Day 54: Tongue
This tongue will tell you about nothing, behind the Looking Glass.
But, your tongue is another story. This can be as simple or as complicated as you like. Our body has EVERYTHING written inside of it, ancestral through descendants and everything in between. What shows on your tongue today, plus an intake with words, can probably tell us a lot. Taken from one of my CAM textbooks, it states precautions in tongue diagnosis. It states:
“As each disease undergoes a complicated process, the conditions of the tongue proper and its coating are the manifestations of interior complicated pathological changes.” Tongue proper means the tongue as a whole. It will reflect deficiency or excess and the relative strength of your Qi. Coatings, textures, and colors all have a message for you. Coating reflects the depth and nature of a pathological factors. Heat retention will show as red, yellow coat, and dry, and a cold syndrome will show pale, thin coat, and moist. There is always the possibility that your patient, brushed, scraped, ate red foods, drank coffee, or is dehydrated before they come and see you. This can distort an image and diagnosis. The intake is very important and that is where you will find the nuggets you are looking for. This sets you off as a Practitioner. Take the time to talk.
Every part of you is a microcosm to the whole macrocosm. Your tongue is one area where you can see the whole system. It has connections to every organ and meridian. So, essentially the Qi of the Zang-Fu Organs goes upward to nourish the tongue. The state of the tongue; therefore, can determine the pathological condition of the organs.
The tongue is most closely related to the Stomach, and the Heart goes to the root. They say the way to a man’s Heart is through his stomach…. but because it is a relationship between Spleen and Heart, it is also a Blood issue.
When you are doing a tongue diagnosis, these are the things you want to be watchful for. Some of it can be observed in talking and watching. Then follow with the patient sticking their tongue out for you to see.
Vitality/Spirit, the color and shape of the body (tongue proper), movements, the color, thickness, and moisture of the coat, Geographical — meaning the coating is peeled, usually in the front.
This might not seem a difficult task to diagnosis the tongue, properly, but it does take a keen eye to pick up on things. It all comes with years of experience, and the experience must be there to witness many tongues.
