A daily Qi massage is excellent for relieving gas and constipation. Practice every morning and evening in sets 9, starting with the left hand over the right on top of the belly button, the swinging down the left to just above the pubic bone and up the right side. Keep the motion  smooth and fluid; do not stop the action. Breathe very deeply, expanding the lower abdomen with the inhalation. Imagine a white ball of light under the palms that energizes and moves the Qi with the hand movement.

Di Huang Wine

100g Di Huang    30g granulated sugar or honey

1 litere vodka or another 45" alcohol

optional: 1/2 cup port wine

Add the ingredients to a wide-mouth bottle and let age for a month until they turn a dark, rich brown color. Drink 20ml or one sake cupful once or twice a day with meals.

Good for cleansing and increasing Blood and strengthening the Hearts and Kidneys.

 

Garlic Liquor

800g Garlic       3-4 bay leaves

1 cup honey     1 liter 45' alcohol

Peel and roughly chop the garlic, add to honey, bay keaves, and alcohol in a wide-mouth jar. The liquor is effective after 3 months, but after a year the antibiotic properties of the garlic fully permeate the alcohol. Dose:20ml,one sake cupful,after meals. NO more than that. Avoid drinking on an empty stomach. Drinking too much of this could reverse its effects, weakening the Blood and drying out the skin.

Good for strengthening sexual energy,Stomach and intestine,this also warm the hands and feet,fight colds,and its antiseptic properties help fight against infection.

 

Mood Swing Wine

100g dried chrysanthemum leaves  1/2 cup honey

1 liter 45' alcohol

Mix ingredients together in a wide-mouth bottle and let sit for 2 to 3 months. Drink 20ml after meals once a day. This is quite bitter, so you may want to increase the amount of honey or add a tad more when you drink it.

Good for heavy head when you've got a hangover.high blood pressure,tired eyes, or headache and is a general restorative.

 

Red Date wine

1 cup red dates,pitted or unpitted

750ml 45' clear alcohol

1/2 cup honey

Mix ingredients together in a wide-mouth bottle and store for a month in a cool,dry place. Shake regularly. Drink 20ml, or a sake cupful, once a day in the afternoon after  a meal for insomnia, headache,anxiety,neurosis,restless,depression,and general nervousness. Contraindicated if headache is accompanied by constipation. Do not drink if you have any problem with gallstones.

Red dates are traditional tonic nutrient and guiding herb. energetically sweet and neutral,they are said to 'clear the nine openings' of the body, and improve circulation;they are slightly sedative and relax the smooth muscle

 

Saffron Wine

1tsp.saffron      1 littter of 45' alcohol

optional:1/2 cup honey or granulated sugar

Let this sit for a week before drinking. Dose: 20ml, one sake cupful nightly after meals.

Recommended in cases of anemia, weak or cool/cold body constitutions, menstruation irregularities,and other blood deficient imbalances.

Heaven (tien), earth (dee),and humans (ren) are known as the 'Three Powers". These three power intersect and interact,weaving the mental and material threads of life into the warp and woof of the human body and mind.

Human thrive to the extent that they comform to the forces which mould and  nurture them.

From heaven they receive the treasure of spirit and the awareness it confers, abd from earth they obtain the essential elements that constitute their bodies. The fusion of spirit  and essence generates the energy with which humans conduct their lives.

When human energy remains in harmony with the primal forces if heaven and earth, it flourished and protects the health of the body. When human energy runs counter to the laws of heaven and earth, it soon 'exhausts itself, and the body degenerates and perished. The law of heaven are sometimes reffered to as 'destiny', while the law of earth are called 'nature'.

Woman are said to be Yin (soft,yielding) on the outside but Yang (firm, resilient) on the inside, while men are Yang on the outside but Yin on the inside.These two aspects shift and interact until they strike a relative balance that is most suitable for each individual. In fact, some women are more assertive and Yang than men, and this type of woman tends to gravitate towards a man who  is more yielding and yin than others. Similarly, extremely macho men tend to prefer more docile, yielding women.

Nothing is absolutely Yin or Yang, and everything tends to seek a complementary opposite that strike the most stable balance relative to itself.

Take for example water, which is often invoked as a symbol of Yin but which also has its own Yang phases. when the sun (Yang) heats water (Yin) to a sufficient degree,it transform into vapour (Yang) and rises upwards (a Yang direction). High in the sky, vapour cools and condences to form cloud, and when this Yin process of condensation reaches its upmost stage, Yang vapour transforms into Yin water and fall down (a ying direction) as rain.

Another example of emotion. When you lose your temper for example, you 'fume' and get 'steaming mad', an extreme yang condition. Your breathe become short and fast, with stronger exhalations than inhalations. Since exhalation is the Yang phase of breathing, your body employs it to expel the excess yang acumulate by anger, thereby rebalancing internal energy. When you're sad, you feel down and low (yin direction) and your energy swings toward to yin,causing you to sigh, a yin breathing mode that deepens inhalation and shortens exhalation. This condition of extreme yin is thus balanced by assimilating extra energy from air,which raises the level of Yang.

Extreme emotions invariably upset the delicate balance of energies within the human system, and in chinese medicine they are regarded as root causes of disease and degeneration.

Today, hypertension is a very common condition of Yang excess caused by chronic stress. An easy and effective antidote that  requires neither drugs or doctors is simply to practise a few minutes of deep abdominal breathing and sit stillness and silence for a while. This automatically switches the nervous system over from the active Yang phase of the sympathetic circuit to the calming, restorative Yin phase of the parasympathetic circuit. Taking 'uppers' and 'downers' (amphetamines and barbiturates) to whip up or bludgeon down the nervous system provides only temporary symptomatic relief for nervous disorders withour correcting the root causes. The toxic side effects of such drugs further impair the body's capacity to restore balance between the  sympathetic Yang and parasympathetic Yin circuits,thereby causing a vicious cycle of drug dependency. This sort of therapy which prevails in Western allopathic medicine,causes more problems than it cures and runs contrary to the fundamental principles of human health.