May Special

Celebrate Spring, start with a chamomile foot soak. Then relax with a 90 minute Swedish massage. Finish rejuvenating with a daydream facial. $175

Mother’s Day at The Dragontree

Available May 7th-10th

Treat the mother in your life a day of relaxation with a rose and milk foot soak followed by a 20 minute foot massage while enjoying mimosas and Two Tart cookies. Then she'll experience a Mother of Pearl body polish and an hour of Swedish massage by our bodywork experts. She'll conclude her treatment with a one hour organic custom facial. $260

Gift Certificates Available at the spa, over the phone at 503 221 4123 or 503 331 1131, or online HERE

To read our Mothers Day blog click HERE

2010 Men's Special

In 2010, let's treat our men! Book a $100 in spa services for the special man or men in your life and receive a $50 gift certificate to use when you book services of $100 or more for yourself (a great mother’s day gift to you!). Call for details.

(Cannot be combined with other specials/discounts. Gentlemen must be new clients to the spa.)

The Big Picture, Part 5

Dr. Peter Borten, LAc, DAOM

In the past months, I have written about many, many factors that influence our health. (You can read parts one through four here.) If you’ve been keeping up with this series, you may have noticed that the list is almost never-ending. To be clear, I am not suggesting that we should be constantly analyzing our health, or that a medical practitioner can only be holistic if he or she is able to account for every possible factor. My intention is to invite you to broaden your perspective about health and become more perceptive of how various influences affect you. I encourage you to consider that health is not merely the sum of the conditions inside our body, but an expression of our perpetual interaction with the living world around us, and the resonance of countless emotional, mental, and physical patterns within and without us.

Good health, as I see it, is not merely a lack of disease. It implies a certain kind of integrity, ease, and openness. By integrity, I mean a quality of physical, emotional, and mental stability that cannot easily be disturbed by internal or external forces. By ease, I mean a state of mental and physical relaxation that is with us even when we’re working hard. And by openness, I mean a tendency to accept, rather than resist, what life brings us, and also an inclination to expand: to be inspired, to create, to share, and to grow. Furthermore, when our soul is basically healthy, we tend to have a balanced outlook on life – our circumstances are viewed through a neutral "lens." Rather than degrading what we’re presented with by adding negative interpretations, we see things as they are, at face value. And when our soul is vibrantly healthy, we see a world full of opportunities: opportunities to help, to enhance, to bring peace and love into our surroundings.

Since I have spent a long time listing things that influence our experience of life, I think it’s important that we take a look at how this influence occurs. This means first establishing a philosophical foundation. In Chinese philosophy, the whole universe is composed of something called Qi (Chi). There is no perfect one-word definition for Qi in English, but "energy" is probably the closest we’ll get. Thus, Qi is the basic matrix of the world. Qi can have varying qualities and densities. The more dense Qi is, the more physically palpable it is. For instance, a rock is Qi in a densely packed state. Air is Qi in a very diffuse state. There is also a certain density to the Qi of a living organism. And, generally speaking, the Qi of a living thing has a stronger "charge" than the Qi of a non-living thing. (There’s much more to be said about Qi, but we’ll save this for a later discussion.)

As it happens, in recent decades, quantum physicists have arrived at essentially the same understanding. That is, everything is composed of energy. First we thought atoms were the smallest common denominator of matter. Then we found that atoms are made up of even tinier subatomic particles. Then we peered into these "particles" and found that it’s not really accurate to call them particles at all, because they are really just energy in a constant state of vibration. According to supersymmetric string theory ("string theory" for short), infinitesimal "strings" of energy vibrate at varying frequencies, which determines what kinds of properties they have. Different configurations of energy give us oxygen and iron, dogs and airplanes.

While science and Qi-based arts have historically been at odds, we’re at an exciting point in time when these fields are finding common ground. It’s difficult to use scientific terms and Qi in the same sentence without doing a disservice to either philosophy, but we need to start somewhere.

Qi Gong ("chi gung") is the ancient art of perceiving, cultivating, and manipulating Qi. It means "Qi Practice" or "Qi Work," and it’s an integral foundation to martial arts and acupuncture. Practicing Qi Gong is like playing with the fabric of the universe. When we hone our perception, it becomes easier to discern differences in qualities of Qi. The Qi of a piece of fruit feels obviously different from the Qi of a candy bar. It’s hard to quantify this, but, as with the string theory explanation, it can be understood as a difference of vibration. So, let’s talk more about vibration.

Vibration, or more precisely oscillation, means repetitive variation (usually around a central point of equilibrium). Oscillation gives us music. Different frequencies of oscillation cause guitar strings, the head of a drum and the shaft of a flute to produce a variety of notes and timbres. Oscillation also gives us color. The visible color spectrum is simply the way our eyes perceive different frequencies of oscillating light waves. When light waves oscillate more slowly, they appear closer to the red end of the spectrum; when they oscillate faster, they appear closer to the violet end of the spectrum. Radio and television waves, AC electricity, x-rays, cell phone transmissions, and microwaves are all oscillations of energy.

In humans, brain waves represent the oscillation of electrical activity in the brain. Different frequencies of oscillation correspond to different levels of awareness and arousal. One frequency may correspond to a state of anxious panic, and another to a state of blissful peace.

Finally, Earth itself is a massively oscillating system. The tides of our oceans have a twelve hour oscillation pattern. Our planet oscillates (spins) at a rate of once per twenty-four hours, setting the pace for the biological oscillation we call circadian rhythm. It is part of a larger oscillation around the sun, along with all the other planets, moons, rings, asteroids, and comets. Meanwhile, the Sun oscillates around the center of the Milky Way galaxy at about 220 kilometers per second.

So, the universe is humming a trillion notes at once. And all the oscillating systems affect each other through resonance. Resonance is the phenomenon by which the vibration of one object is conducted to another. In a cello, it's what causes the vibration of a bowed string to be transmitted through the whole body of the instrument, amplifying and enriching the sound. Resonance can make a glass shatter when someone sings just the right pitch. We can even think of the senses of smell, hearing, and sight to work through resonance. When we encounter smells, each smell causes our neurons to oscillate at a particular frequency which the brain then interprets. When we look at an object, this instigates a vibration in a group of nerve cells in the visual center the brain that is synchronous with the object we are seeing. And when we hear, sound waves in the air cause resonance in our ear drum which is converted to electrical energy and transmitted through the auditory nerve to the brain.

Resonance is an important mechanism in how we influence and are influenced by our surroundings. Qi that vibrates at a certain frequency tends to induce the same frequency of vibration in the Qi around it. Resonance can be conducted from a gross level to a subtle level, and vice versa. When we speak, the gross vibration of our vocal cords induces a subtle, invisible vibration in the air, which then induces a gross vibration in a physical object, like a wine glass or an ear drum. Through resonance, we affect the world, the world affects us, and we affect ourselves. Next month, I will elaborate on this conceptual foundation to explain the role of resonance in health and disease, and how we can positively intervene in the process.

With love,

Peter and Everyone at the Dragontree