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It seemed to take longer for winter to start but we’re finally in it, and I’d like to share some Eastern philosophy about this season. Much of my career as well as my personal spiritual practice has focused on the lessons of the natural world. Every season has things to teach us, but the winter lessons seem to be among the hardest for modern humans to accept. What winter represents is so vital and yet so absent from most Americans’ lives.
In Chinese Five Element theory, winter corresponds to the Water element. In wintry places, we can often look out at the landscape and see little but water (albeit frozen as snow). Water represents resources, reserves, and potential – like a well or a spring. Simply looking at where civilizations have developed shows us just how directly water dictates the potential for life to develop.
In the same way, winter is a time of potential energy, when the outward activity of plants and animals is minimal. Compared to the other seasons, it’s relatively dark and still. Winter is the time of year when stored reserves are most important, because fewer resources are available outdoors. Historically, this has been a time to sleep more, when we rely on our stores of food and fuel to get us through the season.
Likewise, Ayurvedic philosophy considers winter the season of kapha (“kahp – ha”), one of three fundamental components of the human mind and body, which is also associated with water. As kapha pertains to our ability to accumulate, store, and bulk up, it fits well with the Chinese concepts above. Our kapha is what gives the mind and body water’s qualities of suppleness and flow. It’s integral in the lubrication of our joints and other tissues (especially important in the dryness of winter). The kapha time of year is best used to save up energy.
Daoist philosophy sees each season as representing one of the critical steps in any cycle or project. The seasons mimic the life of an organism, a creative endeavor, or a business venture. These seasonal dynamics can be seen clearly in the life of a plant: In winter, plants are mostly dormant. Their energy is stored in their roots or seeds, resting in the cold ground. Spring awakens this potential energy. Shoots pop up everywhere and plants have direction and drive. Summer brings the pinnacle of growth, expansion, and flowering. The cool nights of late summer ripen grains and fruits, ushering in the harvest period. In fall, leaves are shed, withering and decay occur, and the remnants of the past year’s growth return to the earth to fortify the soil. Finally, in winter again, plants become still.
Each idea begins in its “winter” as potential energy, a seed. In its spring, the idea grows into a plan; structure and direction are established. Summer brings greater fire, excitement, momentum, and connection with others. In late summer, the idea achieves maturation and it yields a return – the harvest – and an experience of abundance. In its fall, the material expression of this cycle gives way to a recognition of the deeper richness of the experience itself. We reflect on the essence that existed before and throughout this cycle – the formlessness beneath the form that has fallen away. Back in winter again, it’s necessary to be still, turn inward, and reflect before the cycle starts over.
When we’re out of balance, we tend to skip over seasons or to chronically get stuck in one seasonal phase. Our modern lifestyle deprives many of us of any real winter. We love new projects and planning (spring) and fervent growth and expansion (summer). We even like to dwell on how good the past was (fall), but we often hate to stop completely (winter).
In humans, the “resources” water represents are encompassed in the Chinese concept of jing and the Ayurvedic concept of ojas or “essence” – the unreplenishable allotment of lifeforce that we’re all born with. Our lifestyle strongly influences how long our jing/ojas will last. As our jing/ojas runs out, we start to age and eventually we die.
If we allow life to flow (like water) in its own natural way – not attempting to manipulate it, not fighting it, not pushing it – it flows (and our jing/ojas lasts) a very long time. But when we’re always running (mentally or physically), when we live life without regard for how much energy we actually have, how much sleep we get, or how well we eat, we burn our jing/ojas up faster. When we habitually use stimulants like coffee and sugar, we’re deny the necessity of winter, and in so doing, we convert our deep reserves into short-term energy we can use right now.
Sometimes water is a rushing river. Other times it’s a placid lake. Each form has its time and place. When fear comes up (the emotion of the water element), we tend to run – like a river. It’s often some form of fear that makes us feel we can’t stop. We can’t let death catch up to us, must always prepare for the future. Fear makes us feel that there’s always an endless to-do list. Our ultimate fear is of running out of resources, running out of the things that make life good, and running out of life itself.
Ironically, when we’re always running around to survive, we miss out on enjoying the things that make like sweet. One reason we get sick more in the winter is that we’re violating a natural dynamic. The world around us has turned inward and reduced its ambitions, but we refuse to go along with this flow.
The best thing we can do for ourselves is to incorporate “winter” into every day, making space for stillness throughout our lives. Meditation, restorative yoga, qi gong, breathing, and tai chi are ideal practices. Watching TV and movies, reading, socializing, and being on the computer don’t count. While sleep is incredibly important, it doesn’t give us all the benefits of cultivating stillness (especially mental stillness) in waking life – which teaches us the vital skill of maintaining a peaceful foundation in the midst of drama and uncertainty.
In the winter season, I recommend making a special practice of (1) noticing how you relate to winter and (2) meeting with the spirit of winter and being open to what it has to teach you.
What arises in you when you think of winter?
If winter for you is a time of lots of activity, how does it feel to consider slowing down?
If you tend to live in the future in your mind and have a hard time being present in the current moment, what is it that being still uncomfortable? What do you think will happen if you stop?
What part of you insists that you always need to be preparing for the future? Can you have a dialog with that facet of yourself? What does it need in order to be at peace?
If you resist winter, what is it about the winter that you dislike?
Can you meet with the spirit of winter – without any of your own preconceptions? What is it like?
Is winter actually “depressing” or is the gloom a response to your inability to stop, listen, feel, look inward, and accept?
What are your negative stories (if any) about winter?
If you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, to what degree have you adopted others’ stories about the energy of winter, and is this consistent with your own felt experience?
What is winter asking you to do in order to come into sync with nature?
If you have a difficult time with winter, I hope this winter is different. I hope this is the year you make peace with it. And if you have a hard time incorporating the “winter phase” into your life, my wish for you is that you learn to bask in that stillness, to feel it recharging you, to be fully okay with stopping.
Be well,
Peter
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Over the past few decades we’ve seen a number of trends in popular supplements and so-called “superfoods.” First there was ginseng and echinacea, then ginkgo and St. John’s wort, then green tea, glucosamine, kombucha, fish oil, chia, maca, bone broth, magnesium l-threonate, vitamin D, and so on. Often, there’s a widespread hope that this substance is going to give us vibrant health, make us happy, perhaps even solve all our problems.
Turmeric has been on the charts for some years now, so I wanted to write about its uses and limitations – and why we need to take a broader view on health and supplements. First, it’s important to state that there’s some value to nearly all of these substances. Sometimes it’s a rather modest value for a fairly small subset of the population (like kombucha, most of which is essentially an overpriced mildly-caffeinated acidic soda with a little probiotic activity), other times it’s a significant value for a larger portion of the population (like vitamin D and magnesium). A food or supplement doesn’t need to be life-changing for everyone in order to be important; the key is that we’re realistic about what it can do and knowledgeable about who stands to benefit from it.
For several years, turmeric has been hot stuff in the West, though it has been used for at least 4000 years in Asia. Native to India, it’s a prominent herb in Ayurvedic medicine, though it’s even better known for its place in Indian cuisine and its use as a dye. Its particular yellowish-orange color is almost synonymous with Indian culture. It probably appeared in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) about 1500 years ago, but has always been a relatively minor herb in that system.
In both Ayurveda and TCM, turmeric is almost never taken as a single herb. Rather, it’s utilized in a formula of multiple herbs that’s prescribed by a trained practitioner, based on the specific constitution and presentation of the person who will be consuming it. However, as with many adopted herbs, Americans generally take it on its own, without any understanding of its traditional application or the diagnostic framework of the systems that have utilized it for so long. Consequently, many probably conclude that herbs aren't very effective medicines.
This is really the crux of what limits Westerners in their use of herbs – lack of context. The systems through which herbs have been historically defined and applied include methods for determining when and how and with whom to use them. One of the things that makes Ayurveda and TCM so special is that their diagnoses and their interventions utilize the same philosophical framework and terminology. That is, there’s a seamlessness between diagnosis and treatment. For example, for a TCM diagnosis of liver Qi stagnation, the treatment is clear because there are herbs and acupuncture points that specifically unblock stagnant liver Qi.
In contrast, knowing the Ayurvedic properties of turmeric – a pungent vipaka, a heating virya, a light, dry guna, which enters the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, and female reproductive srotas – is meaningless if we’re working from a Western biomedical diagnosis such as lung cancer, because the languages and philosophies don’t match. We can only guess at equivalencies.
For any given symptom presentation, there might be half a dozen or more possible diagnoses of the actual cause. When we take an herb without a diagnosis, it has a limited chance of working as we hope, because we may or may not have the underlying disease pattern that this herb addresses. It might even make things worse.
When we take an herb based on properties revealed by modern research – such as antibiotic, diuretic, or anti-inflammatory – it might work if we’ve correctly identified that we have the biomedical diagnosis corresponding to this biomedical terminology. But we miss out on accessing the body of wisdom developed by the traditions that have utilized the herb for centuries. It’s more like taking a brand new, poorly-understood drug, usually with very little human research behind it.
Years of discussion and trial-and-error in traditional plant-medicine systems reveals important nuances, and synergies with other herbs. Without that context, however, scientists were able to discover that turmeric possesses anti-inflammatory properties. Hooray! People started taking turmeric by the handful. But it didn't work as well as predicted. Later research revealed that unless the inflammation was in the digestive tract itself, the herb (specifically a compound called curcumin) wasn't likely to reach its target. Absorption into the bloodstream, it turned out, was very poor.
Eventually, researchers discovered that with absorption-enhancers, they could get more curcumin into the bloodstream. They came up with two main devices. The first is to combine it with a compound called
piperine that helps it pass through the lining of the digestive tract. The second is to attach it to a form of fat known as a
phospholipid, that's what our cell membranes are made of. This helps it move into cells more readily. Interestingly, equivalents of both strategies were utilized for centuries (if not millennia) in India. Piperine is a constituent of black pepper and a similar herb called pippali (long pepper), with which turmeric has been traditionally combined. And turmeric is also routinely taken with ghee (clarified butter) which happens to be rich in phospholipids!
In TCM, turmeric is called jiang huang, which means “yellow ginger.” Based on its primary function, it’s categorized as an herb that promotes blood circulation. Therefore (through that handy-dandy seamlessness of diagnostic and therapeutic terminology), it is used to treat conditions of stagnant blood. When we have a condition of blood stagnation, often the tongue takes on a slightly purple color and the veins on the underside of the tongue become more prominent and blue or purple. The pulse at the wrist feels “choppy” or “wiry.” The complexion often becomes dark. In women, the menstrual blood might be clotty and dark. And most obvious, there is usually pain – often sharp, stabbing pain in a fixed location.
Also, low grade blood stagnation – essentially impaired circulation – is thought in TCM geriatrics to be an almost inevitable part of the aging process. Whenever we see an older person with cold and/or purplish feet, hardened skin of the lower legs and feet, prominent purple and blue veins, and perhaps a history of cardiovascular disease and/or diabetes, it’s likely that a TCM practitioner would make a diagnosis of blood stagnation. Biomedically speaking, it’s probable that such an individual has chronic inflammation, and we could therefore think of the herbs that address stagnant blood as likely possessing anti-inflammatory properties, like those ascribed to turmeric.
In such cases, an herb like turmeric might be utilized, but if we look at the actual practice of TCM, we find it’s not especially popular among the herbs in its category. That’s probably because there are about thirty other herbs in this category, and thousands of years of tradition have shown that other herbs do just as good of a job – if not better than turmeric.
In addition, with a palette of thirty herbs to choose from, we have a great deal of specificity available to us. There are blood movers with an affinity for the head, or the abdomen, or the shoulder (one of turmeric’s affinities), or the legs, or the arms, or the back. There are mild blood movers and strong blood movers. There are blood movers with an ability to break up masses or to heal broken bones. There are blood movers that soften tight muscles and tendons and promote healing of unhealing wounds. And there are ways to combine them in order to make them exponentially more effective; to direct them to certain parts of the body; to prevent side effects, and so on.
Since I’m lucky enough to have all these herbs at my disposal (and the training to know how to use them), turmeric isn’t exceptional to me. It’s just an herb that got noticed by Westerners. There are thousands of others that are equally impressive. But don’t get me wrong – I love it, as I love all herbs, and I do occasionally recommend it.
If you don’t have training in traditional herbal medicine and you don’t have access to a practitioner who can help determine if it’s good for you, at least it’s a very safe herb. You can try it, and if it doesn’t work, you’re unlikely to do yourself any harm (though I still recommend checking with your doctor).
If you’re going to take turmeric, be sure to take it in a form that’s going to be well absorbed (unless you’re meaning to target your digestive tract). That means combining it with black pepper, long pepper, or piperine (and a little ghee may help, too); or using a brand that binds curcumin with acetylcholine (such as Meriva); or a brand that utilizes very small particles (such as Theracurmin).
Because I don’t have the ability to teach you traditional diagnosis through this format, we're actually best off banking on what the research shows. And while there's a lot of hope that it does many things, the only thing that it's been really clearly proven to do (on its own) is alleviate inflammation and some of its expressions. Pain, swelling, arthritis, and even hidden inflammatory processes will usually improve with ongoing consumption of turmeric/curcumin (assuming you’re using an absorption-enhancer). The degree of improvement varies. Sometimes it’s dramatic, other times subtle. Just remember that because you may or may not have the underlying diagnostic pattern that makes you a good candidate for turmeric/curcumin, it might not work.
I’d like to finish by discussing some broader measures for reducing the “stagnant blood” (and accompanying inflammation) that we’re prone to in our elder years. First, there’s exercise. Ideally, this isn’t the exercise of going to a gym and using weight machines (though if that’s what you like, keep doing it) – it’s the exercise of walking to the store, riding a bike to work, digging in the garden, shoveling snow, and above all, playing.
Second, reduce your sugar intake. If there’s one part of our diet that provokes inflammation and thickening of the blood more than any other, it’s sugar. By sugar, I mean caloric sweeteners of all kinds (and also white flour). If you’re up for improving your diet, you’d also do well to reduce or eliminate processed meats, deep fried foods, and margarine. Meanwhile, increase your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts (dry roasted or raw), and oily fish. Third, if you smoke, quit. Smoking is terrible for circulation.
Finally, the best way to keep blood (and energy, and life itself) flowing is to be light-hearted. The circulatory system is an extension of the heart, and a light, open, joyful heart is best able to pump blood to all parts of us (much in the way it’s open to people and experiences of all kinds). Meditate (metta or lovingkindness meditation is especially good for this purpose). Laugh. Find ways to de-stress. Breathe deeply. Engage with community. Accept. Forgive. And love. Love yourself, love your family, love your environment, just love as much as you can. Even if you were to drop dead tomorrow, this is the stuff your soul wants you to prioritize.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => I’ve Been Taking Turmeric for a Year But Still Haven’t Found My Soulmate!
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Don't deprive the world of your warmth and light!
How can you share your acceptance and love with those around you? Let us know in the comments below!
[post_title] => Talking Wellness with Peter: The Fire Element
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It seemed to take longer for winter to start but we’re finally in it, and I’d like to share some Eastern philosophy about this season. Much of my career as well as my personal spiritual practice has focused on the lessons of the natural world. Every season has things to teach us, but the winter lessons seem to be among the hardest for modern humans to accept. What winter represents is so vital and yet so absent from most Americans’ lives.
In Chinese Five Element theory, winter corresponds to the Water element. In wintry places, we can often look out at the landscape and see little but water (albeit frozen as snow). Water represents resources, reserves, and potential – like a well or a spring. Simply looking at where civilizations have developed shows us just how directly water dictates the potential for life to develop.
In the same way, winter is a time of potential energy, when the outward activity of plants and animals is minimal. Compared to the other seasons, it’s relatively dark and still. Winter is the time of year when stored reserves are most important, because fewer resources are available outdoors. Historically, this has been a time to sleep more, when we rely on our stores of food and fuel to get us through the season.
Likewise, Ayurvedic philosophy considers winter the season of kapha (“kahp – ha”), one of three fundamental components of the human mind and body, which is also associated with water. As kapha pertains to our ability to accumulate, store, and bulk up, it fits well with the Chinese concepts above. Our kapha is what gives the mind and body water’s qualities of suppleness and flow. It’s integral in the lubrication of our joints and other tissues (especially important in the dryness of winter). The kapha time of year is best used to save up energy.
Daoist philosophy sees each season as representing one of the critical steps in any cycle or project. The seasons mimic the life of an organism, a creative endeavor, or a business venture. These seasonal dynamics can be seen clearly in the life of a plant: In winter, plants are mostly dormant. Their energy is stored in their roots or seeds, resting in the cold ground. Spring awakens this potential energy. Shoots pop up everywhere and plants have direction and drive. Summer brings the pinnacle of growth, expansion, and flowering. The cool nights of late summer ripen grains and fruits, ushering in the harvest period. In fall, leaves are shed, withering and decay occur, and the remnants of the past year’s growth return to the earth to fortify the soil. Finally, in winter again, plants become still.
Each idea begins in its “winter” as potential energy, a seed. In its spring, the idea grows into a plan; structure and direction are established. Summer brings greater fire, excitement, momentum, and connection with others. In late summer, the idea achieves maturation and it yields a return – the harvest – and an experience of abundance. In its fall, the material expression of this cycle gives way to a recognition of the deeper richness of the experience itself. We reflect on the essence that existed before and throughout this cycle – the formlessness beneath the form that has fallen away. Back in winter again, it’s necessary to be still, turn inward, and reflect before the cycle starts over.
When we’re out of balance, we tend to skip over seasons or to chronically get stuck in one seasonal phase. Our modern lifestyle deprives many of us of any real winter. We love new projects and planning (spring) and fervent growth and expansion (summer). We even like to dwell on how good the past was (fall), but we often hate to stop completely (winter).
In humans, the “resources” water represents are encompassed in the Chinese concept of jing and the Ayurvedic concept of ojas or “essence” – the unreplenishable allotment of lifeforce that we’re all born with. Our lifestyle strongly influences how long our jing/ojas will last. As our jing/ojas runs out, we start to age and eventually we die.
If we allow life to flow (like water) in its own natural way – not attempting to manipulate it, not fighting it, not pushing it – it flows (and our jing/ojas lasts) a very long time. But when we’re always running (mentally or physically), when we live life without regard for how much energy we actually have, how much sleep we get, or how well we eat, we burn our jing/ojas up faster. When we habitually use stimulants like coffee and sugar, we’re deny the necessity of winter, and in so doing, we convert our deep reserves into short-term energy we can use right now.
Sometimes water is a rushing river. Other times it’s a placid lake. Each form has its time and place. When fear comes up (the emotion of the water element), we tend to run – like a river. It’s often some form of fear that makes us feel we can’t stop. We can’t let death catch up to us, must always prepare for the future. Fear makes us feel that there’s always an endless to-do list. Our ultimate fear is of running out of resources, running out of the things that make life good, and running out of life itself.
Ironically, when we’re always running around to survive, we miss out on enjoying the things that make like sweet. One reason we get sick more in the winter is that we’re violating a natural dynamic. The world around us has turned inward and reduced its ambitions, but we refuse to go along with this flow.
The best thing we can do for ourselves is to incorporate “winter” into every day, making space for stillness throughout our lives. Meditation, restorative yoga, qi gong, breathing, and tai chi are ideal practices. Watching TV and movies, reading, socializing, and being on the computer don’t count. While sleep is incredibly important, it doesn’t give us all the benefits of cultivating stillness (especially mental stillness) in waking life – which teaches us the vital skill of maintaining a peaceful foundation in the midst of drama and uncertainty.
In the winter season, I recommend making a special practice of (1) noticing how you relate to winter and (2) meeting with the spirit of winter and being open to what it has to teach you.
What arises in you when you think of winter?
If winter for you is a time of lots of activity, how does it feel to consider slowing down?
If you tend to live in the future in your mind and have a hard time being present in the current moment, what is it that being still uncomfortable? What do you think will happen if you stop?
What part of you insists that you always need to be preparing for the future? Can you have a dialog with that facet of yourself? What does it need in order to be at peace?
If you resist winter, what is it about the winter that you dislike?
Can you meet with the spirit of winter – without any of your own preconceptions? What is it like?
Is winter actually “depressing” or is the gloom a response to your inability to stop, listen, feel, look inward, and accept?
What are your negative stories (if any) about winter?
If you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, to what degree have you adopted others’ stories about the energy of winter, and is this consistent with your own felt experience?
What is winter asking you to do in order to come into sync with nature?
If you have a difficult time with winter, I hope this winter is different. I hope this is the year you make peace with it. And if you have a hard time incorporating the “winter phase” into your life, my wish for you is that you learn to bask in that stillness, to feel it recharging you, to be fully okay with stopping.
Be well,
Peter
[post_title] => Meeting with the Spirit of Winter
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