Nature, the earth, our environments and our realities: every traditional culture considers these to be but mirrors of what we contain within. Our bodies, including our meridians and our organs, not only constitute microcosms of the Universe but also reveal the inner landscape of our consciousness. A famous ancient medical chart of the human body, the Neijing Du (“Chart of the Internal Alchemy”), illustrates this principle vividly. One version depicts a fanciful mix of mountains, rivers, and constellations making up the skull, the spine, and the heart, the sun and the moon in lieu of the eyes, a forest as the Liver and Gallbladder, a granary as the Stomach, with some monks and philosophers scattered here and there among other celestial or terrestrial imagery representing different organs and bodily functions.
It’s clear that the physicians who drew this or similar charts had discovered that every aspect of our human selves, mind-body-spirit, correlates to and is energetically connected to a part of Nature. This reflects a common Taoist precept that everything is interconnected, everything is a part of another whole, no matter how big or small, and that in some way we are the stars, the moon and the sun, the endless ocean. Everything is more than it seems in this three dimensional reality, with layers of meaning that, uncovered, can expand our understanding of our bodies, our consciousness, and our everyday health in a more profound way, as well as our deeper connections to Universal Love and Oneness.
In one of our upcoming workshops at Building Bridges 2017, entitled “Mapping the Internal Landscape”, conference speaker Evan Rabinowitz will explore the ways in which we can decipher and understand the landscape of our inner selves as a microcosm of the Universe, the body as reflecting our spiritual workings, with practical implications in terms of everyday healing and self-discovery.
We invite you to join us on September 14-17, 2017 in Reston, Virginia for our annual Building Bridges for TCM Conference. It’s not just a conference, it’s an experience!
