GB-24 Riyue - Sun and Moon

Not a point for very early in treatment, but one of great value further along, because of what its name implies: Yin and Yang, day and night, moon and sun, female and male, dark and light. It is the balance. Whoever makes decisions and judgments has to do so with balance, and this point is excellent for bringing balance of mind. It speaks to the Gallbladder Official's whole nature, which is decision making; it brings opposites into harmony, brings clarity and makes the person more stable. It gives the capacity to hold contradictions, seeing that nothing is truly good or bad, right or wrong, only many possibilities and perspectives from which to choose an effective action and go forward. No judge can be wise without the whole picture and listening long enough to reach the heart of the matter. It coordinates every part of body, mind and spirit evenly, as the sun and moon gracefully give way to each other, and allows for sound, wise, clear, measured decisions. Together the two characters can mean illumination. Two eyes stand for the fall from the unity in which everything interpenetrates into a world of two, where we separate good from bad and finally the self from the Dao. The sun half of the character for brightness is outer illumination, the vision of the open senses that brings things into the world; the moon half is the light of night that blends everything into one, the inner vision that comes from closing the senses and lets us see the depth of things. Whoever turns their gaze only outward loses the vision of unity in their depths, and this point can help return the sage's vision that brings the ten thousand things back into one.

• Worsley pictures the sun and the moon dividing the day between them, each taking a bigger or smaller portion as the days and the year turn, and each yielding gracefully to the other. When a Gall Bladder imbalance leaves a person unevenly divided, right against left, upper against lower, body against mind or mind against spirit, Sun and Moon can call on the Official's essence at its best and restore that fair sharing.

Location: In the 7th intercostal space, roughly level with REN-13, on the paramedian nipple line.
Needle depth: 5 fen
Moxa: 5-7 cones

• When a person seems really extreme and needs balance, harmony and peace of mind
• With dogmatic people who see only black and white, never gray: 'That's how it is, and that's that'
• When Wood has become hardened or rigid and needs softening
• When there is sadness with moods that swing wildly
• When a person is indecisive or timid and needs decisiveness
• When a person lurches from one side to the other or is emotionally up and down, and needs to see both, or many, sides and a broader range of perspective
• For sleep problems, the transition between night and day
• When the person is fixed in a single position, caught up in one viewpoint, and needs to see both the light and dark sides of an issue, its strengths and drawbacks, so decisions are appropriate

• Front Mu (Alarm) point of the Gallbladder
• A Gallbladder spirit point
• Not for early in treatment
• Yintang, the third eye, is another point that speaks to the vision of unity
• Classical texts call the left eye the sun and the right eye the moon; the eyes belong to the Liver and, through it, to the Gallbladder. Ming, the character for clear, is made of sun and moon together, so just as they light up the earth, this point can bring clarity to the psyche
• It joins Yin and Yang in two ways: it is a meeting point of the Gallbladder and Spleen channels, and it is an Alarm point, Yin by nature, sitting on a Yang meridian