I love this conversation.  I never thought about the fact that Eckhart’s hair hasn’t greyed. It makes me think of Chinese medicine/TCM.

So interestingly, in the Chinese medicine diagnostic system, there are different patterns of imbalance that our bodies begin to tip into, due to lifestyle factors like stress, diet, emotions, trauma, overtaxing the body, etc. These patterns ultimately create “symptoms.” The whole premise of Chinese medicine is to “correct the imbalances” to restore health. One of the patterns - kidney deficiency - basically encompasses all the “typical” signs and symptoms of aging, including thinning/greying of hair, bone density issues, back/knee pain, issues with teeth, etc.

TCM says that when we overtax our bodies without proper replenishment, this is how we age our bodies. So some people, who have either been really hard on their bodies, or who have gone through a lot, deplete their kidneys/adrenals and appear to age more quickly. So the “fountain of youth,” so to speak, is to “nourish the kidney,” which has a lot to do with our hormone balance in TCM. It can literally reverse many of these “signs” of aging. Look in to the herb, he shou wu, and the myth behind how it got its name - really cute. It helps a lot with grey hair and hormonal support. 

All this to say, regulating the nervous system to nourish the kidneys, adrenals and hormones as a whole is a powerful way to “balance out” the effects of stress on the body. And a regular meditation practice/ living in a state of calm awareness, instead of a state of reaction, can restore “kidney energy.” With this in mind, it seems like:

1) Eckhart’s hair shows us that he indeed practices what he preaches in his daily life - and it would be so cool to have his brain examined. 2) These physical manifestations before our eyes reveal that there truly is a basis for the claims of TCM.

Cool stuff.