healingways
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~ ~ Building a Bridge Between East and West by Sandra Vanessa Navas-Valderrama, AP
caused from transgressing those laws. This holistic vision of the world is one of the many principles shared by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Traditional Mayan Medicine. In the Mayan cosmovision, no individual can be separated from the world, and every human action has an effect on other beings and the universe. At the same time, every action of the universe, and the collective, has an impact on the individual as well. Therefore, it is common for Mayan healers to assign qualities and personalities to the elements of nature, as well as to natural phenomena, directions, and even time, in order to make it easier to establish a close relationship of respect and connection with the world. In a similar way,TCM relies on the basic principle that the human body is an integrated whole, completely interconnected to nature; changes in nature are always refl ected on the body, and different factors as geographical location, seasonal transitions, even the time of the day, have an impact on physical, mental and spiritual well-being. For instance, Mayan Medicine identifi es each k’atun (period of time equivalent to a month) with the energy of an element and the spirit of an animal, associating the qualities of those energies
F
or many traditional healing modalities, health is the natural consequence of living in harmony with natural and social laws, while disease is the manifestation of the imbalances
to a specifi c predominant disease. In TCM, each season of the year corresponds to one of the fi ve elements in nature, and is also linked to specifi c imbalances and their associated illnesses. The holistic perspective of both forms of medicine share the same foundation: the existence of a life force that connects everything, a vital energy. TCM calls it qi, and the Mayan people know it as ool. In both theories, this vital energy integrates a dual world; a world divided by two interconnected but opposite forces that shape our reality. For Chinese practitioners, everything is primary, observed in terms of Yin and Yang. For Mayan healers, there is heaven and earth, and all creation generates from those two forces. Everything in heaven is hot, active, positive and high; it is associated with motion, life, and light. These are all Yang qualities from theTCM perspective. On the other hand, earth is considered cold, passive, negative, still, and low; darkness and the infra-world of death are part of the earth plane for the Mayans, very similar to the concept of Yin energy in TCM. From that duality, everything is sorted in terms of thermal nature for Mayan people. Hot or cold is the fi rst distinction a Mayan healer will make when addressing a disease or a cure. Likewise, a TCM practitioner will always base the differential diagnosis process and the selected course of treatment in terms of heat or cold. The similarities between Chinese and Mayan Medicine are not only related to philosophical foundations and diagnosis. Treatment modalities are also surprisingly alike; for instance, puncturing the body on specifi c points is a widely-used practice in Mayan Traditional Medicine. They practice two rudimentary forms of acupuncture, called jup and tok, performed by Mayan healers in order to channel and release the wind that brought the disease from the spiritual realms in the fi rst place. The skin-pricking is done mainly with the use of spines, but thorns and bones can also be used. When performing tok, bleeding of the point is encouraged, usually through the use of suction vases. These practices are very similar to TCM acupuncture and cupping, and even point location is very close in both healing systems. Another important form of treatment shared by both medicines is the practice of herbology. For the Mayans, plants hold supernatural powers that can restore health, and healers learn to “speak” to the plants, establishing a close relationship with them. Mayan healers also know how to “match” the appropriate plant spirit to each type of disease, according to the plant and the disease’s nature, just as a Chinese herbalist would select an herbal formulation according to both, herb and disease’s intrinsic nature.
Spring Rayne is a gluten-free, vegan and raw food chef. She is conscious about what she puts into her body and has a passion for teaching people to be healthy through diet and nutrition. Spring has written a number of books on these topics, provides special diet preparation consultations, and her detox plan is now available to purchase at
www.springrayne.com or Call/Text: 407-314-8840.
28 Central Florida natural awakenings
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