Acupuncture in London in the 21st century: a thousand year old medicine from China, practised in a thousand year old city of London.
bringing you a mix of classical Chinese medicine theory and current evidenced based acupuncture research, blended with recent news on acupuncture and tcm with a flavour of my own interpretation through practice.
Come join us on Friday, December 2nd at the Putney Christmas Market for an afternoon of children's entertainment, live music, food, mulled wine and an opportunity to buy some Christmas gifts.
Well4ever will be there selling gift vouchers for massage, reflexology and rejuvenating facials and other treatments. Aromatherapy hampers including room mists, perfume roll ons and home made lip balms by our very own Ange as well as Ella's Little Curly Collection of handmade Xmas cards, bookmarks, calenders and more will also be on sale. Look out for her gorgeous prints on canvas.
You may not realise it but you interact with essential oils just by walking through a forest and taking a deep breathe of fragrant pine needles; or peeling an orange and enjoying the fresh, uplifting citrus scent before popping a juicy segment in your mouth ... read more Ancient Aromatherapy
Today we'll talk about Chrysanthemum flower (flos chrysanthemi), or Ju Hua as it is known in China. In traditional Chinese medicine this herb's properties are bitter, sweet and slightly cold, and it goes to the Liver and Lung channels.
Yellow Chrysanthemum has a beneficial action on headache and eye complaints. It has long been used as an eye tonic and can help relieve red, painful, dryness or excessive watering of the eyes. It is also used for blurry vision, dizziness and spots / floaters in front of the eyes. Combined with Goji berry (Gou Qi Zi) and Rehmania Six to make a great formula called Qi Ju Di Huang Wan.
Chrysanthemum is also used to clear headaches and fever associated with colds and flu. It is known to aid in releasing toxins from the body. Great together with Mulberry leaf (Sang Ye) in a great common cold / cough formula called Sang Ju Yin.
Its actions are antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and anti-inflammatory. It also may help lower blood pressure and relaxes blood vessels.
Some practitioners say, yellow chrysanthemums, the Golden Flower, are symbols of long life and will bring you good luck. Ju hua cha - chrysanthemum flower tea is commonly consumed in China almost as much as green tea, due both to its medicinal effects and its excellent taste!
When you pop in to well4ever you can have a cup of chrysanthemum tea with us, and if you want to make some at home we have ready made bags of 50g Chrysanthemum flowers for £3.50
Autumn is filled with colour, mystery and awe-inspiring beauty. The little woodland creatures are hard at work preparing for the colder months, and so should you be...
Ginger has a strong antimicrobial action that can help fight colds and flu. It is beneficial for throat infection and has anti-inflammatory properties. read more...
Ok, these are just absolutely brilliant looking pics taken by our very own Ange in and around Putney and Barnes Common on her way home from clinic, you gotta admit, the girl has skills, can anyone top these?
Ok, so as promised i'm publishing pics you've been sending me, not all actually taken in London, but why not open it up to all fungi worldwide right? see if you can identify them and vote for your favorites:
Well4ever Clinic Putney: A Very BIG Thank You: Hello everybody, We wanted to say a HUGE thanks to everyone who came down to Well4ever on Friday the 30th of September to join us in the 'World's Biggest Coffee Morning' for Macmillan Cancer Support. Beautiful sunshine 28C , happy smiles and delicious cakes made for a fun event for everyone! read more...
You don't get to see acupuncture, herbs and Chinese medicine feature in too many movies unless like me you're partial to Kung fu films, Hong Kong cinema and Chinese historical epics. So I feel I must share with you this acupuncture documentary that I seen recently, its called 9000 Needles, and I'll let you know why later though I think you can guess.
This isn't a Jet Li joint, a Jackie Chan day in a life or anything like that, but a real story of a real guy called Devin Dearth, a 40 year old father of 3, who has a brain stem bleed and is told he'll probably never walk again.
The American health care system being broken, his insurance company wont pay for his rehab and the only option left for his family is to take him to China and try a rehab program in a Teaching Hospital in Tianjin, China.
This is an emotional story of a family going through some really tough times, and shows the sheer determination and strength of the human spirit to cope and fight thru. You'll cry with his family and cheer him on as he makes progress, and you get a chance to see him go thru the treatment which includes lots of acupuncture, Chinese herbs, cupping, bleeding, herbal soaks, tui na, physical therapy and more.
His Chinese doctors are absolutely brilliant, they kinda remind me of some of my teachers, and they poke him with 9157 needles in his 3 months stay, there or thereabouts, hence the name.
You can see 9000 Needles on the big screen at the Colchester Arts Centre, for one night only! Friday July 8th 2011 at 19:30 for £10 Check it out!
Here is a 5 minute cut from the film and thanks to Devin and the entire Dearth family for the inspiration.
Got some really cool fungi pics of some polypores from Eva she took last week on a walk with Robin in North London that I want to share with you.
I think they are polyporus squamosus, also known as Dryad's Saddle, though they could probably pass for polyporus craterellus, have a look at these images and see what you think, your comments appreciated.
Also, maybe we can start a new thread here, after the storm last week, and with this being a Bank Holiday weekend, you may find yourself taking a walk in the park or camping out in nature, why not take a pic of the mushrooms you spot and email me or post'em in comments, and we can all try (all 12 of us ;) to identify them and vote for the best ones.
The winner will get Paul Stamets book, Mycelium Running, which I mentioned in the last post.
As you know, as an herbalist i use and recommend mushrooms to my patients at clinic very regularly, sometimes as a food like some of the tastier ones Shiitake and Chanterelles, other times as tinctures or powders or capsules of the mushroom mycelium like the Reishi, Cordyceps & Kombucha for their powerful beneficial effects on our immune system and as natural antibiotics and antivirals. I will discuss all of the above in detail in future posts.
I think it makes sense that this first herbal post will give props to the first species to move from the oceans to land, as the gateway species about 1.3 billion years ago. As Paul Stamets says fungi have always survived the extinction cycles on earth because they can survive in the dark, they are the grand molecular disassemblers in nature: they break down plants, minerals and animals into soil, they sequester CO2 and have an amazing healing effect not only on the human body but on the environment they inhabit on a global scale.
Old Growth Forest Agarikon mushroom
There is nobody better to explain this than Paul himself, who is a true visionary and greenovator, also known as the mushroom guy for his incredible work with mushroom mycelium and fungi. His work, patents, and research has huge implications in vast fields from medicine: in treatment of smallpox, pandemic avian flus, H5N1, on the one hand, all the way to cleaning up environmental brown fields and disasters such as the oil gulf spill of last year or the Japanese nuclear plant radioactive cleanup efforts right now! Note especially his work with rare Old Growth Forest's mushroom Agarikon(Fomitopsis officinalis) - the one in the picture is about 50 years old from a forest in the pacific northwest of United States.
Just realized that it was world water day this week on march 22nd so though i usually stick to acupuncture herbs and chinese medicine i think this deserves a mention.
If you've ever been to clinic you'll know we always offer you water when you come in, and encourage you to drink more water when you emerge from your acu-bubble back to your busy life :)
As much as i love acupuncture and herbs, we can actually survive without them, but a week without water and we're pretty much gone. Water is the one thing that we can't do without, all 7 billion of us. So let me give you a few interesting water facts:
A quarter of the worlds population is without safe drinking water.
Less than 1% of the water treated by public water systems is used for drinking and cooking.
In
the time it took you to read these first three facts another child has
just died in the developing world from unsafe drinking water.
Water makes up 75% of the human brain. 75% of trees are also made from water!
You could live for a month without food, but you would be dead after a week without water!
Once it evaporates, a water molecule spends around ten days in the air.
97%
of the worlds water is salty or otherwise undrinkable, 2% is stored in
glaciers and the ice caps, the remaining 1% is left for humanity's
needs.
If you want to know/do more have a look at WaterAid's site, their London office is around the way near oval and their vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water and sanitation.
I believe everyone should have access to safe clean water too, and i'll leave you with a couple of documentary films about water:
been meaning to write for a while now but clinic has just been choka so been busy being an acupuncturist & herbalist, running a clinic and all the rest of it or as Jake Paul Fratkin puts it a 'lowly clinician'...
so if you'd like to know what its like and why i've been too busy to write have a read of his article in Acupuncture Today: In Praise of the Lowly Clinician
Come join us on Friday, December 2nd at the Putney Christmas Market for an afternoon of children's entertainment, live music, food, mulled wine and an opportunity to buy some Christmas gifts.
