Wood Becomes Water: Chinese Medicine in Everyday Life - 20th Anniversary Edition

Just attended a retreat on the five elements and wanted to learn more!

Interesting introduction to the Chinese medicine way of looking at life, especially health matters and food. I bought this book to help me understand the food plan my Chinese medical doctor/acupuncturist had devised for me. At first it seemed very strange since there was no salad and no dairy allowed for a while. But after reading the book I realized it made sense. Since my Fire element was low the foods I was told to avoid were "cold" foods associated with metal or other cold elements. I felt better and lost weight following the doctor's five element food plan. But don't try to figure it out yourself- you need a professional Chinese medical doctor to come up with an eating plan for you personally based on your pulses and your diagnoses. This book is just a good adjunct to help you understand your doctor's treatment plans.

you know that the author knows her thing when she emanates to use simple language to explain what is very complex.this is greta introduction to Chinese Medicine as well as good "how it all matches up" for those already into Chinese MedicineIt is well written and well patterned (connections she made make the book very practical ... you start seeing elements and making connections everywhere )Highly recommended

This book just presents 5 elements and relationships and is good for someone like Mom or Grandma or youngsters who have zero concept of 5 elements. Or even the typical "(western) feng shui enthusiast" who thinks it has anything to do with decorating and organizing and such nonsense. It is very easy reading and understanding. It is definitely not a reference and not worthy of an adult teaching curriculum. This book is just helping to show people how to think in 5 elemental relationships, and is pretty long considering that is all that it is doing. I read this book a few months ago while visiting the US, but I recall many times reading statements that went against fundamentals learned in hong kong, taiwan, and japan (dont trust anything in mainland china after Yale-man Mao's proxy communist reprogram/ westernization, remember all tradition was best preserved by USA's KMT in Taiwan), and definitely dont trust the specific examples and relations given in the book. Just use it as beginner to learn relationships and how to think about it.

Pros: Her symbolic approach allows the intricacies of TCM more easily available to the general public. I enjoyed how she wove the symbolism of ancient cultures, psychology, alchemy, and nature into the broad picture of TCM. Making the Five Elements come alive and be accessible is not an easy feat in my experience. Nicely done, Ms Reischstein. My only negative comment would be it was a bit too " Joseph Campbell" for my taste.

This text is well organized and gives a good overview of the five individual phases of Chinese Medicine. It makes available some general concepts for the lay person and helps them to understand in a general , non practioner level some perspectives of Chinese medicine. My one criticism is the misrepresentation of the lung channel in the illustration. Written in an engaging, empowering manner it holds the interest of the reader. A good read and educational tool for curious clients.

I just finished this book and I must say it has truly motivated me to make changes, some small but many LARGE! Gail has successfully tied together seemingly unrelated areas of life that actually co-exist and concisely described how they affect each other. This knowledge has already prompted me to modify how I approach my business, projects, home, family and yes, self.I highly recommend this book for anyone, especially those desiring to make purposeful and constructive changes in their lives.

This book is a really wonderful source for those newer to the teaching of TCM and wanting to learn more. It is really accessible to the western mind that may not be familiar with the basic concepts of qi and the five element theory.

I have not read it yet but browsed through the book and found very valuable information. Excellent presentation that makes it easy to read and find what you want. The book was warmly recommended to me by a collegue who is also a reflexologist and who knows a lot about chinese medecine.Je n'ai pas encore lu le livre mais je l'ai feuilleté et y ai trouvé de l'information très utile. Excellente présentation, écriture simple facile à comprendre même si l'anglais n'est pas notre langue maternelle. Je le recommande. Il m'a été recommandé par une collègue réflexologue qui s'y connaît très bien en médecine chinoire.

キレイな本を、有り難うございました。勉強するのが、楽しみです♪

I have yet to really get into this as I generally order more than one book at a time. However, I believe it will be a valuable asset to understanding aspects of self.

I bought this book for my mom. She was very impressed and so now I am reading it. I love the way it is organized and I love the way author linked the topics together. There is lots of information, but it is concise with no redundancy. A pleasure to read!

Really great overview of the 5 phases. brilliant for beginners like me, well illustrated and accesible