by Matthew Wood
It turns out that when it is in contact with a hydrophilic (water-loving) surface, the properties of water change dramatically. The usual molecular structure of water, H2O, is revised to become H3O2. Because of this it has a negative charge, and can hold and discharge energy. It also possesses a liquid-crystalline structure, which has been named the “fourth phase” of water—beyond solid, liquid, and gas. All of this sounds a little technical, so I just call it “super water.”
There are numerous inorganic hydrophilic surfaces, and upon them sunlight creates H3O2. This process resembles photosynthesis in that it begins with the splitting of water molecules. Interestingly, considering the dramatic color (green) associated with the photosynthetic process, color-containing molecules more actively create super water in the presence of sunlight. (Wow—life arises from color!)
The energy emitted by the sun is now stored in the bonds of the H3O2 molecules, and these molecules pile up on the surface, thousands deep, creating a lot of potential energy. When the hydrophilic surface is a tube, the energized water moves. “We found that immersing tubes made of hydrophilic materials into water produces flow through those tubes similar to blood flow through blood vessels,” writes Dr. Gerald H. Pollack. He continues:
Blood eventually encounters high resistance since capillaries are often narrower than the red blood cells that must pass through them. In order to make their way through, those red blood cells need to contort. Resistance is high. You’d anticipate the need for lots of driving pressure, yet the pressure gradient across the capillary bed is negligible. The paradox resolves itself if radiant energy helps propel flow through capillaries in the same way that it propels flow through hydrophilic tubes (Pollack 2015, 19).
Since the blood moves on its own, there would be no need for the heart except the constantly changing energy and temperature demands in local areas of the body, altering literally second by second, require additional mechanisms beyond mere circulation. This is the true work of the heart. With its network of vasculature bound together by neurons (in the arteries and arterioles), the cardiovascular system coordinates and controls the local distribution of the blood, opening the vessels here, closing them there, to meet the needs of every region. The heart is like an all-seeing God to the circulatory system, watching over it from the center of the microcosm of the body.
Pumping is used not to move but to control and direct the blood—a wave going out from the heart through the arteries, to the arterioles, which open and close to shunt the blood in or out of particular areas according to systemic and local controls. The blood continues to move in the capillaries and veins under the propulsive properties of super water and salt. When there is an invasion of toxins or microorganisms, the local area needs more white cells, oxygen, water, waste removal, and a more rapid metabolism, in order to deal with the local invaders. This requires more blood, and to produce this, the circulation needs to move more quickly. The hypothalamus resets the “inner thermometer” to a higher grade, and a mass of physiological changes occurs. The cardiovascular system speeds up to send more blood to the area, causing an increase in temperature, because the heart has to work harder.
Once it begins moving, the blood keeps moving. Herbalist Jim MacDonald, in a conversation with the author, likened the circulation to a merry-go-round: once set moving, it only takes a little tap to keep it going. The heart does not pump the blood; rather, it “keeps pace with the blood.” If the blood goes too fast or too slow, the heart is stressed; it is like pushing the merry-go-round too fast, or forgetting to give it a tap. TCM has a concept applicable here. It places an “organ” called the “heart protector” between the heart and environmental stressors, to keep it from getting banged around too much. Like the royal guard, it stands between the king and the outer world. In modern terms, the heart is largely protected through the regulation of temperature and water by the hypothalamus. However, conditions in the skin and the capillary bed are regulated by the arterioles, which are largely under local regulation. This is why attending to the condition of the surface was and is so important in traditional medicine around the world. Keep the peripheral mechanism flexible and the heart and other internal organs will be less stressed.
Through pulse readings, we can to some extent understand the difference between the circulation and the heart. It is impossible to understand the pulse to its depths without understanding these principles. Sometimes the heart is driven by the blood or circulation—then we find the nonresistant or deficient slippery pulse, which feels as if heat were driving a non-resistant heart. At other times we find the opposite: the oppressed, tense, tight, full, and hard pulses, showing opposition to the cardiovascular wave. Sometimes the circulation is wild and turbulent, with overheated tissues—and the pulse is irregular or tumultuous. The choppy pulse feels like “the heart has been hit by a big stick,” knocking it off balance in regard to speed, timing, and location of pulse beat. The strong pulse shows a heart that has been working too hard to combat fever or stress, and has been ratcheted up to a strong, forceful punch that is most wearing, and can remain after the fever is gone—unless the heart or something else wears out.
Just before the bloodstream enters the heart, it picks up the comprehensive stream of lymphatic waste products and water coming through the thoracic and subclavian ducts into the subclavian veins. A quantity of this blood is taken into the expanding atrium of the right side of the heart during the diastole of the pulse (the relaxation of the heart muscle). As the blood fills the atrium, valves at the bottom (at the entry to the ventricle) are pressed shut by backwards pressure from the blood in the ventricle, which is also relaxing and expanding. Then the systolic impulse from the pacemaker of the heart (located on the right atrium) pumps the right ventricular blood into the pulmonary artery, towards the lungs. The ventricle’s valves open, and the blood from the contracting right atrium moves in. As the systole fades, the right atrium relaxes again, more blood moves in, and the valves are again pressed closed by the blood in the right ventricle.
With each systole, then, the blood moves toward and through the lungs, drops off excess vapor and carbon dioxide, and picks up oxygen. The exit of water through vapor makes the remaining water saltier, which makes it “thirsty” for the capillary bed where the oxygen is headed and helps propel the arterial blood to its “goal.” The systolic impulse from the pacemaker that contracts the left ventricle (forcing the blood outwards through the aorta), continues down the atrium and arteries.
The arteries are bendable, and expand during the systole, when the blood flows into them; the blood flows out during the relaxing, collapsing diastole. The arteries terminate in the arterioles, which expand and contract to shepherd the blood—not through impulses from the heart but by control mechanisms in the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Feedback mechanisms between the capillary bed and the arterioles influence the SNS to tighten or loosen the blood entering the ever-changing micro-regions of the body, filling their capillary beds with greater or lesser amounts of blood.
Finally, the capillaries dump their oxygen in the body tissues and take up CO2 and H2O. These, with other small waste products, are picked up in the venules at the far end of the capillaries, and passed to the veins. The lymphatic capillaries pick up more water and larger waste products.
The vascular system is not stationary and fixed; the capillaries are generated and replaced constantly. When we lose a pound of weight, we lose a million miles of capillaries, and when we gain a pound we gain a million miles. The arteries can also regrow to some extent—hence the success of cardiac-bypass surgery.
Coordination of the circulation and all parts of the cardiovascular system is necessary for the health of the heart. Conditions in the peripheral areas pressing back on the heart cause high blood pressure, resulting in expansion of the heart cavities and enlargement of its muscles, or “cardiac compensation.” Eventually, these compensatory efforts are not enough, and the heart muscles deteriorate into a floppy, ill-conditioned “dec
ompensation.” This pushback is caused by hardening of the arteries (calcification), high osmotic pressure in the kidneys (due to salt imbalance), deposition of cholesterol narrowing the arteries, deposition of fibrin and thrombocytes forming scabs or blood coagulations, bacterial infections in these depositions causing heat and swelling, imbalances in distribution of the blood, ill effects in the coronary artery, etc. The stress of high blood pressure is far worse than the stress of fever (unless the strong pulse is also encountered, which is a sign of high blood pressure as well as cardiac overwork). High blood pressure is the cardiac killer; hence the great concern of modern medicine with this problem.
The hardworking heart gets no rest except in the intervals between systoles. At the end of the diastole, there is a moment of rest when the nerve activity turns completely chaotic (in the healthy heart) and relaxation occurs. Thus, the “rare” pulse (with a long interval between beats) is the pulse of the best cardiac health—it is found in athletes and (guess what?) meditators. So we now know that heart health is improved by meditation.
Circulation
Circulation: • Achillea (capillary engorgement and venous stasis; skin red and blue; nonresistant pulse) • Aesculus hip. (mental tension; high blood pressure; venous relaxation and tension; quick pulse) • Agrimonia (wiry pulse—tension; or balloon pulse—tension and “phlegm”) • Angelica (congested pelvis, abdomen, thorax; thins blood, increases circulation to cold hands and feet) • Baptisia (poor peripheral circulation in septic fever) • CAPSICUM (unequal distribution of blood; deficient and sluggish capillary circulation; flabby, middle-aged persons, senescence) • Cinnamomum spp. (poor peripheral circulation) • Crataegus (red, meaty parts of the palms, due to red blood cell stasis in the capillary bed) • Eupatorium purpureum (increases profusion from capillaries) • Gentiana (circulation to abdominal region) • Hydrastis (autonomic nerve weakness and poor circulation) • Lavandula (capillary congestion; heat; expands capillary bed) • Liatris (“by diffusion to the surface they maintain good capillary action”—Cook) • Lycopus (rapid and tumultuous pulse during or after fever) • Melilotus (blood congestion; full head; cold hands and feet) • Myrica (poor peripheral circulation, low and weak pulse) • Prunus serotina (rapid and irregular pulse, oppressed pulse; palms red and yellow) • Quercus (venous atony; capillary fragility) • Rheum (stagnation in colon; large and tense pulse—Huang) • Rhodiola (“balances circulation”) • ROSMARINUS (poor peripheral circulation; poor return circulation; “low blood”) • Ruta (venous tension and blockage) • Trillium (excited, hemorrhagic) • Vaccinium myrtillus (strengthens arteries, veins, capillaries) • VERATRUM VIRIDE (strong pulse; heart driven by fever beyond its innate strength) • VERBENA HASTATA (flooding pulse; blood driven into capillary bed without resistance; approaching disease crisis) • Zanthoxylum (poor capillary circulation).
Heart
Heart: • Alchemilla (weak atrial muscles) • Apocynum cannabinum (mitral and tricuspid regurgitation with low arterial tension; capillary effusion; debility, edema, cyanosis) • Asclepias tuberosa (congestive heart failure; water in lungs) • Avena (nervous weakness) • CAPSICUM (unequal circulation; floppy valves, weak muscles; heart attack; opens the peripheral circulation—Christopher) • Caulophyllum (heart pain) • Cimicifuga (heart pain) • COLLINSONIA (valvular insufficiency) • CONVALLARIA (rapid, feeble, irregular pulse; left ventricle failure, valvular disease, edema) • CRATAEGUS (weak and poorly nourished heart muscle; irritability and palpitations; clogged coronary circulation; high blood pressure, cholesterol; decomposition; valvular murmurs; sighing) • GANODERMA LUCIDUM (hypertension, high cholesterol) • HYDRASTIS (general weakness of nerves and muscles affecting the heart; congenital hole in heart—one case cured, Crow; external or internal) • Juniperus (chronic structural change) • LIRIODENDRON (muscular weakness and tension; thins the blood; after a heart attack, as an ongoing tonic for the damaged heart—Crow) • LYCOPUS (rapid pulse; palpitation; fever affecting the heart) • Panax quinquefolius (root in whiskey is a widespread tonic still used in the South as a tonic after a heart attack) • Phytolacca (fatty heart) • PRUNUS SEROTINA (rapid and weak pulse and heart action) • Pulsatilla (hypertrophy and dilatation of venous heart) • Quercus (lack of tone in venous circulation and heart) • Rosmarinus (cardiopulmonary edema in old people) • Sambucus (congestive heart failure; blue, swollen complexion and tissues) • Scoparium (cardiac dropsy, myocardial weakness) • Scutellaria (nervous, intermittent pulse) • Taraxacum (cardiopulmonary edema) • Tilia (high blood pressure; red, elongated tongue) • Trigonella (high cholesterol; postmenopausal tonic) • SELENICEREUS (pulse irregular; weakness; mitral and aortic regurgitation; “broken heart”)
Heart Tonic: • Avena • CAPSICUM • CRATAEGUS (increases coronary circulation, lessens irritation and cholesterol deposition) • Eleutherococcus • Hydrastis (muscle tonic, directed to the heart by Capsicum) • Liriodendron (Native American tonic for lifelong use after heart attack; relaxes sympathetic nervous system, strengthens heartbeat—Crow, Boyd) • Olea (leaf) • Panax quinquefolius (tincture; Southern U.S. tonic for lifelong use after heart attack) • Prunus serotina (irregular pulse) • Quercus • Rosmarinus (collapsed circulation—Weiss) • Selenicereus • Trigonella • Trillium (lessens cardiac irritability).
Heart Palpitations (often due to hyperthyroidism): • Crataegus (weakness and irritability of cardiac muscles) • Filipendula (nervousness, restlessness, palpitations, hyperthyroidism) • Ganoderma (neurasthenia, insomnia) • Leonurus (nervous palpitations) • Lycopus (fever with wild and rapid pulse; “anxiety, heart palpitations, irregular pulse, purple heart”—Schnell) • Melissa • Passiflora • Prunus serotina (pulse rapid, irregular) • Selenicereus • Tilia (nervous palpitations) • Viscum.
High Blood Pressure: • ACHILLEA (capillary and venous fullness; essential hypertension; red face) • Agrimonia (peripheral tension) • Agropyron • ALLIUM SATIVA (very reliable palliative, but effect stops when administration of remedy stops) • Althaea (salt imbalance) • Asclepias tuberosa (oppressed feeling in chest; strong, oppressed pulse) • Betonica • Capsella (normalizes high and low) • Centaurium • Centella (high cholesterol) • Chamomilla • Chionanthus (portal hypertension) • Chrysanthemum (flower) • Cnicus • Coleus (thins blood, relaxes arteries, improves cardiac action, lowers blood pressure) • Collinsonia (portal hypertension) • Convallaria • CRATAEGUS (increases coronary circulation, reduces arterial irritation and cholesterol; normalizes high or low; for arterial hypertonicity, elevated diastole, essential hypertension) • ELEUTHEROCOCCUS (modulates high and low) • Fagopyrum (with capillary bleeding) • Filipendula (nervousness, irritability) • Galium (with edema) • Ganoderma (hypertension, high cholesterol) • Gentiana (dizzy, exhausted, discouraged, swollen, damp, and inflamed) • Hamamelis (mild) • LAVANDULA • LEONURUS (stress-induced) • Lentinula • Lycopodium (externally, on kidneys) • Melilotus (blood rushes to the head, causes fullness, headache, HBP; heart racing, sleepless—Piorier) • Melissa • Menyanthes • Olea (oil) • Polygonatum • Primula • Prunella (blood rushes to the head) • Rumex crispus • Ruta (tension) • Salvia (Chinese or Western; thins the blood safely) • Scolopendrium • Scutellaria • Stellaria • TILIA (autoimmune irritation of arterial system causing high blood pressure) • Tribulus • Valeriana • Veratrum viride (strong, driven pulse; red streak down center of tongue; homeopathic) • VERBENA (pulmonary hypertension; “set in their ways”; diabetes; reddish checks, swelling under eyes, hands swollen and tight; increases depth of respiration) • Viburnum opulus • VIBURNUM PRUNIFOLIUM (high blood pressure during pregnancy—other times too?) • Vinca minor (episodic, mild) • Viola (flower) • VISCUM (episodic, with headache, dizziness, tachycardia; normalizes high and low) • Zingiberis (footbath, to draw the blood down from the head—Sedlacek).
Low Blood Pressure: • Allium sativa (high or low) • Angelica (asthenia, dry skin) • Apocynum cannabinum (cold, weak, edemic; skin tight, puffy, blanched) • Ari
stolochia (cold, weakness, sepsis; minute or homeopathic dosages) • Betonica • Capsella bursa-pastoris (normalizes high and low) • CRATAEGUS (normalizes high and low) • Eleutherococcus • Glycyrrhiza (asthenia; with frequent urination) • Leonurus (Weiss) • Panax ginseng (arterial hypotension) • Panax quinquefolius (Weiss) • Rosmarinus (Weiss) • URTICA • Viscum (normalizes high and low).
Cardiac Edema, Congestive Heart Failure: • Asclepias incarnata (with functional cardiac insufficiency) • Apium • APOCYNUM CANNABINUM (cold extremities, pale, puffy skin; weak circulation, debility; minute or homeopathic dose) • Aralia hispida (with constipation) • Aristolochia (cold, weak, debilitated; homeopathic or minute dose) • Astragalus • Baptisia (with vascular stasis and septis) • Ceanothus (lung congestion) • Collinsonia (venous stasis in legs and pelvis) • CONVALLARIA (with swollen ankles) • Crataegus • Fouquieria • Lycopus (to increase cardiac force, decrease heart rate) • Myrica (elevates peripheral circulation) • ROSMARINUS (Kneipp; confirmed—Wood) • SAMBUCUS (lung congestion) • SCOPARIUM (cardiac dropsy, myocardial weakness) • Squilla • TARAXACUM (leaf, often confirmed) • Zanthoxylum (debility; to strengthen peripheral circulation; small doses).
Heart Failure, Noncongestive: • CONVALLARIA • CRATEAGUS • LEONURUS • SCOPARIUM.
Hypertrophy: • Asclepias asperula (M. Moore) • Crataegus • Lycopus.
Angina pectoris (pains in chest around heart): • Ammi • Angelica • Astragalus • Avena • Cimicifuga • Convallaria (Weiss) • CRATAEGUS • Leonurus • Lobelia • NOTOGINSENG • Selenicereus (irregular pulse).