Large Intestine 7 ~ Wenliu ~ Warm Flow
There are plenty of things to get stressed about these days. Anxiety levels are up for many people. I recently saw an interview with a dentist who said that dental problems from teeth clenching have tripled in his practice since the start of the pandemic. I added myself to these statistics when I recently woke up with a cracked tooth from clenching in the night, the legacy of trying to run an interstate business in uncertain times.
How perfect, then, that the current autumnal season provides us with a teaching about letting go. The Metal Element invites us to let go, to surrender to the moment, to not hang on, and certainly not to clench one’s teeth. That’s easier said than done. Even with all my tools and practices of allowing things to arise moment by moment, I couldn’t stop myself holding on while asleep.
It’s interesting then, to note that the Large Intestine channel, yang organ of Metal, has a deep pathway that goes around the mouth and influences the teeth. Several Large Intestine points are used for pain in the teeth. One of these is the xi-cleft point, Large Intestine 7 – Wenliu – Warm Flow. I’ve been including this in my self-treatment following the dental work that followed the cracked crown. It’s been helpful in moderating the pain of the extraction and the super-tight jaw muscles that resulted from having my mouth jammed open for 75 minutes.
Other conditions treated along the Large Intestine pathway include pain and difficulty raising the shoulder and arm, painful throat, headaches, deviation of the face and mouth, swelling in the face, and tongue thrusting.
Classically, the point also treats frequent laughter, raving and seeing ghosts, by clearing heat from the channel. It also helps with abdominal pain and borborygmus, those incessant, noisy gurgling sounds that can embarrass you in public.
Xi-cleft points treat stagnation of the channel, but also stagnation of the emotion of the Element. We know that grief is the emotion of Metal and that this primarily affects the Lung. When grief stagnates, it can produce coldness, both physically and emotionally. Weniiu’s name of Warm Flow is a hint that the point can warm this inner coldness that affects the mind and spirit and which can result in despair and a feeling that there is no internal place of comfort. This coldness can then become expressed outwardly in harsh, piercing, cutting responses to others, or in feelings such as disdain, revulsion and disgust which arise out of a posture of perfectionism projected on to others. When this coldness has hardened to such a degree, the warmth of the heart is missing. In such cases Warm Flow can be called upon to temper the Metal
Perfectionism that is projected onto others in a negative way is an egoic distortion of the truth that everything in True Nature is arising perfectly. The ego, believing that the way things are are not perfect, seeks to make corrections. This is the challenging lesson of autumnal Metal: to surrender to the arising of each moment even when things are really difficult; to let go of things we are hanging on to from the past; and to let go of ideas about how things should be in the future. In other words, to be fully in the present moment. The more we can follow this path, the more relaxed we can be in the now. And as a bonus, the psychologist’s and dentist’s bills will be lower.
Location of Large Intestine 7
With the elbow flexed and the radius bone (thumb side) of the arm uppermost, draw a line between LI 5 at the wrist and LI 11 at the elbow. Find the midpoint and move distally by 1 cun. The point lies in a small hollow on the radius bone.