Week 11: Energy Medicine and Energy Fields

Acupuncture as effective energy medicine

The question raised in class "is acupuncture energy medicine?" was an interesting one. I would tend to say yes and consider it to be a simple question. It seemed that the answer was not so clear in the group and I found that to be fascinating.

My current understanding of acupuncture is to think of needles as lightning rods that help to realign the energetic currents that run throughout our bodies. I often feel that the question of whether we have energy channels to be as strange as those who question human responsibility for global climate change: you can find science that tells you otherwise, but such studies don't come from reliable or peer reviewed sources. Western science from my perspective seems to easily support the idea that we have energetic bodies. If such is the case, then it makes sense that a system of medicine like acupuncture whose goal (at least partly) is to restore our energetic flows to a healthy pattern, makes a lot of sense. From personal experience as well as observation of others, I have found acupuncture to be a tremendously effective form of energy medicine. That's why I'm here! =)

What conclusions can you draw from Kirlian photography?

For me, Kirlian photography brings up more questions than it does conclusions. For example the cut-leaf phenomenon. If a leaf can be cut in half but still show the energetic whole, what does this mean? What if you just picked the leaf then took the picture, would you be able to see the rest of the plant that it was just attached to? How long would such an effect last? A few moments until the connection is severed? Is the connection between and leaf and it's mother plant ever severed completely? It reminds me of the stories about people who get organ transplants and end up with pieces of the donors personality. Does that wear off eventually? Or are the two always connected? What does it mean to be connected to a being that is dead? And on and on. It's very fun and interesting to think about!

Human intent as it effects health

I feel like intent plays an important role in human health. It is not so heavy handed as to be the prime factor, but I believe it is not negligible. If you eat very well and get a moderate amount of exercise but have a bad attitude, you could still have health problems. My opinion on intent is the same for all attributes of a healthy existence. There seems to be a holistic dance of all aspects from diet and exercise to interpersonal relationships and self reflection, etc. Every aspect is key and none stand alone. Sure some may show effects more quickly than others, but nothing occurs in a vacuum. I feel that this applies on a micro level within ourselves, and also a macro level in terms of our whole selves being one piece in the symbiotic ecosystem that we reside in and are a part of.

Week 10: Life and Living Systems

I know I'm a "living system" because...

Well, scientifically speaking I fit the criteria for what is considered to be living as in I breathe, eat, move, can reproduce, etc. But if the question is asking for a better reason why I know I'm alive and not the dream of something else, I would say I don't know. Maybe I'm not here. Maybe you're not here either. But I have to trust that I think and am able to interact with others I observe to be living and therefore I am alive.

Biophysics and Oriental Medicine

The articles we read in class were very interesting and exciting but they also reminded me of a Gandhi quote I enjoy: " Speed is irrelevant if you are going in wrong direction." I'm not necessarily saying that these new technologies are bad, but they are #1 not preventative and #2 not holistic. Oriental medicine seems to primarily focus on those two things. My understanding of Biophysics is that it is the study of matter and energy as it applies to living systems. My hope would be that Biophysics is used to help us understand and honor our own living systems and those we find around us, and not as a way to conquer or subdue that which makes us alive and vulnerable and mortal.

Week 9: Toward a new synthesis

My E-Prime day

Today I spent the morning in a seminar on concentrated granular extracts. I found my level of understanding of herbs to be insufficient for me to understand completely the ideas the lecturer was attempting to convey. Because of this, I decided to leave early and allow myself to have extra study time. When I arrived home, I ate my lunch in the company of my husband. I enjoyed soup and rice that had been left over from a previous meal. After eating, I began my studies which will continue for the rest of the evening until I feel comfortable enough with the subject to take the exam tomorrow or until I feel that I have exhausted my energy to study for the day.

Can I synthesize East and West?

I am not sure what this question is asking exactly. I take synthesis to mean a logical deduction. Perhaps it means can I deduce east from west or vice versa. Not really reductionism but more along the lines of whether the two have a general relation or correlation. Maybe it is possible to eventually find that the two world perspectives will one day come together. Its possible that we are already seeing that the two curve toward each other.

Week 8: Classical Physics

Newton's Three Laws and Me =)

When I think of Newton's 3 laws I am reminded of how motion of bodies is similar to emotions of people. Take for example if you are in a certain mood, generally that mood will stay unless something changes. Of course things are constantly changing around us just as a body in motion usually interacts with some other force like friction that changes its course or slows it down. Another example would be with the 3rd law, when another person feels a certain emotion, we can often be sponges and feel that emotion and even soak it up and take it within ourselves just as the force of the two colliding objects are exchanged. If someone says something or does something, there will inevitably be some sort of reaction.

Our "energy efficient" culture

I think efficiency should be a hallmark of our culture and economy. I have heard that we could cut our energy consumption in half just through efficiency measures. There is a strange idea these days that to be efficient would mean giving up a comfortable life. I think of efficiency as cutting out waste. Waste meaning the excess that we didn't need in the first place and that we really would not miss or even notice was gone. I feel an important part of energy efficiency is knowing where your energy expenditures are going. This is difficult, because every item of clothing, food, stuff we consume has an energy price tag that is not readily accessible. Our culture is beginning to want more energy efficiency but I think it is having a hard time figuring out how to do it. Also our culture is obsessed with a "cure all". The solutions touted are never thousands of small actions, but instead we wait around for one sweeping solution to all of our problems and in the mean time we sit on our hands. I mean this as a culture generally. There are many individuals that put in and effort to make their impact and that is a wonderful start.

Week 7: Chaos Theory

Ordered Chaos?

I certainly live my life in ordered chaos. I am constantly surrounded by chaos whether it is the weather or other people's moods, I can never tell what life will dish up next. But I still have a pattern of behavior and like very much to plan my life even if I can never be sure of all the inputs. I calculate to the best of my ability, and sometimes not. But it makes me feel better to plan ahead anyway.

Fractals as pattern of complex systems.

Huh? What in the what what?! It is interesting to think of all natural systems like coast lines or mountains as fractal patterns. It awes me to think that supercomputers have a difficult time with fractals and yet they exist in nature. I feel like the closer you look at the universe the more complex it becomes. That is very awe inspiring to me.

Consciousness out of chaos

I find the most difficult thing for me when trying to filter the chaos and make decisions is trusting myself. I have heard that your first response is always the best. The article we read in class confirmed what I essentially already knew about the human mind and its ability to filter information, but when you are faced with a big decision, it makes it even harder to let go of your conscious mind and allow your unconscious mind to make the right decision for you. My conscious mind has a tendency to fight back and try to assert its dominance.

Cool experiment: sticky tape

This experiment was easy and fun. I found it interesting that I never noticed tape's charge and tendency to attract or repel even though I have used tape many times in my life. It was interesting to see how easily something can pick up a charge, in this case just by being pulled out of the dispenser. It was like the tape did Qi gong and had built up its qi.

Week 6: Vibrations

Are all vibrations "good"?

I don't know that they are necessarily good or bad, they are just vibrations. However, as humans, we can definitely utilize vibrations in a good or bad way. In terms of natural disasters, that seems to me like just an unfortunate meeting of vibrations that turn out bad for humans, but the vibrations themselves were still not good or bad.

Resonance in my world

I think my perspective on this is shifting. I have used the phrase "that resonates with me" before, but I suppose I never really thought about the connection to vibration. I certainly have found myself in situations where a person or idea just feels comfortable to me. I think that could have something to do with their vibration and how that vibration resonates in me or through me or something.

Connection of Energy and Qi

I usually think of energy and qi as one in the same. Like 2 different words for the same thing.

Week 5: Sacred Geometry

My Asymmetrical world

I feel like symmetry is very subjective and depends a lot on your perspective. Like a person that seems very symmetrical on one level (far away on the exterior) is Asymmetrical if you look closer to details or the interior. Yet on a cellular level, a lot of times their cells are roughly symmetrical. Or their molecules. Perhaps a flower looks very symmetrical to us, and yet if flowers could see each other they would recognize each individual flower because of their asymmetry. Also, symmetry could be thought of as balance, so maybe the two side of our internal organs are not visually symmetrical but they balance each other as a whole so that we can function as a human body and maybe that makes them symmetrical.

Over all, in my perspective, the world is asymmetrical because rough symmetry is still asymmetry to me. But that's just me.

"CP violation"

I think CP violation just reminds us that things outside of our general understanding of the universe and physics are possible. Larry used an example of if one in a billion times when you moved in a mirror, the reflection did not follow. That would freak me out and definitely make me wonder what else is possible. I think it is the possibility that we have everything wrong that freaks people out because if we have one thing behaving abnormally, whats to stop anything else from doing the same.

Sacred Geometry and Physics

I think the two are definitely connected somehow. When the smallest things on earth (the spiral of a snails shell) and a giant thing in the universe (the spiral of a galaxy) seem to follow the same pattern found in sacred geometry, it seems unlikely, even to a rigid left brained perspective, that these things are not somehow connected. How they are connected? That I don't know...

Week 4: Energy, Matter and Force

E=mc2

I have known of this equation for a very long time, but had never really given it much thought until recently. In my Tai Ji class a few weeks ago, my teacher was talking about how everything is made out of energy and then he wrote this equation on the board and I felt like I had an "a-ha" moment. Energy IS mass and vice versa. We and everything around us is made of energy, literally. And whats more, we are made of the SAME energy. I feel like I have always known it, and never realized it at the same time. But now I feel like when talking to other people I can point to this equation and it will just make sense.

Four "forces"

I am not sure how I would compare the four forces, except to say that they are all just different forms of the same force. We just like to categorize them because its what we do to try to make sense out of things.

Function of Gravity

To bring things together (again). Maybe it is the remembering that we are all one that manifests as a draw we feel toward each other and all things. It also allows the amazing dance of energy to exist as life in the form of holding our atmosphere so we can breathe and be warm on this beautiful planet.

Week 3: Synchronicity

Evidence for synchronicity

Most of the time it seems like any evidence for synchronicity would be something happening that is more out of the ordinary than the statistical average of such an event happening. However, it seems like the articles we read in class about particles acting in a synchronistic way with their partner particles shows that synchronicity can also at time be tested.

Connectivity

If we think of ourselves as beings made of the same energy as everything around us in the universe, then connectivity makes a lot of sense. We are all the same stuff and space does not separate us as much as it is part of the web that we are all linked in. We are not connected individuals as much as we are one whole organism.

Week 2: Quantum Mechanics

Uncertainty

Very mind blowing or curious or confusing I guess is what I would say. I am uncertain...It was very strange to think that you can be uncertain about what a thing is or even that the thing can be more than one thing at a time. That's bizarre. It must have been such a trip for Heisenberg to discover the Uncertainty Principle. I don't really know what to say about it, though I also am willing to accept it as true. That seems strange too.

Causality

This one inspires me. It shows that we can exert influence over our surroundings and vice versa. I read a book called "the Miracle of Water" where a Japanese scientist gave different intentions to different beakers of water using labels or music, etc. and then froze the water to see how the water crystals turned out. He found that certain beakers with positive messages like the word "love" or "beautiful" written on them made the most beautiful crystals, and the opposite effect was found for negative messages. I don't know if these experiments have been repeated by others but the findings, if true, are very powerful. We are made mostly of water and I think that if we stay positive and surround ourselves with loving people, it doesn't just make us happier, but it could also change us on a molecular level.

Is the Universe weird?

Yes. But I would add the words "really frikken". It seems like the more I know the weirder it gets.

Week One Reflections: The Meaning of Time...

I thought the first class definitely baited my interest for Physics. I think it will be fun to think and talk about the Physics concepts presented in class.

I think I have heard that time is another dimension that effects the speed at which we experience objective time. I remember watching a documentary on 2 ways that time travel is theoretically possible and both had time as an actual force being effected by gravity or speed. That time could be physically dragged upon and slowed. In class it seemed like time is possibly not that way and could be only a subjective experience. It was interesting to talk about the subjective changing of time especially Ten who said she had experienced time out of sequence. I cannot even imagine what that would be like. How would you know what is happening? Is it confusing, or does it make sense when it is happening to you? Fascinating!

I was also thinking that time could be the pace of your existence. Maybe it is the rate at which your body systems are operating. If you could stop the ageing process, would you not be freezing time itself? Would that not be the same as travelling to the future? What's the difference between that and stepping into a machine for 5 minutes and stepping out 1000 years in the future? What if that 5 minutes felt subjectively like 1000 years? It is really the effect on your human body that has not changed.

Lots of fun stuff to think about! I change my mind, I LOVE Physics!

Week One Quiz: The Meaning of Time...

What attracts me to Chinese Medicine?...is the emphasis on preventative and holistic care as well as the very important fact that it works.

I injured my back about 5 or 6 years ago, and when it happened the only thing modern medicine could do for me was (kind of) numb the pain with pills. I dutifully followed my doctor's advice for a few years. I call these my dark years. I could not sleep, lift or carry anything properly. I was essentially disabled and there was no improvement. At the time I was working a desk job, not exercising and stressed out all the time. Adding to that I had chronic back pain that I thought I would be stuck with for life and that made me depressed.

A cousin recommended Acupuncture. I was skeptical but desperate so I gave it a try. After about 2 treatments I felt significant improvement. I continued to get treatments and also began an herb regiment. I don't know that I can really describe how my life was changed by Chinese Medicine. I can only say that I would not be in school learning what I am learning today because I would be unable to sit in a chair for very long or carry a back pack or ride my bike to classes as I do now.

I want to share Chinese medicine with others because I know what it's like to live with chronic pain. I want to help people feel better so they can live their lives and pursue their dreams.

What do I honestly think of Physics, really?

I find Physics interesting though I feel like my understanding of physics is very general and vague. I do geek-out on a good quantum physics documentary when I come across one. I love the idea of time travel and parallel universes, but I guess I don't think much about it. Maybe I should. Maybe I will more after this class!

Now that I think about it, have I ever experienced time "slowing down" or "speeding up"?

Sure I have. But only subjectively. Whenever anything bad happens I feel like it happens in slow motion. Especially if I am not fast enough to prevent the thing from happening. I often can feel my body refusing to move fast enough.

In terms of speeding up I feel like when I am very busy my life moves more quickly. I feel like I was too busy during my 20's and they flew by. That's why I am hoping school will move quickly, but as I discovered from other students last night, that may not be the case.