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.

Natural medicine in ancient times was not only practiced in the East, but also in the West. A good example is ancient Greek Medicine, represented by the Hygeian School, namely by Hippocrates: Hygeia was seen as a goddess and stood for natural ways of preserving health through a decent lifestyle and a preventative medicinal approach, which has similarities in many aspects to TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Hippocrates lived from 468-377 BC and has been enshrined as ‘the Father of Medicine’. He was of the Hygeian school and believed that health and disease were under the influence of natural laws and that a harmonic environment is important for any cure – that’s why the ancient Greece used not only herbs and tinctures to cure illnesses, but also music, poetry, and a harmonic environment, similar to Feng Shui in Chinese Culture.