The matrix is both complex and deceptively simple. It is used in working with clients and brings together TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), Ayruvedic medicine, and the four-element theory and balances these old traditions with modern allopathic medicine.
TCM involves using yin and yang deficiencies (or excesses) and the assessment of dampness, dryness, heat, or coldness in the body. It's been practiced in China for thousands of years.
Ayruvedic medicine is very similar to TCM and it is practiced in India. People are assessed by their constitution: Vata (air), Pitta (fire) and Kapha (water). Treatment plans are designed according to one's constitution and also if the symptoms are hot, cold, wet or dry.
The Four Element Theory, which was Greek in origin, looked are Earth, Air, Fire and Water in the body and was the West's version of TCM. The theory became the Four Humors Theory in Europe, but was lost from common knowledge when the age of reason and science took over medicine. This theory measured levels of the four humors in the body: Sanguine (blood), cholertic (bile), phlegmatic (phlegm or mucous) and Melancholic (black mucous). It was from this theory of medicine that the ideas of bloodletting and leeches came about. It has a bad name now, but the ideas make sense when looked at it from the point of view of the matrix.
So what is the Matrix?
The easiest way to explain what the matrix is is to use the analogy of a sponge. Imagine a sponge, just your common everyday sponge with spaces and holes and the ability to soak up water. Now imagine this sponge immersed in water soaked and dripping. Now, imagine that water is seawater with salts and minerals in suspension and dilution.
The sponge is your cells. The Matrix is the fluid surrounding, permeating and flowing through your cells, the seawater, or plasma that keeps our bodies functioning.
When the Matrix functions properly we are healthy. Nutrients flow into our cells and wastes flow out. When we eat food our stomachs break it down into minerals, vitamins and other essential nutrients. Our small intestines then absorb these nutrients and they enter our blood stream. Our blood carries these nutrients to the individual cells. Blood itself does not enter our cells; rather the nutrients pass out of the blood through the membrane of the capillaries and then through the membrane of the receiving cell. In that tiny space where the two membranes meet is the Matrix fluid. This fluid makes the exchange possible because it acts as a carrier in a space where blood cannot go.
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