Foundations of AcuPresence

The Foundations of AcuPresence

Classical Chinese Medicine

AcuPresence comes from the lineage of Classical Chinese Medicine, founded on the ancient Taoist medical texts of China, written as early as 3,000 years ago. Much of the classical information has been lost or discarded over the millennia, as China has undergone many cultural and political upheavals. With the rise of Confucianism in the 11th century BCE, the old Taoist ideas and medical texts were banned or destroyed, and again in the 19th century with the Cultural Revolution.

With the introduction of Western medicine into China, the Chinese attempted to westernize Chinese medicine. What is taught in China today, and in most acupuncture schools in the world, is the modernized version of Chinese medicine as it has evolved in China throughout these periods of immense change. Much of the original information on the art of acupuncture has been lost to modern China. Therefore, many Chinese medicine schools teach something called Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM.

AcuPresence is founded more in the ancient, esoteric teachings found in Classical Five Element Acupuncture. It revisits the vibrational component of Chinese Medicine.

The Five Elements

Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water represent represent the patterns, phases, and seasons of the movement of this vital energy that creates and sustains all living things and every human.

These elements make up the sustainable ecosystem within, providing everything we need, from receiving nourishment to letting go of waste. The elements offer inspiration and the will to fulfill your destiny, as well s the ability to express all emotions, from grief to elation.

As we get to know the qualities and flavors of each of the 5 Elements in nature and in the body, we become able to recognize their presence and expression in our lives. We create a relationship with them.

The heart of our personal practice of AcuPresence is this conscious relationship with the 5 Elements as they move within our body’s ecosystem. By deepening our understanding of the elements embodied in us, we make this medicine our own.

Each element is associated with a season, a climate, a color, taste, sound, and odor. Each one nourishes an organ or body function, and carries a specific emotional tone.

Sustainable Ecosystem

Your body is made of the earth. And like the earth, your body is a sustainable ecosystem; containing everything it needs for life to flourish. You are a microcosm of the macrocosm, totally whole and complete.

The elements and seasons dance within you, always sharing their gifts and moving toward balance. Like the landscape of nature, the environment within you is a grid of Sacred Sites; portals for transformation and regeneration.

AcuPresence invites you to create a relationship with your acupoints, attune to them, and benefit from their healing powers. Look within. You can communicate with your inner orchestra, hear any instruments that are out of tune, and restore harmony by coming into resonance with the pure frequencies singing in your acupoints.

AcuPresence shows you how to feel for imbalances and where to go in your elemental landscape when you need nourishment, stamina, inspiration, purpose, vision, joy, love, or to let go.

The Meridians

The body is a sacred kingdom. Vital life force is carried throughout its landscape of valleys, mountains, cities, and farmlands by a network of rivers of energy. These pathways of Qi are called meridians.

Each meridian performs a specific function in fulfilling the divine purpose of the kingdom and caring for the health and happiness of the person.

These important functions of the meridians, such as protecting, planning, nourishing, and disposing of waste, are carried out by community members traditionally called Officials. Each Official has a personality, representing an aspect or archetype of the sovereign human being.

Like ministers of a royal court, the Officials work together in cooperative harmony to keep the entire kingdom flourishing, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous. They work in pairs, a Yin with a Yang.

In AcuPresence, we make friends with the meridians as aspects of our being. We experience and witness their expressions as the Officials of our royal court. We build an intimate relationship with the meridians. We want to know when one is out of balance and needs support, so that we can take care of it. Thus, our friendship with the meridians is paramount to the the Healing Art of AcuPresence.

Qi

Qi (pronounced Chee) is the universal life force, the essence of your being and the energy that gives you life. This life essence, this frequency of love, flows and vibrates throughout your meridian channels. Qi can get compromised when you experience trauma in your life and are unable to harmonize or integrate the emotional experience. This causes the Qi to get blocked or stagnant. We call this ‘stuck love.’ AcuPresence works by freeing up the stuck or compromised Qi in the meridian system. You attune to the higher frequency of Qi in the body via the acupoints, returning the Qi back to its original sovereign vibration.

Acupoints: The Sacred Sites

The macrocosm of the great web of life is mapped into the microcosm of the body. Acupoints are the sacred sites located along the meridian highways that carry life energy through the body’s kingdom.

Just as the earth’s landscape is abundant with streams, valleys, ponds, seas, rivers, and springs, so is the landscape of our body. We also find palaces, sacred gates, courtyards and burial grounds upon our geography. Many of the acupoints are named after these sacred sites, such as Heavenly Palace on the Lung Meridian, Sea of Qi on the Conception Vessel, Spirit Storehouse on the Kidney Meridian, and Palace of Weariness on the Heart Protector Meridian.

An acupoint represents a specific facet of how the Tao (universal flow of life) expresses itself in a human being. Each point carries a unique vibrational signature. The imagery of ancient Chinese medicine describes each acupoint as a mythological archetype, symbolized by a pictographic Chinese character which illustrates the name and the spirit of the point.

As the physical containers of our highest vibrational frequency, acupoints are the key to our power to heal ourselves.

The Universal Principal of Vibration

Everything is vibration. We are each a unique and constantly changing array of vibrational frequencies that are distinctly our own.

We vibrate like the music of the spheres. The body is like an orchestra. Each instrument’s full expression contributes to a beautiful song.

The conductor of the orchestra makes sure all the instruments are playing in harmony and in time with one another. The meridians are like the sections of the orchestra.

Sympathetic Resonance

When we, like the conductor, listen to the orchestra of our being, we can hear when one instrument goes off key as well as when it comes back into resonance with the rest of the orchestra. This re-harmonizing is called sympathetic resonance.

When several objects of similar frequency are close together, they affect each other. Sympathetic resonance is the unison that occurs when neighboring vibrations of similar frequency respond to one another. This happens with individuals, musical instruments and in nature; any two or more vibrating masses of atoms and molecules.

Love is Our Essence

This frequency we call Love is the essence of our soul, our divinity within, our life force or Qi.

We can feel when our body or emotions are out of balance. The frequency is denser, weaker, more sluggish, stagnant, tense, short-circuited or overwhelmed.

Our Qi is not flowing as freely and powerfully as it naturally wants to. It’s blocked. We might call this “stuck love.”AcuPresence is the art of bringing our “stuck love” back into free flow, restoring our Qi to its natural, fully alive frequency. We do this by attuning with the acupoints, the sacred sites in our energy meridians.