(75) Saju and Oriental Medicine (3)

By Janet Shin

While we learned how yin and yang, and the five elements are explained in the realm of Oriental medicine, it would be interesting if we could relate it to the realm of saju. As said, Oriental medicine looks at the human body as a small universe with yin and yang and the five elements. So we may be able to read health aspects in terms of saju theory. In order to understand the mechanism, let's see how diseases or disorders are seen from an Oriental perspective.

Disorders are the reflection of conflicts between vital energy and malady. The vital energy fights against malady to protect the human body. If the body is full of vital energy and can function normally, the malady cannot attack the human body. On the other hand, ``mal'' energy invades the human body when vital energy is not strong enough to resist.

Then, the causes of disorders, mal energy in other words, are divided into two ― internal and external causes.

Externally, nature has six environmental energies: wind, cold, heat, water, drought and heat. They are related with the seasons and they enter through the nose, mouth and skin into the body. Wind is usually connected with spring as a season, cold with winter, heat with summer, water with the rainy season, drought with autumn ― and heat means extremely hot weather that can be connected with all seasons. However, these six energies can be connected with any seasons subject to a given situation.

Internally, the disorders can also be generated by human emotions. There are seven emotional expressions to cause various diseases: happiness, anger, worry, thinking, sadness, fear and shock.

Although some more can be added, these six environmental energies and seven emotions are based on the five elements of wood (wind, anger), fire (hot, happy), earth (wet, worry), metal (dry, sad) and water (cold, fear).

While some definitions about disorders and their external and internal causes are written here, the specialized prescriptions still need to come from an Oriental medicine doctor's expertise, similar as feng shui advice that must come from feng shui experts.

Now, let's see how these aspects are linked to saju reading.

Below, the chart of five elements in relation to body organs, emotions and energy are reiterated from last column.

If we go one step further to study the relationship between saju and Oriental medicine, we will be able to find out very interesting clues to understand fate as well as our health.

If a person's saju has water energy (hae, ja) and fire energy (sa, o) conflicting with each other, we may infer possible heart disease or mental disorder in this person. While the ja-o clash is usually interpreted as mental disorder, the sa-hae clash is interpreted as heart disease including stroke and high blood pressure. It is because of the fact that ja and o are the letters from a flourishing place and sa and hae are the letters from a living place.

The properties and influences of three places, living, flourishing and repository, are continuously referred to in many analytical aspects.

People who have saju with an in-sin clash (wood and metal), have a higher possibility of a car accident, rheumatism, neuralgia and regular headaches. Both in and sin are from the living place, with ``in'' representing the nervous system.

If one element out of the two is extremely hurt by the clash, we usually focus on the weaker element. However, even in the case of ja-o clash, if the fire element is overly dominant, it is ja water not o-fire that is hurt, although o fire is restrained by ja water. For example, if the ja water branch clashes with the o fire from both sides, this person would have more chances of a kidney and urinary bladder disease than that of heart disease.

A saju of a lady, born in May 29, 1987 is as below.

^The day master is eul wood (flower) born in o fire month. She is a beautiful model as the flower blossoms under the sunshine. Im water (lake or sea) may help her thirst a little but it cannot be as helpful as the rain (gye water). There is too much fire energy around her. Her mother (im water ― knowledge star and mother of eul wood) has suffered from mental disease after giving birth to her.

The writer is the president of the Heavenly Garden, a saju research center in Korea. She is the author of "Learning Four Pillars." She offers saju courses to all who are interested. For more infomation, visit her Web site (https://blog.naver.com/janet_shin) or email janetshin@hotmail.com.