How Chinese Medicine Makes Music As Health

There is elegance in the philosophy of Chinese Medicine.  It works in harmony with the seasons, by looking at  the forces of nature like heat, cold, dampness and dryness to define the current ecosystem inside the body. Connecting our deep relationship with nature offers a poetic as well as nuanced description of the body both in it’s balanced and imbalanced states. Who hasn’t experienced dry sensations like chapped lips or, god forgive, watery poo?  These could be explained in terms of  fluids- a lack of fluid in the lips and too much fluids in the bowels.  Dryness and dampness two sides of the same coin.  An over simplification at best but it allows for a clear analogy. 

The Characters Show It

Looking deeper into Chinese Medicine we can study its characters.  Some of the oldest Chinese Medicine characters contain pictograms, which are drawings of the objects they represent.  If we look at the character for Music we can can see that it is used for the base character of Medicine with the radical for herbs added on top.  Were the ancients suggesting that music is part of medicine?

Of course, music can lift our spirits and can even be used as therapy.  But with a deeper understanding of the principles of Chinese Medicine some would suggest other relationships as well. 

Harmony plays a big role in both music and Chinese Medicine.  The work between patient and doctor is to reveal and understand where in the body it is out of harmony, out of synchronicity.  Our organs work much like an orchestra, the lungs and heart expand and contract in relationship to one another specifically so that your blood can be oxygenated by the lungs then sent to the heart to spread about and energize all of what is you.

Disease, Health and its Relationship to Time

Another level deeper is harmonizing specifically in time.  Musical notes are organized in specific timed increments, so you can have a 3/4 or 4/4 time signature.  By organizing the time signatures all the different instruments can play in harmony with each other.  In Chinese Medicine we also speak of organizing the body with time: regulating your body to seasons, regulation the body to day versus night.  It is one of our Chinese Medicine diagnostic tools used to help lead us to your specific diagnosis. 

If we continue with the above example of watery poo but we add the element of time: too frequent or not very often, what we can now say is that the bowel movements are not harmonized with time.  Time could be moving too fast resulting in increased frequency or too slow leaving one with a backed up bowel.  We can see that there is too much fluids in the bowel along with the element of time –  moving too fast or too slow.  This leads us to a critical moment in our diagnosis…why are there too many fluids there, why is it moving too slow or too fast?  The why of the matter delves in the depths of this amazing medical diagnosis process that goes back 3000 years, in time!  

The Art of Medicine and Music

There is a third and final analogy that comes to me as I reflect on these two characters of music and medicine.  They are both considered an art.  Both rely on consistent practice to master.  Both rely on understanding relationships which can result in harmony or discord.  There are steadfast rules that each field must have knowledge of in order to create harmony. 

Ian A. Cameron, MD  said of medicine as an art,  “practical reasoning and wisdom based partly on science but mainly on experience and judgment (what we think of as the art)”  It is through the practice of the art that we gain the experience and judgment to help the body (and music) move through space and time in harmony.  Isn’t that just beautiful reflection on medicine and time?