Classical Five Element Acupuncture
Classical Five Element Acupuncture is an Ancient Chinese Land based tradition that is founded in the understanding that the cyclical flow of vital energy – also known as Qi, moves through all of Life.
It is experienced in the seasons, the land, the plants, the animals, the waters, birth and death - in all of nature.
Each of the Five Elements – Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water – represents a distinct quality of the Qi energy that is vital to the continual health and flow of nature that is within us and that surrounds us.
By understanding the relationships of the Elements within each of us and using them as a guide, we can discover and treat the root of an illness, restoring health to the body, heart, mind and spirit as the treatment unfolds.
The Five Elements represent the five phases of Qi as it moves through nature and our bodies. The Elements work interdependently in an effortless and systematic balance, each one sustaining and supporting the next in the cycle. This cycle can be easily seen in the change of seasons:
Wood corresponds to the birth and growth of plants and trees in the spring.
What is planted in the spring comes to maturity under the heat and vitality of Fire in summer.
The warmth of Fire creates the abundance of the harvest of the Earth in late summer.
After the harvest comes the decay of autumn, where the leaves falling from the trees nourish the soil and produce the mineral resources of Metal.
The mountains and mineral rocks create and bind the flowing streams of Water, moving quietly under the surface of the ice in winter, which, in turn sources the germinating seed of Wood.
Five Element practitioners use the Law of the Five Elements as a guide in correcting the imbalance of energy within the whole person.
Each individual is recognized as unique, and while their symptoms may be identical to another person’s, the cause of those symptoms depends on the individual and their experience with the world.
To determine the cause, the practitioner must first identify the patient’s Constitutional Factor, or CF.
The CF is the first element to go out of balance in an individual and becomes the underlying disturbance in the patient’s energy.
By restoring balance to the energy of the CF, rather than simply treating symptoms, the Five Element practitioner treats the patient as a whole, leading to a longer-lasting level of well-being.
To determine a patient’s CF, practitioners follow sensory cues from the patient known as CSOE: colour, sound, odour and emotion.
Each element has its own correspondences that the practitioner is trained to see and hear in their patients. Diagnosing the CF through these clues allows the practitioner to focus on the specific meridians and points associated with the CF. Thus, a path of support unfolds.
Examples of some of the protocols used.
Aggressive Energy Treatment
Husband and Wife imbalance
Possession Treatment
Liver Lung block/Large Intestine Stomach block/Spleen Heart block/Small Intestine Kidney block