Open up your Qi flow
Qi is flowing through your Microcosmic Orbit even as you read this. Sometimes it moves like a free-flowing river, and sometimes it moves only in a trickle. When we open our Microcosmic Orbit and consciously circulate our Qi, our energy flows through it with more ease, which contributes to our overall health. However, there are “energy centers” along the orbit where the energy gathers and can be multiplied or where energy can slow down or become “stuck,” if that center isn’t open. When you circulate your Qi in the Micro-cosmic Orbit, you refine and distill it, creating a better quality of energy, or Qi, for your body.
The Microcosmic Orbit is made up of two channels, the Back Channel and the Front Channel (traditionally called the Governor Channel and the Conception Channel, respectively, in Qinese medicine). These channels are formed during the earliest development of the fetus in the womb. The fetus, which resembles a flat disk, folds over to create a seam, which becomes the midline along the front of your body, or the Front Channel. The fold opposite the seam forms our spine and spinal cord, or the Back Channel. The front seam is not as noticeable, but when a woman is pregnant a dark line, called the linea nigra, often appears up the center of her belly, which is why the Front Channel is referred to as the Conception Channel.
The Back Channel begins at the perineum and runs from the tip of the tailbone, up along the spine to the crown of the head and then over the forehead, ending between the bottom of the nose and the upper lip where there’s an indentation. The Front Channel runs from the tip of your tongue to your throat and along the midline of your body down to your pubis and perineum. Touching your tongue to the roof of your mouth completes the Microcosmic Orbit. There is an indentation approximately a quarterinch behind the teeth as the roof of the mouth curves upward, and it is through here that the energy descends most easily from your brain and moves through your tongue and down your throat and chest to your abdomen.