Digest Number 1143

[Guest guest]

On 9/23/02 5:28 PM, " "

wrote:

 

> My teachers taught me to regard growth and development issues

>> (i.e. 7 & 8 year cycle things) as Jing issues.

>

> That would suggest that menopause is a Jing deficiency then. Right?

> Interesting.

>

> --

> Al Stone L.Ac.

> <AlStone

> http://www.BeyondWellBeing.com

I don't think so. Symptoms associated with menopause have a Jing

deficient aspect but menopause itself is a normal healthy transition.

 

Sharon

[Guest guest]

, Sharon Weizenbaum <sweiz@r...> wrote:

> > That would suggest that menopause is a Jing deficiency then.

Right? Interesting.

 

> I don't think so. Symptoms associated with menopause have a Jing

> deficient aspect but menopause itself is a normal healthy

transition.

 

 

 

Both you and Al are correct, menopause s/s are rooted in jing

depletion, which is a typical life transition. But to say it is

healthy may go to far. Many if not most mammals die shortly after

their child-bearing and rearing days are over (so they've said on

Animal Planet); humans are an exception to this general rule.

 

The first chapter of the Suwen charts the four seasons of life---

growth, development, decline, and death---against the qi and blood

(jing) levels. But if we define life and health as the ability of

the organism to be self-generating and self-perpetuating (what in

complexity theory is called autopoietic), then menopause---and

andropause---portends decline, which is not balance.

 

Perhaps some will think I'm quibbling; perhaps we have only

different attitudes toward the rate at which balance and transition

occur or should be defined. I think we need to distinguish between

the sense of balance that we try to define in CM as being healthy,

which is ambiguous at best, and the dynamics of what happens in the

body. And we shouldn't ignore or choose to be naive about what

Western medicine says about it.

 

 

Jim Ramholz