Traditional Chinese Medicine
The Equinox and Liminal Spaces: Surrender to Certainty
Photo by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash
“You’re afraid of surrender
because you don’t want to lose control.
But you never had control;
all you had was anxiety.”
~~ Elizabeth Gilbert
Greetings to all my precious people!!
Right now, we are standing in a doorway.
Tuesday brought us the Autumn Equinox — the exact moment day and night stood equal, the cosmos balanced for one instant on a knife’s edge before tipping toward the dark half of the year. The Celts called places like this “thin places” — shorelines, riverbanks, the hush of dusk — locations and moments where the veil between worlds goes porous. What most of us haven’t considered is that a day can be a thin place too. This one was.
But a threshold isn’t a place you stand still in. It’s a place you either walk through, or resist. continue reading
From Tension to Relief: Rethinking Headaches with Acupuncture
For some, it comes after a long day at work. The symptoms come after a day sitting behind a desk. First, the dull ache creeps up from the base of the skull, wrapping slowly around the temples like a band tightening. By the end of the day, it’s blossomed into a full headache, paired with a stiff neck that makes even turning the head painful. Over-the-counter pain relievers, stretching, ergonomic pillows are all purchased with the hope they will make a difference. Some days are better than others, but the cycle always returns. continue reading
The Harvest and The Hinge: Surrender into Certainty
“Most experiences are unsayable;
they come to fullness
in a realm that words do not inhabit.”
~~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Greetings to all my precious people,
There are some things I’ve been sitting with lately that don’t really fit into words, which is, I think, exactly what Rilke meant. But I’m going to try anyway, because it’s been coming up again and again in conversations with my patients, and I don’t want to keep it to myself.
Before you were you, there was an errant sperm and egg, colliding. And then — with no coach yelling instructions, no manual, no one standing over the process telling it what to do — that collision replicated itself, over and over, in the most intricate and masterful sequence imaginable, until nearly ten months later, an entirely unique being took form and opened its eyes. That is happening right now, in bodies all over the world, and it has been happening since the beginning of everything. We almost never talk about it. We need to talk about it more. continue reading
The Sacred Pause: Surrender to Certainty
Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash
This week we pause.
25 years ago, September 11 was a sunny Tuesday with a brilliant blue sky. It seemed a day like many others: a return to school, a return to work after the Labor Day weekend, a certainty to the air, the schedule, the path to the season of Autumn. But on that day certainty broke, publicly and completely — the ground everyone stood on, the buildings people worked in, gone in real time. But what came after is where our theme gets its proof: the certainty that did show up that day wasn’t about answers to the questions, and it surely wasn’t shelter from the storm. It was people. continue reading
A Quiet Turning Point: Healing the Gut from Within
According to the IFFGD, the International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders, approximately 5-10% of the world’s population has IBS, with most of those people under the age of 50. And like millions of people with gastrointestinal disorders, most have tried everything from elimination diets, medications, and probiotics, to stress management apps. One treatment many are surprised to discover is acupuncture and just how impactful it can be for gastrointestinal health. continue reading
