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Take the Five Phase diagram, give it three dimensions and what you end up with looks a lot like a molecule.
Can this give us a clue as to how Oriental Medicine may be understood or even applied to biomedicine? James Ramholtz, a Ft. Collins, Colorado acupuncturist believes so...
From the Dong Han system (Korean) perspective, you must think of 5- Phases in 3-dimensions as well as 4-dimensions. In 3-dimensions, the 5-Phase model takes the shape of a regular tetrahedron with Earth in the center and each of the other phases at an apex. This configuration illustrates how the Earth's 4 branches and each of the other phase's two branches geometrically combine with the 5-Phases.
The significance of this 3-D regular tetrahedron in Chinese medicine is augmented by an important similarity to its counterpart in Western biochemistry. In The Touchstone of Life: Molecular Information, Cell, Communication and the Foundation of Life (Oxford University Press, 1999), Werner Lowenstein says that life is possible because of this regular tetrahedron geometry. It makes possible carbon's ability to share its four electrons in order to create long organic chains as well as ionic bonds. Therefore, it is able to store information, create both symmetrical and asymmetrical bonds, and transmit the electromagnetic force. If carbon wasn't able to create this interface between molecular and atomic levels, the organic chemistry creating life wouldn't be possible.
Similarly, in Chinese medicine, this configuration shows us how information is stored and transmitted by 5-Phases—employing the yin/yang of each phase in the stems and their associations with the meridians in the branches. The 60-year calendar, 8 Pillars are examples of the way stems and braches can be read. Manaka and Birch reiterate the idea of 5-Phases as a signaling system in Chasing the Dragon's Tail (Paradigm Publications, 1995), p.395: Schools adhering to the descriptions of organ theory (zang-fu theory) as the sole basis of acupuncture have always found that the five-phase parameters are unable to describe the physiological functions and interactions of the zang-fu. However, when we take the view that these parameters are concerned solely with the interactive regulation of the zang-fu, the channels, and the related phase-sets, and are not the physiologic interactions themselves, then the conflict is resolved.
Following this view of 5-Phases as an information system, the hierarchy during clinical treatment priorities become: (1) open any blockage, (2) stop miscommunication of one phase to another, and (3) treat deficiency and excess.
5-Phase Triangles The familiar pentagram is actually a 4-dimensional tetrahedron, a network of creating (Sheng) and control (Ke) relationships in cyclical time4. In this model, problems can be described in more sophisticated terms. They are no longer considered to be isolated or necessarily attributable to a single organ or simple pattern—a matter of vacuity (xu) or repletion (shi). Diseases can often be analyzed by disharmonies formed between 3 organs configuring a triangle in the 5-Phase network.
In the Dong Han system, this is considered primarily a problem of communication and interaction between the organs and, only secondarily, a matter of vacuity (xu) or repletion (shi). Both types of features can be found in the pulse. For example, when the blood sugar drops from physiological stress or from lack of food, the pancreas releases glucagon (a) to stimulate the liver to change glycogen stores to glucose and release it into the blood (b). When blood sugar rises (c), the pancreas secretes insulin to transport the glucose from the blood into the cells (a'); the liver and skeletal muscles convert excess glucose to glycogen—Earth, Wood, Fire triangle in both conditions.
When the blood sugar drops (1) and the liver fails to respond or has too limited a capacity of glycogen stores, the adrenals attempt to help compensate (2) for the energy demand. The adrenal stimulates lipolysis in fat tissue and cortisol promotes protein breakdown. The stress and the consequential stimulation on the liver (3) create nervousness and irritability associated with hypoglycemia.
Energy production in the body is a consequence of and dependent upon the interaction of these 5-Phase triangles. As in the brain, network interactions, and not individual organs, are then the basic units in 5-Phases. In TCM, qi vacuity is a product of the parts.
If one follows the Sheng cycle of 5-Phases, the movement is from one organ to the next in a cycle, A to B to C—from the grandmother to mother to son. Each individual phase is, in part, a product of the two preceding phases, the one creating it and the one controlling it— constructing what Buckminster Fuller might called a tensegrity. The most widely noted 5-Phase triangle in TCM is the one associated with Li Dong-yuan's concept of yinfire.
Jim Ramholz