by Marisa Incelli

 From the time we wake in the morning, we begin to take in life. How we digest, process, assimilate and let go of life is what we look at to understand what healing modality we need.  

Thai medicine is not as widely known and spoken about as other more common healing modalities in the West, but its use is growing here.  

Thai medicine is Buddhist medicine, and while one need not be Buddhist, understanding simply that at a fundamental level this medicine practice holds at its core: compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity. These “four limitless qualities” or Brahmaviharas are held sacred to anyone practicing Thai medicine. Those that have seen such a practitioner would have noticed a soft and loving presence, a feeling of being seen, heard and felt at our very heart. 

TRADITIONAL THAI MEDICINE HAS FOUR LIMBS: 

• INTERNAL MEDICINE - herbs, concoctions and foods that are taken internally for healing.
• EXTERNAL MEDICINE - the orthopedic sciences (massage), utilizing medicated oils, liniments, herbal compresses, scraping (gua sha) and tok sen.  
• DIVINATORY SCIENCES - astrology, numerology, palmistry, understanding tendencies towards imbalances. 
• SPIRIT MEDICINE OR MAGIC MEDICINE - the use of mantra, yantra, sak yant, the magical tattooing, incantations and protection. 

What links these limbs together is the use of element theory and the experience of these elements within us. We are each uniquely composed of earth, fire, water, wind and space. 

The element of earth is our experience of solidity, water our experience of fluidity, fire our experience of transformation, and heat and wind, our experience of movement, such as our busy thoughts and space our experience of non-resistance or spaciousness, consciousness.  

These elements looked at through the lens of their individual qualities and at our fingertips are the many limbs of Thai medicine; we use that which is most uniquely appropriate for healing the imbalance in those elements. Thai medicine is both simple and complex. Simply put, it is creating balance and harmony within the elements that exist within us through the expression of holding space for healing through massage, breath, connection and nourishment. 

In its exquisite complexities, it is the individuation of the elemental disturbances in the body and mind and their qualities addressed through both gross and subtle applications of touch, rocking, undulating, stretching, compression, percussion and deep pressure at specific points. Each of these applications differ for each person depending on their current elemental imbalances.   

It’s said that there are more than 1,000 ways to approach an imbalance and this beautiful individuality is part of the art of Thai medicine practices. It’s is also why you may never receive the same treatment twice as the individual feels differently on different days and at different times of each day. It’s poetry in motion—the poetry of healing, the beauty of nurturing loving kindness.  

Marisa Incelli of the Artemis Table, is located at 30 Jackson Rd., Ste. D210, Medford, NJ. For more information, call 856-905-3204 or visit www.TheArtemisTable.com.