Lung 6- Kong zui (Greatest Hole)- Xi-Cleft point of the Lung Channel
Xi Cleft points are a special category of points- each channel has one and it is the place where the Qi and Blood dive deeper into the body from the more superficial areas on the hands and feet. Additionally Xi-Cleft points on the Yin channels have a strong effect on blood, such as stagnation and heat in the blood. For this reason I love using Lung 6 for skin disorders like rashes, hives and acne. The Lung governs the skin, and heat in the blood or deficiency of blood often play a role in skin disorders. I feel like Lung 6 gives me a direct line to help clear out any issues happening on the skin. But the real reason Lung 6 is one my favorite points is for its effect on our emotions, particularly grief-the emotion associated with the Lung in TCM. You may remember from Jeff’s blog on Lung 3 that the Lung houses the Po, or our corporeal spirit. This is the spirit tied to our animal selves- our physical body existing in a particular portion of space and time. It is the part of us that connects us to the transient beauty of our experiences here and now. Death and loss are fundamental parts of this corporeal experience, and therefore, so is grief. Life ends with the lungs. Grief takes our breath away, it sits heavily on our chest. It is not uncommon to have someone come in complaining of a stubborn lung illness and also mention a loss (or the anniversary of a loss) that happened shortly before they became ill. Lung 6 taps into and helps to release this grief. It is called for when there is depression and despair, a sense of emptiness or of being in a pit. I often pair it with Stomach 40, which helps to ground a person to the earth and its abundance. I think of these points together as clearing away the fugue of grief. Whether a loss is relatively small or life-changing big, the person experiencing it has to learn to live with the new circumstances. Our lungs and our stomachs are the pathways in which the things that sustain life enter our systems. It makes sense to me that connecting with these functions helps people come back into themselves after loss and rediscover the joys of this existence, in all its transient beauty.