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More Acupuncture Articles
Acupuncture and Loss In Spring
As Winter wanes, Spring waxes. The Chinese New Year has brought in the year of the pig and spring is just beginning. Bears are coming out of hibernation while it is still cold with the chance of snow or ice. This is a time of change. Many people lost loved ones in the dark winter months and also now, as the spring is returning. One patient asked, why does it seem like so many people and pets are dying around this time? In Chinese Medicine, it makes a lot of sense.
Spring is a time of creativity and enthusiasm. Yet there is also loss at this time of year. In the eyes of Chinese Medicine, the reason for this is simple. It takes a certain amount of energy, or Qi, to live through the cycle of seasons that make up a year. In the spring, the energy shoots up, requiring a lot of Qi to finance nature’s wild ride toward summer: the maturation of fruits, vegetables, and animals. If a person or animal is too weak to make it through another cycle, sometimes the spirit will decide, usually unconsciously, that this is a good time to step off the wheel of life.
By the same token, this also happens in the winter, which is at the end of the cycle for the year, after the holidays. Instead of resting, like a seed at the bottom of a pot, the energy simply continues to drop and the person or animal quietly passes out of the world. In the big picture, this is a graceful way to go.
In the eyes of an acupuncturist, it is all about the ebb and flow of Qi. For those of us who continue through the rest of the year, it is a time of sadness, grief, and sometimes also relief to see suffering ended. And yet spring is beginning all over again underneath all of it. Soon it will be warmer and our thoughts will change direction; going forward toward summer and the next great thing we are creating even now.
It is the grand cycle of life; death is included and unavoidable even as we grow and flourish. Acupuncture is one of the many healing arts that contain all of nature, because it is based on nature.
