The value of good friendships

Now that I have reached a (very) advanced age (I am in my 9th decade), I find myself looking back at my life with gratitude for all the very close and long-lasting friendships I have been blessed with, particularly in my work as acupuncturist. I am reminded of this by a lovely email which I have just received from my good friend, Peter Eckman, in the US, with whom I have  a long and fruitful relationship spanning from the first days of my LicAc acupuncture training at JR Worsley’s Leamington College until the last days of my time in China, all 45 or more years later.

 

When I first met him, he had just written his seminal book on the journey of Five Element acupuncture from East to West, “In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor”, and I listened to him talking about this over a few days as part of our course.  I have always regarded his book as one of the cornerstones of my knowledge of the history of  five element acupuncture, basing what I taught my students at my college, the School of Five Element Acupuncture (SOFEA) on it.   I am delighted therefore to hear that it has recently been translated into Mandarin, and is available now to all the many hundreds of five element students and practitioners over in China.  I was always happy to know from what Peter told me that it was my students both in this country and in China who bought the last copies of his book to be published in the States.

 

Peter and I have maintained a long and close on-line relationship in the many years since then, and I was very happy to receive his recent email in which he acknowledges this.   In our different ways we have both been pioneers in our field, I by re-introducing  traditional five element acupuncture  into China, and Peter with his own approach to extending the reach of classical acupuncture into the Chinese  medical canon, and recognizing its fundamental significance for an understanding of the deep roots with which acupuncture is embedded in Chinese medical history.

 

I was happy that after a gap of many years we met again at a seminar in China a few years ago.

 

Peter has told me that he is nearly 10 years younger than me, which will allow him longer to make his personal contribution to the acceptance of traditional acupuncture’s role in the continuing expansion of acupuncture as a valid branch of alternative medicine.   We need people like Peter who are unafraid to develop the fresh insights without which any ancient tradition, such as classical acupuncture, would atrophy and die, as it nearly did in China.                 `        \        

 

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"All good things must come to an end"

I have always been very fond of Tove Jansson’s Moomin family books, ever since reading them to my children when they were young, and even now buying their calendar each year, so that their lovely pictures smile at me each day in my kitchen.  I have also bought two small table mats which  cheer me each time I put my tea-cup on them.  One has Moominpappa saying “The world is full of great and wonderful things for those who are ready for them”,  and the other has Moominmamma telling me that “ All nice things are good for you”. 

I am thinking of both these Moomin sayings in writing this blog, because I am giving it the title of another proverb very much on the lines of my Moomin mats. Guy and I have now decided that it is no longer feasible for us to continue running our regular twice-yearly SOFEA clinical seminars. I am now in my 90^th year and no longer in practice, and have also made my last visit to China.  Guy is extremely busy carrying on my legacy over there in Beijing, putting together a programme which will eventually become  a Chinese five element teaching course, based on my Handbook of Five Element Practice, but with all the necessary modifications which Chinese acupuncture qualifications demand.

 

So all the good things which my many visits to China have created, not least my friendship with the many Chinese five element acupuncturists who have attended my seminars in their hundreds, and the support of Professor  Liu Lihong in actively promoting five element acupuncture over the past more than 10 years, are now sadly coming to an end, but  what will never end, though, is the enthusiasm with which it has been welcomed in China, nor the warm feelings my time in China evoke in me.  So Moominmamma is right,”All nice things are good for you.”

 

 

In memory of Rob Ransome

A few days ago I received the sad news of the death of my very good friend, Rob Ransome, in a telephone call from his wife, Jean. Rob and I worked very closely together over the last few years of my acupuncture college, SOFEA,in Mandela Street, CamdenTown, helping me with all its complex financial arrangements in his previous profession of actuary.  He also had another important role in my life, which was to edit my books, which he did so brilliantly that it removed the burden of doing this from my shoulders, enabling me to hand this particular aspect of publishing over to him with great relief.

 In a piece of serendipity, on the day I heard about Rob, I received a note from my Chinese publishers telling me that they have now published the Mandarin translation of my second book of blogs, “Blogging a  Five Element Life” which Rob had worked on with me. This is the last of my 7 Singing Dragon books to be published in Mandarin, completing what I regard as my legacy in China.    I don’t remember what I write so I took the opportunity to look at the blog again. wanting to see whether something I had written quite some time ago (between 2004  and 2006) was still valid now in 2026.  Somewhat to my surprise it is.  I feel that the thoughts these blogs represent still make a very important  contribution to five element studies today.

 

I had been a little concerned that they might prove to be out of date, but surprisingly they were quite the reverse, offering much of relevance even to me, their writer who had forgotten how widely I had ranged in my thoughts about my calling.   

 

There is one blog which still jumps off the page at me.  I wrote about Shakespeare’s lovely words defining the seven ages of man (and of course woman) in As You Like It, which finish with the lines

 

..Last scene of all

Is second childishness and mere oblivion

Sans (without) teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

 I wrote this blog 12 years ago, when I was at the end of my 7^th decade.  I am now all those years older, in my 90^th decade, and thinking about these lines I realise that they do not represent me as I am now.   I have just suffered some ill-health, but am recovering well, so I certainly could not describe myself as having no teeth, no eyes, no taste, no everything.  Quite the reverse.  I have a great many teeth, my eyes still see the world, but perhaps I do not have everything (who does?), but much of all I want.

 

I am sad that Rob is no longer here to share with me the fruits of his work on my latest book to appear in China.  This remains a fitting testament to all his hard work in making my words about our shared love of five element acupuncture available to the world at large, not least to the vast audience now in China.

 

A reminder of our next clinical seminar on 23 February 2026

 Guy Caplan and I will focus the day on the Wood element, in its season, spring.  Do come and join us, and our usual large group of Chinese five element acupuncturists who watch our days from Beijing online, a truly international group all interested in adding to their understanding of their five element practice in the company of their fellow practitioners.

 

To book a place, click:

 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sofea-seminar-clinical-seminar-tickets-1347851763909

 

Why I decided to call a person's dominant element a "guardian element"

One of the basic principles of five element acupuncture is that each person has one dominant element out of the five, which shapes their life both physically, in terms of the colour of their skin, the sound of their voice, and the smell on their bodies, and emotionally, in terms of their dominant emotional response to life.  I see this element as a positive force, when a person is living a balanced life, or becoming a negative force when a person starts losing that balance.

 

It was one day as I was sitting in the classroom at my Leamington college,in the final year of my three year’s training there, that the phrase “guardian element” popped into my mind.  I realised that I regarded this element as a protective force, and that it echoed  the familiar phrase “guardian angel”.  I remember mentioning the term to the person teaching the class I was in, and she told me that she thought it was a lovely phrase.  From that day onwards I started to use the term, firstly privately to myself, then increasingly adding it to my thoughts until it has become one of the hallmarks of my teaching. I like to think of this element as being a positive, protective force on which we concentrate the focus of our treatment. The aim of  treatment is always to restore the  dominant element to a state of balance.

 

Additionally, there is a subtext here which concerns the individual official, either the yin or the yang official which are paired together to form the element. For each of us, one of the two officials is the dominant one.  In my case, Fire is my guardian element, and the Inner Fire aspect is  its dominant aspect.  The Small Intestine can therefore be called my guardian official.  It is the protector of its  companion yang official, the Heart,   

 

It is difficult enough to diagnose the dominant element, let alone try and diagnose which of its two officials is the dominant official.  This is something which I should have paid greater attention to over the many years of my practice.  This is because a guardian official, either yin or yang, should demand  more focused treatment than its less important companion official.  Treating a particular official gives a particular emphasis to treatment.

Another example of the serendipity of life

 

I have just read the most beautiful book by the Irish writer, Andrew O’Hagan, called On Friendship which fell into my hands at just the right time, as I have found books often do to me.  In one of its eight brief chapters, he writes sadly about the threat to pubs and cafés, writing that “I fantasize that the pub and the café might again become the crucibles of friendship!”  I love acknowledging that the many good friendships  I have made over my morning coffees in local cafés since I moved to  an area of London filled to the brim with cafes and interesting people sitting in them, have become good crucibles of friendship, as they surely have.

 

The book is a beautifully written paean to the power of friendship in all its forms, and has made me reassess the role of my friends in my life, a role they have increasingly had to assume since I suffered my recent bout of ill-health.  I am not somebody who enjoys being helped by other people, feeling that this makes me a burden to them.  And I realise now, particularly after reading this book, that I am more of a burden when I try to shrug off my friends’ loving attempts to help me as I struggle along.   This book has helped me see how precious my friendships are, and how stupid and ineffectual of me to deny my friends’ help, instead of welcoming it.

 

Reading this book has taught me a lot about myself, and I hope at the same time it has made my friends’ attempts to help me somewhat easier.

My legacy lives on and on through my books

 

I’m so pleased to be able to write that my Chinese publishers have let me know that they have now published 150,000 of my books in Mandarin. As you can imagine,  I’m delighted. 

The bulk of sales is understandably taken up by my Handbook of Five Element Practice, a practical guide which formed the first introduction to the practice of five element acupuncture on its return to its country of origin over a decade ago.

 

Since then, seven of my eight English books have been published in Mandarin translations with the eighth, the translation of my ‘Blogging a Five Element Life'   now with the publisher, ready to appear in the autumn, to complete the whole series of my books.

I am currently editing another book which is drawing together more of my writings,  which I will  call ‘A Five Element Companion’. I am doing this in tandem with a continuing series of videos that I started several years ago. This is to form another video subscription series about my work introducing five element acupuncture to a Chinese world.   Tong You San He is working on these videos at the moment, editing them and translating them for a Chinese audience. 

The past decade has taught us through experience that setting up a five element practice in China is very different to what we are used to in this country.   Likewise, Chinese patients' expectations of receiving five element treatment differ very markedly from those of English patients. Guy Caplan and I are recording a series of videos to provide helpful hints for those wishing to start up a five element practice in China.