It’s hard to say goodbye to Andrew over and over, whether he departs first or I do. I love it when he is able to come to class, as he contributes dietary gems and even writes menus for some of the patients on the demonstration table. This past week we had the great fortune of meeting in Venice. We had a wonderful class there, beautifully hosted and translated by my dear friend Patrizia Gaio. Again this year she hired her neighbors, both professional caterers, to prepare exquisite food based on classical medicine principles. The spreads were inventive and included a local 15th-century recipe. They even grew some of the ingredients. Prior to Venice I had a few days’ rest in Padova, a relatively tourist-free hidden marvel, and after Venice, we went to Rome, where Andrew played the first of several concerts on the current Philip Glass Ensemble tour. From there we said goodbye again; he is continuing on to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Riga, Helsinki and Oslo in that surprising order, and I’m now heading for Scotland. Though intense and sometimes a little wrenching, the goodbyes are never sad, since we both understand that we have work to do and people to gather.
Recently, I came across a fine anonymous quote inspired by Jung:
The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life.
They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them,
but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities.
The artist who never makes art may become cynical about those who do.
The lover who never risks loving learns to mock romance.
The thinker who never explores a personal philosophy sneers at belief itself.
And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know:
the life they mock is the life they were meant to live.
Goodness, I thought, that aligns perfectly with Eight Extraordinary channel theory. I like to begin every class with this theory, regardless of the class topic since all the channels are perfectly designed powerfully to defend the natural unfolding of possibilities. Just yesterday, a student taking their third class with me commented that there is some subtle shifting in chairs when I explain that the origin of disease is often a denial of oneself. In my practice, autoimmune and other chronic disease presentations are common. As classical practitioners, practicing the complement channels, the most important question we ask is, “When did it start?” The answer is, without fail, illuminating. Once the patient has connected the onset to the time their of partner’s betrayal, or a parent’s sudden early death, or the brutal firing from a job, or their decision to study finance instead of true interest in sculpture, or, sculpture instead of true interest in finance, a switch goes off in the brain and the receptivity to the treatment of the channel indicated after diagnosis is even more poignant. A patient can then understand that their autoimmune disease is not the result of a faulty body, but rather the result of a highly responsive body demonstrating, with great precision, that they are off track, diverted away from their “own inner possibilities”. Focused, skillful, human-centered treatments—with acupuncture needles or channel practice—can be the turning point needed to bring our patient back home.
Ann Cecil-Sterman
Rome, Italy.
September 16, 2026.