Cultivating coherence/incoherence

[Guest guest]

Hi Emmanuel,

 

He Huan Hua, yum! I like it! I wish my life were constructed so I could be

harvesting (and growing) herbs...

 

Dear Andrea, Bob Felt, Ken, Wainwright, Fernando, Ze'v and All other Esteemed

Colleagues,

 

This juxtaposition of this post, plus oral traditions of herbalism and comments

on Unschuld had put me in mind to start this new thread. My observations are

several. That herbalism has its origins as oral traditions arising from

relatively small regional areas is one part. That translating this vitality of

local plant and animal ecology and human healing into a written and therefore

static format is another observation. That the Chinese had a penchant for

translating oral traditions into written traditions over many centuries and over

many regions is yet another observation. That thousands of such shifts from a

vital living format into a static written format over thousands of years should

produce a contradictory and incoherent format is not a huge surprise. That one

can pick a thread of coherence through the vastness of the literature should

also not be a huge surprise. It's all based on the same living human

physiological coherences. It's just thousands of snapshots of thousands of

moments in thousands of locales. This is the family album, so to speak, of

Chinese medicine. That the written characters have a bit of consistency through

time says so much for Ken's insights into at least understanding something about

the written language. That it really arises from thousands of separate and

regional oral traditions says so much for posts by Andrea of late.

 

I thought I would momentarily draw together all of these threads. Wainwright

has I feel clearly observed the very fulcrum itself ... that amidst the

incoherence and contradictions of the written tradition is a transmission of

coherence from the very living nature of what has proceeded through the

centuries. Perhaps therein lies the challenge of the CM practitioner.

 

Your observations?

 

In gratitude,

Emmanuel Segmen