As a teenager, I well remember getting very excited at hearing The Doors song Light My Fire. It literally lit me up, raising energy in joyful, expansive, rippling shivers. I just listened to the song again on YouTube and it still makes me tingle. Music has this capacity to stir the heart, to excite, to expand. So too does love, whether it is a love of chocolate, passion for a vocation or hobby, or desire for another person.
When our Fire Element is balanced we have easy access to these qualities of joy, love, desire and passion. But when Fire is out of balance there can be flatness, dullness, lack of joy and a reduced interest in intimacy. On the other hand, when the imbalance manifests as Fire out of control, there can be hyper-excitement, mania, babbling speech and feverish behaviour.
To treat these imbalances, our first Fire point of the summer is Laogong – Palace of Weariness. This is the Fire point on the Heart Protector or Pericardium meridian and is a power point for balancing the Fire Element. It lies near the middle of the palm and is considered to be a minor chakra. If you hold your palms facing each other you will probably feel a sensation of warmth, tingling, pressure or pulsing. You are activating the Qi at these points. Those who do healing work will often use this point through which to channel healing energy to another person.
When you hold this point on yourself or another, it stirs the Fire in the way you might rake a dying fire into life. It activates and opens the emotional heart. When a person feels no joy in their life, feels flat and depressed, low in spirit and weary of life, then Palace of Weariness can restore vitality, vigour and love for life. It can encourage those who have had their heart broken, crushed or betrayed to enter anew into relationships. It can also support those whose hearts are tender and sensitive, who wear their hearts on their sleeves or whose hearts need protection.
At the other extreme, this point can calm an overactive heart and quiet a restless mind. For those who suffer from bipolar symptoms, alternating between manic and depressed phases, this is a balancing point. It can also help those who are addicted to falling in love or who fall quickly in and out of love.
Laogong also treats a range of physical conditions that relate to the Fire Element including cardiac pain, epilepsy, palpitations, arrhythmia, fever, nosebleed, mouth and tongue ulcers, and cold hands.
Next time you feel you need help to follow Jim Morrison’s advice to set the night on fire, come on baby, hold Laogong.
Location of Heart Protector 8
The point is located in the palm of the hand, in the depression between the second and third metacarpals. If you make a fist, the point is where the tip of the middle finger touches the palm.
Hold the point for two or three minutes, first the left side, then the right, or until you feel the Qi moving.
