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What’s your advice about the coronavirus? That’s the question of the month for many practitioners, it seems. No matter what the external pathogen, the body reacts to preserve Qi and life by activating Wei-defensive Qi (the immune system). Wei Qi also governs the musculature and therefore allows us to move. Since viruses have Wind as

My Small Intestine luo seems always to be in gear. That’s the acupuncture channel that acts as the feedback system – the part of you that says, “How am I doing?” If the answer that comes back is, “Not so well, actually…” the body makes an adjustment as that question is answered, concentrating blood into

It’s not often that someone goes into panic in the office. Since the work is with needles and needles are sharp, I’ve tried to minimize the “clinic” component of the office. Although it’s clearly a professional space, it doesn’t look like a medical office. The only give away is the table. Fortunately then, the air

At the last few weeks I had few patients that complained about getting sick all the time. Frequent colds, viruses and other external pathogenic factors are a common complaint. Our society has many agreements we share about how and why one gets sick. Mostly we blame it on the weather.  But the weather is the

My last patient of the day just left and I must scrawl a blog before going home. All day I’ve been wishing everyone a “Happy New Year” as is the custom, but I just couldn’t say that to my last patient. Life has been very tough for him; every day brings a whole-body pain that’s

Because I’m in my 50s, the feeling of our current culture where there seems to be so little privacy, decorum, dignity, self-censoring, no quiet realm for deeply personal things, where things that you would never talk about are now common currency on social media—all feels so unbecoming. Is there anything that people think should be

So How Do you Fix That? I really enjoy treating people with Damp-Heat in the joints. In the general population the condition is widely thought be permanent, even incurable, but the Divergent Channels know otherwise. These people can be ill to the point of being crippled, yet relief is usually so fast. A woman came

At first, intention and knowledge seem to contradict one another. What is intention? Is it simply wanting someone to heal? If it is, is it enough?Our intention to help our patients is very strong, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this profession. Yet, how much we care seems to make no difference sometimes. As humans, we

At 7:15am this morning the most remarkable thing happened. I had just finished my morning meditation and was starting on my gratitude practice when I heard a truck coming up the driveway. Looking through the window, I saw it was a red utility van. The driver turned the engine off but didn’t get out of

Sometimes I think we’re in the most humbling of professions. There’s more information than we can possibly master or absorb in a lifetime and then, at every moment of the patient encounter, and all the way through the treatment, we must be ready to be wrong. And then, when we realize we’re wrong, we have

Interesting case today and perhaps the highlight of the week. I saw a homeless man with a mountain of debt and with one single penny and two sticks of beef jerky in his pocket. He’d had a job in a store but neglected to pay his parking fines which accrued so much interest that the

A curious case today. An actor came in with long-term general malaise and migraines for as long as he could remember. After a deep discussion he told me that he feels that only one percent of his talent has been realized in his current profession, despite his substantial success, but that he can’t tell anyone

November 5th, 2019 Yesterday during the online chat we were asked about meditation and its purpose for a practitioner. I’ve just finished my morning meditation and wanted to add a few more thoughts to yesterday’s chat. A key function of meditation for me as a practitioner is the cultivation of the difference between judgment and

A rare departure from the complement channels for me today. A pop singer came in today announcing that she was about to go on antibiotics for swollen lymph nodes in the neck. She had to leave early to fly and there wasn’t much time. Having been called to rescue her gut many times over the

For many years I used the same brand of needles. They were superbly engineered. Made of shiny stainless steel and completely uncoated, they performed their job superbly. They would engage Qi effortlessly and allowed my intention as practitioner to be enacted, just as a fisherman (fisherperson?!) moves the bait to hook his catch. Once on