Fall Cleaning… What?
Jefferson Breland
(10/2023) We have Spring Cleaning? Why not Fall Cleaning? It makes so much more sense.
Toward the end of last month’s column, I suggested you do a Personal Energy Audit.
"Do you get enough sleep." "Do you drink iced beverages." "Do you wear enough clothing to stay warm." "Do you take regular breaks from working, even at home?" I proposed eating a little bit less.
What I did not do was offer reasons for these questions other than the context of "to take advantage of nature’s energy and use it for your healing."
On September 23, 2023 at approximately 2:49 am the Autumnal Equinox occurred.
Now this is actually a big deal. Only twice a year is daytime and nighttime the same length. Everything in our solar system has to be just so for this balancing act to occur.
If you were awake, did you feel different? Did you wake up around 3:00 am and not know why? Did you notice anything different about yourself when woke up later on Saturday morning?
Sure, there are many reasons we might wake up at 3:00 am. The equinox only gives two opportunities a year to use it as a reason for waking up. There are also the Winter and Summer solstices that may interrupt our sleep.
Well, there are also the transitions between seasons. According to Chinese medicine, there are transitions between Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall that last 18 days each. During these 18 days, the earths energy gradually shifts from one to the next. This makes sense as it would be very strange and uncomfortable if there was a sudden energetic shift from one season to the next.
Sometimes it feels like Nature does this. We might say something like, "Wow, today is definitely a Fall day." And this is misleading, it simply means the day feels like what we think a Fall day should feel like.
In truth, the seasons shift gradually. This slow daily transition is necessary for nature to prepare for the next season. I would also venture the virtually undetectable shift is necessary to prepare for the next day. We know our health can be effected by a cold snap or a sudden heat wave.
In last month’s column, I bet you dollars to donuts you already have an embodied experience of Nature’s energy. My question was, "Do you have a favorite season?"
Chances are everyone has some preference for a particular time of year. Some people like all the seasons. These people are annoyingly accommodating.
Each season has a certain frequency which we align with or not. When we don’t align, we may experience signs and symptoms of that "disharmony" such as allergies, emotional shifts, decreased energy, or weight gain/loss. Western medicine diagnoses some of these signs and symptoms as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or "SAD."
Quantum mechanical theory is the closest Western science has come to describing the ancient fundamental concept of Chinese medicine called Qi (pronounced, "chee").
According to Chinese medicine, everything is Qi. According to Quantum theory, everything is energy. Where the concept of Qi goes further than Quantum theory, is the belief that Qi and therefore all energy has purpose and therefore consciousness.
Another unique distinction Chinese medicine offers is the belief that different types of Qi have different purposes. It is as if the electricity that powers your home has different purposes. Some electricity would only work the lightbulb. Other type of electricity would only work with your refrigerator. Another type would only work with a television.
According to Chinese medicine, Qi has these different purposes or functions. There is Lung Qi, Liver Qi, Stomach Qi, Kidney Qi, and Heart Qi to name a few. Each of these Qi has specific functions to support our bodies health in relationship to each of the others. Qi is part of a unified whole.
Our society’s foundational scientific models and therefore our culture doesn’t think this way. Long before the discovery of quantum physics, scientists developed theories about our planet, solar system, and by extension, our bodies as being mechanistic. Early branches of science did the math on this concept and got the calculations close enough to match their beliefs so then proposed it as fact and created "The Laws of Physics." They pronounced, "This is the way the world works."
Embedded in the mechanistic view of the universe and our bodies is linear thinking expressed as "cause and effect" and the smallest component of our"reality" is matter, some particle of something solid.
These tiny bits of matter make up the bigger things of our world like atoms, chemicals, rocks, bacteria, and animals such as ourselves which are essentially interchangeable.
If we have a symptom, Western medicine practitioners look at the individual bits of us to see what is causing the effect. When they can’t figure out what the cause is, they treat the symptom, replace the bits that can be replaced, or cut the bits out entirely.
The "alleged" fact of a mechanistic world has misinformed hundreds of years of science and therefore, medicine.
Back to the personal energy audit.
The questions I asked (and the one suggestion) pertain to relationships in the body that effect our health. Sleep, digestion, and fatigue are common concerns with all of us. The seasonal allergies I mentioned in last month’s column affect the quality of life of millions of people.
Chinese medicine does not look at each of these areas of health concerns as separate concerns. Every symptom occurs in relationship to the whole body as well as the external world and very, very, very, rarely has one cause. It is so rare, I can’t think of any symptom that has one cause. (Please see my earlier column(s) on epigenetics.)
Symptoms emerge from a constellation of factors or influences. Any one of these factors, on their own, is not necessarily significant enough to effect our health.
Our body’s various forms of Qi work to balance these influences on our health. The goal of our Qi is to support life. When our body’s Qi becomes depleted, we will experience subtle signs and symptoms.
If we do not recognize or address our body’s subtle messages of imbalances, our body will express louder and louder messages until we have a full-blown condition or disease.
The questions of the personal energy audit offer a beginning understanding of how we might use the energy of the Fall season to help us help our health. The questions can be the beginning of a "Fall Cleaning."
The very nature of Fall is about letting go and preparation. The trees let go of their leaves. Various birds and mammals will cache or hide food they will use in the coming months. Humans make (or buy) warmer clothes. Historically, we harvest crops and prepare to store them for Winter.
All of these activities involve some storing or conserving of energy. Generally speaking, it is easier to "let go" to conserve energy than to work harder to gain more energy. With regard to getting more sleep, it is a practice of letting go of a bit more of the day in order to not only conserve Qi, but also to build Qi. As I have said before, babies do not grow by going to the gym. They grow by sleeping.
In the Fall, trees teach us what helps is to let go of what no longer serves. They let go of their leaves which have served their purpose and it is simply time to let them go.
In humans, these "letting go"’s might include old clothes, 8-track tapes, extra helpings of food, negative stories we tell about ourselves and others, "unhealthy" relationships, and/or beliefs that limit the possibility of healing.
Nature teaches us life that continues by moving from one season to the next. The natural energy of each the seasons offers us a blueprint to how we might discover those energies in ourselves and how to use them. We need only pay attention or ask your local acupuncturist.
Jefferson Breland is a board-certified acupuncturists licensed in Pennsylvania and Maryland with offices in Gettysburg and Towson, respectively.
He can be reached at 410-336-5876.
