HT-8 Shaofu - Lesser Palace

The Supreme Controller's Palace, which supplies warmth, nourishment, wisdom and guidance. The Chinese saw the Emperor as God, respected, revered and held in awe; if the Emperor was happy or unhappy, so was the nation, and he was loving and compassionate. Imagine him living in a palace: the Emperor's House, where all is good, pure, healthy and plentiful, a place to be safe and without fear. It is where the ordinariness comes into contact with your own Divineness. It offers a holiday from oneself and from the worries one carries everywhere: go into the palace and receive all its joys and pleasures. It clears the dead ash off the Official so its light can shine brightly. An inner chamber where the Heart or spirit can rest, like a private room off the president's oval office. Here the person meets the superior man, the true self within who can look, listen and decide.

• Lesser Palace is the Fire point on a meridian that itself belongs to Fire. Worsley reminds us that a palace is a refuge and a store of riches for whoever reaches it, which is what this point offers the Supreme Controller.

Location: In the palm, between the 4th and 5th metacarpals, where they meet the distal transverse palmar crease (the palm's 'heart line').
Needle depth: 2-3 fen
Moxa: 3-5 cones

• When you're lost about what part of you is in relation to something bigger than you; stimulate it, and the energy is available for the question and the answer
• When someone is less than what they should be; they describe it and you see it. Even if we see the potential, they can't seem to get there, and this helps remove all the masks to get to their potential
• When resignation and despair set in and the heart is in need of joy and encouragement; it brings the spirit great joy, and the sun shines from within
• For Fire fear: shyness, fear of people, anticipatory fear, heartfelt anxiety

• Fire point, Horary point (11 am to 1 pm)
• Revitalizes the energy by poking up the fire; take care not to set off an over-raging fire
• "Lesser" in size only, since the Essence has no need of a big show. It is also taught as not the ultimate palace, but a little less than that
• The Emperor's divine representative of the Heavens, going to meet the divine part of the Supreme Controller of yourself. Here the Official's strength is at its most complete: his essence
• The palace is a revered place where God resides; see the person as God, as the Emperor
• Caution: where there are heat signs, be sure the pulse is low enough before using it
• The name evokes a roadside palace in which the monarch pauses to rest. Shao Fu was also the classical title of the official in charge of storage, comparable to a minister of agriculture, who stored the grain and shared out the produce among the people; it echoes how the Heart gives the Spirit a safe harbor and, through its command of the Blood, sends nourishment all through the body
• A good time to treat this point is between 11 am and 1 pm around the summer solstice