Why We are at a Much Higher Risk during April-May 2021 than Earlier this Year
For those of you prefer video contents and don’t hate accent, please check out my talk touching on this in “environment” section here. :)
April — May 2021, Second Qi of Lunar Year Xinchou, NOT really a good time to fully open up
With the relatively peaceful COVID period January 20 — March 20*, vaccination eligibility expanding, and April 1 was set by California lawmakers as a deadline to reopen schools for K-2 students, the other parts of the state and country is also determined to open up fully. Legoland set to begin reopening April 1 after yearlong closure, theme parks in preparation of reopening…
*Note that the time window of these two dates are not grabbed from any news, but an ancient book compiled from approximately 2700 years ago, clearly stating the first Qi, i.e., Jan 20 — Mar 20, 2021 the climate is against the spread of any epidemic or pandemic.
For those of you who would respect ancient wisdom including Traditional Chinese Medicine (a.k.a. TCM), let me tell you what’s been written in the ancient TCM classic, Yellow Emperor’s Internal Medicine:
There are six Qi’s in a year, you can think of it as time windows of different board members in charge of the climate. For our current lunar year 2021, year of Xinchou, the original description on climate impact on human disease in the second Qi is put at the end of this post along with its rough translation into modern Chinese. Basically, it’s talking about the second Qi of Xinchou, the time window we are currently in, ranging from March 20 till May 20, 2021. This time window is further divided into two sub-time periods, before and after April 2, 2021 (some books use April 5, 2021).
Shaoyin King Fire is now in charge of “board for the climate”, all things in nature are transformed and developed as a result, and people feel at peace when they are healthy. Due to the spread of excessive heat starting April 2, 2021, the motion and Qi (think of it as climate energy) is very conducive to the spread of pandemic, and the symptoms will be similar. The dampness steams up and becomes kinked with the heat, allowing rain drops in time.
Therefore, even if you have already been vaccinated, I hope this can serve as a gentle reminder that we are still at relatively high risk from April to May. And if this time window is NOT treated with care, July and August will still be an issue, only June relatively more peaceful.
As mentioned in one of my previous posts “Why Predictive Modeling Performs Worse than the Ancient Theory”, the appearance of any large-scale epidemic or pandemic is not because people are sick, but because nature is sick. The more serious the nature’s disease is, the more serious the sickness is. This was recognized by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) under the concept of harmony between human and nature and three necessary factors (heaven, earth, human) to consider for every treatment plan.
Back in the SARS outbreak, starting May 20, 2003 marks a change of Qi, even a highly infectious person did not cause harm as many modern scientific researchers were concerned. Why? Because by eliminating the condition — climate here as an important factor, we can eliminate the effect.
Five Motions and Six Qi was deemed as a necessary prerequisite for every TCM doctor back in ancient China, and was officially utilized by National Public Health Bureau in Song Dynasty (960–1279) for herbal medicine planning for the year. Unfortunately, most Chinese Medicine doctors today do not understand these fundamental classics due to the much lower requirements, and official department for TCM herbal medicine uses Westernized approach to study ingredients instead of nature and teamwork of TCM (Four Natures Five Tastes), the core upon which TCM herbal medicine was built. The theory of Five Yun (Motions) and Six Qi was almost abandoned in China before SARS in 2002, it was that event people started to realize the amazing power treasured in the ancient wisdom people in new China trashed as old and outdated.
The traditionally non-linear approach to problems are now being recognized by more and more Western educated people.
This non-linear thinking pattern is, in fact, being adopted more and more in some areas of modern scientific research nowadays. For example, in gene-environment interactions, researchers do take environment into serious consideration. In digital advertising, multi-touch attribution models also have the same logic behind it, non-linear thinking has to be implemented in these cases. However, the advancement of modern science takes time, it can easily take decades or centuries for this kind of thinking to be widely applied — likely beyond our lifetime. Think about in the case of TCM, thousands of years to reach those conclusions that appear ancient to us, but super advanced back thousands of years ago.
How Can We Prevent or Mitigate Health Issues?
Dietary aspects for usually healthy (Yin-Yang balanced) people: To treat Shaoyin King Fire, salty things can make up, sweet things can purify ( and sour things to astringe. In order to balance the Qi of Taiyin Damp Soil, yellow grains can help reduce the Fire. As for preventing potential harm by the Qi of Shaoyin King Fire, bean products can be helpful in constraining both Fire and filling the Jing or Essence of Fire.
Since both host Qi and guest Qi of the second Qi time window is Shaoyin King Fire, and both happens in the spring season, warm disease are related to heart and liver systems. Thus, the simplest prevention is:
Dredge the Laogong acupressure point to relive the Fire (invisible energy defined by TCM as always) from the heart system. A very handy point to use and very suited for the coming time window!
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References:
The original text from the book: “二之气，大火正，物承化，民乃和，其病温厉大行，远近咸若，湿蒸相薄，雨乃时降。” Translating into modern Chinese language it is roughly “二之气期间，正当少阴君火行令，万物由此得到化育，人们感到安和。因为热气散布，所以温疫病就大流行，远近各地都表现为一样的症候。湿气上蒸，和热气互相扭结，雨水就能及时下降。”
Image source: https://qz.com/567479/the-cultural-differences-between-east-and-west-according-to-one-artist/
Equivalent Chinese post: 《比天气预报和新闻疫情还准的还是…… 》
The Chinese post introducing Five Yun Six Qi since it’s no longer educated nowadays in modern China, not even for TCM doctors: 《2018年末礼一文读懂五运六气》
The Chinese post posted in March 2020 forecasting and explaining why: 《美国疫情趋势 全心全医为您护航》
The Chinese Post that forecasted the time window of initial COVID outbreak (early December 2019 in Wuhan): 《己亥杂思: 从“五运六气”预测气候、疾病、经济形式》It used “温病必然来临”, i.e., “an infectious warm disease (epidemic including flu or any contagious disease of scale) MUST come”.
