One Single Treatment Treats All Humanity
The Resonant Healing Effect of Acupuncture
A treatment of the channels on each single person affects all of humanity, just as throwing a pebble in a pond affects all its waters. As every week goes by, this becomes increasingly clear.
A few days ago I gave a class in Albuquerque, NM. Albuquerque has been an important place to me since 2014, just a year after the red book was published, when John Heuertz and Susan Plourde asked me out there to teach a class in the channels at Golden Flower Herbs, which became many classes, as it turned out, that actually spawned some channel teachers. Albuquerque is a city of stark contrasts. I always feel inspired there, perhaps because it’s a mile high. Like so many places in the USA, it has deep social problems, yet the sky feels endless, the air dry and clear, it feels thick with ancient wisdom, and it is surrounded by a ring of staggeringly beautiful mountains—the Sandias. Sandia is Spanish for watermelon, their color during the captivating daily sunset show. Last week’s class was hosted by one of the original 2014 class students, MG McCullough, her deeply kind husband, Jason, and extraordinary daughter, Mia, on their stunning property in the fresh air, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of sunflowers. It felt like heaven. While Andrew taught food practice on Friday, I wandered around and visited the chickens and watched the lizards and the sky, while thinking about the class and the concept of channel resonance, a topic that currently occupies my daily thoughts.
One of the treatments of the weekend brought the class a new awareness of the concept of resonance. A patient presented with a “steppage” gait issue. That means that when she walks, one foot is lifted up high and there is considerable hesitation and irregularity in the rhythm of the gait, as though pausing in mid-air. She arrived with a cane and had scars all over her legs from repeatedly falling. She said that it was inevitable that soon she would be unable to walk at all and her dreams of traveling would be permanently dashed. She is a senior psychiatrist and department head, and was able to explain the condition in detail. She explained that the type of steppage gait she presented with is considered to be caused by a corruption of the DNA that only appears in males. Testing showed that she indeed does not have the gene. Her brother manifests the condition as did her father. She feared her son would contract it, and when they are born, her grandsons.
Together she and I investigated why she would manifest the condition despite not having the gene and being female. It took a while, but we did locate the cause which was of the spirit, as the first chapter of the Nei Jing tells us to expect. I want to respect patient privacy and leave those complex emotional details out, but I do want to share what happened after that.
Without suggestion from me, the patient gave clear indication that Qi was impeded in Yin Qiao Mai, the Heel Stance Channel, which is a channel that treats the gait. When she lay on the table for treatment, I did my usual teaching commentary of unfiltered thoughts in my head, starting with noticing that there were significant luo vessels (spider veins) around the inner ankle. The patient’s wife (a student in the class) immediately came to my side and told me that the luo vessels were not there before our conversation. The vessels had risen from the moderate flesh to the surface during conversation with the patient, as we had brought into awareness the emotional state causing her condition. In other words, the emotions were no longer latent but ready for expression.
Since the luo vessels were on Yin Qiao Mai, I bled them, gave her an affirmation to help bring out the stagnating qi, and rocked her body a little to see whether it was loosening. When satisfied that it was, I took a step back to join the rings of students surrounding the table. The patient continued to rock herself from side to side as she calmly and lightly repeated the affirmations. I knew at that point that we would see a healing because autonomic self-rocking is an indicator of shifting Jing, the sea of the DNA.
After about two minutes of rocking from side-to-side, her feet starting lifting off the table, her legs and feet stepping into air in a walking motion. Her movements were absolutely regular, no steppage gait, no hesitations. Meanwhile, she kept the affirmation going with profoundly gentle yet determined certainty. It was transfixing and deeply moving. We were witnessing the body healing itself right there in real time. I edged sideways to get closer to Andrew while watching the patient and said to him, “Isn’t that just remarkable…” And as I turned, I saw Andrew had tears in his eyes. “It’s so beautiful,” he said. Looking around at the class surrounding the table, I saw some actively stretching their backs out, some rotating their ankles, some taking some small steps in place. There was an extraordinary resonance and reverence in the space.
The patient walked in the air while lying down the entire 30 minutes. When she was moving off the table, her partner rushed forward to help her down, but I motioned to allow the patient to do it herself. She got off the table easily and then walked away out into the yard, and although the gait did not look exactly normal, there was no hesitation in it. Enthusiastic about her recovering gait, she walked out on the expansive lawn and the whole class joined her, walking up and down while still uttering the affirmation. No walking stick and no assistance needed. There is some work to do, but the patient knows she will get through. I suggested to her that it was a matter of retraining and she readily agreed. At the time of writing, she is going out by herself even to the market, and feels confident without assistance.
The next day, one of the students became a class patient. She was recovering from a bike accident in which her femur and other bones were broken, resulting in a shortening of her entire left side. She said that she was noticeably improved after witnessing the healing the day before. Then other students acknowledged that they also felt noticeably different after that same treatment.
And then, when I returned to New York, I received this message from a student in the class who has a western diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease: “Hi Ann, Just wanted to let you know that I had my first “city walk” this morning after more than a decade of not being able to walk quickly or forcefully. It felt great. I believe it was transference from your treatment of the patient on Saturday.”
When I emailed that person this blog to ask permission to publish her text, she replied, “If you wish, you can add that my Western diagnosis of Parkinson’s was confirmed by a brain scan for Parkinson’s called a Dat scan, so no one can write it off as an incorrect diagnosis that was healed by placebo.”
I’m accustomed to seeing these so-called miracles because I’ve worked with the channels for over 20 years. What was new to me was seeing the clarity of people in the space—their experiential certainty that a treatment of someone else was at the same time a treatment for them.
When we treat the channels, we treat the limitless energetic lines that originate in the open realm of all space and time, and resonate through all people. This is the active reverence to where our profession is headed.
A single treatment treats all humanity.
Ann Cecil-Sterman
New York City
September 21, 2022.
Practice like nothing else matters because everything does.
2 thoughts on “One Single Treatment Treats All Humanity”
Ann, what you’ve conveyed here is so beautiful. This is why I’m studying the channels at this relatively late period in my life and career. This description is so moving. Seeing our interconnectedness, our interdependence shining like jewels in Indra’s Net, it’s possible to really get that one treatment is all-treatment, that not just this single individual is moving forward but all are (or all is). Like buddhists say, when one becomes enlightened, the world is enlightened. Thank you!
I have a classic rhythm of insomnia that your herbs have been helping but I’ve been off them for some time so is back wake up around 3am-6am. Last night that happened and it was accompanied by achy joints and a horrible feeling of tons energy in the heart and brain.
I was at a loss. truly I was like, enough of this. And for some reason I started thinking about that email, “one healing heals all” from your wife. and then I started thinking about that time I saw Ann for acupuncture and then I started imagining being on her table. And then I started thinking about you and our work. And then the email some more this all was maybe about 15 mins and I immediately fell asleep. Then I had a dream of tons of mucus coming out of left nostril and stayed asleep the rest of the night and woke up with no achy joints and feeling rested and centered!
I’ll take it!