Balance and Harmony are the essentials for feeling well and healthy in Chinese Medicine. Interestingly this is expressed in Chinese symbol language in the symbols “Medicinal” and “Harmony”.
The symbol of “Medicinal” looks like this: 藥. It contains two main parts: The top part 艹 represents “Herb”; the lower part 樂 represents “Harmony”.
This symbol 樂 “Harmony” has two sub-parts: The upper part 幺白 幺 and lower part 木.Those parts can be best understood by looking at the way the ancient Chinese wrote, which in the beginning was more drawing than writing. The upper part 幺白 幺 represents silk chords and wind chimes, which symbolises natural harmonic instruments. The chimes are draped to the branches of a tree; the tree 木 is the lower part of the symbol 樂 “Harmony”.
When wind moves through the tree, it causes the draped chimes to wave, dance and make sounds, thus creating musical harmony, and bringing joy to life as well. Together in one picture, this symbol 樂 is a one word/character that still today represents harmony and happiness in the Chinese language (with two different pronunciations though).
The philosophical idea is that this represents the essence of harmony and health emanating from the sky to the earth. The principle of Chinese Medicine is obviously composed of Herbs, Joy, and Harmony in nature, since ancient times. I love this profound and essential idea for Medicine, and I proudly created a translated form of the original Chinese Medicinal/Medicine characters = Yao= 藥 – it is now part of my logo.