Medicine is a skill learned anew in every generation. It is handed down to us through time, and rekindled in the mind and experience of those living in this present moment. The problem for us moderns thus becomes how do we keep the bones of the ancestral wisdom intact while at the same time dressing them as our own for a modern time.
The underlying mental and perceptual architecture of Chinese medicine draws on a different worldview than that of our modern, rationalist European flavored duality. By comparison, Chinese medicine gives us a larger, deeper, more multi-dimensional tapestry from which to view the world and see how everything weaves together. It gives us a structure for attending to the manifestations and interconnections of qi as revealed in the material, vital energy, psycho-emotive and spiritual domains of existence, all without needing to draw firm distinctions between.
In this talk we will discuss qi anatomy in a way that will make it clearer to the modern mind while at the same time remaining true to the wisdom passed down from the ancients. In this seminar we will cover essential the differences in Eastern and Western thinking, the importance of the classics as a touchstone in our studies and why Chinese philosophy is a necessary part of a Chinese medicine curriculum. We will also discuss a framework of understanding that listeners may find useful in parsing the medicine.
In this real time event we will discuss
- Kindling the principles of Chinese medicine into the current moment of history practice
- Using the classics as a touchstone
- Understanding the difference between Western and Eastern truth
- Applying Chinese philosophy to clinical practice
Participants will have lifetime access to the recording of this Qiological Live event
Event fee $35, length 90 minutes
Saturday November 20, 2021
9am Pacific • 10am Mountain • 11am Central • 12 noon Eastern
Your Instructor For This Class
Brenda Hood
I was born and raised in Peace River, Canada. Then wound up going to China to study Chinese medicine after I became disillusioned with a degree in psychology. I spent over twenty years there being completely enamored with the medicine and acquiring a few degrees. After returning to North America spent some years teaching Foundations of CM and other basic courses at NUNM. I’m back up in Canada now working on a foundations book to explain the energetic and philosophical bases of the medicine with an eye to using the classics and historical texts as my sources.
Clinically, I started out using the TCM system, but I couldn’t really get it to work like I thought it should. I stepped out of CM academia and spent a lot of time with “folk practitioners” and cultivators. There are a lot of hidden gems in China though living there and speaking/reading the language was definitely required. Through this, I discovered I could feel and sense the Qi in the channels and eventually began to get a sense of the Qi field of my patients. I learned to manipulate these with herbs and acupuncture to help my patients return to health.
