Earth Persona

Particularly one of the earliest challenges to an English-speaking student of Oriental Medicine is memorization of many Chinese herbal names. Lectures were given for the most part at my school by instructors coming from China. These instructors came from different regions of China, therefore even their individual pronunciations of Pinyin had a variance that was auditorily confusing in the beginning, especially when spoken rapidly.

To add to the confusion, words comprising these herb names seemed to be repeated many times over and one name could have from two to four words in it and different meanings, depending on how they are intoned. Once I realized that some of the names described the part of the herb being used, as well as the color of the herb, I was relieved. Yet the learning process was further complicated by the fact that the Pinyin Chinese herbal name could also derive from a colloquial description.

One of the obvious ways of coping with so much new information was to be tutored in Pinyin pronunciation to give one a basis for auditorily recognizing the names. Being tutored in this manner helped me to tie the sound and letter forms together.

I found that I needed more. Being a lifelong artist led me to my first herbal study flash card. Ma Huang was the first herb studied. Oriental Medicine primarily has used it to induce sweating. The diaphoresis clears wind pathogens as a sauna brings forth sweating to purify the body of toxins. “Ma” was the key connective word, however, because Huang can mean ‘yellow’, descriptive of the appearance of the dried herb. Yet many dried herbs are yellow, or gold-toned, so ‘Huang’ alone would not be distinctive enough. Ma Barker was female gangster in American history, and I surmised that ‘sweat’ could be a memory connective word because she could “make a person sweat” out of fear. Thus, Ma Hang became the first image as female on a study card. Unfortunately, Ephedra is not included in this book due to misuse of its stimulant qualities having caused legal and safety issues. Others have been eliminated as well.

Over 300 images were subsequently created in a set of personal herbal flash cards using phonetic, homophonic, color and image cues. About a third of these have been revised and re-drawn for use in this book.

I offer this book of images and herbal information simply as an enjoyable companion to the investigation and learning of Chinese herbs, their Pinyin, Latin and /or colloquial names, as well as their properties, channels entered, parts used, actions and indications. Not all information about an herb was able to be depicted on one illustration. Therefore, pertinent information about each illustrated herb and medicinal is given in text at the bottom of each page.

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