Traditional Chinese Medicine
The Spark & Promise of Embers: Surrender into Certainty
Photo by Cameron DiMarco on Unsplash
“The thing is to stalk your calling
in a certain skilled and supple way,
to locate the most tender and live spot
and plug into that pulse.
This is yielding, not fighting.”
~~ Annie Dillard, “Living Like Weasels”
Greetings to all my precious people,
We lost Annie Dillard last month — the woman who spent a lifetime teaching the rest of us to actually look: at creeks and weasels and the terrifying, ordinary miracle of being alive at all. It feels right that her words are the ones holding open this week’s door, because Embers week is, at its heart, about exactly what she was pointing at: not fighting your way toward a life, but locating the tender, live spot, and yielding into it.
After the shedding of two weeks ago — the dissolving, the soup, the involuntary tearing away — here is what’s left: not a roaring fire. Not yet. Just an ember. A small, banked heat, glowing under ash, patient, fully capable, waiting only for someone to open the damper. continue reading
How Acupuncture Is Helping Patients Finally Sleep Again
It’s 2:17 a.m., and you’re staring at the ceiling for the fourth night in a row. You’ve already tried melatonin, herbal teas, blackout curtains, white noise machines, and sleep apps reminding you to “relax,” but your mind is still racing through tomorrow’s responsibilities. Your body is exhausted, but your brain refuses to cooperate and by morning, you are irritable, foggy, and disconnected from yourself.
What you are experiencing is increasingly common. Insomnia affects millions of people worldwide, and for many, it becomes more than an inconvenience. Chronic sleep deprivation can impact mood, cognitive performance, immune health, hormone balance, cardiovascular function, pain perception, and overall quality of life. While prescription sleep medications can offer temporary relief, many people are searching for long-term solutions that address the root causes of sleeplessness rather than simply sedating the body. continue reading
The Miracle of Molting: Surrender into Certainty
Photo by Greg Daines on Unsplash
“Shedding is an act of involuntary bravery.
We do not choose when our skin grows too tight for us.
We are split open from the inside out
by the pressure of our own growth.”
~~ David Whyte
Greetings to all my precious people,
I want to tell you something true about the caterpillar, because we’ve romanticized it into something gentler than it actually is.
Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar does not gracefully rearrange itself into a butterfly. It dissolves. Nearly its entire body breaks down into a kind of living soup — cell walls collapsing, structure gone, no shape left that anyone would recognize as a creature. And here is the part almost no one tells you: scattered throughout that soup are clusters of cells called imaginal cells, which have carried the blueprint of the butterfly all along, dormant, waiting. At first, the caterpillar’s own immune system attacks them. Treats them as foreign invaders. Fights the very thing that is trying to save it, because it doesn’t yet recognize its own becoming. continue reading
Returning to Source: Surrender into Certainty
Photo by Sebastian Engler on Unsplash
“Returning to the source is stillness,
which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.”
~~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Greetings to all my precious people,
The geese are gone now. What’s left behind is quieter work, and it happens where no one can see it.
Above ground, the trees look like they’re dying. Leaves gold, then rust, then gone. But below ground, something else entirely is happening — the sap that spent all summer reaching upward toward light is pulling back down now, into the roots, into the deep dark storage the tree has been quietly maintaining the whole time it looked like it was only reaching up. Nothing about this is loss. It’s consolidation. The tree isn’t disappearing. It’s remembering where its life actually lives. continue reading
Acupuncture for Stroke Recovery: Rebuilding the Brain
When a stroke hits, life can change in an instant. One moment you’re preparing breakfast before work, and the next you’re on the kitchen floor unable to move one side of your body. The weeks that follow are then filled with hospital visits, rehabilitation appointments, and often frustration. Tasks once performed automatically like buttoning a shirt, lifting a coffee cup, or speaking clearly, become daily battles.
Months of physical therapy can then follow, but progress is often slow. Speech can remain slurred and fatigue can be relentless. Many are desperate for additional help and can look to acupuncture to help with recovery. While acupuncture is not a replacement for emergency medicine or rehabilitation therapy, growing clinical research suggests it may offer meaningful benefits for some patients recovering from stroke. continue reading
