Innocuous Tonic

I usually don't blog on the weekends, but having Nicolas Cage at the top of the page is giving me a headache!

Being on Twitter has really helped me connect with other Chinese medicine people from around the country. Many of them have blogs! Here's one by Marguerite Darlington L.Ac, who's lately been seen at the Yosan clinic in a supervisory capacity. It's called Innocuous Tonic, with the understated tagline "Health Advice that Certainly Couldn't Hurt". How very British!

Marguerite is in private practice at the Healing Hands Wellness Center in Los Angeles.

"Knowing" Starring Nicolas Cage: A Loud, Bloody, Violent, Creepy Rapture Fantasy for Extremists (Rated PG-13)

***WARNING: spoiler alert if you plan on seeing this awful movie***

My apologies, this is going to be off-topic. Last night I finished all my obligations to Yosan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. As soon as grades are submitted I should have my diploma in hand. So, how did we celebrate? Quietly, with dinner at home and then a movie of my choosing. I didn't want to see another quirky comedy, so I chose what I had heard was a sort of escapist action fantasy with possible involvement of aliens: "Knowing" (Had I done my research I probably would have discovered the truth about this movie before going to see it, but I was in a hurry, between work, school, walking the dog, making dinner and cleaning the kitchen, like most busy people I just wanted to squeeze in some big-screen entertainment without thinking about it too much.)

"Knowing" is not a sci-fi action thriller about the end of the world. It's a thinly disguised Rapture story where secular humanists are punished with fiery death on a massive scale and the chosen ones get whisked away to heaven. Besides the dishonesty with which it's presented, it's incredibly, graphically violent, bloody and traumatizing in purposely post-9/11 kind of way.

For those unfamiliar with the Rapture, let me explain. According to extreme Christianists, when "the Rapture" comes, all the people who are truly Christian, saved, however they want to call it, will be magically transported up to Heaven without going through the intermediate step of actually dying. They will be taken suddenly, with no warning. Is the pilot of your plane one of the saved ones? He'll disappear in midflight, and down goes the plane. What about those who aren't saved? They stay on earth for, oh, about seven years of awfulness. You know, one-world government, rape, torture, famine, plagues, general mayhem. That's your punishment for not being a believer. Suppose you convert after the rapture? Because, you know, you've seen the evidence? Too late. THEEEN Christ comes back and show's over, it's the end of days.

This is a very narrow, ugly, twisted interpretation of the teachings of Christ. It emphasizes the wrath of God and speaks not to our hearts or anything good within us but only our basest fears. A series of books called Left Behind that presents a fictionalized Rapture story started in 1995 has been wildly popular, selling millions of copies and spawning spinoffs such as movies, video games, graphic novels and albums.

In Knowing, Nicolas Cage plays an MIT professor who lost his wife last year in a hotel fire. He's depressed, drinks a lot, and lives in a creepy old house with his young son. His wife's death has further reinforced for him that there is no God, no final plan for the universe. He's estranged from his pastor father and is a miserable asshole to his sister, who drops by every now and then to see how he's doing. (Remind you of anything? In Signs, Mel Gibson plays a Catholic priest who loses his wife in a terrible accident, loses his faith, and then is led back to it by aliens.)

I won't bore you with the details of the plot, but I want to warn you against seeing this movie for the pointless violence. There are two horrendous accidents that are filmed in excruciating detail. One is a plane crash that happens a few feet from Nicolas Cage, who runs toward the wreckage and tries to help people who are screaming in horror because their faces are on fire and they have no legs. This goes on for minutes and minutes. Later there's a subway accident in New York City, where a subway car careens onto a packed rush-hour platform and kills hundreds of people. This is also filmed in excruciatingly graphic detail, but the end of the scene sickened me the most. Nicolas Cage and others wander dazed out of the subway station, covered in white dust. This is an extremely low cheap shot at the emotions of any American who saw these pictures like these of real people who survived the attacks on 9/11. The music plays a part as well - every moment is played up to super intense levels, with the strings and bass drums signifying that something awful is about to happen - and then it does! Over and over and over again! I had to do some purposeful "shaking off" after that movie to prevent that violence from sticking.

And what's the purpose of all this death and destruction? In the end, Nicolas Cage's kid and some other creepy little kid are taken off to outer space by aliens who dress like the Columbine killers, who deposit them on another world along with (implied) various other boy-girl couples who will rebuild humanity. In a scene near the end, Nicolas Cage and his kid are walking towards the alien ship, and then Nicolas Cage is stopped. Sorry, his kid explains, the "whisper-people" say that "only those who heard the call" can come. Wow. So he stays on earth as it's destroyed by a massive solar flare that burns everything.

Oh, and here's one more cheap shot against NYC: the final scene shows Manhattan literally being obliterated by a wave of radiation and fire, which is odd because the main character lives in Boston, and that's where most of the action takes place. New York City is a convenient stand-in for Sodom and Gomorrah in the minds of some, and they delight in seeing it destroyed.

The teachings of Christ are revolutionary in their emphasis on love, kindness towards others and direct knowledge of God unmediated by church or guru. Don't be distracted by messages of fear and hate, that's not where you'll find truth.

Human Placenta Consumption

Mmm...

Here's a link to an article about eating one's own placenta after birth. Warning: plenty of ads on this site, including some that dance across the screen, as well as some pop-ups. If you don't want to deal with all that, here's a quote:

Basically, it is fine to consume the placenta -- and many traditional cultures advocate the use of the placenta for obvious reasons. The placenta is chock full of iron (lots of blood in there) and hormones, too. During pregnancy, many women develop anemia, a low iron and blood cell state, from a combination of the fetus preferentially getting iron and from dilution of red blood cells by increased fluid volume in Mom. Additionally, women experience a fairly sizable blood loss at delivery and this contributes to their need to increase iron in the post-partum period.

In Chinese medicine, dried placenta is used as a medicinal material, called 紫河车 Zi He Che. The traditional functions are to replenish Essence, nourish Blood, and benefit Lung Qi.

Kidney jing is derived from one's parents. When this is deficient, patients present with symptoms associated with Kidney yang, jing and blood deficiencies. Typical symptoms include immature development of the sexual organs, infertility in men and women, low sex drive, impotence, spermatorrhea, irregular menstruation, back and knees soreness and weakness, tinnitus, and dizziness. Zi He Che is the best choice to tonify jing, as it is the part of the body most directly involved with the development of a human being. -Chinese Medicinal Herbology and Pharmacology, p. 916

The picture at the top is of a placenta being cooked in preparation for drying, powdering and encapsulation. Here's the complete article, a really great step-by-step guide for those of you too squeamish to eat your own placenta over pasta.

Tai Chi Improves Balance in Stroke Victims

According to this study in Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, tai ji quan improves balance and strength in people who have suffered a stroke.

When compared with the controls, the Tai Chi group showed greater COG excursion amplitude in leaning forward, backward, and toward the affected and nonaffected sides (P < .05), as well as faster reaction time in moving the COG toward the nonaffected side (P = .014) in the end-program and follow-up assessments. The Tai Chi group also demonstrated better reliance on vestibular integration for balance control at end-program (P = .038).

Here's a short summary from the New York Times in plain English.

Traditional Chinese Medicine gets good results treating stroke victims. One particularly successful form of therapy is scalp acupuncture.

Free Tote Bag from Golden Path Alchemy

Friends and classmates Minka Robinson and Ashley Beckman hand-make incredible all-natural cosmetics infused with Chinese herbs. This month they're giving away a free canvas tote bag with all purchases over $100. Go get yours!

Samples are on display at the Yosan bookstore and I sometimes pop in to spritz myself with something that smells nice. I haven't tried all their products but they get great reviews.

Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart

This is a "novel" concept: a trailer for a book. Amy Stewart's new book is about dangerous plants, and in this video she references a few that are available in the Chinese pharmacopoeia: monkshood (Wu Tou, whence springs our friends Fu Zi, Chuan Wu and Cao Wu), castor bean (Bi Ma Zi, a harsh downward draining herb) and strychnine (Ma Qian Zi).

Remember what Paracelsus said: "All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." That's another way of saying the dose makes the poison.

Balance Point Healing Center Blog: Herbs and Herbs

Take a look at this blog by Susan Hammett, Licensed Acupuncturist in Dallas, Texas. Her most recent post covers the important topic of self-medication with herbs and why it often doesn't work, or works less well than it should.

My patients are always explaining to me that they are already taking herbs for their health conditions. I, like Dr. Phil have to ask them; and so how's that working for ya? Usually the response is well, not so good. The problem I explain to them is not with the herb itself the problem lies in matching the herb to the correct diagnosis, therein lies the rub. Many people read about how one particular herb is good for their condition or they find a pre-made formula good for a particular condition. This is indeed a noble quest by the patient but one fraught with many an unforeseen obstacle.

Read the whole entry here...