood back up again. So they hit him harder. Still he got back to his feet. I think because of this they stopped the beating. They let him live. ‘Stoikiy muzhik’. I remember them saying. ”. Which sort of means like uh, ‘standing man’… standing man…

From: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3682448/quotes

Why does he endure in fact, invite the beating? What is the Standing Man’s secret?

According to a Russian speaking colleague stoikly muzhik actually means strong man, or upright man and contains a familiar Latin root, “stoic” applicable to the family friend.  A man of principle he is upright in being certain that what he stands for is correct, drawing strength from the earth within which his values are rooted.

As Rudolph Abel points out Standing Man is no superman. Apart from being upright he is entirely unremarkable.  What makes him stand out is his fortitude. But is this character trait inborn? Was it learned?  Are there means by which it can it be acquired?

Fortitude is attainable. But we can aim higher!

Chinese culture features an ancient practice with remarkable spiritual and medical benefits known as Qi Gong.

In addition a Qi Gong variant, the powerful martial art practice of Tai Qi enables not the withstanding of a beating but a means to effectively repel and turn an attacker’s own force back and upon himself. Foundational to both Qi Gong and Tai Qi is mastering standing quietly in an upright posture.

Standing Erect 101

 Join me on a walk through the basics:

Stand with the feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent. Allow the tongue to touch the roof of the mouth. Imagine that energy is bubbling from deep in the earth directly up and into a point in the middle of each foot, one third of the way down from the toes to the heel.  Imagine a point on the middle of the scalp at the crown of your head from which there is attached an invisible string pulling your body to upwards toward heaven.  This is the acupuncture point GV20 also known as A Hundred Meetings.  Take mental inventory of every part of your body (inside and out) with regard to its state of tension. Mentally release tension everywhere it is detected. Keep all the joints softly engaged, not locked.

Take mental inventory of every part of your body (inside and out) with regard to its state of tension.  Mentally release tension everywhere it is detected.  Keep all joints softly engaged, not locked.

Qi Gong gathering qi meditation

In a well-known Qi Gong version the idea is to open oneself to receiving qi from the universe.  The arms are lifted in front of you with the palms facing up. With the eyes semi closed imagine that you are cradling in your arms an invisible ball of energy. Imagine you are on a high mountaintop able to see infinitely far in every direction, even from the back of the head. Concentrate on this limitless expanse, redirecting your mind to the view when ordinary thoughts or mental images distract. Keep your wrist and elbow joints rounded, neither sharply bent nor locked in extension. Tuck the chin slightly.

Maintain soft (no exertion) breathing.  Allow the body to sway if it wants to. This means that the qi is beginning to flow. Attend to the fact that your mouth is beginning to fill with saliva. This is a special fluid also confirming that the qi is moving in your body.  Qi gathers from the earth via from the Bubbling Spring acupuncture point on the bottom of the foot.  Qi is also drawn from heaven into the top of your head. The universe’s Yin and Yang forces thus meet and blend within your own body, promoting a state of perfect mental, emotional and spiritual health.

An upright posture is our birthright. It facilitates Yin Yang harmonization, the integration of temporal, earthbound verities with the eternal verities of the higher, heavenly plane.  Human beings in other words are priests of the planet, mandated to harmonize Yin and Yang . This holds true not just for ourselves but for all planetary life.

Standing meditation is prerequisite to an extensive range of body/mind/breath Qi Gong exercises. Apart from promoting fortitude, mastery of the stance initiates qi flow indispensible to spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health.

Tai Qi Opening Stance

Most Tai Qi forms begin with a quietly standing stance. This posture is identical to what is described above with the difference that instead of the arms being extended in front of oneself, they rest quietly by one’s side. The image of a tree is visualized and mentally emulated in its drawing of nutrients from the soil through unseen roots. Treelike firmness and flexibility are sought in the habit of transitioning through a sequence of postures. Regular Tai Qi practice deepens the practitioner’s root. But the rootedness is not a metaphor! As her strength resides not in musculature but in access to a gravitational pull coming from deep within the earth, in combat the Tai Qi master is virtually impossible to imbalance or dislodge.

The Standing Man within you

The ability to be upright and serve as a bridge between heaven and earth is both mandate and privilege. But as is true for bridges across our rivers and bays the integrity of our individual standing is no given. How best to maintain the infrastructure of our inner bridge? The answer is that Standing Man must be bathed in qi:

Access to qi from the atmosphere or from the earth is an honor. We should first respect the soil beneath our feet and the blessed surrounding air. If our works deem us worthy of the gift of qi let us practice Qi Gong or Tai Qi wholeheartedly. Thus may Yin and Yang be harmonized and the Standing Man nourished.

Got impacted sinuses, or gunk constantly in your throat?  Does your nose and throat burn?  Symptoms like these lament about your stress. Translating from the phlegmish decodes the message.

According to the Alternative Medicine Review, approximately 14 percent of the population suffers from sinusitis.

Let’s examine this common problem from a mind/body perspective.

Consider your automobile’s carburetor, the engine component that mixes liquid fuel with air. When liquid gasoline is mixed with enough air to form a fine spray, the fuel becomes explosive and very easy to burn. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine theory your body’s Spleen is similar: It is responsible for metabolism, the conversion of foodstuffs into combustible metabolic energy. Just as a dirty carburetor makes for a sputtering car engine, a clogged Spleen causes metabolic inefficiency.

This is evident in low vitality and “dampness” features that include looseness of the stools, fatty tumors, mucosal and sputum irregularities. Being more than just an organ, the Chinese Medicine version of the Spleen is disharmonized by mental and emotional stress, particularly worry and anxiety.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) pulse and tongue diagnosis combined with the physician’s perception that his patient worries too much culminates in a Spleen disharmony-correcting action plan: Acupuncture points stimulation, possibly herbs and a directive to stop worrying so much.

Within homeopathy the prescribing is even subtler, taking into account whether the worrying has an angry, bitter, or disappointed quality. Remedy prescriptions showing awareness of “angry,” “bitter,” or “bitterly disappointed” phlegm result.

Some examples:

• Kali Bich: People needing this remedy have chronically impacted sinuses. They also tend to be highly family oriented and out of anxiety, prone to keeping their lives small, limited in the breadth of their concerns. They make for good civil servants in other words. Not that there is anything terribly wrong with such a world view but the “compacting” of perspective discomfits the Spleen and compacts phlegm within the sinuses.
• Kali Carb: Folks in need of this remedy are attached to existing structure. Overly judgmental and viewing ethical matters in black and white terms they are stressed by change, transitional situations, and inconsistency in other’s ethics. A Kali Carb person’s Spleen reflects this discomfiture, causing the mucous membranes to also become “black and white”: Insensitive to moderate levels of moisture they are always either too damp or dry. The throat constantly needs to be cleared since it is always full of gunk.
• Ammonia Carb: Someone needing this remedy is bitter with the world, often from having had a mean father. Trying to camouflage the bitterness, the vital force refuses to play along. The mindset is betrayed by the Spleen that diminishes fluid production (yin) resulting in angry phlegm. An aversion to water is also seen along with pathologies within mucous membranes of the respiratory organs, weakness of the heart, wheezing, and tendency to feel suffocated.
• Muriatic Acid: Someone needing this remedy is caught up in a deeply disappointed relation with his or her mother. The Spleen rebels by decomposing bodily fluids. What results is: Involuntary stools while passing urine, mucous membranes of the digestive tract particularly of the mouth and anus becoming dry, bleeding and ulcerated.
• Nitric Acid: A person in need of this remedy is negative, critical and grudge holding. His unhappy Spleen thus dries and stops up his nose. It also dehydrates the anus causing hemorrhoids. The stomach lining is inflamed causing susceptibility to heartburn and reflux.

As they never quite say in the TV commercials, if you suffer from sinusitis or respiratory congestion, talk to your homeopath. He understands Phlegmish!