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Its Spring! and we are in The Element Wood and the Liver
The Liver has many important functions, it stores all of the blood in the body and nourishes the sinews, thus allowing physical exercise and storing blood for the uterus. The smooth flow of Liver-Qi is essential to all physiological processes in every organ and every part of the body.
On a psychic level, the Ethereal Soul (Hun) comes into the human body on the 3rd day of life, given by the yang of the father. The Hun does not die when we do, it continues on. If Liver-blood is deficient the Hun will wander at night, nightmares and dreams will be vivid. Hun provides the Mind (Shen) with inspiration, creativity, life dreams and a sense of direction in life. If we are not realizing our creativity, the partner to Liver is Gall Bladder which is said to provide courage and direction and the ability to make decisions. All will be imbalanced.
Liver blood is also responsible for our capacity for recovering energy and contributes to the body's resistance to exterior pathogenic factors: wind, dry, summer heat, damp, cold, fire.
If Liver-Qi flows smoothly, the emotional life is happy. If Qi becomes restrained giving rise to emotional frustration, depression or repressend anger accompanied with physical symptoms such as hypochondrial or abdominal distention, a feeling of heaviness in the chest and a sensation of a lump in the throat. In women PMS is a symptom of Qi stagnation as the liver-blood is restrained and cannot flow smoothly. The Heart works with the Liver to make this happen, and the nature of this 5 element medicine gives us better understanding how the physical and emotional symptoms are linked together. And with this knowledge we begin to understand not how to sedate symptoms but actually heal.
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