Copyright 2010 by Joseph Ben Hil-Meyer Research, Inc.

Bruce Berkowsky, N.M.D., M.H., HMC

Dr. Berkowsky’s 2010 4-Day Spiritual PhytoEssencing Training Intensive

This article represents Part II of a three part series focusing upon anxiety and essential oils. In the first article I discussed anxiety, the solar plexus chakra and blue chamomile oil. If you missed that article or would like to review it, click on the following link.

This article will focus upon anxiety, the Fire element and ginger oil.

In Part I, I wrote:  Anxiety has gone from occupying a niche in the spectrum of neurotic symptoms to becoming a disproportionate presence. Nearly everyone for whom I am asked to prepare a custom essential oil blend reports experiencing varying degrees of anxiety. For some, anxiety is just an irritating ripple in the sea of their consciousness. For others, it has hypertrophied into a pounding surf that is eroding the bedrock of their sanity.

The ongoing oil-gusher catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico has seemingly exacerbated this trend. Previous natural or environmental disasters, while making a deep impression upon the public, didn’t dramatically alter the rhythm of the gait of those not directly impacted by the event. Certainly, waves of empathy and sadness swept over the public’s consciousness and predictably elevated the level of partisan political rancor, but it left no lasting scars on most psyches.

This time, things are different. Rather then watching the breakaway oil corrupt beaches and marshes and extinguish wildlife and people’s livelihoods from a compassionate, yet detached perspective, people are experiencing this cataclysm viscerally. It is as if one can actually feel what it is like to be coated with oil. Rather than experiencing transient pangs when TV-viewing crude-covered pelicans and terns, the quiet suffering of those suffocating birds is wounding our souls.

In 1958, Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart. Now viewed as the archetypal African novel, the book describes the coming of the white man and the consequential disintegration of traditional African society. While the situation in the Gulf is far different than the one that Achebe describes, it is nevertheless also an example of an ancient ecosystem and traditional way of life falling apart.

This time the disintegration is not the product of colonialization, but rather of an addiction to cheap fuel that has fostered a reckless willingness to gamble everything to satisfy that craving. In a sense, we are all culpable for this outcome, not just the BP executives whose arrogance and negligence ultimately placed match to fuse.

There is now a pervasive sense that the way we have always lived and done things cannot continue much longer. The bill has finally come due for our willful blindness and the shameful charade that we have allowed to persist in the halls of government. It is now even more starkly apparent that things are indeed falling apart. All of this has elevated the level of collective anxiety.

Understanding Anxiety

The discussion of anxiety in this section was presented in the previous article, but warrants review, if we are to understand the role of the Fire element and ginger oil in helping assuage this potentially debilitating symptom.

Essentially, anxiety is a persistent, exaggerated state of worry and tension that is often experienced as a foreboding of some imminent, but usually ill-defined, misfortune. Most of the time, the worry is illogically out of proportion to the situation that inspires it.

The difference between fear and anxiety is that while the former is an effect elicited by a specific causative factor, the latter, while sometimes aroused by a broad spectrum of activities and events, frequently manifests when there is little or nothing to evoke it.

One of the hallmarks of anxiety is that the individual has a great deal of difficulty controlling the propensity to worry and tension. They can’t shake off their concerns and so these can build to a distressing fever pitch. Hence, there is an ongoing struggle to regain control of oneself, to be able to relax, and to establish an effective coping mechanism.

While anxiety is often associated with a specific mental disorder such as clinical depression, it commonly presents independent of any other emotional irregularity. Some of the symptoms associated with anxiety include: feels wound-up and tense; restlessness – always on edge; psychological and physical arousal; negative thoughts and feelings; depression; easily becomes fatigued and worn-out; difficulty concentrating; inward focus of attention; irritability; anger alternating with fear; sleep difficulties (difficulty falling or staying asleep; restless, unsatisfying sleep) tense, unpleasant dreams; trembling; twitching; headache; difficulty swallowing; heart palpitations or rapid heart rate; shortness of breath; stomach and/or intestinal distress; digestive weakness; hiatus hernia; muscle tension and muscle pain; sweating; hot flashes.

Other symptoms which may be either contributory to, or a product of, generalized anxiety include: panic disorders; agoraphobia; environmental sensitivities which border on phobias; phobias about being in public with other people; post-traumatic stress disorder; obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Spiritual PhytoEssencing

Spiritual PhytoEssencing is a system I have developed which employs essential oils for deep soul-level healing. Accordingly, I use a synthesis of certain aspects of aromatherapy, Kabbalah, Chinese and herbal medicines, classical homeopathy, modern physiology, depth psychology, color therapy, gemstone healing and anthroposophical science to identify and fully elaborate the unique soul-nature of each of the essential oils used in the practice of Spiritual PhytoEssencing. The resultant oil portrait is referred to as the ‘composite oil picture’ (in the case of ginger oil–the ‘composite ginger oil picture’).

Each of the oil profiles in my Berkowsky’s Synthesis Materia Medica/Spiritualis Of Essential Oils (thus far there 107 oil profiles), the central reference book of Spiritual PhytoEssencing is a synthesis elaborated via a dynamic interweaving of various aspects of the therapeutic and spiritual models that are the component building blocks (listed above) of the system . As you read on, you will see this synthesis in action as I discuss the correlation between ginger oil and the Fire element.

Fire Element

According to the Five Element Theory of Chinese medicine, the heart is the yin organ, and the small intestine is the yang organ, of the Fire element. Additionally, the Pericardium (Heart Protector) and Triple Heater meridians are also associated with the Fire element.

In herbal medicine, ginger is considered to be warming and especially indicated for those suffering from ailments initiated by exposure to cold and damp conditions. It stimulates blood circulation and the digestive processes and counteracts lymphatic stagnation and chronic coldness of the extremities.

The relationship between ginger oil and the heart is clearly discernable. Ginger exerts a tonic effect upon the heart, can potentially reduce high blood pressure and the stickiness of blood platelets and can lower elevated serum cholesterol levels by reducing cholesterol absorption.

Robert J. Thornton in his Family Herbal (1814) observed that “ginger promotes the circulation through the extreme vessels [i.e., blood supply to the extremities].” In Chinese medicine, fresh ginger (sheng-jiang) is used to treat heart palpitations, in aromatherapy, ginger oil is used to treat angina and in homeopathy, the remedy Zingiber (prepared from a tincture of dried ginger root) has the symptom pressing pain in the left chest around the heart.

Nevertheless, ginger’s definitive association with the Fire element is largely a product of its affinities for the small intestine, triple heater and kidney yang.

Small Intestine

Ginger, especially in herbal medicine, is best known for its value in treating digestive problems. In Chinese medicine ginger is considered to be a yang remedy and the small intestine is the yang organ of the Fire element. Within the context of the Chinese medical model, the small intestine strives to maintain the heart’s power.

Digestion is a fully coordinated effort that involves all the digestive organs. Thus, it is can’t be said that the small intestine in particular is ginger’s focal sphere of action in reference to its amelioration of one digestive symptom or another. Nevertheless, ginger’s action within the small intestine plays a key role in its ability to address symptoms such as: atonic conditions of the gastrointestinal tract; irritation of the intestines; dyspepsia; abdominal bloating; nausea; vomiting; gastro-intestinal spasms; colic; worse for eating bread or melons; intestinal flatulence; constipation; diarrhea; nausea and vomiting following surgery or associated with chemotherapy.

From the Chinese medicine perspective, the small intestine serves the heart by acting as a conduit from the heart to the outer world and vice versa. The small intestine helps establish the operations of clarity with which the truth and understanding stored in one’s heart and in the heart of another can be perceived and accessed. One of its foremost charges is to encourage that virtue is the ultimate product of the communication between heart and mind and heart and outside world.

The small intestine sustains strength and sorts and sifts both in a digestive sense and its soul-related activities. Nora Franglen in The Handbook of Five Element Practice writes: “The small intestine’s importance to the Fire element is in giving it, and the heart within it, that deep strength to survive come what may.”

Small intestine imbalance results in the inability to clearly interpret one’s own intention and the intent of others leading to scrambled communication of the heart’s understanding and soul-level confusion. Bitterness, the taste associated with the Fire element, is on a psycho-spiritual level the result of the breakdown of the small intestine’s sorting function regarding communication of understanding from the heart.

Triple Heater

Unlike the heart and small intestine, the triple heater (also called triple burner) does not have an exact location. The triple heater is charged with the regulation of the movement of warmth and water throughout the body.

Chinese medicine views the body as constructed of three heaters or burners. The upper burner consisting of the head and chest (includes the heart and lungs) is associated with ‘mist.’ The middle burner – the area of the body from above the navel to just below the chest (includes the stomach, small intestine and spleen-pancreas), is associated with ‘foam.’ The lower burner – associated with “swamp”- comprises abdominal region below the navel.

Lonny S. Jarrett in Nourishing Destiny describes the triple heater as: “the body’s thermostat that maintains homeostasis by regulating the distribution of fire (yang) and water (yin) throughout all aspects of being…The triple heater may be involved any time there is an excess or deficient of heat anywhere in the body.”

The triple heater is the agent of the yuan chi, which is said to arise from between the kidneys. Yuan chi is the inborn or constitutional chi (chi or qi is the circulating life energy or vital force that in Chinese philosophy is thought to animate all living things) as opposed to the chi one acquires on an ongoing basis through certain mechanisms including breathing and eating.  This inherent quotient of chi is gradually used up over the course of one’s life. While it is possible to regulate its expenditure, yuan chi cannot be replenished.

The triple heater is in constant contact with the internal and external milieus gathering the intelligence the heart (the ruler of the Fire element) requires to effectively govern on both physical and psycho-spiritual levels. It also plays a pivotal role in the transformation and excretion of fluids. The body needs the heat of the yuan chi to transform fluids throughout the body.

The following qualities and symptoms underscore ginger’s association with the triple heater: Ginger is used in many traditional Chinese prescriptions as a “guide drug” which helps mitigate the effects of other, potentially toxic, ingredients.; In Chinese medicine, fresh ginger (sheng-jiang) is said to expel cold, and is used for cold-induced swellings, and heart palpitations.; The dried root is used to address depleted yang and is said to remove cold, and to ameliorate “cold” pain of the stomach and abdomen.; Ginger is warming and especially indicated for those suffering from ailments initiated by exposure to cold and damp conditions. It stimulates blood circulation and the digestive processes and counteracts lymphatic stagnation and chronic coldness of the extremities.; English physician Robert J. Thornton in his Family Herbal (1814) writes: “ginger promotes the circulation through the extreme vessels [i.e., blood supply to the extremities], it is to be advised in turbid and phlegmatic habits, where the stomach is subject to be loaded with slime.”; Ginger root may prove of good service in the treatment of the following conditions and symptoms: lymphedema; dropsy; ascites; catarrhal conditions; coldness of the extremities.

Jarrett writes: “The triple heater governs the more social aspects of Fire, and gathers and assimilates subtle cues in the environment relevant to the regulation of intimacy. Intimacy is a dynamic function that, in health, must operate according to the same principles as a well-functioning thermostat—without conscious thought.”

In fact, difficulty revolving around intimacy is one of the central themes of the ginger type. For the ginger type, firmness, fixity and preservation of the image she wishes to project are the basic mechanisms required for her to stand firm in the face of life’s assaults and remain in tact. However, in the failed state, she is not able to maintain these barrier functions and, feeling extremely vulnerable, her natural tendencies toward timidity, self-consciousness, anxiety, irresolution and hypersensitivity are greatly magnified.

Nora Franglen in The Handbook of Five Element Practice writes: “Fire’s blossoms embrace to the full warmth of high summer [the season associated with the Fire element], opening themselves eagerly to the world. This openness to the world around it can expose it to attack, and it must learn to develop protective the mechanisms we all need if we are to live productively in the world crowded with other people, each potentially an area of conflict and confusion which it is the Fire element’s task to resolve.”

Kidney Yang

The triple heater is viewed as a component of kidney yang or Life Gate Fire. Kidney yang, while ostensibly, via its association with the kidneys, is a component of the Water element, being Life Gate Fire and associated with the Triple Heater and Heart Protector meridians, it is also aligned with the Fire Element.

Kidney yin and kidney yang are the primordial yin and yang. Kidney yin and yang are interdependent, mutually sustaining, and keep each other within constructive limits. The internal harmony of yin and yang in general and thus normal physiological activity is dependent upon the balanced interaction between kidney yin and kidney yang.

While kidney yin is charged with the moistening and nourishing of the body, kidney yang, in concert with the triple heater, helps sustain warmth, promotes the functions of the organs and tissues and balances water metabolism. Kidney yang, the Life Gate Fire, is the foundation of the yang chi (correlated to a degree with the astral body) that vitalizes the body.

Kidney yang, responsible for assertiveness, activity, vitality, metabolism, fluid distribution and libido can also be viewed as the basal metabolism. It is sometimes referred to as the mingmen, which also refers to the lowest of the three heaters.  When the kidney yang is deficient, it is unable to efficiently warm the body properly resulting in deficiency in the lower heater and thus coldness in the lower half of the body. In Chinese herbal medicine, a kidney yang formula is often given to warm the lower heater.
 
When kidney yang is weak, the will to live, vitality and sex drive decrease, resulting in general debility, chilliness, aversion to cold, cold limbs, spiritual fatigue, edema, urinary symptoms including difficult urination and incontinence, impotence and frigidity as well stiffness and pain in the lower back. The composite ginger oil picture features all of these symptoms.

Adrenal Glands

The ancient Chinese did not recognize that the adrenal glands, despite being situated atop the kidneys were anatomically and physiologically distinct. Thus, in traditional Chinese medicine, the perception is that adrenal gland activity is an aspect of kidney function.  Nevertheless, the adrenal glands from the perspective of modern science and the kidneys, from the perspective of Chinese medicine, contribute to the production of energy, and warmth and the maintenance of sexual function. 
 
Adrenal fatigue, one of the most common symptoms among stressed out Westerners has much in common with the state referred to as deficient kidney yang. Ginger root has long been used in Chinese medicine to treat deficient kidney yang and blood stagnation caused by yang chi (kidney yang is the foundation of yang chi) deficiency.

From a Western perspective, ginger is an adaptogenic herb long that helps normalize the adrenal glands secretion of cortisol (also known as hydrocortisone; a corticosteroid hormone or glucocorticoid produced by the adrenal cortex, released in response to stress that aids in the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and proteins.) blood pressure and heart rate. Ginger also assists metabolism (including fat metabolism) and energy production, and stimulates enzyme secretions required for the digestion and utilization of proteins and fatty acids (key elements in helping to stabilize depleted adrenals).
 
Psycho-Spiritual Attributes of the Fire Element

The movement produced by chi in general but also the components of the Fire element discussed above (heart, small intestine, triple heater and kidney yang) involves not only perceptible forms such as blood circulation and muscle action, but also, chemical transformations on a molecular level involving electron transfer, membrane transport, etc. The blood is the great carrier of warmth, and the muscles great engines of warmth, but these subtle chemical reactions are no less crucial to the body’s metabolic (and thus, warmth) processes.

Traditional Chinese medical science teaches that “Chi is the commander of blood, and blood is the mother of chi.” Accordingly, chi moves the blood and blood nourishes chi. Without chi, blood does not move, and lacking pure, nourishing blood, chi has no basis and is quickly exhausted.

Internal warmth (along with internalized light and balanced blood sugar, among other factors) is required for the full ensoulment of living tissue. Lacking adequate warmth (as when a person is chronically chilly as is the case with the ginger oil type), body and soul cannot become fully integrated. For this reason, chilly individuals are particularly subject to anxiety related to Fire element deficiency. 

When the function of the Fire element is balanced, the spirit will flame-up with inspiration. If Fire is burning low, the individual will be dispirited or depressed. Loss of Fire can develop over time if a person’s emotions have not been validated. In contrast, when there is excessive Fire, an individual will laugh excessively, be impulsive and be prone to uncontrolled emotions.

When the Fire element becomes imbalanced, its innermost aspect (heart and small intestine) manifest increased activity (e.g., increased heart rate; IBS) that is nevertheless an outgrowth of weakness rather than strength. In this state, Franglen notes: “It will resort to a confused state of constant self-questioning and doubt, misjudging what it needs to keep the whole mechanism of body and soul together.”

Eager to compensate for this weakness and vulnerability, the ginger type may become anxious, frenzied and perfectionistic and send out confusing mix signals through what she says [the voice has an important association with the Fire element].

When the triple heater (along with the heart protector, the outermost aspects of Fire) reflects Fire imbalance, it will in Franglen’s words “be vulnerable to approaches made by others, retreating behind a shell of often self-inflicted pain.” This urge to withdraw inevitably gains momentum and the ginger type becomes progressively anxious, unable to cope and averse to any form of exposure. 

Essential Oils And the Fire Element

In Spiritual PhytoEssencing, various oils are considered to have a strong affinity for the Fire element including: bergamot, black pepper, blue chamomile, cayenne, cumin, cinnamon, cypress, ginger, jasmine, laurel, lemongrass, lovage, melissa, pine, Roman chamomile, rose, seaweed and spikenard.

It should be understood that Spiritual PhytoEssencing is an art designed to help overcome the separation of daily consciousness from the higher self which is at the core of emotional and physical disharmony and may give rise to disease. The goal is to “see” and work upon this core state that underlies all the mental compensations we make to shelter and contain our weaknesses and disappointments.

The focus of my Spiritual PhytoEssencing work (the word phytoessence is a synonym for essential oil) is to identify the pattern of deep psycho-spiritual themes that have a disharmonizing impact on the soul level. Subsequently, a combination of essential oils that correlates with these themes is formulated to act as a mirror image of this “central disturbance” and serve as a customized response to the bioenergetic fingerprint of a deeply ingrained pattern of imbalance.

Accordingly, in Spiritual PhytoEssencing, selection of one or more of the oils listed above would be based, in part, upon clear evidence that the person experiencing anxiety has constitutional Fire element weakness.

This inherent deficiency has historically been expressed throughout that individual’s life in a broad spectrum of both physical and emotional symptoms aside from anxiety, such as depression, apathy, estrangement, chilliness, weak digestion, heart palpitations, hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, etc.

Clearly, in the limited space of this article, it is impossible to provide a discussion of each the oils listed above as having an affinity for the Fire element. Instead I focused on one oil, ginger, and its relevance regarding a constitutional Fire-deficiency pattern.

Conclusion

In concert the above excerpts from the Ginger chapter (the complete chapter is nearly 30 pages long) in Berkowsky’s Synthesis Materia Medica/Spiritualis Of Essential Oils demonstrates the relevance of ginger oil relative to anxiety and Fire element deficiency.

Use of Ginger Oil Relative to Anxiety Fueled by Fire Element Deficiency

Please note: Those who have sensitive skin prone to irritation by direct application of essential oils, should avoid use of this protocol. Instead consider a much higher dilution of ginger oil in one of the base oils mentioned below or diffusion of ginger oil via a diffuser.

There are a variety of ways to use ginger oil to help ameliorate anxiety. One way that I have found to be useful is direct application of the oil to specific acupuncture points.

This can be done as follows:

1) Warm up unrefined coconut oil, jojoba oil or shea butter. An easy way to do this is to fill a small glass jar with the oil and tighten the lid. Place the jar in a cooking pot that contains about 1” of water that has been heated on the stove (and then taken off the burner). The water should be mildly hot but not anywhere near boiling. Keep the jar in the hot water until the oil has liquefied and become pleasantly warm. Then remove it from the water.

2) Spoon out 1/8 tsp. of the warm oil and place in palm of hand. Add 2 drops of ginger oil and, using a fingertip, mix into warm oil.

3) Thoroughly massage, using a clockwise circular motion, the blended oil into the following acupoints (English translation of Chinese name of each point provided in parentheses):

Triple Heater 5 (Outer Pass):

Location: On the back of the forearm, 2 inches proximal (closer in to the body) to the wristline, between the two bones (radius and ulna). Feel around with your fingertip in this area until you find a tender spot that feels somewhat achy when you push inward.

This point is the connecting point between the Triple Heater and Pericardium (Heart Protector) meridians.

Small Intestine 3 (Back Creek)

Location: when a loose fist is made, the point is found proximal to the head of the 5th metacarpal (the bone on the back of the hand that connects to the pinky; the head of this bone is a bony bulge clearly felt on the outside of the hand midway between the base of the pinky and the wrist) on the outside of the hand on the border where the skin of the palm meets the skin of the back of the hand.

Being the Wood point on a Fire element meridian, according to the Mother-Child principle of the Five Element model (within which Wood is the “mother” of Fire), this point can help stoke up Fire when it is deficient.
 
Kidney 3 (Great Ravine)

Location: In depression midway between the tip of the medial malleolus (inner ankle bone) and the achilles tendon.

This point can be used to enrich kidney yin and invigorate kidney yang. In acupuncture theory various pairs of hand and foot meridians are thought to communicate. Accordingly, the Kidney meridian (Foot Shao meridian) communicates with the Heart meridian (Hand Shao meridian). As noted above, the heart is considered to be the ruler of the Fire element.

This oil application protocol can be used 2 to 3 times per week. More frequent application will yield diminishing returns and lessen receptivity by the body to the actions of the ginger oil. Of course, you may wish to consider using one or more of the other Fire element oils listed above in alternation with, in combination with, or instead of, ginger. However, you would first need to study the constitutional typologies associated with those oils to determine their relevance in a given case.

If you are interested in purchasing one or more of those chapters (e-mailed as PDF files) from Berkowsky’s Synthesis Materia Medica/Spiritualis in order to achieve an in-depth understanding of the inner nature of the oils described therein, click on the following link for details:

 Available Chapters and Pricing

In the next issue of the Journal Of Spiritual PhytoEssencing:

Anxiety, The Root Chakra And Essential OilsDr. Berkowsky’s 2010 4-Day Spiritual PhytoEssencing Training Intensive