Practitioners of Shiatsu tend to be hands-on people in their way of life.

When I was out to buy fruit and vegies recently my attention was drawn to the hand movements and mental concentration of the Italian man who was unpacking peaches and setting them out on the display shelf. I thought about the care he took to move the fruit without bruising it and display it to look its best.

I have been Shiatsu practitioner for twenty years, so hands, bodies, health and quality of life have a prominent place in my perceptions of people and the world.

The movements of the vegetable man connected my thoughts to where food comes from, how it gets moved around, the kitchens and tables it can end up on and the spirit in which it can be eaten. It was a reminder to me of the wisdom of choosing food with discrimination, preparing it with care and eating with enjoyment. These qualities are the essence of specific dietary practices, even those based on different perceptions of the human body and values about healthful eating.

The dietary principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine are a self-contained component of an entire system which also includes herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage, chi gung, tai chi and meditation. Food is treated as both nourishment and medicine with specific recipes that can be used ordinarily to strenghthen various body functions, or therapeutically to correct imbalances and cure illness. Foods and recipes artfully combine the "Five Flavours", grouped according to the requirements of the Preventive or Remedial diet of an individual. Food is treated in this way because it is understood energetically. All food has its own quality and directional flow, so by combining these with care a person can eat in ways that support organ functions and particular energy requirements, repair imbalances and clear toxins and accumulations.

"Food as energy" is fundamental to our personal sense of vitality and it connects humans to each other socially and universally. It is the warming and nourishing focus of many social gatherings and daily contact between members of a household, as well as being the thing that people the world over need in order to survive. As a race we are united by our common need for food and divided by our access to it.

"Food as energy" is also demonstrated in how we choose and prepare it. The process, from planning a menu or wandering around looking for inspiration, to selecting the exact piece; cutting, dicing, shredding; baking, boiling, frying, presenting; combining, mixing; and serving, is a transformational alchemy involving hands, mind and heart. It is as though in handling the food and bringing it into a form that we can take pleasure from ingesting, we have pre-digested it out of its rawness into something that expresses how we are with food.

A meal is the result of a complex process and an expression of our individuality. This is why the same meal created by two different people can taste so different, according to the quality and proportions of ingredients used, combinations that are created, length and intensity of cooking time and a general orderliness in the whole process.
What we get out of a meal is the result of what we put into it and how we do it.

In a meal we are able to see a representation of the complex and varied ways in which we are linked with human culture and the natural world. It is a cyclic process of energies combining and transforming from thought into substance and back into thought in reciprocal exchange.

Food growers think crops, then grow them; food preparers think the meal then prepare it, and in between there is harvesting, transportation and distribution thought about, then done. The co-operation and combined effort from many people working together, and the generative proceses of nature result in the food on our tables.

Food is an intensely hands-on experience,even including automation for harvesting and processing. It is through hands that food is served, and hands as an extension of the heart are extending our hearts to each other through the sharing of food.
"Food as energy" is as much nourishment for the heart and soul as for the physical body.

Social occasions are enhanced by food and through it we are identified both as groups, in the sharing of a meal, and as individuals in our choice of foods for personal requirements. Food is a potent reminder that we are not isolated units but truly are "All One" and it is this principle of connectedness that Shiatsu practitioners are constantly working with in the harmonising and balancing of their clients' energies.

Dorothy has her clinic, Wellbeing Shiatsu; Ph: 97233933