An Introduction to the 8 Extraordinary Meridians by Melissa Anderson

Part of what made my training at Daoist Traditions College of Chinese Medical Arts so special was the privilege of learning from the 88th generation Daoist Priest, Jeffrey Yuen.  His presence alone was a valued experience. His teachings are passed down only through words. Much of the written information that was lost over the years has been preserved through his lineage.  Written information can become rigid, locked in time, and not contextually relevant. His teachings are meant to shed light on historical context, and yet be fluid enough to bring the magic of the past into the present.  
Traditional acupuncture theory is based on twelve primary meridians and eight extraordinary meridians.  There is not much information about the eight extraordinary meridians in textbooks, and this is the subject of many of Jeffrey Yuen’s lectures.  They are deep and powerful meridians;they are able to make shifts at the genetic level of our being.
The human body can be seen at as a microcosm of the Earth.  When we work with the primary meridians, it is like we are working with the waterways.  If you break open a water dam, fill up a lake, or reroute a stream, this can have a profound impact on the ecosystem.  When we work with the 8 extraordinary vessels, this can be likened to shifting tectonic plates. These channels are deep, dense, evolutionary and slow to change.  Their movement can feel out of your control; a tiny shift at a critical moment can create a very large chain reaction. I was trained to look at the human body as sacred, and take care not to go to these deep places until the patient is ready.  I can feel this readiness in the pulses, and I take care to inform the patient of the depths we are working on together.
Working with these channels reconnects you with the deepest, most ancient parts of your evolutionary self.  These are the parts of you that are beyond your stories, your conditioning, your gender, or any other thought or image of who you are.  The impact is often subtle but profound, and the effects of just one treatment vibrate through time.
In the next 8 blogs, I will be delving into each of these 8 extraordinary meridians individually to give you a better sense of how they may be playing an unconscious role in your life.