Priorities - homework directly related to Gathering Five, May 11-14, is most important. If there is time remaining, go back and do homework in accordance with the current season. Finally, if there is still additional time, watch some of the assigned Worsley videos.

Every time you hug someone, from this point on, smell them.

Every time you attempt to smell someone or something, even if you can't identify the odour, say to yourself, "I know that smell."

READING

Volume II: Traditional Diagnosis

Chapter Three: The Skills of Diagnosis, pages 55-56 (up to the section >To See=)

pages 65-66 (starting at second paragraph >I must now bring into the picture . . .=), up to the section on page 66 >To ask=.

Volume II: Traditional Diagnosis

Chapter Four: The Consultation

Pages 77 - 84 Introducing the Chapter and the Questions/Method of Patient Assessment.

The remainder of this chapter is assigned as homework.

Pulse chart and placement of Officials: memorize the positions of the officials in the pulse chart, and their associated roman numerals, so the appropriate terminology in a treatment setting can be used quickly and easily.

There are 2 Worsley audio files (albums) available for download ($9.99) from iTunes that are highly recommended:

Talking about Acupuncture in New York

A Day with Excellence (with David Shepard)

Due May 2017

Audio of the readings

THE MEDICINE PATH PRACTITIONER TRAINING: SESSION THREE

HOMEWORK

1. Type up your journey notes to Grandfather Winter. Include as much detail as you can.

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2. Dedicate the next few months to noticing odours. This doesn't take time as much as it takes thought, awareness, and attention. Post a notice somewhere in your home to remind you to smell! As mentioned in class, try to smell your whole world - the hangers, the doorknobs, the inside of the cupboard when you open the cupboard door, the inside of the fridge when you open the fridge, the food you are preparing, the foods you are eating, the dishes you are washing or loading into the dishwasher. Everything! Seek out places to smell the "bad" smells; rotting garbage, rank ponds, etc. Walk in the alleyway behind your favorite restaurant or pub. Be creative and have fun. The more you remember to smell the more natural it will become to notice the odour of your patients. They go hand in hand.

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3. Pulse taking. Remember to take pulses with your new and improved awareness and understanding that you are literally checking in with each official as you do so, and you should know which official that is! When you have time to linger with pulses, spend some time with them and notice what more you can notice when you really pay attention.

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4. Journey to the Element Water: I am a student of the five elements. Please introduce me to the Element Water.

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5. Journey - I am a student of the five elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official who Controls the Storage of Water.

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6. Journey - I am a student of the five elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Official who Controls the Storage of Water.

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7. Journey - I am a student of the five elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official who Controls the Waterways.

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8. Journey - I am a student of the five elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Official who Controls the Waterways.

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9. Journey - I am a student of the five elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official who Controls the Storage of Water AND a healthy Official who Controls the Waterways AT THE SAME TIME so I can observe how they work together.

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CORRESPONDENCES

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I may not have assigned correspondences homework to each element yet, but now you are ready to complete your charts.
 
a) Volume III Chapter Eight is devoted to correspondences. Read through the chapter. This may be a review for you in some sections. Then create a spreadsheet on your computer and fill in the same 12 categories that is in the text, plus additional categories that are blank for now (that you can fill in later).

b) Go back to the officials of each element and read through the pages in the text (Volume III) that describe their role. Note how the correspondences relate to what is written there.

c) Go back to your journeys to these officials and see if there are additional correspondences that you would like to include in your own chart, that will help remind you of their role and further develop this chart as a viable resource for you. 

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Once you have completed this homework you can look back at previous homework assignments that are not finished and start completing them. If you need additional guidance, just contact Jaki and she'll help create a plan.

Due February 16, 2017

Readings Available Here: Link to Audio Files

THE MEDICINE PATH PRACTITIONER TRAINING: SESSION THREE

HOMEWORK

PULSE CHARTS - please submit a monthly summary to Claire within one week of the end of each month

THE FIVE FLAVORS

Volume III, Page 151, states, “The one aspect of its [Earth] powers which I have not yet mentioned is that of being said by the ancients to be the granter of the five tastes.”

The five tastes are: bitter, sour, sweet, pungent, and salty. There is some additional information provided in the attached handout. Please read this.

For this exercise please do a food diary for three weeks, noting all the foods you eat and all the beverages you drink. At the end of each week, do a tally of the flavor components of these. Look to see which flavour(s) predominate, and which, if any, are almost absent. At the end of the three weeks, compare the weeks to each other and offer me a summary and some comments about the flavors of your foods.

Metal Element

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to the Season of Autumn.

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to the Element Metal.

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official who Receives Pure Qi Energy from the Heavens

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Official who Receives Pure Qi Energy from the Heavens

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official of Drainage and Dregs

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Official of Drainage and Dregs

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official who Receives Pure Qi Energy from the Heavens and a healthy Official of Drainage and Dregs AT THE SAME TIME so I may understand how they work together.

CORRESPONDENCES

After your journey work for the Earth and Metal Elements are complete, go back and review (read the chapter or listen to the audio file) the relevant chapters in the text. See how many of the correspondences in the following categories you can pick out: Colour, Odour, Sound, Emotion, Season, Climate, Taste, Power, Direction, Sense Organ, Parts of Body, External Physical Manifestation

Once this is done you can fill in the remaining blanks by referring to:

Volume III The Five Elements and The Officials

Chapter Eight: The Correspondences of the Elements

pages 83 to 86, Earth and Metal

Complete the chart by adding any further correspondences that may have arisen from your journeys.

Due February 16, 2017

Readings Available Here: Link to Audio Files

A) PULSE CHARTS - please submit a monthly summary to Claire within one week of the end of each month

B) JOURNEYS

General Guidelines for Journey Homework related to the Elements and the Officials:

It is always advisable to do the journeys BEFORE you have reviewed the text material. Don’t worry if you feel you don’t remember much about them. This is what the journey work is for – to allow you to have a ‘personal’ experience with the officials. After your journey notes have been written down, you can review the text (either audio file or re-reading).

Take a few minutes before the journey to look at the meridian pathway in Volume I. If you don’t have Volume I please contact Claire for a copy of the relevant pages (it would be wise to do this right away so you have them handy when you are ready to journey). Take a few minutes to contemplate and marvel at the pathway of the official and the functional role it plays in the human body/mind/spirit (as much as you can remember). Remind yourself of when we were doing the plant work together and how spending time with an aspect of nature and just being in awe of it and noticing it were valuable pre-requisites to engaging the spiritual connection. Try to conjure up that same feeling about the Official you are going to be meeting. An Official is truly a remarkable and awe-inspiring aspect of Nature!

Once the journey notes are typed up (be sure you follow the homework guidelines) please add some personal notes at the bottom about how you felt about the journey, how much you feel you got to know the official, etc. These personal notes help tremendously when I am reviewing and offering comments and feedback.

Suggested timing for journeys: no more than two per week

Earth Element

Journey 1: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to the Season of Late Summer.

Journey 2: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to the Element Earth.

Journey 3: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official of Rotting and Ripening of Food and Drink.

Journey 4: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Official of Rotting and Ripening of Food and Drink.

Journey 5: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official of Transportation and Distribution.

Journey 6: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Official of Transportation and Distribution.

Journey 7:  I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official of Rotting and Ripening of Food and Drink and a healthy Official of Transportation and Distribution AT THE SAME TIME so I may understand how they work together.

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C) SIGNS OF EARTH IMBALANCE and KEYWORDS

Review the three chapters of the Volume III textbook on the Earth Element and The Officials. As you are reading/reviewing, have two separate lists that you can fill in:
1) Write down the key words that seem to exemplify the Earth Element to you
2) Note the symptoms that Worsley identifies as indications of a possible Earth imbalance, dividing them into three categories; body, mind, and spirit.

D) WHAT KIND OF EARTH/SOIL?

Excerpt from Chapter Four: The Earth Element, page 45

“The earth beneath our feet is important in understanding how all the Elements belong together. When we look at people around us, be they patient, friend, or passer-by, we should remember that the earth is as diverse as the people on it. We talk sometimes of the particular relationship of the Wood and Earth as of that between a tree and the soil, but whereas we allow for the possibility of hundreds of different types of tree, we tend to think of only one type of soil. The narrowness of our awareness is due to the dullness of our senses. When we look closely at Nature we shall see soil that grows one crop but is useless for another, soil that is rich and loamy, soil that is dry and sandy, and all of the other kinds which abound in Nature. When we try to understand the spirit of someone we have to begin to understand the Earth Element in them in terms of the kind of soil which they represent, just as the farmer has to appreciate the different soils to have any hope of raising successful crops. Only then will we have a clear idea of the foundation upon which and in which all of the other aspects of the spirit thrive and prosper.”

For this exercise I would like you to select 10 people that you can spend some time with and observe from a five element perspective. Try to determine what kind of earth/soil they represent. Don’t worry too much about ‘getting it right’. This is about your developing understanding of the earth element, the earth we walk upon, the spirit of the person you are with, what type of soil they are, and what ‘grows’ from their soil.

Type out about one paragraph per person.

Due September 15

A) Listen to the readings for the two remaining Fire Officials; The Official Who Separates Pure from Impure and The Supreme Controller. Link to Audio Files. 

After listening to each reading, take some time to think about who in your life displays some of these Fire element traits. Write them down in the following way:

- make some reference to their name (so you remember but their identity remains anonymous)

- describe the trait that you feel reveals the state of the Fire Element in them

- which Official do you think is responsible?

- any other comments which feel appropriate

Do this for ten people.

B) FIRE ELEMENT JOURNEYS TO OFFICIALS

I - Supreme Controller (Heart)

II -The Official Who Separates Pure from Impure (Small Intestine)

V - Circulation Sex/Heart Protector Official

VI - Triple Heater / Official in Charge of the Three Burning Spaces

General Guidelines for Journey homework:

It is always advisable to do the journeys BEFORE you have reviewed the text material. Don’t worry if you feel you don’t remember much about them. This is what the journey work is for – to allow you to have a ‘personal’ experience with the officials. After your journey notes have been written down, you can review the text (either audio file or re-reading).

Take a few minutes before the journey to look at the meridian pathway in Volume I. If you don’t have Volume I please contact Claire for a copy of the relevant pages (it would be wise to do this right away so you have them handy when you are ready to journey). Take a few minutes to contemplate and marvel at the pathway of the official and the functional role it plays in the human body/mind/spirit (as much as you can remember). Remind yourself of when we were doing the plant work together and how spending time with an aspect of nature and just being in awe of it and noticing it were valuable pre-requisites to engaging the spiritual connection. Try to conjure up that same feeling about the Official you are going to be meeting. An Official is truly a remarkable and awe-inspiring aspect of Nature!

Once the journey notes are typed up (be sure you follow the homework guidelines) please add some personal notes at the bottom about how you felt about the journey, how much you feel you got to know the official, etc. These personal notes help tremendously when I am reviewing and offering comments and feedback.

Suggested timing for journeys: no more than two per week

1) Journey -  “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Heart Protector Official.”

2) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Heart Protector Official.”

3) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Triple Heater Official.”

4) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Triple Heater Official.”

5) Journey - I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Heart Protector Official and a healthyTriple Heater Official AT THE SAME TIME, so I may learn how they work together.”

6) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Official Who Separates the Pure from the Impure.”

7) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Official Who Separates the Pure from the Impure.”

8) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Supreme Controller.”

9) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy Supreme Controller.”

10) Journey - “I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy Supreme Controller and a healthy Official Who Separates Pure from Impure AT THE SAME TIME so I can learn how they work together.

C) DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS WITH NATURE

In our coursework together this past July we worked with two different approaches to ‘meeting’ with an aspect of the natural world. One was the ‘no pressure’ approach, where we simply found an aspect of Nature that we felt was attractive or wanting to ‘get our attention’. We spent time with this feature of Nature, studied it, perhaps drew it, had a nap with it, etc. Then later, but staying with the same feeling tone, we did an easy journey, simply taking the feeling inward and allowing whatever came forward to be present in our inner awareness. The second was the more formal method, with an intention, an introduction, specific steps taken (drawing the plant for example) and then, in a journey, asking the spirit of the plant to introduce itself to us. For this homework assignment I would like you to do another one of each style, so two encounters with nature, any aspect you choose. Write out your notes in detail with comments on how you think they went AND how you would compare the two methods in your personal experience. I’m also interested to know if the quality of your experience with the two methods were consistent with the two you did during class time.

D) PLAYING WITH FIRE!

After reading through the text or listening to the audio files on the Officials of Fire, trying experimenting with offering Fire to people you encounter. Then notice how they respond to you. So, for example, you might ask a person on the street for the time, but instead of simply asking, offer them some warmth, a smile, a laugh, something that makes a connection but in an appropriate way Try this with both strangers and people you live with. Do they respond/react differently to you? What do you notice about their response? If you don’t think of yourself as a Fire type, and typically don’t offer warmth and laughter to others, then this will be really good practice for you! Please take notes of your findings.

E) PULSE CHART MONTHLY CALENDAR

From this stage of your training onward I would like you to provide me with a monthly calendar that shows the total pulses taken per day, and the monthly total. At the end of each month these can be emailed to Claire and will be stored with your other homework. If you would like a sample calendar or a template, Claire can provide one.

F) CORRESPONDENCES

After completing your journeys to the Fire Officials, please read:

Volume III The Five Elements and The Officials

Chapter Eight: The Correspondences of the Elements

pages 81 and 82 The Fire Element

Once the reading is completed, please make up your own correspondences chart, adding any further correspondences that may have arisen from your journeys.

G) Finding Fire

Take yourself on two outings of at least one hour each. One outing should be in the city and one out in Nature. Look for evidence of the Fire Element and its Officials everywhere you can and make a list of what you find. People can be included!

Due August 9th

This homework covers a two week time period, so is not due until Monday, August 9th.

Please type up and submit your journey notes and send them in.

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Day 2 journey intention was: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please help me to understand the Season of Summer.

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Day 4 journey intention was: To meet the spirit of the plant you met at Nose Hill.

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Please also continue to take pulses and record them on the spreadsheet Claire provided. Send the spreadsheet in to Claire on the first of each month to provide an update on your pulse taking.

Due July 20

This homework covers a two week time period, so is not due until Monday, June 20th. After that, there is a homework reprieve as we gear up for our next session together. This will also give some of you a chance to catch up.

The theme for these two weeks is REVIEW so I am listing below some questions that I would like you to answer. Think of this as a ‘closed book exam’ as I’d like your responses to come from your understanding, not from looking back to the text or your notes. 

1) What is Five Element Healing?
2) How would you describe yin and yang?
3) Tell me about the element of Wood.
4) What is the role of the Gall Bladder Official/meridian in the body?
5) What is the role of the Liver Official/meridian in the body?
6) What is the colour, odour, sound, and emotion associated with the Wood Element?

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- Jaki

Due June 05

This week it is time to take a step back from the pursuit of learning and understanding about the elements and the officials and focus more on the personal and spiritual development that will be your foundation on The Medicine Path. 

Journey: Is there any guidance you can offer, as I embark upon The Medicine Path, that can help me to receive the teachings and engage the process of my personal development?

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Due June 05.

Due May 29

In every element officials work together as pairs. Often we refer to these pairs as blood brothers. In the Wood element then, the Official of Decision Making and Judgement (VII) and the Official of Planning (VIII) work together as blood brothers, as their roles are so closely linked.

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please show me how the healthy officials of ‘Planning’ and ‘Decision Making and Judgement’ work together.

I would like you to approach this homework as follows:
- DO NOT review your previous journey notes, audio files, or readings from the text.
-Go to the textbook on the meridian pathways (Volume I) and take a close look at pages 69 and 85, which shows the entire pathway of these meridians through the body. Take a few minutes to let those pathways sink in. Think about where they are in your own body. Ask yourself if you have any pain or other symptoms along that pathway.
- Do the journey.

(Note: for those who do not have a copy of this text, ask Claire to send you a .pdf file of these two pages. She'll be in the office on Thursday May 26.)

Due May 22

See video message: https://vimeo.com/166869201/2e45ca80f9

Due May 15

You have likely had an opportunity to listen to some of the audio files from the textbook readings on the Season of Spring, the Element Wood, and the two Wood Officials; the Official of Decision Making and Judgement (VII) and the Planning Official. You have also done your own journeys to meet these Officials, both in their healthy and unhealthy state. Now it is time to go out into Nature and notice the element, the season, and the work of these officials. I suggest at least two hours in a natural environment area. If at all possible try to avoid any cultivated sites, where the grounds are tended by humans. Take a note book with you and write down what you observe. Even though we are just beginning our learning of the Five Elements, look at Nature from that perspective. For example, notice how growth is ordered and not random – plants of a specific type tend to grow to the same height in the same area. Outside that area they may grow taller, or wider, etc. with different environmental influences. Once home, please type out your list and send it in. I will definitely read them all but may not make specific comments to send back to you.

Bring to next classroom session

READING

Volume III The Five Elements and The Officials

Chapter Eight

The Correspondences of the Elements

Pages 77 - 81 (up to The Fire Element)

Start a correspondences chart of your own. Copy the categories and features that were noted in the text book. Add any additional correspondences of your own that will help you to remember the features and qualities of the element Wood.

Due May 01 2016

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy official of Decision Making and Judgements (Gall Bladder)

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy official of Decision Making and Judgements (Gall Bladder)

Due April 24

With the following journeys we are going to build upon your introduction to the officials of the Wood Element. The readings are very instructive but with a journey you can gain personal experience, which adds to your knowledge base. If you have not already reviewed the readings of this chapter, then do the journeys first and let the readings be a review that you can do afterward.

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to a healthy official of Planning (Liver).

Journey: I am a student of the Five Elements. Please introduce me to an unhealthy official of Planning (Liver).

Due April 20

Type out the notes for your journey to the Element Wood, in as much detail as possible. Please include the intention at the beginning. Refer to formatting and homework guidelines. Email to Claire at admin@earthandskyhealing.com