The role of sight in Chinese Medicine Frameworks
Color is a mechanism of communication. Within modern contexts, the psychology of color is invoked most commonly through brand marketing and advertising, however, the study of how color affects mood and motivates behavior is not a novel pursuit. Color has long been a path to healing, and is memorialized as a diagnostic – . The interpretation of color helps to identify the roots of illness and thus reflects treatment principles and recommendations for follow up or at-home care.
The organization of Chinese primary colors – red, yellow, blue-green/cyan, white and black – comes from the traditional Chinese philosophy of Wu Xing. Often translated as “5 Phases” or “5 states of being”, the Wu Xing lays out the foundational flow across elemental form. If you are familiar with Chinese Medicine Theory you may recognize this path within the generating cycle; wood (cyan) to fire (red), to earth (yellow), to metal (white), to water (black), again to wood. It’s observed in nature as wood logs burn to feed a fire. Wildfire clears and reawakens our earth, our soil. The richest soils hold many minerals, or metals, which then flow through waterways to fertilize and strengthen plants from seeds to hearty trees.
Chinese medicine philosophy projects structural and functional similarities between the body and the world.
Our internal flow of qi and organ function is a reflection of our external systems like the environment we’re exposed to.
Studying the Wu Xing inspires strategy within our ecosystem conjoined with strategy for our metabolic health as relational processes. Each of the five colors correspond to their own element and a family of other associations, highlighting a resonance between season, flavor, sense organ, zang fu pair. When atypical color manifests in the clinic practitioners are able to address symptomatic issues by relating the color to its common cause of injury, or reaching to its resolving organ in treatment.
SEEING RED… FOR EXAMPLE,
In the Clinic
To thoroughly evaluate patients before reaching diagnosis we use the four pillars – Inspection, Auscultation and Olfaction, Inquiry, and Palpation. These guidelines call for the use of our five basic senses, and as TCM practitioners refining clinical sight allows us to better assess one’s vitality through their surface-level manifestations. From the Huang Di Nei Jing, we remember that seeing Red can reflect a relationship to the Heart and Small Intestines. These are our fire-related organs. Redness on the body, showing across the skin or on the tongue, can be read as a sign of heat, stagnation, or inflammation. Within TCM diagnosis theory, red at the tip of the tongue may be considered “heat in the heart”.
In Lifestyle Adjustment and Follow Up Care
Red is also the color of summer, when many flowers bloom and berries, cherries, and jujube ripen. Red food often contains higher levels of tannins (bitter and astringent), iron, and/or amino acids. Lycopene and carotene from red fruits and vegetables have natural antioxidant properties important for cellular health. These red foods and foods with bitter flavors boost blood circulation. More broadly, they contribute to a more regulated nervous system, “calming the shen” in TCM terms. They may be suggested to support blood production, release stagnation, revive “qi” or energetic sluggishness.
As much of Chinese Medicine plays off a synchronicity between micro- and macrocosm. The healing modality Feng Shui can be learned as the dynamic interplay between the intimacy of our health and our most proximate spaces. Color symbolism shifts through cultural landscape, but in Chinese traditions red is a color of plenty. It’s festive and worn in celebration to attract luck or ward off evil. It’s used to decorate in times of joy, prosperity, or to call for blessings of wealth and fertility in seasons to come. Touches of red may be worn to attract the eye, instill confidence, explore sensuality, or to activate protection. It stimulates.
Food is medicine, herbs and tea are medicine,
as are the arts and culture connecting people to their land.
A COLOR CASE STUDY WITH SU MU
The TCM herbal materia categorizes Su Mu (Lingum sappan, “sappanwood”, “heartwood”, “su(matra) wood” and Suoh) with herbs that regulate and invigorate blood. It enters the Heart, Liver, and Spleen meridians – each heavy contributors to the production of blood or its circulation. Within internal remedies Su Mu works through its sweet, salty and acrid flavor profiles. Sweet tastes harmonize and nourishe blood and yin. Salty anchors and settles, often impacting the shen (our mind and spirit). Acrid or pungent flavors disperse, which is essential for alleviating physical discomfort and accelerating the healing process.
As students we can learn these herbs past their labels through deeper recognition of their whole plant and history. The sappan tree is native across geographies of South and Southeast Asia. Sappan wood migrated north through Malaysia, China and Japan as its use in medicine and textile production became more popular. When the sappan tree is first cut the wood shows off a yellow color that ages into the vibrant red it’s known for through oxidation. Its red color comes from a compound now called brazilin and indicates its affinity for blood support. Su Mu has been used to alleviate pain after trauma by improving blood circulation, reducing swelling by dispeling blood stasis, and promoting healthy menstruation.
The bright red is potent dyestuff for fiber and textiles. When soaked in hot water pigment extracts quickly and within 8 hours the bath will be a deep orange and ready to impart color.
*The information provided above is being shared for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. This posting is not intended to facilitate or augment Provider-Patient relationships, please contact your licensed health professional for matters of your personal health.
About the Author
Wana is a second year master’s student at AIMC with groundwork practice in reproductive and public health. They connect to East Asian Medicine through an ancestral root, and believe that land-based indigenous medicines deserve the privilege to supplement or substitute western care practices as conduits of more intimate contemporary healing.
