2013 Schedule:
Wednesday April 24
Evening check in and dinner for overnight participants
Thursday April 25
8-9 Registration and check in
9-9:15 Welcome and opening remarks
9:15-10:45 Thea Elijah: Ethics of the HT and SI
The heart’s greatest gift is ‘propriety’- the greatest leader of ethical focus in our practice. During this three hour lecture and during her breakout group sessions Thea will bring the ‘heart’ to life through discussion, activity and lecture. You will walk away from this session feeling a deeper connection to the ethical approach to our medicine, ability to reflect from your ‘heart’ and support your patients in moving from their ‘heart’.
10:45-11 Break
11-12:30 Thea continued
12:30-2 Lunch
2-3:30 David Berkshire: The Non-Material transitioning to the material: Chapters 5 & 6 of the SuWen
During this 3 hour lecture we will explore how the flavors associated with the elements give us a clue of how we move from their energetic essence into the physical form of the officials/organ networks. From this we will explore how the six conformations also reflect the cosmology of the elements and officials and give us clues to the nature of the points along the meridians; during this lecture we will specifically focus on the Heart and Small Intestine Officials and the Lesser Yin (Shaoyin) and Greater Yang (Taiyang).
3:30-3:45 Break
4-5:30 David continued
Friday April 26
7-8: Ch'i Gong with David Berkshire
David will teach a Remedy-Routine syle of Tai Chi, which focuses on Liver Cleansing, and gathering chi from the universe.
By the end of the third session, even those with no prior Tai Chi experience will be able to employ an enjoyable and effective daily practice to cultivate their chi.
9-10:30 Alexander Love: Evolution of Emperorship, Spirit & a Purposeful Life
At the heart of Chinese medicine is the profound message that life is a sacred event filled with magnificent purpose. Each of us has planted deep within our soul, powerful questions that form the basis of our constitutional type. Every moment we are given the choice to grab ahold of this purposeful life with passionate inquiry and live from virtue, or to remain identified with the broken and traumatized aspects of our interior.
Through an examination of the Shen-Spirit, Ling-Soul, Xing-Temperament, and other Chinese characters, we explore this sacred choice. We experience how these distinctions clarify diagnosis and expression of our true nature, and more importantly help us touch the intrinsic health within our patients. We discover that human beings are a living bridge between the past and future. Every choice we make has significant impact on the continuity of humanities’ emergence. This is the immense responsibility of the emperor within each of us.
Our exploration continues with delving into the Chinese characters and spirit of the upper kidney points. We learn how they represent the evolution of emperorship, self-responsibility and the elements necessary to live a dynamic, totally engaged life. We also explore their relationship to the five-elements and selected points along Du Mai.
Our discussion concludes with a brief look at the role of fluid dynamics within the system and how they act as a bridge between material and non-material dynamics. This serves as an introduction to the breakout session where we explore the Quantum Cranial® method; a blending of Cranial Osteopathic principals with Chinese medical wisdom.
10:30-11 Break
11-12:30 Alexander continued
12:30-2 Lunch
2-3:30 Neil Gumenick Session I: The Heart and Small Intestine Officials
In this session, we will learn how the I and II Officials manifest at all levels, both in a state of balance and imbalance. Specific points on these meridians, their spiritual connotations, and uses will be discussed. The session will also include group processing wherein students will have the opportunity to share, in response to specific questions, their own life experiences of the functioning of these two Officials. Sharing of their own experience and hearing the experiences of other participants deepens the embodiment of the knowledge, enabling participants to more accurately diagnose and treat the Supreme Controller and his able private secretary, the Sorter of the Pure from Impure in patients.
Session II: Practitioner/Patient Rapport Practical
In this session, participants will work in dyads - one in the position of patient, the other as practitioner. Practitioners will have, as a goal, to make rapport (a state of true unity) with the person on the table. Participants will be encouraged to use their choice of questions, tone of voice, pace, touch, facial expression, body language, and physical relationship to the patient to give appropriate and congruent messages. Prof. Gumenick will assist with side-coaching in real time. This exercise, both challenging and enlightening, is crucially important to our work as diagnosticians, as well as gaining our patient's trust and compliance.
3:30-4 Break
4-5:30 Breakout groups
Saturday April 27
7-8: Ch'i Gong with David Berkshire
9-10:30 Niki Bilton: The heart zang as lord and liege: diagnosis and treatment of xin, xin bao luo and tan zhong.
Most five element folks see the HT/SI side of fire as completely separate from the PC/TE side of fire: this is neither classically correct re theory nor clinically correct, unless we are talking about the sheng/ke cycles. And many TCM folks marginalize the 'pericardium'.
This class will help folks better understand the classical theory of xin, xin bao luo and tan zhong, which explains why there are only 'five zang'. We will spend most of the time discussing how to apply this theory in clinical practice, in the treatment of Fire CFs and cases where there are fire official pathologies. This would include specific reference to the characters and clinical uses of points on the HT and PC channels, to treat the three aspects of the heart, as well as key points on the ren and du mai. Some reference would be made to the role of the small intestine.
10:30-11 Break
11-12:30 Niki continued
12:30-2 Lunch
2-3:30 Bob Quinn: Dreamwork and the Nei Jing
The Nei Jing is replete with statements about how various dream images pertain to each of the five phases, e.g., “When the Kidneys are in excess one dreams that the spine is detached from the body...when they are weak, one dreams of being immersed in water.” However no book, certainly not an ancient one, could contain all the images that might arise in our patients’ dreams. What if a car or a yacht or a Hollywood star appears in the dream? What is needed is a methodology—in this case “projective dreamwork” as taught by Jeremy Taylor—that is easily learned and deeply respectful of the patient’s lived experience, to tease out the Chinese medicine symbols in the dreams brought to us by our patients. This exciting work helps us start to include the 1/3 of our patients’ lives, (the 8 hours of sleep time) which most practitioners are not currently considering. Bob Quinn has studied projective dreamwork with Jeremy Taylor since 1993. He will lay out the basics of this approach in a participatory manner.
3:30-4:00 Break
4-5:30 Breakout groups
Sunday April 28
7-8: Ch'i Gong with David Berkshire
9-10:30 Joseph Soprani: The practitioner relationship to the Heart and Small Intesine
Treating at spirit level entails no prescribed protocols, no templates. It is an entirely unique treatment designed for the unique person in front of you at this particular moment in time. We will explore what is the essesnce of treating at the level of these officials, when it is called for, how to choose points and what is required of us in order to access that level in the patient.
These officials in fire are living functions, entities if you will, who manifest from the actions of each cell in our bodies to every human interaction. In this session we will look at how these two officials function in the treatment space, first in our patients and their lives and then in our lives as clinicians. We will discover how we can best co-operate with this process that refines and matures our as clinicians.
10:30-11 Break
11-12:30 Joseph continued
12:30-2 Lunch
2-3:30 Heiner Fruehauf : Cosmology of the Ht and SI
During this three hour lecture Dr Fruehauf will review the cosmology of the Heart and Small Intestine and how it fits into the realm of heaven, and how it’s connection to the Shaoyin and Taiyang fit together with the element of fire and water. Through blending classical mythology, Chinese literature, point names you will come to understand the heart and the small intestine in a way which you hadn’t before.
3:30-3:45 Break
3:45-5 Heiner continued
5-5:15 Closing remarks
