LU-2 Yunmen - Cloud Gate

Useful when someone lives beneath a dark cloud. Their world has turned very gray and lost its color, and there is a cloud in their world obscuring the way. The gate can be stuck closed, so we oil it and open the gate, clearing the way. It helps the person make a connection with something higher than themselves. Clouds come between the person and the heavens; this point is the gate through them, renewing contact with Heaven's spiritual light within so the person can see through the cloud of depression and take in the richness of life again. Grief in the Lungs can hide the Heart's fire the way clouds hide the sun; this point resolves the grief so the Heart's intention can shine through.

Location: On the chest, in the hollow below the clavicle, medial to the tip of the coracoid process.
Needle depth: 3-5 fen
Moxa: 5-10 cones

• When the person looks up to Heaven yet cannot see the sunlight or the blue sky
• When being in the world feels hard for the person
• When the person is stuck and unable to connect with their higher self
• When contact with their spiritual essence has been lost and, with it, their mental clarity
• When the mental outlook is blurred, the cloud is in the way, they can't get a grip on anything, and they may feel nobody cares about them
• When the person feels resigned, as if everything around them is awful, or feels quite unclear, mentally, spiritually or physically, about what they are doing
• When the person is very ethereal, flighty and floaty, never really looking at the fact that there are some problems here
• When there is oppression, or the person feels lost or dissatisfied
• For depression and heavy grief when a person is closed off; very powerful here
• When a person is almost well but still fuzzy and unclear, because a cloud hangs over them and they have drifted from the Middle Palace's quality; let the sun in with this point
• When the cloud hangs so low that the person cannot even see the tops of the trees or the birds overhead
• For people who always begin with 'I can't': it lifts the murk, confusion and darkness and lets them discover that they are able
• For someone chronically negative and preoccupied with what is going wrong, as though a cloud follows them about; it can bring joy, brightness and inspiration through a glimpse of Heaven
• When the person's vision of spirit is cloudy and they cannot breathe life in deeply

• Not as invigorating as Middle Palace; it is more about keeping communication with Heaven open and having an overview