Higher Truth, Integration
and Assimilation,
Sovereignty and Order
In this chapter we explore the Heart and Small Intestine channels of qi and their functions in body, heartmind, and spirit. Note that these lines constitute the Shao Yin and Tai Yang aspects of absolute Fire and are located in the body along the back of the arms.
Heart Meridian
Hand Shao Yin
The Shao Yin energies are the body’s deep yin energies. The Hand Shao Yin is identified with the heart, the deep and mysterious organ beating steadily at the core of our being. Ultimately, it is the master of everything we embrace at a deep level. The Heart channel of Hand Shao Yin is the full expression of this deep inner aspect of life.
Absolute Fire Element
The absolute Fire element is that quality of light and heat that inspires and transforms, enlightens and informs us at each step of the way. Fire offers heat, light, renewal, and regeneration. It can also sear, burn, cook, and utterly incinerate. The deep truth that resides in the Heart can set us free and can also burn away falsehood, but it is not always the most comfortable task.
11 am to 1 pm
High noon: the hour of truth when shadows are at their shortest. There is nowhere to easily hide at this time of day. Conversely, you may want to find a rock to crawl under for shade and cooling at this time of day.
Key Functions
Personal truth, interpretation, communication, sovereign order
Affirmation
I harmonize with the inner truth in my Heart.
The Heart channel of Hand Shao Yin is the yin aspect of the absolute Fire in the body, and it follows a trajectory that begins deep in the axilla (armpit) and ends in the pinky finger. It is referred to as the Supreme Sovereign Emperor or Ruler of the Realm and as such is charged with the duty of holding the divine vision for the body’s life. It rests deep in the chest with the most protection from direct outside contact, and yet in its position at the core of our being it has a guiding influence over our every action. Anatomical science has established that the heart is not directed by the nervous system in any way. Its highly specialized cells know their job without the need for stimulation from the central nervous system. Of course it carries and pumps blood through the body; it is also considered to be where the spirit resides. Many speak to heart’s role in life. “He wears his heart on his sleeve,” “She plays her cards close to her chest,” “She has a heart of gold,” “My heart is in the work,” “I’m living my heart’s desire.” These are all expressions that hint at what the Heart channel’s functional range is all about. What follows is a description of the Heart channel’s key characteristics, a most auspicious set of functions in human life.
Key Characteristics of the Functional Range of the
Heart Channel
Physical
The fundamental rhythm of the heartbeat accompanies every moment of daily life. At its most physical level, the Heart channel governs the diastolic and systolic pressure of blood flowing in and out of the heart, both in timing and volume and the intricate way in which this rhythm subtly conducts the affairs of the body’s every aspect.
By extension, the Heart channel governs the body’s blood and blood vessels from the major arteries and veins to the capillaries. Any signs or symptoms arising from the functioning of the arteries and veins—from the flow of blood to the pressure in the vessels—can all be addressed through the Heart channel.
The most necessary function of perspiration in the regulation of body temperature is also related to the Heart channel function. This key function of maintaining and sustaining body temperature is closely governed by the Fire element. The Heart channel gets extra support from other channels in this most essential aspect of balance.
Interestingly, the Heart channel also governs the functioning of the tongue and speech. Because the Heart is directly related to the truth, all uses of the tongue and speech come under the direction of the Heart. To be in alignment with your truth is to never utter a false word. Sometimes you may find that you need to hide your truth because it is dangerous to speak it. Or you may find yourself lying or “speaking with forked tongue.” These are all related to the very physical act of speaking. One final link between the Heart and speech can be observed in many cases of cardiac arrest: slurring of the speech is one major symptom.
Psychological, Emotional
The understanding of the Heart channel’s core, physical function causes us to consider the deep work that is inner reflection and soul searching. These are at the very foundation of emotional feeling and intimacy. When we are in touch with our Heart’s true nature and able to express it in good company, we are given access to the joy and laughter that can release daily life’s tensions and stresses. When the Heart channel functions at full capacity a deep, internally courageous aspect of great worth shows itself.
Spiritual
At the spiritual level Heart channel keeps us in our compassion, truth, kindness, and joy. It opens us to transcendent bliss in which we move beyond duality and become all embracing.
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1. Highest Spring |
6. Yin Cleft |
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2. Cyan Spirit |
7. Spirit Gate |
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3. Lesser Seas |
8. Lesser Palace |
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4. Spirit Path |
9. Lesser Rushing |
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5. Penetrating the Interior |
The Heart Channel Trajectory
As Spleen energy completes its section of the cycle, the one meridian goes inside to reemerge nearby at the center of the axilla, the center of the armpit, the first point on the Heart meridian. Heart 1, Highest Spring, is a point for which direct stimulation is forbidden in the ancient texts. Indeed, the entire meridian is often never treated directly but rather affected through stimulation of all other channels which exist to support the highest truth of the Heart, its sovereign ruler. The Heart is considered the supreme commander of the body, and like the emperor leads through example and divine connection rather than through actual effort. The actions of the realm are to be carried out by lesser ministers, leaving the sovereign to weighty matters such as philosophy and the divine purposes of life. Heart 1, Highest Spring, connotes the springing forth of the most high and divine waters to nourish the people and the realm with wisdom and order. Of all the spring points on the body (of which there are many), this point is also closest to the heavens, physically speaking.
Soft and vulnerable yet strong and stable, Heart energy runs through the most tender region, just under the biceps where the brachial pulse can be felt. Here at Heart 2, Cyan Spirit, the presence of energy at the surface is most readily discovered; even a light touch on others will send reverberations through your own being. Perhaps the expression to “wear your heart on your sleeve” reflects this understanding of the placement of the Heart channel on the surface of the arm. In many of the world’s religious traditions we also see the raising up of the arms, actually opening the Heart energy to the heavens, as an expression of opening the Heart to the divine. From the brachial plexus, the Heart energy takes a course from the inside of the elbow along the ulna to the wrist.
At the wrist we find Heart 7, Spirit Gate. This point is critical in treating insomnia, dream-disturbed sleep, and schizophrenia. The Heart as emperor is seen as exemplar of Fire, the element of light and truth, awareness and wakefulness. When the yang aspect of our fire is overactive and the yin aspect is deficient, we are restless, dream-filled, and cannot sleep peacefully. Too much “burning of the candle at both ends”, will eventually lead us to “burn out,” and our Hearts will be exhausted. Heart 7, Spirit Gate may be useful in restoring our connection to an inexhaustible universal resource, giving our own Heart a much-needed rest.
The Heart channel continues across the palm and ends at the pinky finger, ending at Heart 9, Lesser Rushing. This name reflects the understanding that the ends of the fingers are seen as points from which our qi energy emanates, perhaps overromanticized in the Star Wars saga when blue forks of force lightning emanate from the emperor’s fingertips. And the word “lesser” in the name refers to both the little finger and the Heart as the Shao Yin, or lesser yin energetic function in the body, heartmind, and spirit. The distinction of lesser yin is often confusing to our Western way of thinking that perceives “lesser” as a diminutive adjective. Rather, it is useful to consider the adage “less is more” and see the extreme yin virtue of the Heart as being at its strongest when at rest.
Stories from old China link the pinky finger to our deepest inner passions, hence the naming of this smallest digit as the “finger of passion.” Accordingly, the punishment for crimes of passion was to have this digit amputated. If you met someone who had this finger removed, you would know that person had violated the sanctity of an intimate boundary in an unlawful way in the past. It is a powerful finger in its own distinct way and speaks to the refinement that comes from the feelings of the heart.
Small Intestine Meridian
Hand Tai Yang
The Hand Tai Yang is greater yang energy as it expresses through the Small Intestine channel organ network. A bright and vigorous yang, it is the height of the active principle and has the capacity for strong, direct, and impassioned action.
Absolute Fire Element
The Heart channel carries forth the yin aspect of absolute Fire and the Small Intestine is its yang counterpart. The strong Fire here can express itself in bold strokes and fiery action. One can liken the Small Intestine’s absolute Fire quality to the sword of truth, the blade that can cut through the BS and tell it like it is without fear or anxiety.
1 to 3 pm
The height of the day represents this culmination of yang energy. This is the day’s last hurrah before the encroaching night with its lengthening shadows that bring back the yin of night once more.
Key Functions
Discernment, judgment, assimilation, absorption
Affirmation
I see what is true and what is false, and I keep only what is true for me.
The Small Intestine channel of Hand Tai Yang is the yang aspect of absolute Fire and follows a trajectory that runs from the hands to the face. It is known as the minister in charge of separating the pure from the impure. When we look at this on the physical level, we can clearly see the small intestine with its many fine cilia sweeping the digestive tract, separating nutrients from our dietary intake for absorption directly into the bloodstream, while passing the waste to the large intestine for processing. On the mental and emotional levels, we must also separate out the important from the unimportant. In our age of information overload, the Small Intestine is acutely tasked with sorting this mass of information and distilling the essence for use. It calls upon our faculties of discernment and higher judgment to be finely honed. When it is in distress, we are overwhelmed and may make bad choices as a result of being easily misled or overly skeptical. What follows is an overview of the range of characteristics the Small Intestine channel governs.
Key Characteristics of the Functional Range of the
Small Intestine Channel
Physical
According to Chinese medical classics, the Small Intestine channel has the primary function in the human body of separating the pure from the impure. The small intestine organ is adjacent to the stomach in the alimentary canal. It receives the digesta (food that has been transformed through mastication and the stomach’s action into the liquid slurry passed to the small intestine for processing) directly from the stomach and performs the vital role of nutrient extraction. Its ingenuity lies in its ability to separate the nutrition from the waste with thousands of tiny cilia, hair-like structures lining its interior walls. The cilia absorb the nutrients and pass them through the lining of the small intestine to the hepatic portal vein, the blood vessel that draws the nutrient from the small intestine to carry it through the blood directly to the liver. Blood cells are also created here, and so we see Small Intestine channel playing a vital role in building blood, the liquid fuel of the body.
The process of separating the pure from the impure is the metabolic fire that continually breaks down, converts, and transforms food we have eaten into the nutritional components necessary for feeding all the cellular activity within the body. It is known as “digestive fire” or agni in the Ayurvedic medicine of India. Indigestion is therefore the lack of digestive fire; intestinal inflammation would be an excess of digestive fire. All manner of bowel concerns like diverticulitis, leaky gut, ulcerative colitis, and so on are governed by the Small Intestine channel and can be treated via points on the channel.
Beyond this direct relationship to the digestion of food, the Small Intestine channel also concerns itself with the digestion of all sorts of stimuli. Of particular note is the processing of auditory information in the process known as selective hearing. Within a field of auditory information we can select whatever is important to hear and pay attention only to that. Selective hearing is also sometimes called “cocktail party hearing”; all around you are a hundred ongoing conversations, but you only track the one in which you are engaged. Your ear is an extension of Small Intestine function in this way. Like the small intestine, the inner ear also has thousands of cilia that register the various sounds of the environment. From a vast field of noise, it can pick out the important from the unimportant.
Psychological, Emotional
Building metaphorically upon its physical functions, on the psychological level we find the Small Intestine channel busy with the task of prioritizing and being focused on goals. The ability to distinguish the important from the superfluous is used in an ongoing and rapid manner, repeating throughout the day. The process of prioritizing and sorting through all the various stimuli and choices before us is a necessity when living in a complex world, and the ongoing nature of this task leads to the development of qualities of determination. In a case where Small Intestine energies are strong we see it as determination to the bitter end; when weak, we see a complete lack of determination and an inability to stay focused and follow through on tasks, promises, or commitments.
Determination and discrimination are quite individual-based; accordingly, the Small Intestine has an important role to play in self-analysis as well. It governs the ability to truly look at and listen to oneself, the discovery of our own inner truth. For instance, a common struggle is the conversation between the heart and the head: if your heart holds a particular truth about yourself, your passion, what you truly love, but your head is filled with ideas that somehow what you love is wrong, bad, or simply unimportant in the world, the battle between the two rages. The Small Intestine channel performs the vitally important role of supporting communication and ultimately reconciliation between your head and your heart, as well as between your heart and the hearts of others. The adage about wearing your heart on your sleeve gets a little rewrite here—ideally you wear your Small Intestine on your sleeve! The Heart itself remains sovereign and protected from direct exposure to the sensory overload of the world in which it finds itself.
With all its heavy tasks and serious duties of winnowing down the myriad choices to come up with exactly the right path for you, it may be surprising that the Small Intestine also plays a vital role in your sense of humor. The ability to laugh out loud is directly governed by the Small Intestine, and in a world with so many switchbacks, tricksters, and blind alleys amid the foibles and vagaries of natural consequences, you are in for a hard, hard ride if you aren’t equipped with a good sense of humor. In many ways, the gift of laughter can be sanity’s safety valve. Consider how it is often received through the gift of time: “One day we’ll look back on this and laugh” is a comment often made in the midst of moments with great weight and consequence. The Small Intestine is concerned with the distinction here as well.
Spiritual
On the spiritual level, the Small Intestine channel can be summed up as the faculty for better judgment. When faced with a multitude of concerns, the spiritual task at hand is really the manner in which you go about choosing the highest and best path that will most serve your deepest truth. And when you misstep, a healthy Small Intestine channel will grant you the spiritual ability to forgive yourself (and others) and even laugh at your foibles.
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1. Lesser Marsh |
11. Heavenly Gathering |
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2. Front Valley |
12. Grasping the Wind |
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3. Back Stream |
13. Crooked Wall |
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4. Wrist Bone |
14. Outer Shoulder Transport |
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5. Yang Valley |
15. Middle Shoulder Transport |
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6. Support the Aged |
16. Heavenly Window |
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7. Upright Branch |
17. Divine Appearance |
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8. Small Sea |
18. Cheek Bone Hole |
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9. Correct Shoulder |
19. Palace of Hearing |
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10. Upper Arm Transport |
Small Intestine Channel Trajectory
The Heart energy finishes here at the medial aspect of the little finger, and our one meridian takes a tiny step to the lateral aspect of the same digit to begin its journey with the Small Intestine energy. From the pinky finger, the Small Intestine channel flows along the “karate chop” edge of the fifth metacarpal on the back of the hand. The Small Intestine’s function is to sort through anything sent its way via the Stomach, separate out the nutrition for assimilation, and pass on the waste. One might see in the action of the “karate chop” the function of slicing through whatever presents itself. Small Intestine 3, Back Stream, is found on the karate chop edge of the hand, just under the fifth metacarpal bone, just proximal to the metacarpal/phalangeal joint. It bears a significant relationship to all the body’s yang energies as the opening point for the governing vessel. The governing vessel is also called the Sea of Yang, running directly up the center of the spinal column. Small Intestine as a Tai Yang vessel is the most superficial of yang energies and therefore provides a ready gateway into the entirety of the body’s yang energy. Separating the pure from the impure is considered a yang task.
Leaving the hand and crossing over the wrist, we find Small Intestine 6, Supporting the Aged, in the bony cleft on the radial side of the styloid process of the ulna. This point and its name are related to steady control of the hand, as motor skills become shakier with age. Again, the relationship between steadiness of the hand and the ability to discern between what is useful and what is useless is reflected here.
The channel then travels along the ulnar surface of the arm to the funny bone point at the elbow, Small Intestine 8, Small Sea. The name is somewhat enigmatic and refers to the classical understanding that qi runs deep at this point and enters the Small Intestine like a river flowing into the sea. In terms of physical actions and uses for this point, we might practice the gesture of elbowing our way through the crowd. Imagine you are at a sports or music event and want to make your way forward to get a good, clear view of the action. The Small Intestine’s job is knowing how to discern the best from the rest in order to attain clarity.
The channel continues up the posterior edge of the triceps to the juncture of the arm and shoulder. Here we find Small Intestine 9, Correct Shoulder, deep in the belly of the teres minor muscle, one of four muscles that make up the rotator cuff. These four muscles have the job of keeping the arm properly attached to the shoulder, so the point name reinforces the idea of keeping this joint in correct working order. Perhaps the ancients didn’t think of it this way, but correct bearing in the shoulders could be considered related to the Small Intestine performing its official task. Another gesture that wields this aspect of our body can be seen in the action of the judge’s arm that brings the gavel down to bring order to the courtroom. In addition to enforcing order and conduct in an unruly courtroom, the judge pounds the gavel at the pronouncement of the sentence. Once again we see the relation to the Small Intestine’s function, discerning good from bad. Indeed, discernment and maintaining order hold a place of great esteem and lofty respect in society.
From Small Intestine 9 the channel continues its journey into the shoulder blade. In the center of the sub-scapular fossa we find Small Intestine 11, Heavenly Gathering, also known as Center of Heaven. We smile as we think of this as the place where our angel wings are attached when on Judgment Day it is determined that we have led an exemplary life. Here again is Small Intestine’s discrimination faculty being recognized once more, as well as the channel’s Fire quality. The most yang of the elements, Fire is most closely associated with transcendent reflection.
Here in the wings we also find Small Intestine 12, Grasping the Wind, at the very top of the shoulder blade. In our avian cousins, this bone is the leading edge of the wing that takes the bird into flight. Here we grasp and ride the winds of life.
From the wings, the channel crosses the neck and the jaw to the peak of the cheekbone. Small Intestine 18, Cheek Bone Hole, rests right at this crest of the cheek; a high and well defined cheekbone signifies a certain refinement in the human form. From Cheek Bone Hole, the channel follows the line of the zygomatic arch back to the ear, where with an open jaw we find a small depression between the tragus and mandibular joint. At this point on the Small Intestine channel we have direct access to that vital faculty of selective hearing at Small Intestine 19, Palace of Hearing. In addition to being useful in treating all manner of hearing disorders, the word palace in the name evokes imagery of a throne or court. And when used as a noun, hearing refers to courtroom proceedings. In a hearing, two sides of a case are presented, and the judge must discern which side is lawful and has merit and which is false and must be ruled against. Once again, the Small Intestine function of discernment is illustrated here, and the ear is directly connected to the gavel of justice’s pounding.
The Small Intestine channel has now run its course, giving way to the next channel of energy flow, the Bladder channel, beginning at the eye’s inner tear duct.