Nearly everyone is familiar with the animal symbolism associated with Chinese astrology and in particular about the association with the Chinese New Year. The Chinese New Year is actually the Asian Lunar New year which always falls on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice. The Lunar year is divided into twelve lunar cycles from absolute new or empty moon to the next. The zodiac animal symbols are representations of the progression of the twelve year energy cycle and are indicative of the nature of the individual Zodiac animal nature. The relative Yin or Yang nature of the animals themselves is one of the most debated aspects of Asian astrology.
The animal symbols for the zodiac cycle came to China from India about the same time as Buddhism during the first century CE. Buddhism contains certain sutras that mention the animal relationships to the year cycles. The ancient Chinese loved to incorporate, and as with all things, the Chinese incorporated the animals into their already very sophisticated astrological perspectives that were until that time solely based on the principles of the I Ching
In Chinese cosmology, the Chinese Zodiac follows a twelve year progression and the day is also divided into 12 time divisions with each division corresponding to two hours of a twenty four hour day. During each two hour time division one of the twelve organ systems is in a relative state of repletion while its opposite organ (on the Chinese clock) is in relative vacuity. As time passes, the Qi of the organs and their respective channels ebb and flow like the tides of the ocean. This is not to be confused with the concept of repletion and vacuity as pathological responses or factors of disease, this is a natural ebb and flow and, like the seas, the organs and channels at low tide are not pathologically empty any more than they are pathologically full at high tide. The I Ching tells us that this is the way of all things, that there is a constant ebb and flow of the energies and events of the universe, the I Ching demonstrates those energetic changes in the movement of the lines of the sixty four hexagrams in general and the twelve Tidal Gua in particular.
In the system of Chrono-acupuncture, Zi Wu means literally midday-midnight but more broadly is interpreted as ebb and flow. The Tidal Balance System of Acupuncture, developed and refined by Robert Kienitz, uses the relationships between the ebb and flow of Qi and blood in the human body and the ebb and flow of the heavens, earth and sea.
Within the I Ching there are many wave form cycles of change represented. Some wave forms are short and some are as long as the flow of the sixty four hexagrams in their entirety. The wave form that the Tidal Balance Method of Acupuncture uses is a series of hexagrams that create a wave form that corresponds to the wave forms of the natural cycles of lunar and annual solar change.
The I Ching tells us that the days, months and seasons of the year progress in an orderly flow of energy from greatest yang to greatest yin and back again. The hexagrams representing this flow of energy are referred to as Tidal Gua.
The Tidal Gua energy signatures represent any linear or temporal, series of events. The Tidal Gua can be used to balance any conditions that arise from time related phenomena or that reoccur consistently in the same time cycle. This is true for hours in a day, days in a lunar month, months in a year and years in a Zodiacal cycle. One of the best examples of this is the correspondence of a woman’s menstrual cycle to the lunar phases each month. The changes in hormonal and other physiological relationships can be easily modified and harmonized by using the Tidal Balance Acupuncture Method.
Robert Kienitz has drawn on his decades study of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and his lifelong study of the I Ching to develop the Tidal Gua and their relationship to acupuncture and Asian medicine.
Yours in good health,
Robert Kienitz, DTCM