Restoring Traditional Chinese Medicine's Premodern

Hum1-O12

ICB2008, Human 1, Oral

Harmonising with Nature’s Temporal Order: Restoring Traditional Chinese Medicine’s Premodern Spatio-temporal Order in a Postmodern Globalised World Rey Tiquia PhD*

1. INTRODUCTION Practising Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) As Local Knowledge In a Globalised World Living in our contemporary world dominated by abstract, universalising and modernistic temporal systems such as the Gregorian calendar (with its northern hemispherical bias) and Greenwich Mean time (with its de-localising bias of universal time) presents huge challenges for those of us living in the southern hemisphere, who wish to follow health practices according to the principles of living in harmony with local space, local time and local culture. Furthermore, for those of us living in the southern hemisphere, there is the added challenge of practising TCM according to the foundation principle of bian zheng lun zhi !!"" (differentiating clinical patterns and associating yao ). This is a practice based on highly specific prescribed health practices and treatment principles dispensed in accordance with clearly defined complex temporal phases and periods set on the basis of the ancient northern hemispherical Chinese lunisolar calendar. In the absence of such an adaptation of this calendar for the southern hemisphere, it is almost an impossibility to practise bian zheng lun zhi. To address this problem, I researched the ancient traditional Chinese calendar and adapted its core principles to produce a Chinese Medical & Agricultural Lunisolar Calendar (Northern & Southern Hemispheres) relevant to Australia’s southern hemispherical local conditions. This will now make it possible to follow best practice in TCM by utilising such a calendar to harmonize the flow of our Qi with the flow of the seasons here in the southern hemisphere. In addition, with this calendrical tool, we can ‘reverse’ the clinical activities of ‘differentiating clinical patterns and associating yao in accordance with the flow of the seasons here. For example, by using this calendar, it is now possible to forecast, prevent and clinically manage ‘seasonal diseases’ shi bing brought about by external factors wai gan bing ( influenza type conditions ) as the calendar will indicate the likely spatio-temporality of this condition’s genesis, its prevention, and specific, effective diurnal time periods in which to treat this condition. The timing of such a development at this historical period, is significant, given that we are now on the threshold of an epoch characterized by a growing ‘disbelief in the metanarratives of science, rationality and objectivity, where lived lives, the diverse, the complex… the unique’ are favoured, and more importantly the local, which ‘acknowledges individuality, complexity and subjectivity of personal experience’ as well as the organic unity of man (humanity) and heaven (nature) tian ren he yi !"#$ i.e. the natureworld and the humanworld being organically of one Qi” tian ren tong Qi !"%&.

2. METHOD Examination of the characteristics of the Traditional Chinese Calendar The traditional Chinese calendar with its northern hemispherical bias, is ironically found and used in many TCM practices, Chinese restaurants and homes in Australia. On examining, a copy of such a calendar for the year 2007 (the Year of the Pig) ding hai nian '( ) (published by the Chinois for Living), for one who cannot read Chinese characters, it is just like any ordinary Gregorian calendar with the twelve months of January, February, and March etc. complete with the Arabic numerals from 1- 31. However, for one literate in the Chinese language, one can see that aspects of the traditional Chinese Farmer calendar nong li #$ or yin li !" blended with the days and months of the Western Gregorian calendar. Thus we have the ‘Chinese lunisolar calendar’ which evolved after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1911and syncretised with aspects of the traditional Chinese calendar. As we are all aware, we celebrated the arrival of the ‘Pig Year’ ding hai nian last February 18th 2007 on the Gregorian calendar, which falls on the ‘first day of the the first month of the traditional calendar’ i.e. ding hai nian,

zheng yue chu yi ri %&'(*+,$-. The first day of the traditional Chinese calendar month is the day on which the astronomical new moon (i.e. conjunction) is calculated to occur.” However, the 18th of February in the northern hemisphere (in China) is just fourteen days after the subseasonal phase jie qi of the “Beginning of Spring” li chun ./ and one day before the start of the next subseasonal phase i.e. ‘Grain Rain’ yu shui 01 of the first month of the Chinois for Living calendar. However, here in the southern hemisphere, the 18th of February 2007 is just the end of the summer season and the start of autumn. From these, we can see that the flow of the seasons in the southern hemispherical region of Australia runs in the opposite direction to that of China and regions in the northern hemisphere.

Locating the First Days of the First Lunar Month in the Southern Hemisphere According to the rules followed by Purple Mountain Observatory (1984) in Nanjing, China, in constructing the Chinese traditional calendar, ‘the first day of the month is the day on which the New Moon occurs. On this basis, I calculated the first days of the lunar month in the Australia/New Zealand, from a table of the various phases of the moon in the southern hemisphere for the years 2006-2010, in Easy Organic Gardening 2006 by Lyn Bagnall. I then proceeded to set the first day chu yi )* of the first month zheng yue +, of the year of the of the Year of the Pig, ding hai nian on the 2007 Gregorian calendar. In order to do this, I first located and then superimposed the exact dates of the twenty-four subseasonal phases onto each month of Gregorian calendar (2007- 2008). I then aligned them with the seventy two pentads qi shi er hou -./0. Using a Chinese language calendrical table, which converts the 60-temporal gan-zhi units of years, months, days and 2-hour periods into the Gregorian calendarical years, months and days, I tallied the days and months for the years 2007-2008. I then superimposed the Chinese gan-zhi (combination of the celestial stems and earthly branches) onto the days and months of the 20072008 Gregorian calendar.

3. RESULTS After executing the above, I was able to establish the first day of the first month of this new Southern Hemispherical Chinese Medical & Agricultural Lunisolar Calendar. In doing so, I also discovered that our ‘spring festival’ or chun jie 12 or Lunar New Year’s Day+,)* fell on the New Moon of August 13th 2007, some six months ahead of the Chinese New Year Date in the Northern hemisphere. The first Chinese Medical & Agricultural Lunisolar Calendar (for both northern and southern hemispheres) was thus constructed. Enclosed (fig. 1) is a copy of the Chinese Medical & Agricultural Lunisolar Calendar (Southern Hemisphere) for January 2008 ( the ‘Rat” year) which features the reversed flow of the twenty four subseasonal phases jie Qi, seventy two pentads as well as the days of the months both in the Gregorian calendar and the traditional Chinese calendar. It also features the specific dates of the sixty gan zhi temporal units for the year, month and days of the Chinese lunar calendar.

4. DISCUSSION In premodern traditional Chinese medicine, climate change qi hou bianyi is always contingent upon shi (time and season), shi chen (twelve two-hour period), ri (day), yue (month), qi shi er hou (seventy two pentads), er shi si ge jie qi (twenty four subseasonal phases), si shi (four seasons), nian (year), and jia zi (sixty temporal units). As the premodern TCM scholar/ practitioner Yang Ru Hou (1861-1928) stated: The cosmic yin and yang energies of the ‘sky’ tian and ‘earth’ di ascend and descend and climatic weather conditions during the four seasons resonate with these changes. Humanity must harmonise and adapt to these


changes as well. During spring and summer seasons, one must nurture the cosmic yang energy; while during the autumn and winter seasons one must nurture the cosmic yin energy. In this way, unusual illnesses will not come about .

5. CONCLUSION This calendrical tool, a practical critique of modernity which restores and breathes new life into an ancient Chinese spatio-temporal tradition will hopefully bring human life into close rhythm with the organic flow of all forms of natural life in this universe yu zhou. It will help us align the performance of our Qi with the occurrence and flow of the seasons in the southern hemisphere. More specifically, it will facilitate the choice of acupuncture points and acutracts in accordance with the flow and clotting of our patient Qi and blood zi wu liu zhu 3456. In this way, we can properly execute seasonally appropriate ‘nurturing life’ exercises and adopt lifestyles that promote health, longevity and prevent diseases. At the same time, this Chinese Medical & Agricultural Lunisolar Calendar (Southern Hemisphere) can facilitate the ‘translation’ of the ancient Chinese northern hemispherical concept of ‘the circulating five phases and six climactic influences [Qi]’ wu yun liu qi 789: into the Australian southern hemispherical locale. In doing so, the occurrence of seasonal diseases shi bing can be traditionally and properly diagnosed and and their future occurrence may be forecasted and managed.

References Agren, Hans, 1986: Chinese Traditional Medicine: Temporal Order and Synchronous Events. In J.T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F.C. Haber, eds., Time, Science, and Society in China and the West: The Study of Time, 5, pp. 21118. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts. Dalby, Lisa, 2007: East Wind Melts the Ice A Memoir Through the Seasons, University of California Press. L.E. Doggett, “Calendars”, in P.Kenneth Seidelmann(ed) Explanator Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, Sausalito, University Science books. Chinois for Living Chinese Calendar, 403-405Victoria St. Richmond, Melbourne, Australia (Probably printed in Hongkong). Gittins, Jean, 1981: The Diggers from China The Story of Chinese on the Goldfields, Melbourne, Quartet Books. National Research Council (US) Committee on Climate, Ecosystems, Infectious Diseases, and Human Health, 2001: Under the Weather, Climate Ecosystem, and Infectious Diseases, Washington, National Academy Press,. Li-chen Lin, 1995: The Concepts of Time and Position in the Book of Change and their Development”, in ChunChieh Huang &Erik Zurcher (ed), Time and Space in Chinese Culture, Leiden, Brill, , pp. 89-113. Mitukuni Yosida, l973: The Chinese Concept of Nature, in Chinese Science: Explorations of an Ancient Tradition, Cambridge, MIT Press. On-Cho Ng, 1993: Towards an interpretation of Ch’ing Ontology, in R.J. Smith &W.J. Kwok, Cosmology, Otology and Human Efficacy: Essays in Chinese Thought,Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press,. Shu-Hsien Liu, 1974 : Time and Temporality: the Chinese Perspective, in Philosophy East and West . Vol. 24, No.2 April.


Star, Susan Leigh, 1989: Regions of the Mind, Brain Research and the Quest for Scientific Certainty, California, Stanford University Press. Tiquia, Rey, 2004: Traditional Chinese Medicine as an Australian Tradition of Health Care, Ph.D. University of Melbourne. Chinese Language ; < Chen Ding San, 1985.: Yi xue tan yuan [Exploring the Origins of Medicine], Sichuan, Kexue jishu chubanshe, Chen Zun Wei, 2006: Zhong guo tian wen xue shi (A History of Traditional Chinese Astronomy vol 1],Shanghai, Shiji chuban jituan. China TCM Research Insitute, 2005: Pu Fu Zhou yi liao jingyan [The medical experience of Pu Fu Zhou], Beijing, Renmin weisheng chubanshe. Feng Qian Jin, 2007: Cong liu yin zhibing lun dao shengtai bing yin xue [The Development From the Ancient Chinese Doctrine of the Six Excessive Climactic Qi Etiological Factors to Ecological Pathogeny] in Shanxi ZhongYi xueyuan xue bao [Journal of Shanxi College of Traditional Chinese Medicine], Vol.8; No.1, pp. Journal Cover theme, p. 14,. Ou Yang Shan Ren, 2007: 1800-2100 Lao Huang Li [Old Huang’s Calendar from 1800-2100], Jilin Province, Yan Bian Da Xue Chubanshe,. Yang Ru Hou, 1985 [1941]: Lun ren shen qi hua ying shi [On the Qi transformation of the Human Body resonating with Nature’s Temporal Order], in Chai Lu Xian (compiler), Lun shuo bu [Volume On Explications), Zhong guo yi yao hui hai [A Sea of convergence on Chinese Medicine, Vol 16, , Beijing shi Zhong Guo shu dian, Beijing, Zu Xing, , 2007: Tu jie yi jing [Explaining the Book of Change in Pictures], Shanxi, Shanxi shifan daxue chubanshe.

* Correspondence to Rey Tiquia PhD :

243 Waterdale Rd. Ivanho3 3079 Victoria, Australia



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23 16th day of the 6 th lunar month N` K

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Fig 1. 2008 Rat Year wu zi nian January Lunisolar Calendar (Southern Hemisphere)

28 21st day of the 6 th lunar month ] Q Y

27 20th day of the 6 th lunar month ZO R

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13th day of the 6th lunar month Great heat e V

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1st day of the lunar month J \ , New Moon

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23rd day of the lunar month The crowdipper plant flourishes GHI J& K

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13 th day of the 5 th 29 6th day of the 6th lunar month lunar month N & R

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28th day of the lunar month Slight heat U V Hot winds arrive W X Y

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Saturday

JANUARY 2008[Rat Year =3'] Chinese Medical & Agricultural Lunisolar Calendar [Southern hemisphere]