This month's conversation is inspired by Sabine' experience of managing a heat wave in Vietnam with more or less successful adaptive skills, to put it diplomatically. In order to prevent overheating, or overcooling for that matter, and to benefit from adaptations like air conditioning, protective clothing, iced fruit juices, or hot soups, the key is, as always, calibration on the basis of discernment. But what does that look like in the context of running errands in a heat wave in June in Hoi An, Vietnam? What is the pivoting point between healthy, normal sweating and uncontrolled outpouring of precious jin fluids that rob the body of a necessary resource? How do we know whether, when, and how external heat or cold are beneficial or damaging to a specific body at a specific time and place? When and how can we harness the healing power of the sun's Yang Qi, yet avoid its life-threatening intense heat and radiation? When we are exposed to excessive external heat, do we consume hot or cold drinks to restore the body's equilibrium? How can we gently support an older and somewhat depleted European body used to the cold climate of the Pacific Northwest as it struggles to adapt to the high heat and humidity of a Vietnamese summer? How does the individual human body's microcosm interact with the macrocosm of both Heaven (the sun in particular this month) and Earth (the geography and climate in our immediate external environment)? Always my favorite question, what can we learn from the locals? And my least favorite but essential inquiry, where do we just have to realistically accept the limits of adaptation and hide in an air conditioned room? Last but not least, one question that we actually do answer in this podcast: What's Leo's single most effective trick to quickly yet gently replenish fluids depleted by excessive sweating?
As our listeners will be able to tell, we definitely have more questions than answers this month. If you are intrigued by this conversation and want to help us try and disentangle some of the many loose ends, we would love to have you join our "Golden Koi School." There we offer a historical case of heat damage treated with ice cream, watermelon, and shigao (gypsum),;discuss replenishing soups in more detail; dive deeply into fluid physiology by differentiating between jīn 津 (thin, superficial, quick-moving Yin fluids) and yè 液 (thick, deeper, slow-moving Yang fluids); translate the original source for Ding Zhi Wan (Will-Settling Pill), and so much more.
Three Friends Springrolls: Sustainable Agriculture that Harmonizes Heaven and Earth
17.05.2026 | 49 min.
In today's episode, which actually was recorded with both of us on the same continent, and even in the same area, near Danang, Vietnam, we consider ancient agricultural traditions. In the spirit of our new season, this is again more of a travelogue than a nerdy Chinese medicine podcast. Let us know how you like this direction for our podcast. After a quick stop in the Swiss Alps, we explore specifically the sustainable organic farming practices that have been celebrated for centuries in the vegetable island of Tra Que near the ancient Vietnamese port city of Hoi An. From crop rotation to fertilizing with seaweed and buffalo "poo" (as my local guide called it), raising fish in the watering ponds, and extensive shading with palm fronds or loofah trellises, the fecundity of the place really impressed us. For Sabine in particular, the skill and expertise in tending the ubiquitous flower and vegetable gardens just made me so happy and truly showed the value of an unbroken farming tradition. It also gives us hope for the future of humanity that there are places all over the world where humans have lived and, more importantly, CONTINUE to live in a way that does not destroy our natural environment but treasures and shapes it sustainably. We have so much to learn from such places and cultures! So what's the story of the Three Friends Springroll that Sabine learned to make in her cooking class? Well, you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out (: And if you want to learn how to make rice pancakes and hear more about our travel adventures, Vietnamese cinnamon, and the benefits, dangers, and treatments for overconsumption of raw fruits, why don't you check out our new Frolicking Fish Community? There we offer a monthly selection of educational, inspiring, and joyful videos, translations, and discussions for the Chinese medicine community and beyond...
Expressing the Spirit of Springing and Sprouting
17.04.2026 | 1 godz. 6 min.
Welcome to this first episode of our new Season Five on “Expressing the Spirit of Springing and Sprouting”! While we haven’t settled on a formal name for this season yet, we want to focus on renewal, play, joy, and paying attention, as a counterweight to the heaviness, suffering, and fiery chaos that is affecting so many of us these days, directly or indirectly! How can we uplift our spirits while also showing up to the best of our ability in these dark times? What is the appropriate place for joy in the midst of suffering, and how and where can we find it? What’s your own source of joy and wonder and magic? Where do you find pleasure, share love, provide comfort, create beauty, and elicit smiles in your circles of family and friends? For Leo and myself, food and connecting to nature are two easy places to start, so that is what we are focusing on in today’s conversation. In particular, we are playing with the Chinese theme for the spring season, namely “sprouting.” Leo shares some deeeelicious suggestions for northern and southern East Asian bean sprout dishes, while I am busy picking and chopping and processing my beloved nettles, to go into noodles, soups, pickles, and my daily evening tea. Beyond that, our conversation meanders casually to explore the need for personal calibration as each of us adapt the standard written advice in Chinese medicine and calendrical arts to our local environment and lifestyle. We compare notes on what spring rejuvenation looks like in different parts of the world, from east to west, north to south, and even high mountains to the sea. Ultimately, we want this conversation to inspire you to pay attention to the small sources of joy in your corner of the universe, whether it is the first wiggly earthworm of the season, delicious local sprout dishes, ecstatic dancing, or a goose sitting on eggs. Basically, we want to lift your spirit a bit, share a couple of stories, and remind you of the need to smile and love and eat and breathe, no matter what you are confronting in your daily life. Hopefully we succeed in sending out some healing vibrations, which you can in turn pass on to your local folks, like the pebbles in the cosmic pond that we all are. If you want to dive deeper into some of these topics and explore the traditional Chinese cultural background, foods, clinical gems, medical Chinese language and literature, and more springtime musings, we invite you to join our brand-new Frolicking Fish Community. Here we offer you the opportunity for a deep, sustained engagement with our work and play in a lovingly curated themed monthly collection with the introductory "moongate," original translations, creative expressions, and audio and video recordings, plus a community discussion forum as a space for connection, education, follow-up, and inspiration. Please check it out at happygoatproductions.com and, while you are there, sign up for our newsletter to get notified of new episodes and other offerings. And, as always, please rate, review, and share this podcast wherever you can, and check out the show notes if you want to learn more. Thank you for listening! Additional Information Subscribe to our newsletter! Frolicking Fish Community — Happy Goat Productions
Frolicking Fish: Our Vision for Adding Joy, Love, and Curiosity to Chinese Medicine Education
19.03.2026 | 48 min.
What do you see missing in Chinese medicine education? How can we, Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms, with our unique combination of skills and resources, best support you as part of our beloved Chinese medicine community? What is the right and ethical balance between academic education, joyful entertainment, curious exploration, and creative play? And last, but not least, how can we harness the wonders of technology to create a community that spans continents, languages and cultures, medical and religious paradigms, and millennia of textual resources? A tall order this is, indeed, but we had fun tossing these questions around while we are in the final stages of building our new project, the "Frolicking Fish Community." In this podcast, we are inviting you to join us for a brainstorming session, in the spirit of integrity, connection, curiosity, and play. Of course we hope to entice you to join our community and give us constructive feedback on the answers we are looking for. Additional Information Frolicking Fish Community
New Year's Joy: Whales, Spring, and East-West Transmission in Pregnancy Care
17.02.2026 | 45 min.
Happy new year of the Yang Fire horse to everybody! In this conversation, recorded on the eve of the Chinese New Year, Leo had set out to share his excitement about the work that we have been doing on our upcoming course on "Nurturing Pregnancy." Sabine got distracted right at the beginning of our recording session by two grey whales passing by and then returning to feed outside her window, as the biggest (literally!) and most amazing sign that spring is truly arriving here on Whidbey Island. So this podcast meanders a bit, between Sabine's attempt to share the joy and love of a spring day, Leo's desire to share some insights on pregnancy care with Chinese medicine, and our serious contemplation of the challenges in this specialized field that Western practitioners of Chinese medicine encounter: We discuss the very unfortunate lack of access to the precious primary sources, historical and contemporary, that reflect the top quality of care that is common in East Asia. Then we explore the difficult clinical reality for practitioners in the West, surrounded as they are by a culture that considers both traditional Chinese medicinal treatments and acupuncture either as dangerous or as ineffective. We lament the unnecessary suffering resulting from the fact that patients in the West are reluctant to lean on their Chinese medicine providers during this tender period, when there is so much Chinese medicine can do! This stands in sharp contrast to China, where pregnant patients often turn to traditional Chinese medicine for addressing common pregnancy symptoms as a safer and more effective alternative to biomedical treatments. Inspired by our close collaboration these past few months in building our upcoming course on "Nurturing Pregnancy," we truly want to help our listeners see the clinical potential in this area as a very potent path for alleviating suffering and sharing "tender loving care," which is ultimately what all of our work is about. May we all spread the love!
Tune in every New Moon for inspiring, joyful, and informative conversations with Sabine Wilms and Leo Lok on transforming ourselves, our communities, and the world, in the spirit of traditional Chinese medicine, spirituality, and philosophy. Separating fact from fiction, we aim to bring you medicine from China's distant past, translated here to meet YOUR needs today, in your personal practice, in your community, and in the clinic.
Sabine Wilms, PhD, is a medical historian, recovering university professor, and author and translator of more than a dozen books on the Chinese healing arts, from gynecology and pediatrics to medical ethics and materia medica, published by Happy Goat Productions. In addition to writing, she runs the only advanced 2-year classical Chinese training program for practitioners of Chinese medicine and contributes insights from her checkered past as a biodynamic goat farmer and musician, all under the banner of her favorite phrase, “cosmic resonance,” a.k.a. the Chinese ideal of harmony between the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. Leo Lok, our "purveyor of multiple perspectives," is a practitioner and independent scholar of Chinese Medicine. A native speaker/reader of Chinese languages, Leo is one of the rare clinician-scholars in the world who excels in researching and translating ancient Chinese medical literature into the English language.
Together, we offer courses on the Chinese healing arts and run the "Frolicking Fish Community" to provide deep, sustained engagement with our work and play. In a lovingly curated themed collection, we present you each month with the introductory "moongate," original translations, creative expressions, and audio and video recordings on the Chinese healing arts, culture and history, food and art, philosophy and religion, Qi cultivation, and more. In addition, the community forum offers connection, education, and inspiration.
We both love to inspire people and spread around some healing and loving vibrations. Here are our three main goals:
1. Bridge-building: We gather to explore the liminal sweet spot, in between Heaven and Earth, the distant past and the present moment, East and West, the clinic and the academy, the healer and the scholar, the discernible and the unfathomable, oral lineage and written text, and, ultimately, Yin and Yang.
2. Collaboration: The treasure house of traditional Chinese medicine is bigger than any single person's expertise, no matter how vast. We actively pursue and embrace a diversity of opinions so that we can collectively deepen our understanding. We always aim to approach our disagreements with curiosity and mutual respect, instead of defensiveness.
3. Authentic Transmission: Translation, from the past to the present, from Chinese to English, from texts to clinical application, etc., invariably involves an alteration and adaptation of the original message. How do we stay true to the wisdom and spirit of the ancient Chinese texts while still making sense to our modern English-speaking listeners? We invite you to consider the creative challenges of this task with us.
In addition to subscribing to this podcast, we invite you to sign up for our newsletter (at Happygoatproductions.com/connect), where we share resources like free articles, announcements of new courses or publications, updates on our work and life, little glimpses of love and joy and beauty, and occasionally Sabine's poetry and farm pictures.
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