Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
HARMONIZING WITH NATURE
Before we go any further together, do one thing: Go outside.
Find a place where you can anchor your feet on real soil, ideally in a garden. Plant yourself solidly and breathe in deeply, from the soles of your feet all the way up through your legs and body to the top of your head, nourishing yourself with the environment that surrounds you.
Now take a minute to glance around. Notice where there is sunlight and where there is shade. Imagine how these patterns of light and shadow might change throughout the day as the sun shifts in the sky. Now bring your attention to the weather: Does it feel warm or cool? Dry or damp? Is the air still? Is there a slight breeze? Or is it windy?
Continuing to breathe deeply from your feet, close your eyes and notice any sensations in your hands. Now bring your attention to your thoughts and emotions. What preoccupations have you brought to the garden? Are you still mulling over personal or work issues? What is your mood? Are you happy, sad, angry, worried?
Now bring your attention to the crown of your head. Imagine your personal energy reaching up to connect with the energy of the cosmos. Bring this cosmic energy in. Feel the connection between the Earth under your feet, your body, and the universe above you. Then, over the course of a few more breaths, let go of all emotions, all worldly concerns, all sensations-- simply release them with each exhalation--until your mind and body are calm and empty. Before you open your eyes and return indoors, bring your hands to your navel. Be aware of the space you've just cleared and, in it, plant a tiny seed of hope--a prayer for what you would like to achieve.
Through your body, you have just experienced all the wisdom you need to move forward with this book. Now, so your mind can embrace what your body already understands, we will talk a little about Taoism, the philosophy that gave birth to Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the concepts of nothingness, balance, congruency, and harmony. Cultivating these states in your mind and body is vital to creating an environment that will attract new life.
Should you take the time to understand the thinking behind this new approach to fertility? Yes--because Western minds, accustomed to cause-and- effect analysis, often want to know "why." Understanding the Eastern perspective, even just a little, will make it easier to embrace the advice in the pages ahead and apply it effectively.
TAOISM: CREATING SOMETHING FROM NOTHING
Taoism is a system of beliefs, born over the centuries from Chinese philosophers' observations of the natural world, that informs every aspect of Chinese culture.* Religion, philosophy, art, literature, theater, ethics, politics, medicine--all grow from "the Tao," which, literally translated, means the path, or the way.
As followed in everyday life, the Tao leads us to health, happiness, and harmony with the cosmos. People who practice Taoism tap into the wisdom of the Tao by consulting the I Ching, or Book of Changes, an ancient oracle and one of the primary documents of Taoist thought. But we can also connect with the Tao through our bodies, by using the eating and drinking guidelines, meditation techniques, and exercises recommended later in this book.
REMEMBER THE GARDEN
As you move forward with this book, please remind yourself that your body is like the garden in which you have just experienced the continuum of being. As in all gardens, the seed we hope to plant in our bodies grows best when we cultivate the ground and plant and nurture the seed in harmony with the laws of nature. You wouldn't put a tender plant in clay soil without first tilling and amending the earth--at least not if you wanted to give that plant its best start. You wouldn't plant in the dead of winter, or in the dry season without water, or in a sunless place. Likewise, if we tend our bodies, minds, and spirits with an awareness of the laws of nature, we improve our chances of welcoming the gifts of Quan Yin, the fertility goddess.
Like many philosophies, Taoism holds at its core a belief about how the universe was formed. In Taoist thought, the material universe as we know it grew from a dynamic void called Wu Chi. Some people think of Wu Chi as God or Eternity--a power or a place beyond the plane of human existence. But a more meaningful interpretation of Wu Chi is "nothingness"--a sort of energized emptiness that holds the potential for creation.
Wu Chi, or nothingness, is more than just an interesting concept at the core of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It's a model for us to follow as we prepare your body for pregnancy. Remember the story about the sage, the student, and the overflowing cup, and the exercise in which you "emptied your cup" in order to partake of a new approach to fertility? Both this parable and practice are expressions of Wu Chi. They ask you to cultivate in yourself the dynamic void that is the source of all new life. By clearing out preconceptions and connecting with the primordial emptiness that gave birth to the universe, we create a space in which something may flourish.
Here's another way to look at it: When you cut open an apple, you find a seed. It doesn't look like an apple. It doesn't taste like an apple. It is not an apple. It is the potential--the nothingness--from which an apple tree grows. It is a prayer for apples.
YIN AND YANG : BALANCING OPPOSITES
The dynamic emptiness of Wu Chi gave birth to Tai Chi, the fundamental energy of the material world. Tai Chi is the union of two complementary opposites, Yin and Yang. Bringing these two elements into balance in our bodies is key to establishing an environment that welcomes new life.
In the Chinese language, the terms Yin and Yang originally referred to the shady and sunny sides of a mountain. Together they make up the entire mountain. Each side has the capacity for darkness and light as the sun moves in the sky--a phenomenon you experienced when, at the beginning of this chapter, you envisioned how the shifting sun might affect patterns of shade and light in the garden over time.
If you were to observe the garden across a long period of time, you would witness the continual transformation of day into night into day, with light giving way to darkness and darkness yielding to the light of a new day. This process of perpetual, natural change is the very essence of Yin and Yang. Darkness, or Yin, always contains an element of light waiting to emerge. And light, or Yang, embodies the potential for darkness.
THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF YIN AND YANG
In Chinese thought and medicine, there are Five Principles that govern the nature and interaction of Yin and Yang:
.All things have two aspects: Yin and Yang.
.Yin and Yang can be further divided into Yin and Yang. (Yin itself is composed of Yin and Yang elements, as is Yang.)
.Yin and Yang create each other.
.Yin and Yang control each other.
.Yin and Yang become each other.
FROM WU CHI TO TAI CHI--THE EVOLUTION OF YIN AND YANG
According to the Tao, the nothingness of Wu Chi makes room for Tai Chi, which is made up of Yin and Yang. In the familiar Tai Chi symbol--a circle that is half dark and half light--the Yin component (dark) contains the seed of Yang (light), just as Yang contains the seed of Yin.
From a Taoist perspective, the same natural forces that created the universe and shape the natural world around us come into play every time a baby is conceived and grows. The dynamic emptiness of Wu Chi is like the human womb, ready for Yin and Yang (egg and sperm) to unite to create new life. As the tiny embryo develops, the organ known as the Triple Warmer is formed, representing the Three Treasures. Five organ systems take shape, representing the Five Elements. And 12 acupuncture meridians (energy pathways), with a total of 365 acupuncture points, come into being, representing the 12 months and 365 days of the year.
As twin pillars of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Yin and Yang have distinct qualities that manifest in the human body and psyche, as well as in the world around us. Yin, the shady side of the mountain, is associated with cold, rest, darkness, receptiveness, decrease, quiet. In the female/male equation that creates new life, Yin is the female component, the mother. It is completion and fruition. Yang, the sunny side of the mountain, is associated with heat, brightness, stimulation, activity, excitement, vigor, increase, arousal, beginning. It is the male counterpart, the father, to Mother Yin.
Your goal, through our work together, is to create an environment that is neither Yin nor Yang--neither too cool and damp nor too warm and dry--but a healthy balance of the two. The first step is to acknowledge that your body is not a finite, immutable system, but one in which change is constant. As you will learn, we can influence that change and increase our chances of conceiving through the foods we eat and the fluids we drink, as well as through meditation and exercise.
THREE TREASURES: CREATING CONGRUENCY AMONG HEAVEN, EARTH, AND HUMAN
In Chinese culture, we believe that the cosmos consists of three levels of being.
.Heaven: realm of the planets, of universal wisdom and energy, and of spiritual power
.Earth: the material world that grounds and nourishes us, the source of our most primitive knowledge and generative power
.Human: the in-between level, with access to both Heaven above and Earth below, the source of human power
Humans are endowed with the tools to tap each of these levels of being. Through our minds--instruments of intellectual thought, analysis, and moral action--we gain access to the treasures of Heaven: the universal wisdom of the cosmos and the satisfaction of a spiritual connection with all things. Through our hearts--the center of emotion in Eastern as well as Western cosmology--we can experience the treasures of the Human realm, including happy human relationships. And through the organs in our gut--liver, kidneys, stomach, bowels, reproductive organs--we can connect with the treasures of Earth: our primordial instincts, our ancestors.
The challenge we face every day of our existence is to live a life in which Heaven, Earth, and Human levels are aligned, or congruent. That means that the intent we generate in our minds is in synch with the intent of our hearts and the action of our guts.
Here's an example of congruency: In our minds, connecting us to Heaven, we know we want a baby in our lives, and we are committed to using our powers of reason, ingenuity, and understanding to achieve our goal. In our hearts, our link to Human gifts, we are open to loving a child, and to doing the hard work that every positive relationship (particularly one that lasts a lifetime) requires. And in our guts, our often-overlooked body-brain and our connection to the Earth, we are committed to securing the practical resources that will free us of stress, negative emotions, and primitive fears--often the source of imbalance, disharmony, and illness that can prevent us from conceiving.
The Heaven-Earth-Human paradigm has even more direct relevance to the issue of fertility and conception. In a graceful dance that mimics the very formation of the universe from Wu Chi, in the dynamic void that is the human womb, Heaven (sperm) and Earth (egg) align to manifest on the Human level as a baby.
THE FIVE ELEMENTS : HARMONIZING WITH NATURE
Look at the world around you, and, like the ancient Chinese sages who conceived of Taoism, you will see that life on Earth is composed of Five Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.
Taoists believe that these Five Elements are the building blocks of all life, manifesting in our bodies as they do in our environment. In fact, every living thing is defined by its unique combination of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. The particular combination of these elements within each of us--established, Taoists believe, at the time of our birth-- determines how we respond physically and emotionally to all of the forces of nature. It defines our health, and our fertility.
For good health and good fortune, we need both Yin and Yang versions of each of the Five Elements in our lives. When one or more elements dominate or are absent, health and fertility can be compromised; when all Five Elements are in harmony, our chances of conceiving improve. Note that we can determine our own distinct elemental patterns and the energies accessible to us by virtue of our birth date through the practice of Ba Zi, with its Ten Thousand Year Calendar. Based on the position of the stars, Ba Zi uses an ancient form of numerology to identify the relationship of the elements at the moment of our birth--for example, which elements we have more of, and which we have less of or lack altogether. (To learn more about Ba Zi, see the reading list in Appendix A on page 201.)
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR GUT BRAIN
Have you ever noticed that your body seems to know you're stressed before your mind grasps the source of your troubles? From the Taoist perspective, we owe this body-based awareness to our "gut brain," which connects us to the Earth level of the Three Treasures (Heaven, Human, Earth).
Lest you think it's only a figment of the Taoist imagination, please note that Western medicine also acknowledges the existence of your gut brain. Deep within your esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and colon lies your enteric nervous system--a complex physiological network that connects, through your central nervous system, to the brain in your head. A distant relative of the primitive "reptile brain" that guides less-evolved creatures, the gut brain reacts when we experience stresses that provoke our "fight or flight" response--and in modern life, that could be anything from a traffic jam to an argument with a loved one. When we're worried, stressed, angry, fearful, or depressed, our gut brain knows and tells us in the only way it can--through our gut.
What happens when you consistently ignore the messages of your gut brain? Maybe you forget to eat breakfast, ignoring the grumbling from below. Maybe you ignore the fact that raw broccoli gives you gas, or that you feel strangely chilled after eating ice cream--failing to make a connection between what you feed your body and the way it makes you feel. Maybe you ignore stresses at work, telling yourself to be tough or patient without acknowledging how you really feel. Over time, such behavior can harm your organs and result in chronic disharmonious health. Perhaps you experience constant constipation, diarrhea, or an ever-changing combination of the two- -conditions that tell us that, perhaps, you must tend to your lifestyle as well as your body before you're ready for your baby.
