Qiological Podcast: Recent Episodes
Michael Max
Oriental medicine was not developed in a laboratory. It does not advance through double-blind controlled studies, nor does it respond well to petri dish experimentation. Our medicine did not come from the statistical regression of randomized cohorts, but from the observation and treatment of individuals in their particular environment. It grows out of an embodied sense of understanding how life moves, unfolds, develops and declines.
Medicine comes from continuous, thoughtful practice of what we do in clinic, and how we approach that work. The practice of medicine is more — much more — than simply treating illness. It is more than acquiring skills and techniques. And it is more than memorizing the experiences of others. It takes a certain kind of eye, an inquiring mind and relentlessly inquisitive heart.
Qiological is an opportunity to deepen our practice with conversations that go deep into acupuncture, herbal medicine, cultivation practices, and the practice of having a practice. It’s an opportunity to sit in the company of others with similar interests, but perhaps very different minds. Through these dialogues perhaps we can better understand our craft.
Much of what happens in the treatment room never makes it onto an intake form, yet it often shapes the outcome as much as anything measurable does.
In this conversation with Bonnie Wright, we explore what she calls the art of medicine, the intuitive, relational sense of truly knowing the patient in front of you, and how the body's structures act less as separate parts than as one continuously adapting whole.
We also touch on what gets lost when certainty crowds out listening, and why the most useful insights often arrive in the things we weren't looking for.
Listen in for a conversation that moves between anatomy and intuition, structure and change, and the practice of staying open to what doesn't yet fit.
Practicing acupuncture for over fifty years asks us to trust intuition and stay open even when the path ahead isn't clear. But what happens when a life's direction comes not from planning, but from being pulled toward what you love?
Judy Worsley is a five element acupuncturist who trained alongside J.R. Worsley for decades, helping shape this medicine's growth into the profession it is today. In this conversation, she joins Michael to explore the tension between certainty and surrender, and how following what feels true can become its own kind of guidance.
Listen in as they trace her path from a free-roaming Florida childhood, through law school and a hitchhiking trip across America, to a chance encounter that changed everything; how clarity differs from having all the answers; why difficult moments deserve to be revisited rather than carried; and what it means to spend a lifetime devoted to this work.
As chronic, hard-to-treat disorders become more common in clinic, many practitioners are returning to Wen Bing theory for answers.
In this conversation with Kerri Westhauser, we explore lurking pathogen theory and how deep-lying evils help explain complex conditions like lupus and POTS.
We also discuss why tonification often backfires in chronic disease, and the importance of venting, regulating, and mobilizing Shen to keep the body's pathways open.
Listen in for a practical rethinking of the Wei and Qi levels and how to locate disease that has gone into hiding.
Not every point sits in the textbook. Others only appear when the body decides to show them.
In this episode we visit with Shaun Goodman, longtime practitioner of Dr. Tung's acupuncture, a Taiwanese system built on its own map of the body. What begins as a question of pronunciation quickly opens into a wider conversation about channels, diagnosis, and the discipline of looking closely.
We explore the palm as a diagnostic tool, the logic of treating through the thigh and shin rather than the familiar fourteen channels, and why some of the most effective points have no fixed name or location. Why not-knowing deserves patience rather than anxiety. And how a chance discovery from French auricular medicine gave Shaun a way to find points no teacher was there to point out.
Beneath the technique is a simpler idea: that what looks like magic is really just a system, once you learn how to see it.
As acupuncture and Chinese medicine face regulatory pressure and institutional change on both sides of the Atlantic, many practitioners are asking what it takes to preserve the tradition while still being taken seriously as medical professionals.
In this conversation, we visit with Alex Jacobs, CEO of the British Acupuncture Council, we explore the relationship between tradition and regulation, and how this balance shapes education standards, professional identity, and public trust in the medicine.
We also discuss the value of holding contradiction in clinical practice, the difference between the "disciple" and the "heretic" as two complementary ways of learning, and the deeper role of listening and the heart in diagnosis.
Listen in for a discussion on regulation, lineage, and mastery, and staying rooted in the Dao of the medicine while navigating the demands of practicing it today.
Part Two
How does a profession begin? Not on paper. Not with licensing boards or schools. Often enough, it starts with a handful of curious people who become convinced there's another way to do things. Part determination, part serendipity, and perhaps a good measure of luck.
Bill Prensky and Gene Bruno were there before acupuncture had a place in American healthcare. In the wake of the Vietnam War, student protests, and a generation questioning nearly everything, they walked away from academic research that no longer made sense to them. Their Tai Chi teacher, Marshall Ho, introduced them to Dr. Kim, who reluctantly agreed to teach a small group that in time became like family.
What followed is equal parts history and improbable story: treating patients at the Crossroads of the World, translating across languages, creating lecture series just to afford tuition, traveling with their teacher, and helping establish the first legal and educational footholds for acupuncture.
Listen in to this conversation on trading a graduate education for a study that didn’t have a syllabus, credentialing or degree, helped acupuncture to find its footing in America.
Part One.
How does a profession begin? Not on paper. Not with licensing boards or schools. Often enough, it starts with a handful of curious people who become convinced there's another way to do things. Part determination, part serendipity, and perhaps a good measure of luck.
Bill Prensky and Gene Bruno were there before acupuncture had a place in American healthcare. In the wake of the Vietnam War, student protests, and a generation questioning nearly everything, they walked away from academic research that no longer made sense to them. Their Tai Chi teacher, Marshall Ho, introduced them to Dr. Kim, who reluctantly agreed to teach a small group that in time became like family.
What followed is equal parts history and improbable story: treating patients at the Crossroads of the World, translating across languages, creating lecture series just to afford tuition, traveling with their teacher, and helping establish the first legal and educational footholds for acupuncture.
Listen in to this conversation on trading a graduate education for a study that didn’t have a syllabus, credentialing or degree, helped acupuncture to find its footing in America.
It’s not news that there are changes afoot in the world of education. You’re probably already well aware of the closure, over the past few years, of schools with a long history. There are concerns with loan debt that have been an issue since Obama was president. Most recently, the changes to student loans that not only fundamentally affect the acupuncture trade, but will change the landscape for graduate education in a notable way.
In this conversation with Bex Groebner we untangle the intersection of education, accreditation, federal student loan programs and professional accountability. We explore how changes in funding will put financial pressure on schools that built a business model based on the higher loan caps of GRAD+ loans. How student debt affects those who are mortgaging their future on loans that many cannot pay back. Along with what could happen if the levels of student enrollment drop to the point where our accreditor (ACAHM) and certification organization (NCBAHM) lose the funding needed to sustain their business activities.
Bex suggests that in an uncertain world, it’s best to have a back up, and that is a large part of the motivation behind her work at the Acupuncture Workforce Alliance. Most of all, she’d like to see an acupuncture education be accessible, affordable and within reach of anyone who’d like to learn this medicine so they can serve their communities, and be able to support themselves and their families.
Some teachings are preserved in books. Others are preserved in people.
In this episode we visit with Johann Hausen, translator, publisher, practitioner, and long-time student of Daoist traditions in the Wudang Mountains. What begins with martial arts and Chinese medicine quickly opens into a wider conversation about cultivation, character, and the responsibility of carrying knowledge forward.
We explore the foundations of internal alchemy, not as a collection of techniques, but as a lifelong process of refining oneself through everyday life. Why difficult people may be our greatest teachers. How attachment can hide in the things we love most. And why the real work often happens far from the meditation cushion.
Along the way we discuss preserving traditional teachings, the role of books in a digital world, and Johann’s work translating and publishing texts that might otherwise be lost. Beneath it all is a simple but challenging question: what does it mean to become a better human being, rather than simply a more knowledgeable one?
We tend to think of the acupuncture profession as something fixed and stable, but the reality is that it is always in motion. The practice of East Asian medicine in North America has been shaped by decades of effort—by practitioners, educators, regulators, and advocates working to create a place for this medicine in the American healthcare system.
In this conversation with Valerie Hobbs, we take a historical look at how the profession bootstrapped itself into being. Along with how the creation of educational standards, accreditation, certification, and professional organizations, helped to give the profession the form it has today..
We also discuss some of the tensions shaping the present moment. Questions about educational requirements, student debt, declining enrollment, professional identity, integration into mainstream healthcare, and the uncertain future of acupuncture education.
This conversation is an invitation to consider the forces shaping our profession and to consider how we might respond. Beneath the challenges is a recurring theme: the future of this medicine will not be determined by any single institution or idea, but by our willingness to listen, engage thoughtfully, and find ways of working toward our shared goals.
As the Fire Horse year reaches its peak, many practitioners are noticing shifts in both the environment and the clinic.
In this conversation with Christine Cannon, we explore the interaction of fire and water through the lens of Wu Yun Liu Qi, and how these energies may be influencing respiratory health, anxiety, fatigue, and emotional resilience.
We also discuss the importance of protecting Wei Qi, creating restorative space, and finding balance during periods of heightened activity and change.
Listen in for a practical discussion on seasonal influences, constitutional health, and navigating the energetic themes of the year.
What if the very things that seem to be pulling our profession apart are actually the forces that will finally condense it into something more resilient? We’re in a moment of choppy waters—school closures, shrinking enrollment, and a shifting financial landscape—where the successes of what have brought us to this moment will not take us into the future. .
In this conversation with Kathleen Lumiere, co-president of the Seattle Institute for East Asian Medicine (SIEAM), we discuss how we might make changes to our educational models that both streamlines and strengthens East Asian medicine.
We discuss the integration of business education into clinical training, the disappearance of Grad Plus loans, and the effect that has had on a system that came to be dependent on them. Kathleen also introduces the idea of using the "wisdom of crowds" to define the irreducible core of our profession—a shared set of competencies that could protect our identity while opening new doors for collaboration.
Listen into this conversation about what it means to be adventuresome and iconoclastic in a moment of crisis. It’s a look at how we can protect our infrastructure while remaining flexible enough to evolve, ensuring that the next generation of practitioners doesn't just survive, but finds a path to true gainful employment.
Many of us experience life through schedules, deadlines, and calendars, yet beneath them are deeper patterns that shape how we grow, adapt, heal, and change.
In this conversation with Peter Firebrace, we explore Chinese perspectives on time, timing, and the timeless. Through seasonal cycles, the Chinese calendar, and the rhythms observed in nature, we look at how a deeper awareness of time can inform both clinical practice and everyday life.
We also touch on what may be lost when we become disconnected from the natural patterns around us, and why reconnecting with those rhythms can offer a different way of understanding ourselves and our patients.
Listen in for a conversation that weaves together Chinese philosophy, clinical insight, and the enduring relationship between human life and the cycles of nature.
We’re at a moment where the structure of loans and professional education is changing. Not just for the acupuncture profession, but across the entire educational landscape. While it seems the storm has suddenly blown in, it’s been brewing for a while.
In this conversation with Ryan Hofer we discuss the reality of Grad Plus loans, the true cost of them in terms of the interest they generate, and why the "math doesn't math" for a lot of people entering the field right now. We explore the various ways loans can be resolved, and the shame and anxiety that graduates experience when they realize they are in over their head financially.
There’s also this uncomfortable question about how we got here—how a business model based on student debt became the default, and what happens when that faucet finally gets turned off.
Change is coming and our profession is going to have to find a way to work with far less money coming for student loans. And we also need to reckon with the unsustainable debt that practitioners of an earlier generation did not need to face.
Clinical practice asks us to recognise patterns, trust experience, and make decisions under uncertainty. But what happens when discovery comes not from certainty, but from staying open to surprise?
Dr. Neil Theise is a liver pathologist, stem cell researcher, Zen practitioner, and one of the scientists behind the discovery of the interstitium. In this conversation, he joins Michael to explore the tension between expertise and beginner’s mind, and how curiosity itself can become a path to deeper understanding.
Listen into this discussion as they explore the body as both structure and living continuum; how fascia, fluid, electricity, and awareness may be more interconnected than we realise; why perception changes depending on the “scale” we look from; and how science, meditation, and direct experience each reveal different truths about what it means to be human.
The acupuncture and East Asian profession is facing a number of critical challenges as long-established schools close, new federal guidelines on graduate education loans will dramatically change how much students can borrow, and fewer students consider a career as an acupuncturist.
How to wayfind through these troubled times? That is the question explored in this series with practitioners, researchers, and educators in the field of East Asian medicine.
In this conversation with Danielle Reghi we follow the arc of her career from acquiring and dealing with upwards of 200K in debt, to building a multi-location practice and learning how business acumen is as necessary as clinical skills.
She is the president of the Oregon Association of Acupuncturists. She played a key role in drafting the Oregon Acupuncture Workforce Sustainability Proposal, which considers the effect of the new RISE and AHEAD metrics from the federal government and how those affect the amount graduate students may borrow. Additionally this proposal looks at other educational options and alternative pathways that can lead to licensure in the State of Oregon.
Any discussion of the future requires a clear eyed view of the present. You’ll get that in this conversation with Danielle, along with some innovative thinking about what’s up around the bend in the road..
Medicine is never only about treatment. It also carries culture, identity, and memory. Sometimes preserving a medicine is a way of preserving a people.
In this episode we visit with James Flowers to explore a potent moment in the history of Korean medicine and how Hanbang became part of Korea’s cultural resistance during the Japanese colonization. Not through politics or violence, but through preserving ways of healing, thinking, and living.
We discuss how medical ideas moved between Korea, China, and Japan, the role of Yangsheng in everyday life, and how Korean medicine resisted separating mind from body in the way modern systems often do.
This conversation also touches on the deeper question of how medicine lives within culture—not only through practitioners and institutions, but through families, daily habits, stories, and collective memory.
Listen into this conversation that weaves together history, medicine, identity, and the enduring cultural force of East Asian healing traditions.
Often what brings someone into our office looks straightforward at first—a concussion, dizziness, headache, or a sense that something is not quite right. But what begins as the search to fix a symptom often reveals something deeper—a nervous system that has lost its bearings, sensory maps that no longer line up, and a body quietly adapting around signals it can no longer fully trust.
Ayla Wolf and Clayton Shiu both work at the intersection of functional neurology and East Asian medicine. Through clinical observation, modern diagnostic tools, and hands-on palpation, they’ve developed ways of seeing patterns that often sit beneath symptoms most people wouldn’t connect to the brain.
Listen into this conversation as we explore how concussion can masquerade as digestive issues, tinnitus, anxiety, or vestibular dysfunction. And why the neck, eyes, inner ear, and autonomic nervous system all can be part of the problem. We’ll explore how acupuncture can help restore orientation, balance, and sensory accuracy. And what becomes possible when ancient medicine intersects with a modern understanding of neuroplasticity.
We often think of allergies as simple reactions, but some conditions reveal a far deeper conversation between the immune system, environment, and daily life—one that evolves with every exposure.
In this conversation with Rebecca Chrestman, we explore Alpha-Gal syndrome through both modern understanding and Chinese medicine, looking at how patterns like damp heat and spleen imbalance help make sense of complex, multi-system symptoms. We discuss the realities of treatment—not quick fixes, but gradual shifts in reactivity, lifestyle, and resilience.
We also touch on the emotional and practical impact of living with a condition that reshapes how you eat, live, and move through the world.
Listen in for a conversation that brings together clinical insight, traditional thinking, and the lived experience of navigating a truly modern illness.
What makes a system feel trustworthy—results, lineage, or the way it brings you into the resonance of what’s happening?
Philip Suger didn’t start with Saam acupuncture. He was in Beijing in 2010, following a thread that led him to Wang Ju-Yi and channel palpation—hands on the body, feeling where things change and where they resolve. Later, back in the States, he found himself working with patients who improved but those changes were not lasting. That got him began circling back to a method he’d once dismissed: four needles, arranged through a set of relationships rather than point functions. It didn’t make a lot of sense. But people were reporting results.
After some study with Toby Daly he got more curious, and that sent him searching for information in Chinese.
Michael Brown, has a keen interest in tracking down old texts and translating them for the world English speaking acupuncturists. Together, they have spent the past few years working on a translation of a book that traces the history of Saam, some of the luminary practitioners along the way, and the way these pre-modern doctors used the Four-Needles.
There’s been more than a little development of the Saam method since that legendary monk had his cultivated insights into medicine. One thing for sure, four needles with the right diagnosis, it can make a big difference for our patients.
The path into acupuncture isn’t always clean or linear—sometimes it begins in the grit and confusion of working out just who you are in this world. From anthropology studies in Seattle’s Skid Row to the disciplined intensity of kendo in Japan, Jeffrey Dann’s journey was shaped by curiosity, discomfort, and a search for something deeper. A knee injury, a moment on a subway, and an unexpected recovery became the doorway into a medicine that would take him through Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, and Beijing in the early days of acupuncture’s global spread.
In this conversation, we follow that winding road—through apprenticeship, cultural exchange, and the evolution of practice. From forceful needling to the subtle power of touch, Jeffrey’s story reflects a broader shift in medicine itself: one that balances tradition with change, and technique with sensitivity.
Listen in as we explore how acupuncture travelled the world, transformed through different cultures, and continues to adapt to the modern body and mind.
Points don’t really have a number, they have a name. They are not just a function, they embody characteristics and relationships.
In this episode I get to sit for a conversation with Arnie Lade. He’s the author of a book I spent a lot of time with in the library when I was in acupuncture school. Acupuncture Points: Images and Functions wasn’t a book I read to pass exams, it was one I read to get a feeling for points.
We explore how the work of Moshe Feldenkrais has influenced his work. And how both learning and healing often enough requires an element of unlearning. How ‘not-knowing’ is the beginning of fruitful inquiry. That even good diagnostic models can become a box if you cling too tightly.
One of the things we touch on that is not often discussed in our trade is the later years of a career and what it’s like to step away from a lifetime of practice. I used to hold a romantic notion of practicing until the end of my days. I'm glad there are people like Arnie a few steps ahead to point out the landscape that I’ve imagined, but not accurately mapped.
Finally, we touch on his latest book Zen and the Mystic Impulse, it’s a reflection on the time spent with his teacher, his own experience of practice, and the intimacy of not-knowing. Which, curiously enough, is the polar opposite of this first book I read all those years ago on the intimacy of ‘knowing’ a point, instead of relying on memorized function.
In practice, healing often begins with seeking a solution to a problem that has us looking for help. What first looks like a search for relief becomes an encounter with something wider: the patterns of striving, the habits of attention, and the quiet ways body, mind, and spirit reorganise when we slow down enough to notice.
Sue Crites is a qigong teacher with a background in ecological science, holistic nutrition, and bioenergetic medicine. Her path into this work began through caregiving, chronic illness in her family, and her own unexpected experience of healing, which opened into a deeper exploration of energy, presence, and the practice of non-striving.
Listen into this conversation as we explore how repetitive and even “boring” practices can become powerful agents of change; why peace is different from resignation; how qigong can soften the grip of anxiety, over-efforting, and old beliefs. And what it means to cultivate steadiness in a world designed to keep us distracted.
Some projects kick off with a business plan. Others begin as a response to an odd little ad in the back of a magazine, or sparked by following a hunch. When you think about it, this is often how the interesting work begins—not with certainty, but with curiosity and enough craft and gumption to stay with the question.
This conversation with Rick Gold and Yuval Ron moves through the strange and increasingly practical territory where music, medicine, plants, and perception collide. We discuss Yuval’s early work with the pioneer of binaural beats and how psychoacoustics adds emotion to film scores. Beyond that there is an audio frontier that includes the exploration of how frequencies can shift attention, mood, and perhaps even help protect cognition.
Their current work takes medicinal herbs and records their bioelectrical activity, then turns those signals into music. Not synth magic, not a novelty trick, but a painstaking process of listening for pattern, repetition, and relationship—finding something humanly hearable inside something that is not human at all. Five years of work. A lot of editing. A lot of not giving up.
There’s something here about collaboration across species, we’ve been doing that with Chinese herbal medicine for a while now. But this new exploration using the language of music. That’s an innovative collaboration. Listen into this conversation and expand your ideas on both music and medicine.
We all find our own unique way into the practice of East Asian medicine.
It’s part luck, part dogged curiosity and persistence, and sometimes a bit of fate.
In this conversation with Holly Guzman, we wander through her circuitous route into the medicine—from knocking on the door of the Chinese embassy in Kabul, to hanging out at a bookstore in San Francisco, waiting to see who might pick up the one English book on acupuncture. Along the way she crossed paths with some remarkable teachers, witnessed extraordinary ways acupuncture was used in China, and learned lessons about herbs, storytelling, and clinical responsibility that shaped the practice she has today.
Listen into this discussion as we explore her early travels to China in the late 1970s, what it was like to practice before acupuncture was legal, and the powerful influence of teachers like Miriam Lee and Yat Kee Lai. Holly also reflects on herbal training that emphasized curiosity over categories, the role of storytelling in clinical work, and how imagination opens the door to new possibilities in medicine.
Holly reminds us that this medicine didn’t arrive fully formed—it grew through the curiosity, audacity, and persistence of practitioners who were willing to explore what was possible.
Sports medicine acupuncture is one of those phrases that sounds neat and tidy. But, what does it actually mean?.
In this conversation with Darren Maynard, dig into the complexity and methods that fall within the world of orthopedic and musculo-skeletal medicine. We explore what it means to be bilingual in clinic, and the value of being able to hold a Chinese medicine diagnosis and a Western ortho assessment in the same set of hands. We’ll discuss why “sports” doesn’t mean “athletes only,” how palpation is a key to effective treatment, and why training means more than a few weekend courses—especially when needle depth, safety, and confidence are on the line.
Listen in as we take a look at the turf-war issues of dry needling, and what it means to have acupuncture “integrated” into the larger medical care system. And how Chinese medicine principles allow for nuance that results in better clinical outcomes.
Some concepts in Chinese medicine don’t need more poetry. They need a hands-on palpable marker, and a willingness to admit, “I think I get it… and then the light changes and I can’t see it.” That’s the territory we’re in with the Ming Men—the so‑called Gate of Destiny, the fire that isn’t just heat, the thing we can discuss over the centuries and still not be sure about when meeting it again on Tuesday afternoon in clinic.
This panel conversation is an attempt to better understand the Ming Men. Not by flattening it into one definition, but by tracking it from different angles—textual, palpatory, alchemical, ecological—and seeing what stays consistent as the perspectives change.
Anne calls it an activation power that wants to move freely, so a person can occupy their whole existence without leaving corners uninhabited. Thomas brings it straight to the table: put your hand below the navel, check the relative coldness, watch what happens to breath, warmth, and the eyes when things begin to organize. Zev keeps widening the lens—ministerial fire as warmth and life, as clinical strategy, and as a reflection of the larger world we’re burning to keep ourselves comfortable.
This is delightfully open-ended conversation on the Ming Men, one that helps to guide our focus not by providing answers, but by exploring enlivening questions.
We no longer pretend the gut and the mind are separate; we know the interconnections are vast and rich. Furthermore, their communication isn’t a hack—it’s a relationship that responds to your input, and it’s something you can actually touch.
In this conversation with Henry Tarazona, we hear about his unlikely path into Chinese medicine—his love of tuina, and how he uses it to affect organ function and biochemistry. We’ll discuss Liver/Spleen stress dynamics and the quietly radical clinical power of moderation in improving digestion, along with Henry’s thoughts on the gut–brain axis through the lens of the vagus nerve and the Chong Mai.
We also touch on what it means to learn medicine in a more traditional way, where you rely on memory, repetition, and learning to see what is in front of you.
Listen in for a conversation that mixes together old style learning with both traditional and modern ideas.
Sometimes the people who shape us most aren’t the ones who formally taught us anything. They’re the people in a potent moment who say something that we hear with something other than our ears— it sends us down a path we hadn't noticed that was right under our feet.
In this conversation withHaunani Chong-Drake, we explore the edges of mentorship—not as a program, credential, or transaction, but as something serendipitous and unexpectedly catalytic. The kind of connection that doesn’t give you answers, but instead changes the questions you’re asking.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the difference between teachers and mentors, why confidence is earned long after graduation, how expectation management can make or break a career, and why Chinese medicine has a way of working on the practitioner as much as the patient.
This is a conversation about the relationships that remind you to not give up on yourself. How to stay in the game when things get hard. And the unavoidable fires of development and learning as a practitioner.
Often enough, medicine evolves not through the accumulation of answers, but instead by posing annoying questions. The thing about learning, it usually carries an element of disruption.
In this conversation with Peter Eckman we follow him in his journey of sleuthing out where JR Worsley learned his medicine. But, it’s not just a story of where Worsley got his stuff, to set the stage we have to go back to the shaman practitioners of a time before history. Then come forward through the pantheon of Chinese doctors of the past, and then into the modern age where colonialism opens the door to acupuncture making its way into the West.
Peter’s book, In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor details a story that goes from East to West and back to the East with a new Chinese language edition. What better place for a discussion like this than in a History Series conversation?
There’s a moment, in the slack tide between one flow and another, when a potent stillness arises, and the possibility of a new direction arrives with a feeling of invitation. It’s like standing on the threshold of a dream.
We share this conversation with Gregory Done as we metamorphize from the Wood Snake to the Fire Horse. What’s in store as we enter a year of unmitigated Fire? Where is caution advised and where do you double down with the creative energy of the Horse?
Listen into this conversation as we explore time-as-qi, what a dramatic handoff between years can do to the psyche; cautions around giving free rein to the unbridled “sovereign fire” of the Heart, and how discipline shapes intensity into something useful.
If you’ve felt the past year pulling you inward, you’re not alone. In this conversation we discuss the natural inclination to come back out—into action, into contact, into the bright problem of more momentum than you’re accustomed to. Saddle up!
In clinical work pattern and intuition inform each other, treatment decisions arise somewhere between what we can measure and what we can only sense. This episode investigates that in-between space, where “knowing” as a human and the patterning of Large Language Models merges in uncanny ways.
Vanessa Menendez-Covelo has been a guest on the podcast and recently she’s been exploring the ever changing frontier of AI, as both a former computer scientist and actively practicing acupuncturist.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how AI “hallucinations” might be creative sparks of fertile imagination; what a tongue-reading machine in a café might mean for diagnosis; the uneasy line between health equity and surveillance; and why shame, not ignorance, may be the real barrier to better care.
What if “failure” was just expectations being uncomfortably rewritten by reality?
In this conversation with Neal Sivula we discuss the experience of failing forward—what it actually looks and feels like when you’re a practitioner, a clinic owner, and a person who cares. How to navigate the employee who doesn’t show up the way you hoped, the power outage, or the appointment someone forgets. And the uncomfortable moment when you have to hold a boundary, especially when you’d rather not be the hammer.
Neal has found a few steady anchors: the micro-business reality of “one day at a time,” and the quietly radical skill of addition by subtraction. Sometimes the way forward isn’t adding another technique. It’s stopping something. Simplifying. Doing more with lessing.
There’s also the importance of tenderness . Neal works with older animals and the humans who love them, he leans on the practice of accompaniment—staying present when things are hard, not avoiding the difficult moments, but instead inhabiting them. It makes a difference.
Listen into this conversation for how failure teaches, and what it asks of us when we’re the ones doing the learning.
The path that connects can’t be seen when you’re looking forward, but there are values, hunches—and maybe even whispers from the future—that nudge us onto the path that matches our spirit and heart.
In this History Series conversation on Qiological, we take a trip in the Wayback Machine with Misha Cohen to the early days, when her interest in health and wellbeing crisscrossed paths with Chinese medicine—an unconventional grandmother, a sudden onset of back pain, and the goings-on at Lincoln Hospital quietly setting the stage for her later work with AIDS and cancer patients on the other side of the country.
Misha’s curiosity has kept her at the leading edge of weaving Chinese medicine and biomedicine together—without flattening either one. In practice, that means clearer thinking, better collaboration, and a steady reminder that acupuncture and herbs often fill a hole in the modern medical system.
Listen into this conversation for a glimpse of what integrative medicine can look like when it’s practiced with an eye toward honoring the value—and the real clinical power—of Chinese medicine.
There comes a time in midlife when the body’s signaling becomes a bit disordered. Energy dips without explanation. Sleep thins out. Recovery takes longer. It’s not that the system has failed—it’s that the signals aren’t as attuned as they used to be. Something in the conversation between stress, hormones, and resilience has gone a little quiet.
In this conversation with Mark Brinson, we explore what happens when hormone replacement therapy and Chinese medicine are used to complement one another. Mark shares both clinical and personal insight into how modern, well-monitored HRT has evolved—and why, when used thoughtfully, it doesn’t override the body so much as restore missing information. From a Chinese medicine perspective, this opens the door for acupuncture and herbs to once again regulate, refine, and integrate, rather than constantly compensate.
Listen into this discussion as we explore hormonal signaling and receptor responsiveness, why balance can sometimes reach a ceiling without additional support, how acupuncture can smooth the transition into HRT, and what it means to practice medicine that restores communication rather than chasing symptoms. This is a grounded, nuanced look at aging—not as decline, but as a shift that asks for better listening and a more open mind about how, and when, to intervene.
In the clinic, communication happens before a word is spoken. It unfolds through attention, listening, and the tactile information the body offers when we slow down enough to notice.
In this conversation, we explore palpation as a central pillar of acupuncture practice—not simply as a diagnostic tool, but as a way of relating. Drawing from diverse clinical backgrounds and decades of hands-on experience, in this panel discussion we move out of theory and into the wordless language of the body. We explore how palpation becomes a bridge between thinking and sensing, diagnosis and treatment, practitioner and patient.
Listen into this conversation as we explore how palpation provides real-time feedback in treatment, how it keeps acupuncture grounded and responsive, the ways in which touch builds trust and rapport, and why listening with the hands can reveal what words and symptoms alone cannot.
Attentive touch doesn’t just inform our treatments—it changes how we show up to the work itself.
The lines we draw define us. In the pursuit of "objectivity," modern medicine draws a sharp line between the observer and the observed—the doctor and the patient. But what happens when we intentionally blur that line? What is discovered when we move toward the subject rather than away from it?
In this expansive conversation with Daniel Schulman, we explore what happens when acupuncture is practiced not as a technical intervention, but as a relational art. Daniel reflects on a lifetime of moving between worlds—science and spirit, objectivity and intimacy—and how Chinese medicine became a place where those apparent opposites could finally speak to one another.
Listen into this discussion as we explore clinical intimacy, the difference between judgment and discernment, why knowing a patient is not the same as knowing their diagnosis, and how self-cultivation becomes an ethical foundation for practice. We wander through Saam acupuncture, Goethean science, deep time, and the quiet moments in clinic where something larger than technique makes itself known.
Good medicine has less to do with having the “right system” and more to do with the human being holding the needles. With the way we listen. The way we wait. The way we’re willing to not know… yet.
In this conversation with Stephen Brown we trace his unlikely path from welding in a west coast shipyard—literally working with fire and metal—to becoming one of the key bridges between Japanese acupuncture and the English-speaking world.
Along the way he unpacks how history, culture, and politics have shaped East Asian medicine in Japan, Korea, China and beyond, and why arguments about “the one true method” miss the living heart of the work. We wander through blind practitioners and palpation-rich traditions, meridian therapy, “scientific” acupuncture, dry needling, and the long-standing turf skirmishes between them.
But repeatedly Stephen brings us back to the clinician’s interior: the courage to admit “I don’t know yet,” the discipline of returning to basics, the craft of letting the body teach you through touch, timing, and attention.
Listen into this conversation on how Stephen refuses both magical thinking and rigid certainty. Instead, he points toward a grounded intuition born of repetition, body-based knowing, and genuine curiosity about the person in front of us. It’s a generous, searching exploration of what it means to practice acupuncture as a lifelong craft, in a world that keeps trying to turn it into a billable procedure.
There are seasons in a woman’s life that don’t arrive quietly. They come with a tremor, a shimmer, a sense that something deep in the architecture of who you are is being rewritten. It’s not collapse, but instead a reordering that can’t be ignored.
In this conversation with Heidi Lovie, we wander into the transformation of menopause. She invites us to consider this transition not as a breakdown, but as a profound renegotiation between heart and kidney, ancestry and agency, biology and identity.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how hormones shape our sense of reality, why perimenopause can feel like the caterpillar dissolving into goo phase of becoming a butterfly, how grief and sovereignty intertwined in midlife, and ways clinicians can expand their imagination beyond the default kidney-yin story. This is about expanding language, reframing experience, and recognizing the second spring as a time of creativity, clarity, and unapologetic self-definition.
Medicine finds its way into our lives not through textbooks, but by getting sand in our shoes, salt in our hair, and noticing how our hands long to be in the dirt—or on people.
Liz Vitale didn’t simply move to the Oregon Coast. She rooted herself there among fishermen, surfers, firefighters, foresters, Latina moms, and retirees. Over time she became part of the village, not just as a practitioner, but as a neighbor, a volunteer firefighter, a customer at the grocery store and regular at the surfer pub.
In this conversation with Liz, we explore what happens when medicine is not practiced from behind clinic doors, but amidst the actual people it serves. We talk about treating fishermen underserved by mainstream care, how not to impose our “Chinese medicine stories” on patients, how community softens judgment, and how sometimes medicine works quietly—by helping people first feel seen.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how healing unfolds differently in rural places, why living joyfully may be part of the prescription, how treating everybody includes those who don’t agree with you, and how sometimes you find out how your treatments are working not from a clinic visit—but from the local pub, where someone shouts over fish and chips, “Liz, the herbs are working.”
We tend to think of eyesight as a technical problem—retinas, optics, refractive errors, clearer lenses. But eyes don’t just see—they interpret. They blur when the world feels too intrusive, or sharpen when clarity feels like safety. The eyes are woven through with story, memory, emotion, and the ways we've learned to look—or to look away.
In this conversation with Dr. Marc Grossman, optometrist, acupuncturist, and lifelong investigator of vision, we explore how eyesight is more than biology—it’s biography. He's spent decades asking not just what eye problems are, but why they appear in this person, at this moment, in this way. His work lives at the intersection of physiology, psychology, Chinese medicine, and the soul’s need to see clearly—not just out into the world, but into one’s own experience and heart.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how nearsightedness can emerge from emotional overwhelm, why some people develop tension in just one eye, how the optic nerve can reflect sensitivity and empathy, and why prescriptions sometimes don’t correct—but instead freeze—a moment in our story.
This isn’t a conversation about fixing eyes. It’s about recognizing eyesight as a living conversation between body, spirit, and the world we orient ourselves toward. It reminds us that inquiry—not protocol—is often the most powerful medicine.
Some people find acupuncture after a twisted ankle, a twist of fate, or some stubborn health condition that finally surrenders to a few needles. But every now and then you meet someone who caught the spark early—before the world had a chance to talk them out of their own curiosity.
In this conversation with Will Martin, we trace the path of a high-school kid who dove headfirst into Chinese medicine—ordering textbooks at sixteen, poring over ideas he could barely pronounce, and never letting that fascination go. Will brings a mix of youthful boldness and genuine reverence for the medicine. He’s thoughtful about the landscape of healthcare, clear-eyed about the challenges in our field, and articulate in how he sees acupuncture stepping more fully into the role of primary care.
Listen into this discussion as we explore why he thinks the medicine needs less defensiveness and more confidence, what it means to keep your treatments simple, how to stand in your authority as a new practitioner, and why the future of acupuncture might be brighter than we’ve been telling ourselves.
Punk rock and Chinese medicine might seem worlds apart, but both pushed back on dominant systems. Punk challenged the mainstream music industry; Chinese medicine, the dominance of biomedicine. Each created space for alternative voices, for people questioning authority and rewriting the rules.
In this conversation with Tyler Phan, we explore how rebellion, identity, and power intersect in the making of American Chinese medicine. His research looks at how a healing tradition that arrived through the Chinese diaspora was caught by the imagination of white countercultural movements, shaped by state regulation, and often distanced from the very communities that carried it here.
Listen into this discussion as we unpack Foucault’s ideas of power, the counterculture’s fascination with the East, the formation of professional standards, and how the DIY ethos of punk still hums beneath it all.
Tyler’s perspective challenges us to see that medicine is never just about healing—it’s also about who gets to define what counts as knowledge, and who that power ultimately serves.
Sometimes clarity doesn’t come from adding more—it comes from taking away. Simplifying helps to see more clearly what’s already there. In medicine, that often means noticing the simple patterns hiding beneath complex presentations.
In this conversation with Fang Cai, we explore the meeting place between Saam acupuncture and dermatology. Fang brings years of clinical experience and study with Mazen Al-Khafaji, and she shares how integrating Saam principles with herbal dermatology has deepened both her diagnostic precision and her ability to communicate with patients in clear, everyday terms.
Listen into this discussion on using Saam acupuncture for troublesome skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, urticaria, rosacea, and acne. We’ll explore how the skin reveals patterns of physiology and imbalance, and why simplicity in treatment—done with discernment—can create profound change.
Fang’s reflections remind us that good medicine doesn’t always come from complexity. Sometimes it’s about listening closely, trusting what you see, and being the kind of practitioner you’d want to visit yourself.
The tools we use to shape our world, they in turn shape us. Whether it’s the brush in a painter’s hand or the software code that organizes the clinic day. The interface becomes part of our perception. Technology, like medicine, is an expression of relationship.
In this conversation with Kenan Akbas, we trace the unlikely path from acupuncture to algorithms. This is a story that begins in the club scene of 1990s New York, winds its way through photography, Chinese medicine, Taiwan, and eventually the creation of platforms that help practitioners connect more fluidly with their patients. Kenan’s work sits at the intersection of tradition, innovation and inquisitiveness.
Listen into this discussion as we explore what it means to build technology rooted in care and how AI might become not a replacement for human skill, but a partner in the development of it. There are challenges in evolving with our tools as we move into a new stage of development with our exo-nervous system. There’s no going back, the question is how do you move forward into a new terrain.
Sometimes the most interesting things happen when we stop trying to confirm what we think we know. In clinic, certainty can close doors—but curiosity opens them. There’s a kind of listening that goes beyond the intellect, a way of paying attention that allows discovery to unfold on its own time.
In this conversation with Dan Bensky, we explore the art of noticing. What it means to let medicine be a call and response rather than a performance of knowledge. We talk about the practitioner’s stance—one that values modesty over mastery, sensation before interpretation, and the quiet skill of finding something you weren’t looking for.
Listen into this discussion as we trace ideas of Tong and connection, the dance between palpation and perception, the discipline involved with not-knowing, and how true competence might simply mean being willing to check yourself.
This is a conversation for anyone who’s ever paused mid-treatment and thought, “Huh… that’s odd.” Because sometimes, that moment—the one that unsettles what you thought you knew—is where the treatment really begins.
The 1970s were a turbulent time—streets alive with protest, classrooms charged with new ideas, and an entire generation questioning the stories they’d inherited. It was a decade of upheaval, but also one where curious opportunities arose. For some, those opportunities led not to politics or protest, but to the quiet pulse of a medicine few in America had ever heard of.
In this conversation with Gene Bruno, we wander through those early days of acupuncture in the United States. From campus strikes and existentialist lectures with Angela Davis to finding himself in the second class of Dr. Kim’s students, Gene’s story carries the spirit of curiosity and rebellion that shaped an era. His path was less about a plan and more about following questions—whether that meant bringing acupuncture into UCLA’s pain clinic, or rediscovering forgotten traditions with horses on California racetracks.
Listen into this discussion as we explore acupuncture’s improbable foothold in the counterculture of the 70s, the razor’s edge moment when the profession nearly became the sole territory of physicians, and how veterinary acupuncture was reborn in America before returning to the world stage.
Ever wonder if being human is less about mechanics and more about patterns? Not the kind of patterns you memorize in a textbook, but the ones that repeat like spirals in a sunflower, or the way a thought can shape the body before we even realize it.
In this conversation with Rory Hiltbrand, we wander through the field of being human—where Daoist numerics, fractals, and the golden ratio intersect with medicine and daily practice. Rory draws from both classical Daoist thought and his own clinical experience, weaving geometry, physiology, and spirit into something that feels both practical and mysterious.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the body as a field and the mind as its knower, how intention can be grounded in embodied experience rather than wishful thinking, why ministerial fire might look a lot like the nervous system, and the curious ways symmetry becomes a treatment strategy.
What I love in talking with Rory is how ideas that seem abstract at first end up grounding us in clinic. Patterns that echo through heaven and earth can also help us know when the best time to treat is simply when the patient is on the table.
Sometimes old books get treated like sacred relics. But what if the Nei Jing isn’t a mystery text at all? What if it’s closer to a well-worn how-to manual — a guide for the hands, a companion for the clinic?
In this conversation with Ethan Murchie, we explore the Nei Jing not as a theory to be memorized but as a craft to be lived. Ethan comes to this work through martial arts and manual medicine, where following the qi, unwinding entanglements, and listening through touch are daily practice.
Listen into this discussion as we consider what transmission really means, why clinical knowing often comes through the hands before the mind, and how the classics find their life not in libraries, but in the repetition of practice.
Ethan’s reflections remind us that medicine can be steady, humble, and deeply human — a craft that reveals more each time we return to it.
The face tells a story, etched in its lines, the color of our skin, and the expressions we carry. These are not mere physical features; they are a language—an ancient map that, if we learn to read, can reveal traces of our life’s journey, ancestral gifts, and the yet to be resolved challenges holding us back. This wisdom often goes unnoticed in a world focused on external appearances, but it is there if you know how to perceive .
In this conversation with Anita Chopra, we journey through the landscapes of the face, and the unexpected twists of fate that lead us to our Ming—that essence that makes us grow. Anita’s approach is a tapestry woven from her personal journey and professional practice. She listens to the body's narrative, honors the lessons from her mentors, and uses her unique skills to help patients find their golden path.
Join us as we explore the power of being truly seen, the profound wisdom of accepting ourselves, how our life's path is found in a glimmer on the periphery, and the courage it takes to become the person you were always meant to be.
Here in the West, acupuncture often feels like something foreign, something patients approach with curiosity but no context. “I don’t know anything about Chinese medicine,” they’ll say. And most of the time, that’s true. We didn’t grow up with an uncle who prescribed herbs or a parent using needles to ease the illnesses and injuries of childhood.
For Wei Dong Lu, medicine wasn’t foreign at all. He grew up inside it, part of a family where healing was daily life. At sixteen, during the Cultural Revolution, he was told to learn a “practical skill.” His classmates were sent to carpentry or sewing. He was handed needles.
Listen into this discussion as we trace the path that took him from Shanghai to Nebraska, from teaching at the New England School of Acupuncture to practicing oncology acupuncture at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
What you’ll hear isn’t just the biography of one practitioner, but a story about how medicine travels—how it bends and blends to circumstance, how it adapts to new settings, and how something essential continues to move through it all.
Ever notice how our bodies have their own climate? The heat of fire and cold of water aren’t just metaphors, they are elemental forces that don’t just live in the weather—they’re playing out in our patients’ bodies every day.
In this conversation with Roseline Lambert, we explore her work blending Saam acupuncture with Japanese palpation methods, and how she’s been experimenting with heating and cooling as clinical strategies. What began as curiosity has become a set of questions for her hands, and a more finely tuned sense for how temperature sketches the contours of channel health and pathology.
Listen into this discussion as we talk about how observation and palpation guide treatment, how listening closely to patient language reveals diagnosis, and why heating and cooling formulas might unlock clinical puzzles where standard approaches fall short.
Roseline brings the improvisation of a musician and the hands of a cartographer to her practice. Her story is a reminder that our medicine grows not just from what we’re taught, but from how we follow the questions that arise in clinic.
Some things can’t be seen—only felt. The texture of presence, the quiet shifts in atmosphere, the way the body speaks before words arrive. In the clinic, it’s not always the protocols or point prescriptions that lead the way, but something quieter. Something more fluid.
In this conversation with Felix de Haas, we meander through the tactile world of East Asian medicine—through pulse, palpation, and the subtle feedback that unfolds when you listen with your hands. Felix shares how Chinese medicine didn’t just appear in his life—it found him. And how the most meaningful parts of practice often live in the places we’re still learning to trust.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the idea of 通 tong as communication and opening, the felt shape of qi, why protocols eventually fall away, and how clinical insight often begins with not knowing.
Felix brings a lifetime of experience, sense of history, and a willingness to stay curious. This conversation is for anyone who’s ever wondered if the body might be whispering more than we’re used to hearing.
Books are more than just words on a page. They carry texture, weight, and the kind of quiet intimacy that screens can never quite match. A book slows down time, unfolds the quiet potency of a moment, and invites us into its rhythm.
In this conversation with Erinne Adachi—acupuncturist, editor, and devoted bibliophile—we explore her lifelong love of books and how it has shaped her path, from making stapled “newspapers” as a child to editing manuscripts and guiding authors, and eventually into the world of Chinese medicine.
Listen into this discussion as we touch on the tactile joys of paper and print, the hidden labor of editing and shaping a manuscript, the vulnerability of rough drafts, and how books and medicine both serve as vessels for stories that change us. Along the way we wander into questions of authorship, ownership, and how narrative itself might be as healing as a needle.
Erinne’s reflections remind us that medicine and literature share a common thread: both require attention, presence, and the courage to trust what emerges on the page—or in the clinic.
Part Two
The body speaks with a visceral language —a hint of thirst, the ache of hunger, the sudden urge for something salty. These signals can be quiet, and easily dismissed when thinking about the “common knowledge” of modern medicine. However, they carry an ancient wisdom that, if we learn to listen, can guide us back toward balance.
In this conversation with Peter Torssell, we wander through the landscapes of Chinese medicine, food traditions, and the yin–yang rhythms that shape health. Peter’s approach is simple yet layered—he looks for what unites different styles of practice, invites patients into small changes with big impact, and trusts the body’s own feedback as a compass.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the subtlety of provoking thirst to build yang, the way salt cravings reveal more than taste, how harmony is born of difference, and the art of choosing foods in dialogue with the seasons and yourself.
Part One
The body speaks with a visceral language —a hint of thirst, the ache of hunger, the sudden urge for something salty. These signals can be quiet, and easily dismissed when thinking about the “common knowledge” of modern medicine. However, they carry an ancient wisdom that, if we learn to listen, can guide us back toward balance.
In this conversation with Peter Torssell, we wander through the landscapes of Chinese medicine, food traditions, and the yin–yang rhythms that shape health. Peter’s approach is simple yet layered—he looks for what unites different styles of practice, invites patients into small changes with big impact, and trusts the body’s own feedback as a compass.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the subtlety of provoking thirst to build yang, the way salt cravings reveal more than taste, how harmony is born of difference, and the art of choosing foods in dialogue with the seasons and yourself.
History isn’t always something you study from a distance. Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of it—shaped by the events, people, and unexpected turns that unfold around you. Those moments influence destiny, and over time, they become the foundation for how you see and practice your work.
In this conversation with Craig Mitchell, we trace those threads through his unexpected entry into Chinese medicine during the HIV/AIDS crisis, the formative years at ACTCM, and the serendipitous encounters that led him to Taiwan and the translation of the Shang Han Lun. His path weaves together scholarship, clinical practice, and the kinds of opportunities that appear when you’re willing to say yes.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the realities of practicing during a public health crisis, surprising opportunities that arose when pursuing medicine in Taiwan, the challenges and losses inherent in the process of translation, and why flexibility in clinical thinking is essential for treating real people in the real world.
Words shape the world. But they also limit it. Especially when we mistake translation for clarity—when really, it’s an act of interpretation, adaptation, and sometimes… a kind of poetic guesswork.
In this conversation with Sarah Rivkin—a clinician, scholar, and longtime student of language—we talk about what it means to translate not just texts, but meaning itself. Sarah brings a thoughtful lens to the edges where language meets medicine, where history presses against the present, and where the clinical meets the poetic.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the unseen weight of choosing one word over another, the challenges of translating classical Chinese into modern context, how diagnosis itself is a kind of translation, and the subtle power of bias in everything we do—from clinic to scholarship.
Sometimes a few needles and a willingness to help—that’s enough to start a quiet revolution.
In this conversation with Richard Mandell, we trace the roots of the Global Acupuncture Project, a training-based initiative that brings simple, effective acupuncture protocols to underserved communities around the world. What started as a gut feeling and an internet search has become a decades-long effort to empower local practitioners across Uganda, Mexico, and Guatemala.
Listen into this conversation as we explore the early days of the AIDS Care Project in Boston, how addiction treatment shaped a community-style model, the decision to train midwives and laypeople instead of doctors, and what it means to offer acupuncture as a “people’s medicine.”
Richard’s story is a reminder that healing doesn’t need to be complicated to be profound—and that with commitment, collaboration, and a bit of boldness, even a modest idea can ripple across the globe.
What if the first step in healing wasn’t a pill, a treatment, or a diagnosis—but dinner?
In this deliciously nourishing conversation we sit down with Andrew Sterman, a practitioner of tai qi and nutritional arts, lifelong musician, and author of Diet is Medicine for Home Cooks and Other Healers. We discuss how our health is shaped not only by what we eat—but how we live, digest, feel, and listen.
Andrew shares how a simple bowl of carrot-ginger soup can profoundly shift the nausea in early pregnancy, and how learning to say “no” to particular foods might unlock better digestion. He takes us through the lived reality of dietary change—from resistance to revelation—and reminds us that health isn’t just delivered in the clinic; it’s built at home.
From his intertwined career as a touring musician and Chinese medicine practitioner, Andrew weaves together insights on energy, food therapy, the role of emotions in healing, and how music and medicine are both about tuning what’s gone off-key.
Some treasures aren’t just hidden—they’re buried, wrapped in mystery and legend, and waiting for the right moment to surface and return to the world of human affairs. What’s astonishing isn’t just that these Dunhuang scrolls survived—but that they journeyed from caves to libraries, and fell into hands that knew enough to recognize them for what they are: threads of ancient medicine waiting to be rewoven into our present.
In this conversation with Dr. Qiang Cao and Dr. Yun Xiao, we trace the surprising journey of the Wu Zang Lun—an early text attributed to Zhang Zhongjing that was unearthed in the Dunhuang caves and made their way to London and Paris. More surprising are the texts from Korea and Japan that contain the same material. This discussion is part detective story, part historical odyssey, and a glimpse into how older medical cosmologies continue to whisper through the written perspective of doctors of the past.
Listen in as we follow the wandering path of this ancient manuscript, hear the emotional moment of seeing it in person, explore how it connects pulse and physiology, and consider its relevance for clinical practice today.
Long before “cold damage” became a checkbox on exams or a buzzword among classical enthusiasts, Dr. Liu Du-Zhou was quietly doing the work—teaching, treating, and writing from a mind steeped in both lineage and clinical experience. He wasn’t just preserving tradition; he was refining it. His approach to the Shang Han Lun was rigorous yet poetic, grounded in clinical realities and shaped by decades of upheaval in 20th-century China. There’s a humility to his voice—a self-proclaimed “still-learning” doctor in his seventies—and a precision that cuts through theory to show how fire and water, yin and yang, truly move through the human body.
In this conversation with Eran Even, we explore Dr. Liu’s remarkable clarity and how it comes through in a slim but potent book that Eran has translated into English. Eran walks us through the experience of engaging deeply with Liu’s thinking, from the literary style of Zhang Zhong-Jing to the physiological relevance of Qi transformation.
Listen into this discussion as we trace the importance of channel theory, the overlooked presence of water pathologies in the modern clinic, the inner workings of fire and fluid dynamics, and how Liu Du-Zhou’s reflections on the six confirmations can shift the way we understand both health and disease.
Wind isn’t just a breeze, it's also an agent of change. Not metaphorical change—but literal, seasonal, even cosmological change that moves through bodies, weather, and even geopolitics. The energies of nature are not only magnificent forces that sculpt landscapes. But also unfold within us as a kind of inner weather.
In this conversation with Christine Cannon, we continue our exploration of the celestial influences that shape our lives—not just in theory, but how these influences manifest in the world around us, and in the clinic. Christine draws from the rhythms of the Five Movements and Six Qi to trace how this year’s inadequate metal has influenced the first part of the year, and what to expect as we move forward.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the implications of excess fire and runaway wood, the potential “revenge” of water, and the subtle influence of seasonal delay. We’ll also investigate the partnership between Imperial and Ministerial fire in bringing ideas from the still void of inspiration into manifest reality. The Shaoyin and Shaoyang—there’s a reason for why they’re both considered to be pivots.
Ever wonder if the body tells its own version of your inner story? That maybe the channels don’t just carry qi—but also the shape of your longings, the tempo of your fears, and the echo of old emotional weather? What if meridians are a kind of cartography, not just for physiology, but for the inner landscape of the self?
In this conversation with Andreas Brüch, we explore how Saam acupuncture offers a tri-dimensional system for working with emotion, physiology, and the mind. Andreas brings a background in psychology and decades of clinical practice to this discussion on the inseparability of mental and physical experience—and how Korean Saam theory makes that relationship clinically usable.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the tri-axial framework of damp/dry, hot/cold, and inward/outward movement; how meridians can reflect patterns of hunger, power, and satisfaction; and why emotional imbalance might be best addressed through constitutional physiology.
This one’s for anyone who’s ever sensed that symptoms are also signals—that the channel system is more than flow, it’s also the message.
Sometimes the tools that help us see clearly aren’t visible at all—like magnetism, sound, and light. We feel their effects more than we can explain them, but when you start to work with these in clinic, something subtle shifts.
In this conversation with Greg Bartosiewicz, we get into a layered discussion of acupuncture, magnetism, light, and biofields. Greg’s background in proteomics and medical lab science blends with his acupuncture training to create a practice that’s both grounded and wildly exploratory. He brings insight from decades in high-end biotech and fuses that with Chinese medicine principles in a way that might have you rethinking the tools at your disposal.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how electromagnetic fields might influence healing, what red light and sound frequency can offer in a clinical setting, and why Greg uses magnetically-induced fields around needles to shift physiology and perception.
This is a conversation for those who suspect there’s more to the medicine than we can see—and who are curious about how principles from physics, biotech, and acupuncture might just be playing together more than we think.
In the early 80’s as acupuncture was emerging into the mainstream culture in the West, it developed differently in response to the established medical and educational systems already in place.
In the USA there was no national health service, while in the UK, that was a pillar of the socio-political landscape.
Sybil Coldham was not a practitioner of acupuncture, instead she was involved with the education of acupuncturists and found herself in the center of cultural and political forces that had and have, an influence on the profession. She's the focus of a documentary that was discussed in episode 363 Acupuncture’s Journey to the West.
Listen into this discussion about building standards from scratch, pushing back against guru culture, the politics of legitimacy, how Chinese medicine has both struggled with and resisted being absorbed by mainstream systems.
What does it take to truly learn something? To not just know it in theory, but to have it live in your hands? Discipline, repetition, and a touch of obsession might be part of it—but so is heart, motivation, and the magnetic force of curiosity that keeps pulling you forward.
In this conversation with Dr. Henry McCann, we talk about what it means to engage deeply with the practice of medicine. Henry reflects on the phase of his life as a musician, how that shaped his sense of discipline, and how that along with decades of clinical work have taught him that mastery often comes through the basics—done over and over with intention.
Listen into this discussion on cultivating clinical mastery, the hidden risks of over-relying on lineage, how repetition builds intuition, and why stubborn motivation might be one of your most valuable tools.
Sometimes it’s not what we hear, but what emerges in the space just before—where meaning hasn’t formed yet—but something is already calling your attention. It’s that quiet edge of awareness where both healing and mystery tend to show up.
In this conversation with Christoph Wiesendanger, a jazz pianist with an abiding interest in Chinese medicine, we explore how rhythm, resonance, and reflective awareness shape both music and healing. Christoph’s journey from childhood exposure to Daoist classics, to martial arts training, the sonic influence of Milford Graves, and years of study with Z’ev Rosenberg, offers a surprising look at the interweavings of music and medicine.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how the pulse relates to rhythm, the difference between keeping time and making it, the idea of cultivating yourself through sound, and how silence and intention shape both clinical and musical presence.
Part One
What if the body wasn’t a fixed map, but a living, improvisational landscape?
In this conversation with Lan Li, a historian, filmmaker, and rhythm-savvy thinker at the crossroads of medicine and imagination, we explore how anatomy is more than skin and sinew—it’s a set of metaphors, shaped as much by culture as by scalpels. Lan brings insight from her work in neuroscience, film, and Chinese medicine to help us consider how maps of the body aren’t just drawn—they’re felt, narrated, and revised in real time.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the improvisational nature of clinical work, the metaphoric structure of anatomy, the interplay between nerves and meridians, the persistence of imagination in medical history, and why ancient images might still be some of our most useful tools.
This episode invites a reimagining of what it means to know, feel, and practice medicine. Especially when inquiry is more like music than math.
Part Two
What if the body wasn’t a fixed map, but a living, improvisational landscape?
In this conversation with Lan Li, a historian, filmmaker, and rhythm-savvy thinker at the crossroads of medicine and imagination, we explore how anatomy is more than skin and sinew—it’s a set of metaphors, shaped as much by culture as by scalpels. Lan brings insight from her work in neuroscience, film, and Chinese medicine to help us consider how maps of the body aren’t just drawn—they’re felt, narrated, and revised in real time.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the improvisational nature of clinical work, the metaphoric structure of anatomy, the interplay between nerves and meridians, the persistence of imagination in medical history, and why ancient images might still be some of our most useful tools.
This episode invites a reimagining of what it means to know, feel, and practice medicine. Especially when inquiry is more like music than math.
The roots of tradition sometimes take hold in unexpected soil. What happens when traditions from France, Korea, and China converge in one practitioner’s hands? There’s a kind of alchemy in the way knowledge travels—through stories, teachers, and clinical results that raise the question of what is going on here.
In this conversation with Jacques MoraMarco, we explore the shape of a career that’s spanned over five decades. From his early exposure to French-Vietnamese and Korean teachings, to his role in building acupuncture education in the U.S.—Jacques has carried multiple lineages while helping to shape what Chinese medicine looks like in the modern clinic.
Listen into this discussion as we talk about the perspective of different streams of practice, the shift from apprenticeship to formal schooling, and how European and Korean influences still echo in his work.
What do we do when the world feels like it’s unraveling? How to respond when our systems—political, economic, medical—feel brittle, even broken? It’s easy to fall into despair, or look away. But maybe what we’re being asked to do is look closer. To stay present.
In this conversation with Ed Neal and Mel Hopper Koppelman, we explore the edges where medicine, ecology, and culture meet. Both are thinkers who don’t shy away from complexity. Ed draws from classical Chinese texts and ecological systems. Mel, from her knowledge of science and systems thinking.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the role of Chinese medicine in times of crisis, the importance of narrative and metaphor in clinical work, how despair and possibility coexist, and the invitation to practice medicine as an act of presence and participation.
Sometimes the best opportunities don’t look like opportunity—they look like risk. Like driving hours into the mountains. Like renting a stranger’s massage room and hoping someone shows up. But there’s a strange kind of capacity that comes from following a hunch—especially the kind that seems to go against the grain.
In this conversation with Irina Cividino, we explore her unconventional path as a peripatetic acupuncturist serving remote towns in the Canadian Rockies. What started as a weekend experiment became a thriving circuit of clinics in communities with little to no access to acupuncture. Irina brings both practical wisdom and a spirit of quiet boldness to the work.
Listen into this discussion as we explore building a low-overhead mobile practice, using local Facebook groups for patient outreach, how geography shapes clinical presentations, and the surprising clarity that comes from being in motion.
This is a story about acupuncture. But more than that, it’s about trusting your instincts, listening to your patients, and crafting a life that follows your values with courage and curiosity.
Technology is evolving fast—and it’s starting to mirror us in ways that are both fascinating and a little unsettling. As AI becomes part of our daily lives, it raises an important question: how do we stay human while working with machines that mimic us?
In this conversation with Vanessa Menendez-Covelo, we explore the intersection of Chinese medicine and artificial intelligence. With a background in both fields, Vanessa shares thoughtful insights on how AI tools can support, challenge, and even reshape our work as practitioners.
Listen into this discussion as we talk about writing clinical notes with AI, the ethics of machine-generated empathy, what happens when AI “learns” your voice, and how these tools might influence the future of medicine.
This isn’t a conversation about hype—it’s about curiosity, discernment, and remembering that the real wisdom in healing still comes from the human side of the equation.
It’s a curious thing, sometimes you want to get away from something. Maybe it’s the town you grew up in, or a family business. You think you know it, and are not interested. But circumstances change and find your way back to it with new eyes.
In this conversation with Thomas Leung, we trace the arc of a family deeply rooted in Chinese herbal medicine. From his great-grandfather’s shop in Guangdong, to navigating the upheaval of the Chinese revolution, to adapting a Manhattan herb store to changing demographics, Thomas brings both a practitioner's and a business owner’s sensibility to the conversation.
Listen in as we talk about the evolution of Chinese medicine in America, what it means to modernize without losing tradition, the challenge of standardizing herbal language, and the precarious state of our profession in this current moment.
This conversation is about more than herbs. It’s about responsibility, reinvention, and how the future of our medicine depends not only on practice—but on stewardship.
Sometimes what holds us back isn’t a lack of skill or knowledge, but an old story unknowingly agreed to. One that says it’s unseemly to want success, that business is at odds with healing. But what if your clinic wasn’t just a way to help people—but also a practice of alignment, agency, and even joy?
In this conversation with Julie Bear Don’t Walk, we explore how business and medicine aren’t separate pursuits but reflections of each other. A long-time practitioner and now coach, Julie brings both clinical experience and a fresh, grounded perspective on how your values, mindset, and systems can support a flourishing practice.
Listen into this discussion as we discuss financial trauma and healing, collaborative care models, the subtle art of patient retention, and how team dynamics reflect the qi of a clinic.
Julie reminds us that a successful practice isn’t about pushing harder—it’s about congruence. When your clinic reflects who you are and how you want to show up, the business part starts to feel a lot more like medicine.
There’s a moment in every practitioner’s life when they start thinking less about where they’re going and more about what they’re leaving behind. What does it mean to practice for decades, to see students turn into colleagues, and to watch the medicine evolve through your hands? The arc of a career in acupuncture isn’t just about technique—it’s connection and contribution as well.
In this conversation with Whitfield Reeves, we explore his 40+ years in practice, from his early days training in California to his work in orthopedic and sports acupuncture. He shares his reflections on what it means to transition from practitioner to mentor, the conundrum of monetizing wisdom, and how in the end— the best work finds you.
Listen into this discussion as we talk about the weight of responsibility in clinical work, the role of legacy in acupuncture, how the empirical method shapes our medicine, and the evolving landscape of mentorship in Chinese medicine.
Childhood is a surprising, messy, and unpredictable unfolding that follows an orderly pattern of stages through reliable spirals of development.
In this conversation with Moshe Heller, we explore the complexities of childhood development through the lens of Chinese medicine. Moshe shares his insights from years of working with children, drawing connections between physiological, emotional, and social growth, and how these elements shape both health and resilience.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the concept of the developmental spiral, how early experiences shape lifelong health, the interplay between stimulation and emotional regulation, and why creating space for boredom might just be a powerful tool for healing.
There's magic in learning how to translate the mysterious into the practical—especially when it comes to bridging the world of acupuncture with the language of Western medicine. Sometimes, all it takes is a burrito and a bit of bravery to create connections that open doors.
In this conversation with Elie Cole, we explore her journey from a massage therapist to a successful acupuncturist with a thriving practice built on referrals from biomedical professionals. Elie tells the story of a chance encounter at a farmer’s market that led her to develop a "lunch and learn" strategy that turned local doctors into reliable referral partners.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the art of using biomedical language to demystify acupuncture, the subtle dance of professionalism and relatability, the unexpected marketing power of a fax machine, and how to navigate the complexities of running a wellness center.
Some paths in life aren’t so much chosen as they are revealed—often through unexpected encounters, serendipitous moments, or a relentless tug of curiosity. The call to become a healer, to step into the role of a doctor, is often as much about who you are as what you do.
In this conversation with Dr. Steven Rosenblatt, we step back into the early days of acupuncture in the West. From his serendipitous meeting with a renowned acupuncturist in Griffith Park to becoming the first Westerner licensed to practice acupuncture in the United States, Steven's story is a rich tapestry of curiosity, perseverance, and pioneering spirit.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the underground days of acupuncture in Chinatown, the quest for legal recognition of the medicine, the challenges of integrating acupuncture into mainstream healthcare, and how becoming a doctor is as much an internal calling as it is an external practice.
Thirty plus years ago, as an acupuncture patient, I found myself puzzling over the question of “Just how does acupuncture work?” That question has been a reliable traveling companion ever since.
Our work requires a lot of “techne’” and it should, there's a lot to know and we as professionals should know it. But clinical work is more than technical knowledge. It’s this other aspect of our work that I particularly seek to investigate on Qiological. In part because it’s not about knowledge, but instead “something else” that does not easily lend itself to teaching. It’s something vital that is learned through our experience of doing this work.
It’s a kind of seasoning. A synthesis of what you know, who you are, and in connection with your patient— how you are.
I’m always curious to know what brought people to doing this work. And even more so— about how the work changes us. With this in mind please enjoy this 400th episode which is an Ask Me Anything conversation with members of the Qiological Community.
Change unfolds within the predictable cycles Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. But, what actually emerges into being, that is usually novel and surprising.
In this conversation with Christine Cannon, we explore the Wu Yun Liu Qi—the Five Movements and Six Qi—and how this intricate system maps out the energetic cycles that shape everything from world events to the experience of our inner psycho-emotive landscape. Christine shares her experience of working with these influences in her clinical practice and how this perspective deepens her understanding of diagnosis, treatment, and seasonal shifts.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how these ancient ideas reveal patterns in illness and healing, how they can help practitioners refine their clinical skills, why the concept of ‘host’ and ‘guest’ qi matters, and how seasonal influences show up in everything from gardens to personal health.
Christine’s insights remind us that medicine is not just about treating symptoms—it’s about understanding the larger forces at play, the cycles that shape us, and how we can work with them instead of going against them.
Fascia—it's the connective web that holds us together, yet its role in acupuncture is often overlooked. What if understanding this intricate network could refine the way we think about acupuncture, movement, and healing?
In this conversation with James Spears, we explore the interaction of Tung acupuncture and the fascia. James shares his path from traditional acupuncture education to integrating fascial principles, bridging Eastern and Western perspectives in a way that brings a unique integrative view to clinical practice.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how fascia and acupuncture interact, why some Tung points work better than others in certain cases, the neurological effects of hand and foot points, and the overlooked role of structural alignment in musculoskeletal issues.
This conversation is a reminder that understanding the body’s physical architecture—its connective tissues, mechanical energy, and nervous system—can deepen our ability to help patients heal.
The history of medicine isn’t just about treatments and techniques—it’s about migration, adaptation, and how healing traditions take root in new landscapes. The movement of Chinese medicine to the American West is a story woven with resilience, ingenuity, and cultural exchange.
In this conversation with historian Tamara Venit-Shelton, we explore the migration of Chinese medicine through the lens of immigration, frontier life, and evolving medical landscapes. Her research uncovers the untold stories of Chinese herbalists, the communities they served, and the challenges they faced in an unfamiliar land.
Listen into this discussion as we trace the paths of early Chinese practitioners, the role of herbal medicine in frontier healthcare, the legal and social battles they encountered, and the ways in which Chinese medicine shaped—and was shaped by—the American medical landscape.
The body holds experience in layers—some are structural, some energetic, and others deeply emotional. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pelvis, a place of both power and vulnerability, stability and flow. It’s the root of movement, the center of balance, and a space where emotions and history are stored, often in ways we don’t fully recognize.
In this conversation with Krystal Couture, we explore the relationship between the pelvis and whole-body health. With a background in physical therapy, acupuncture, and manual therapy, Krystal has spent years listening to the stories that patients tell about their bodies —especially when it comes to pelvic health. She brings a thoughtful and integrative perspective to working with this often-overlooked area of the body.
Listen into this discussion as we explore how the pelvis serves as both a structural and energetic anchor, the interplay between breath, posture, and pelvic function, how emotions and trauma can reside in the body, and the delicate art of meeting a patient where they are—physically, emotionally, and energetically.
Following a blueprint is fine for building structures, but when it comes to life choices, someone else’s recipe for success probably will be only marginally helpful. Plans are helpful, and perspective even more so.
In this conversation with Sydney Malawer, we explore what it means to build a practice that actually works for you. From rejecting conventional business advice to embracing a model based on sufficiency instead of relentless growth, Sydney shares the mindset shifts and strategic choices that have allowed her to create a thriving, sustainable practice in one of the most competitive markets in the country.
Listen into this discussion as we discuss redefining success in practice, why charging higher rates can lead to a more sustainable clinic, navigating the tension between capitalism and integrity, and how understanding your own archetype can shape the way you run your business.
This conversation is a reminder that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building a practice. What matters most is knowing what works for you and having the courage to bet on yourself.
Transformation arises from the unknown. In a world that often craves certainty, the practice of staying with discomfort, observing its rhythm, and allowing clarity to emerge can lead to remarkable insights—not just in healing, but in how we live.
In this conversation with Stephen Cowan, we explore how the art of not-knowing-yet invites discovery. Stephen shares his journey from Western medicine to the integrative, emergent practices of Chinese medicine, where curiosity and connection form the foundation of healing.
Listen into this discussion as we delve into the maps of Chinese medicine that guide us through uncertainty, the role of storytelling and connection in clinical practice, the rhythm of emotions and their impact on health, and how integrating presence and curiosity can transform both patients and practitioners.
It’s the subtler forces—those quietly felt but not perceived—that create the background that frames our days with a tone that is both transparent and influential. The shifting energies of a new year are a slack tide of opportunity to pause and reflect. To consider directions for where to invest our life energy in the coming year.
In this conversation with Gregory Done, playfully explore the symbols and energies of the Wood Snake. We look into the qualities of this unique year and its connection to yin fire, quiet transformation, and the turn of the wheel that feels more like the stillness of the hub.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the symbolism of the wood snake, the balance between action and stillness, the transformative power of introspection, and how understanding the year’s energy can inform personal and collective growth.
Gregory’s reflections remind us of the profound lessons embedded in the natural cycles of life. It’s a timely conversation about embracing quietude, finding clarity, and aligning with the unique, and perhaps unsettling capacity to see in the emptiness of mind and social agreements in the coming year.
Moxa is often seen as acupuncture's quieter sibling, and yet it has a rich history of igniting healing, longevity, and vitality. Its warmth goes beyond the physical—it has a profound effect on our physiology.
In this conversation with Oran Kivity and Merlin Young, we delve into the often overlooked art and science of moxa. While its roots are in traditional East Asian medicine there is some interesting research that suggests it has a role in modern health interventions in terms of treating pain.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the surprising science behind moxa's effectiveness, the idea and use of moxa as a people's medicine, its potential for addressing chronic conditions, and the role it can play in fostering community health.
Sometimes the most profound truths are found in watching what happens when we move between guidance and control. Between letting things unfold and imposing our will.
Evan Mahoney brings a rich tapestry of experience to our discussion, from his own journey of healing through meditation and acupuncture to his explorations of dream interpretation through the lens of Korean Saam acupuncture. His path has been illuminated through serendipity, necessity, and years of dedicated study with Dr. Tae Cheong Choo.
Listen in to this discussion on the three levels of human needs in Saam acupuncture, how dreams reveal our constitutional patterns, and why an acupuncturist's learning curve sometimes involves discovering what not to do.
There's something illuminating about sitting with a practitioner who's willing to share both their successes and their moments of recalibration. Often enough, it's in these honest exchanges that we find the most valuable insights.
Change is usually a tangle of both challenges and opportunities. The landscape of acupuncture has been shifting, from the health of our schools to the growing acceptance of our medicine in larger healthcare systems. These transitions ask us to reflect, adapt, and discover new ways to thrive.
In this conversation with Robert Hoffman, acupuncturist, educator, and administrator, we explore the crossroads our profession is facing. With experience as the president of a school, a commissioner at ACOM, and a leader in state organizations, Robert shares his insights on sustaining and growing the profession and the institutions that train future practitioners.
Listen into this discussion as we unpack the struggles facing acupuncture schools, the rise of integrative and institutional opportunities, the demographic shifts in students, and the adaptability required to navigate this ever-changing profession.
Robert’s reflections remind us that the resilience of Chinese medicine lies in its ability to evolve while honoring its roots. His perspective offers a roadmap for ensuring our medicine continues to flourish in a world that increasingly accepts acupuncture, but doesn’t always support acupuncturists.
For centuries books have been part of the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another. They have always been powerful tools for learning. Especially in the early days of Chinese medicine in the West, because of their rarity.
In this conversation with Bob Felt, one of the early publishers of Chinese medicine books in English, we take a journey back to a time when books on acupuncture were scarce, but curiosity and commitment were steadily increasing. Bob shares his story that began in the counterculture movement of the 1960s and that revolutionary spirit fueled a career that helped to bring important texts from the treasury of Chinese medicine into English.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the early days of macrobiotics, the challenges of publishing groundbreaking books, the evolution of acupuncture education in the West, and the ongoing need for practitioners to connect with their communities.
Ever notice how certain places and connections shape us in unexpected ways? Sometimes, it’s the unique character of a small town, the rhythm of a rural life, that offers opportunities you won’t find in an urban environment. It’s here where time flows a bit differently that relationships and healing move to a different cadence.
In this conversation with Katie Munger, we wander through her journey of building a practice in a small town, where her work has become woven into the fabric of the community. With over 20 years of experience, Katie reflects on how her practice and the relationships she’s cultivated have shaped her as much as she has shaped them.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the unique challenges and rewards of rural practice, the importance of being fully present with patients, the power of hands-on listening, and the challenge of following your heart, even when the path isn’t clear.
Katie’s story is a reminder that healing isn’t just about techniques—it’s about connection, presence, and being a part of something larger.
There is something in the essence of a practice. At the core is something precious, true and fundamental. We all have it. But you probably don’t know what it is, and you won’t until many years down the road of pursuing the work.
Curious that what is of essence, what is at the core of our work, is hidden from us.
It’s a journey of discovery to that which is the north star of how we work as an expression of who we are.
In this conversation with Philippe Vandenabelle we explore the “book we read again and again,” the aspects of our work that are essential to how we practice that slowly emerges over time.
Listen into this conversation on how practitioner development is a kind of ripening, the gift of being connected to people from a different time, and how the challenges in our work are exactly what we need to discover more about the essential core from which we work.
Ever think about how much of what we do as healers is more about what we don’t do? Sometimes, it’s in the subtle pauses, the empty spaces, where the real magic happens. What if the art of doing less is actually the key to unlocking profound change in the body?
In this conversation with David White we immerse ourselves into the world of Nei Jing acupuncture. With decades of experience and a passion for classical Chinese texts, David has honed a unique approach to acupuncture, one that’s rooted in precision, intention, and an unshakeable respect for the unseen forces at play in the body.
Listen into this discussion as we explore acupuncture as a tool of communication, the hidden power of empty spaces, the art of needling with precise intention, and why sometimes the most effective treatments are the simplest. Along with how the Nei Jing can guide us, both practically and philosophically.
Did you ever as a child grab a length of rope, run screaming around the yard and swing it around with abandon and joy?
Sometimes, the most unassuming tools hold the greatest potential for transformation. Rope flow might look like play, but beneath the surface lies a practice that can unlock balance, coordination, and deeper mind-body connection.
In this conversation with David Weck, the Godfather of Rope Flow and a mad scientist in functional movement we’ll discuss body and movement. How simple, dynamic practices can improve not only physical performance but also neurological integration and proprioception. His approach blends creativity, science, and connects up with Chinese medicine in some surprising ways.
Listen into this discussion as we unravel the origins of rope flow, how figure 8 patterns can boost brain function, the importance of spinal mobility, and how engaging your left and right brain symmetrically can change your body awareness.
That Mind/Body thing we are always going on about— we take it to the playground.
How did you learn the medicine you practice? Likely it through the influence of a school, a book or perhaps in this modern moment, an on-demand course of online study. There is another way that medicine gets transmitted, through the connections of friendship.
I’d not thought about that until Volker Scheid mentioned it in this History Series conversation. Once I heard it, it rang true. and I could easily look back through the years and see so many moments of having my eyes opened to something about our healing trade that came to me through the connection of friendship.
Truth is, there is a web of connection that supports us in everything we do. We are awash streams and currents of influence most of which out of our awareness that arise in our clinical practices as ideas that arise as unique treatments in a moment of time. We are connected to history, but our work unfolds in the present moment.
Listen into this conversation on the role of the German enlightenment on holistic medicine, the paths a good question will take you down, and how a head cold can lead to an unexpected connection with Meng He doctors and their surprising influence on the medicine you learned in school.
There’s something about the act of touch that goes beyond the physical, isn’t there? It’s like we’re not just meeting someone at their skin but somehow dipping into the unseen—into emotions, memories, and layers that words can’t quite reach. What happens when we listen with our hands instead of our ears?
The guest of this episode, Chris McAlister, is an acupuncturist and shiatsu practitioner who’s been exploring the art of presence and connection for years. He’s inquisitive about how the practical meets the mystical, constantly seeking ways to blend tradition with modern insight, and helping people discover parts of themselves they didn’t even know were there. From his experiences in Tibet to decades of teaching, Chris brings curiosity, exploration, and a touch of rebellion to the table.
Listen into this discussion as we unravel the power of not knowing, the healing spirals that shift our understanding of problems, and why it’s sometimes okay to let discomfort simmer. And there’s bending reality and what that means in the clinic.
When thinking about our toolkit, most acupuncturists, and patients too for that matter, think about needles. Our job, it’s to use those whisper thin slivers of steel with skill and accuracy. But sometimes the best tool for the job might not be a needle.
In this conversation with Orit Zilberman and Hila Yaffee we consider the use of Hui Yin, Ren One.
For sure this point it’s important and there are challenges to using and learning to use this influential meeting of yin.
Listen into this discussion on both the trauma and healing that can result from working with Ren One, how our own image of what it means to be a doctor can influence how we think about working with this point, and some non-needle ways to powerfully unlock the capacity for healing at the Meeting of Yin.
Ever wonder about the unseen forces that shape health and illness? Sometimes it’s the things we can’t measure that hold the most sway. Healing isn’t always about what we see, but what we’re willing to explore.
In this episode, we sit down with Lindsey Wei, a practitioner deeply rooted in the world of Daoist medicine. She has spent years blending the physical practices of qigong and martial arts with the mystical art of talismans, incantations, and ritual healing. She brings a unique perspective on what it means to heal both the body and spirit.
Listen into this discussion as we explore the workings behind Daoist talismans, how the celestial realm might influence your well-being, and how movement and ritual intertwine in martial arts.
There’s more here than meets the eye, as we explore the boundaries between science and spirit, logic and mystery—and how these might be a little more porous than you realize.
Being in business is not just about tracking the financial health of your enterprise. It is about having a mission worth engaging, a kind of fire in the belly that fuels you through the difficult parts, and a sense for working at the edge of your capacity.
Having a business and all that goes with it, it gives you the opportunity to grow into potentials you can only dream about in the middle of a difficult night.
Our guest in this History Series conversation, Bill Egloff has been helping patients and practitioners for a long time with the products and services he’s provided over the years. He’s got a keen eye for business, regulatory details, and working with seemingly competing interests. It’s a long road from running a natural foods store to collaborating with Sloan Kettering on cancer patients.
As with the other history series pioneers, there have been some interesting forks in the road worth taking.
In acupuncture school we learn the 10 questions, which will get you some information. But it’s more interrogative than rapport building, more about eliciting information than revealing meaning.
Listening with a mindset of noticing the small anomalies. Listening to understand someone from their own point of view. To be inquisitive about how the difficulties might hold unrevealed lessons, and how troubles are lessons in progress.
It’s more than having an unfettered sense of curiosity, there’s something else that goes into it.
In this conversation with Vance Crowe we explore the transformative potential of conversations that invite the stories that haven’t had an audience. Like many of us, Vance did not set out to do what he does. It found him.
Listen into this discussion on rapport, connection, surprise and delight. Often enough, there’s a harvest of wisdom that comes with following the threads that are usually just out of sight.
We have the two of yin and yang, the three of the jing, qi, shen, the four levels of pathogenic invasion from the Wen Bing, the Five Phases of the Wu Xing and the Six Elements— wait a minute, Six Elements?
Have you ever wondered why the Classics speak to the Five Zang and Six Fu? Especially when we have an equal balance of yin and yang meridians. And what is going on with those two troublesome organs, the Triple Burner and Pericardium that have a “function” but no form? Furthermore, have ever wondered how it is that Fire gets four organs, but all the other elements only two?
Our guest in this conversation Slate Burris had those questions as well. He’s an inquisitive guy, so he went looking. What he found is surprising, and once pointed out— a bit obvious as well.
Listen into this conversation on the Sixth Element, how that can guide your clinical work, the power of palpation to track what is happening in the moment for patients, and how one needle in the right place can set off a domino effect that dramatically changes your patient’s physiology.
In our work as acupuncturists, we use differential diagnosis to understand the warp and woof of a patient’s problem, to see how various seemingly marginally connected aspects of their problem give us the pattern that allows for skillful intervention. We also look at constitutional factors, those aspects of our patients that provide a kind of gravity and centering to their life and how they live it.
Both aspects need our consideration in clinical practice.
In this conversation with Peter Eckman we discuss the differences between a person’s constitution and their condition. Both give us a handle on working with people, but these are very different aspects of our make up.
How are they different? And how to approach work with these? Listen in, there’s a lot to discuss.
We are encoded beings. There is a song that plays out through the patterning of our DNA. We are influenced by the tides of culture, family and peers. And there is a great turning of Stems and Branches that leaves an imprint on our mind/body as we enter the world.
The Ba Zi is a description of the moment we enter this world, it’s the weather we carry with us from that first breath. It shows tendencies of expression, not unlike how DNA plays a familiar rhythm through us.
In this conversation with Howard Chen we explore the Ba Zi and in particular the influence of the Day Master, which is a helpful place to begin when sorting through the complex interrelationships of the phases, especially if you’re a practitioner of acupuncture.
Listen into this conversation on why we have tendencies to rely on our generation or control cycle, how our superpower is a resource and at times trouble to overcome, and how we can balance out the wobbles we all carry that make us uniquely ourselves.
In this History Series episode we time-travel with the vivacious Cara Frank. Her story begins in the gritty, creative pulse of 1970s New York City, where as a teenager, she was navigating the counter cultural scene. Her first encounter with acupuncture was anything but ordinary—an illegal treatment that changed her life and set her on the path she travels today.
Cara’s journey is a tapestry woven with threads of rebellion, discovery, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. From the scarring moxa treatments of Dr. So, to her worldview changing with the discovery of herbs in a Beijing hospital. Cara’s story is one of exploration and deep connection to the roots of Chinese medicine practice.
Listen in as we explore the alchemy of Cara’s life in Chinese medicine—as she reflects on the influential figures who guided her, her insights into the community's growth and the importance of mentorship. All with her hardscrabble wisdom, humor, and a dash of New York grit.
You’re probably somewhat familiar with the four needle technique. It’s an innovation said to have arisen through the meditative practice of the Korean Buddhist monk Saam, roughly four hundred years ago.
It has since been passed down both through the monastic tradition, and used as well by ordinary doctors. Today you’ll also find the “Saam Method” used in academic research studies and employed as a key part of their acupuncture practice by Korean practitioners.
In this conversation with Andreas Brüch we explore the more modern thinking and application of Saam as it’s used by Korean doctors today. He’s spent 20 years studying with some of those doctors and using the method in his work.
Listen in to this discussion on organ pairs, phase energetics, six qi influences, a psycho-emotive model that expands your thinking, and how the Sam Boo character of the transport points can help you to select individual points to add focused potency to your treatments.
How we engage the mind can have an effect on our wellbeing in profound ways.
What is even more interesting is how the mind and body interact. We are all familiar how the emotions can be the source of internally generated illness, and we are all familiar with how injury or illness can in turn have an effect on our emotional life.
Some would go so far as to say all physical illness is rooted in the emotions. To me that seems a bit simplistic. but I’d agree that our physiology and the internal “climate” generated by the emotions… they are not disconnected.
In this conversation with Joyce Vlarrkamp we discuss the inner landscape, not just of the patient, but the practitioner as well. Along with the metaphors and imagery through which patients navigate their experience. If you’re keen on investigating the inner landscape, you’ll enjoy this conversation.
What is Nature, and what is Nurture? It’s an old question that poses what is perhaps a false dichotomy.
Considering out Nature, it’s as old as Chinese medicine. And nourishing ourselves so as to enjoy the full measure of our days, also has a long history of inquiry and practice.
As practitioners we need to know how to take care of ourselves as part of being able to care for others. The tenets of East Asian medicine suggest that different kinds of people need different things. Sun Xi Miao is one of the leading authorities on medicine and cultivation.
In this conversation with Sabine Wilms and Leo Lok we discuss their perspective on what Sun Si Miao has passed down to us, and a special program they are offering for those who want to take a deep dive into the essence of “nourishing our nature.”
I attended what was then known as SIOM before it was an accredited school. I thought the program and approach was a good fit for how I learned, and being in my late 30’s at the time, I did not have the patience for a program that would not let me get my hands on people for a year or more.
At SIOM, they had us in the clinic from the first week. Our patients were part of our curriculum. That fit the way I learn. The innovative program they were experimenting with back then was in part due to the efforts of Paul Karsten, who was one of the founders. Learning and instructional design was something he’d been interested in and gravitated towards.
Listen into this conversation on the early development of schools and curriculum, the challenge of teaching Chinese medicine concepts to Western students, the importance of hands-on experience, and the role of qi transformation in learning and practice.
For sure, the health of the brain is absolutely essential to health and wellbeing. As we age, just like with other organs, there is a lot that can go wrong with that curious Sea of Marrow.
In this conversation with Clayton Shu we discuss how he went from a focus on orthopedic issues to being concerned with neurology and brain health. Clayton doesn’t really do things in halfway measures, so when he goes at something, he goes at it full tilt.
Listen into this discussion that connects ancient Eastern with modern Western perspectives on neurology, yang sheng, gut health, and acupuncture in the promotion of brain health and a well functioning neurological system.
From the misty mountains of China to the teahouses of Taiwan, Tea has served as a bridge between nature and culture, tradition and modernity. Tea is not just a beverage, but a living entity that carries within it a connective plant wisdom and the potential for personal and societal transformation.
In this conversation Brian Kirbis unveils tea's hidden depths, its ability to foster human connection, its embodiment of spiritual ecology, and its power to teach us about balance and appreciation.
Listen into this discussion that brews up insights on the spiritual ecology of tea, its role in fostering human connections and as a traveling companion for life's journey.
Not only is acupuncture strange, with its twelve invisible watersheds of flow and influence. But we have the qi jing ba mai. The strange flows… usually translated as the extraordinary vessels.
Some say these are the blueprint that give structure to the embryo as they help to orient and guide development. Others say that these vessels are deeply tied into our psycho-emotive functioning.
Traditionally they were talked about as reservoirs . They helped to regulate the excess or lack in the 12 main channels.
As for me, I can’t say that I understand them all that well. And that is why I like to talk to folks who have spent time investigating the extraordinary nature of these vessels.
Which is why I’m delighted to share this conversation with Yvonne Farrel and Luke Adler
They’ve spent some time looking into and clinically working with the 8 extras as we commonly call them.
Are they strange, or are they fundamental? Listen in and find out for yourself.
I recently had the good fortune to sit down for a conversation with Charlie Buck, one of the early pioneers in acupuncture and Chinese medicine in the UK. He shared his journey of discovering acupuncture in the late 1970s, a time when it was still quite unknown in the West. Our discussion explored how the landscape of acupuncture education and practice in Britain has shifted dramatically over the years.
This conversation touches on deeper topics like the nature of mastery in Chinese medicine, the importance of cultivating perception and intuition, and how practitioners can be like "magicians" for their patients.
Listen into this discussion that weaves together history, philosophy, and practical wisdom about the practice of Chinese medicine. Charlie's passion for the subject and decades of experience truly shines through.
Understanding and acknowledging how things are is a terrific starting point. It’s what led Ilan Migdali to not just understand how health insurance worked in California, but opened up a path for him to create an insurance network that specifically aimed at helping acupuncturists to thrive.
Beyond the creative and practical work Ilan has done with insurance, he’s also a student of the Balance Method and in particular looking at the yi jing and how the transformations of the gua can be stimulated within the body using particular acupuncture points.
I always hope that when I speak with people Ilan a bit of their broad perspective might wear off me. Maybe it will broaden your perspective as well…. We’ll find out right after a word from the people you can thank for making Qiological possible.
I was cautious and reluctant about studying acupuncture when it first really caught my attention.
Then there are folks like John McDonald who when he first caught wind of acupuncture thought… far out man, I want to know more about that.
That enthusiasm has followed him through his time as a practitioner and even through doing a Ph.D.
In this conversation we’ll discuss trickster shamans, the ethics of using the controlling cycle of the Five Phases to influence your patients emotions, why people with stanch beliefs are most easily brainwashed, and the curiosity of how the body “makes decisions.”
For sure, it’s far out, and I think you’ll want to know more.
Tinkering and creating, I suspect that anyone who's been lucky enough to have grown up in an environment that encouraged exploration, risk taking and curiosity— they've got a perspective that has them asking “why not” instead of “why.”
Figuring out how things work is fun. Even more so when you don’t take other people’s word on what is doable or not, and you go and see for yourself.
Adrian Larsen has been one of those “how’s this thing work” kind of people his whole life. That’s what led him into all kinds of interesting projects, one of which was the creation of the acugraph. It’s great when curious people push an edge and find a whole new territory to share with the rest of us.
In this conversation we’ll learn more about how the Acugraph came about, as well as how it can be used.
I had the delightful surprise of Zoe Coldham reaching out to me to tell me about the documentary she’d created that goes into the early days of acupuncture finding its way into the mainstream of British culture.
As you probably know, Qiological has been doing a little mini-series on acupuncture’s journey to the west as well. So I was keen to have her on to hear her perspective and what she’s discovered.
Listen in for this documentarian’s perspective on acupuncture’s Journey to the West.
The late 60s and early 70s were a time of openness and experimentation. It was the beginning of the civil rights movement, more equality for women, and the recognition that sexuality included more than love between men and women.
Cultural norms were questioned and that included dietary practices, the healing arts and the relationship between humans and the planet. It was in this rich milieu of change that acupuncture started to take root in the imagination and then practice of those who were willing to follow a path with heart.
We are going to hear more about those early days with Randall Barolet. Some of you might recognize his name on the first Formula and Strategies book from Eastland Press. Randall did not set out to be a translator, that was something that organically showed up as he followed his interest with Chinese medicine.
In the words of Grateful Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter, what a long strange trip it’s been.
It’s fun to solve problems. Especially when you’re not quite sure what to do, so you have to pay attention and learn what’s important. You must develop the capacity to learn from both your failures and success.
Mark Brinson wanted a liniment for patients and was not happy with what was on the market. So he thought he’d just mix up his own. That turned into a process of learning a lot about everything from the quality of the herbs, to the nature of the water, to distilling his own alcohol.
The final product is not just a quality liniment, but a point of view. When it comes to marketing and assisting practitioners not just about helping their patients, but also doing well financially so they can sustainably do their doctoring work.
Listen into this conversation on herbal alchemy, marketing with a sense of humor and how to have fun as a mad scientist.
The Chinese are right, the brain is a curious organ. The way the nerves entangle their way into every aspect of our body, and how their gentle electric hum gives us awareness of this container we call ourselves.
Pain is how our nervous system lets us know there is a problem. Acupuncture has rightfully been seen and used as a way to intervene. Strangely enough the ear has a powerful influence on the brain and nervous system.
In this conversation with John Howard we take a look at Battlefield Acupuncture, its origin, unique place in the military, and how it works with the curious organ of the brain.
Listen into this discussion on the influence of the zero point, the curious relationship between blood types and pain, sacred the geometry of 30 degree angles, importance of titration and how causing some trouble got him a job working for the Yankees.
What is our universe made of? How does it work, and more importantly– what are we doing here and how do we make sense of it? Eternal questions, unanswerable, but maybe the questions are not for answering, perhaps they are for focusing attention.
In this conversation with Rory Hiltbrand we take a look at our peculiar situation as Beings in between the circle of heaven and square of earth. We dip into mathematics, Donghan Daoist numerology, metaphysics and others head scratching ideas about medicine that practitioners have puzzled over for centuries.
Listen into this discussion of sacred geometry, alchemy, Quantum mechanics and perception. It gets a bit Alice in Wonderland like, but I think you’ll enjoy the trip down this rabbit hole.
While many are keen on looking to “science up” acupuncture and squeeze it into the thinking and theories of conventional medicine, others are quite content with the weirdness of it. And enjoy playing around in the territory that’s off the radar of Western science.
Julian Scott is one of those pioneering acupuncturists whose background in theoretical physics primed him for the strangeness of the world of acupuncture.
In this conversation we explore how healing and science don’t always go together. His surprising introduction to treating children, and the weirdness that is inherent to both physics and healing.
Listen into this discussion on root causes, developmental stages, the influence of vaccines, along with the role of mind-to-mind connection and emanation in healing.
As anyone who has started an acupuncture practice and tried explaining it to potential patients knows, it’s not easy taking the terminology and thinking of East Asian medicine into English speaking Western culture.
The guest of this conversation, John Rybak, has thought long and hard about this. He is keen on helping our profession bridge how we think and work with the constraints and opportunities of the conventional medicine world.
Listen into this conversation on the importance of effective communication, concerns with our scope of practice losses, need for advocacy, and how expanding our vocabulary can help us to engage the broader medical community.
Brenda Hood often reminds me “Chinese concepts, especially classical Chinese concepts, are big and multidimensional. They are extremely dependent on context and while shades of meaning often cross over, they can be quite different and be more or less encompassing of ideas depending on actual context.”
Which is why I’m always questioning myself when wrestling ancient Chinese ideas. What’s more, it will seem culture itself is constantly rewriting history to fit the current zeitgeist. So words and ideas, they shape-shift through time.
In this episode we discuss 意 Yi, commonly translated as Meaning or Significance, and also as Intention.
Intention gets talked about a lot in our trade, but for me over the course of time, I feel less and less clear just what Intention is, and how it relates to my clinical work. I’ve got some questions about it, and was delighted to sit down with Stephen Boyington, Leslie de Vries and Volker Scheid to see if they could thrown some light on what for me has increasingly become a murky term.
Listen into this both scholarly and practical discussion on 意, Yi as it relations to medicine and how the doctors, poets and calligraphers over the centuries have puzzled over this as well.
Saam acupuncture with its unique channel pairings, perspective on psycho-emotional dynamics, and capacity to interweave the Five Phase with the Six Qi is a powerful tool for understanding the interplay of yin and yang along with body and mind.
In this conversation Joshua Park joins us to explore how Saam acupuncture gives us a holistic view and allows practitioners to approach diagnosis and treatment from multiple perspectives.
Listen into this discussion of how using multiple lenses gives a more dimensional understanding to your patient's condition. Along with how the Zi Wu “Chinese Clock” helps us to discern the interconnections between Heaven, Earth and Person, and how the flows of dissatisfaction and satiation are built into being human.
In the late 60’s and early 70’s of the last century East Asian medicine began to emerge into mainstream culture. The Reston NY Times article is often cited as a catalytic moment that put the idea of Chinese acupuncture into the minds of Americans. But other streams of medicine from Japan and Korea were also finding their way into the imagination of those who would be a conduit that would help these methods to flourish in the mainstream of Western culture.
Peter Eckman has been a unique bridging influence. His acupuncture came from the currents of Korea, as well as Japan and Taiwan via the Worsley tradition of England.
Listen into this conversation on inquisitiveness, constitution, and how saying “yes” in pivotal moments opens up a world of possibility.
The Middle East has a long history of war and unrest. Whatever phase of history you’d like to zoom the timeframe, you’ll likely see conflict. In Episode 72 of Everyday Acupuncture Podcast I spoke with an Israeli practitioner on what it is like to live in a place where you’re frequently hearing air raid sirens and headed to a bomb shelter. In this conversation we hear reflections of two practitioners who share their experience in the aftermath of the attacks of October 7th.
In this conversation with Keren Assouline and Guy Sedan, we hear from experienced practitioners who share with us what it's like living and working amidst the ongoing conflict in Israel. They have seen first hand how the trauma of war infiltrates the body, disorders the qi and leaves an effect on the mind, spirit and society.
Listen into this discussion that provides a window into using the tools of Chinese medicine to help a society cope with the deep impacts of living through war, fear and violence.
Here’s a question that I find difficult to answer. How does acupuncture work?
Beyond the East Asian medicine phrasing that makes zero sense to your average citizen. Just what is going on in the body in response to a sliver thin needle being placed in the flesh? And once you have an answer for that, explain how a “needle” that does not pierce the skin can accomplish the same thing?
It’s an annoying question isn’t it? Which makes it a very good question, and the motivation for inviting Gary Klepper, Thomas Sørensen, and Erhart Truitt to this conversation on teishin needles.
Listen into this discussion on the paradox between intention and attention, perspectives on gently interacting with the qi, and how the teishin is a forgiving tool for beginners and an instrument of advanced technique for experienced practitioners.
Women develop through the cycles of seven. Men through the rhythms of eight. Women, more resonate with Blood. Men, with qi. Being human, there is a lot we share in common. Looking at our classic books on medicine, from the point of view of physiology and health, there are differences. And from the perspective of development, going from child to adult, and from adult to elder, we walk paths that orbit around one another.
Damo MItchell recently commented on social media about his concern that men, younger men in particular, are not thriving. They are depleted in Jing and Kidney qi. Which is a curious and unusual condition given their relative youth. I too have had concerns about younger men and so invited Damo to this conversation.
Listen into this discussion on how men and women process emotion differently, why men need to feel useful, the importance of manners and why man who does not take risks will deplete his Kidneys for sure.
East Asian medicine recognizes the central role that food can play in our health and wellbeing. We have various models for understanding the fluctuations and trajectories a human body can travel as we navigate the time we have between Heaven and Earth.
In this conversation with Jaguang Sunim we explore the Korean Sa Sang constitutional perspective as it relates to our physiology, along with the strengths and deficiencies that we can mitigate with the foods we choose to eat on a regular basis. Additionally we’ll explore how the influences bestowed on us as viewed through the Ba Zi chart can help us to better understand how our unique mix of the Five Phases gives us insight into our constitution.
Listen into this conversation on constitution, food as medicine and how understanding our constitution through the Sa Sang and Five Phases can quickly reveal our super powers and our kryptonite.
The 1960’s and 70’s saw an explosion of alternative health and lifestyle practices appear at the edges of culture. It was a time ripe with possibility and fraught with peril, after all there was a war going on. The kind where men were drafted.
As with any troubled time, there is also opportunity. Because as things fall apart, they also fall together. The guest of this episode, Stuart Watts, he had a bent for spiritual practice, a curiosity about health beyond the mainstream, and an adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit. The kind of spirit that did not just see opportunities, but created them.
Listen into this conversation as we dig into the early days of how you’d go about learning acupuncture, the history of the first schools, and how troublesome ‘wu fa’ teachers can teach you a lot about what you need to know, even if the experience is unpleasant.
Change happens through time, it unfolds within the rhythmic inhale and exhale, it expresses through lunar and solar cycles, it follows the arc of development, fruition, and decline. There are recognizable pathways and markers that arise within what is mostly a non-linear experience of life.
Daniel Atchison-Nevel used to skip school and hang out at the library where he found himself in the company of old Russian Jewish mystics, their stories and tattered copies of the Dao De Jing. Not a bad place to begin, if your destiny holds the potential to include the practice of Chinese medicine.
Listen into this discussion of how undifferentiated wholeness ratchets down into the world of yin and yang, the constant interplay of fate and destiny, the vital importance of of being able to recognize the impulse towards healing within dysfunction, and how the most profound learning he received on the Extraordinary Vessels came from a man with whom he shared no common language.
Alchemy sounds like magic. It sounds like magic because it involves the transmuting of something coarse and without value to something refined and of worth. But really, there is nothing magical about it. It’s the process of finding a corner of the world you want to work on, and applying some elbow grease to make it better.
In this conversation with Leta Herman we explore the first four of the nine palaces of Alchemy. Which is to say, the nuts and bolts of working with the everyday world, because before you can work on the higher levels. You need to build your foundation and capacity by first gaining mastery with everyday life.
Listen into this discussion of spirit, matter and why matter matters.
You’ve probably heard about family lineage types of acupuncture from Asia. Here in the West, acupuncture is still a bit of a newcomer to the medical scene, but it has been around long enough that we are beginning to see second generation practitioners.
In this conversation we have a father son team, Joe and Sam Audette. Joe is a medical doctor and has deeply studied and helps to teach the work of Kiiko Matsumoto. And in this conversation you’ll get all kinds of helpful tips on areas of the abdomen to pay attention to, along with Joe’s ability to think about and use both Eastern and Western physiology.
Listen into this discussion on pursuing medicine across several different cultures, why it is important to be grounded in the fundamentals and how developing a sensitivity for our patients is essential in the work we do
It was challenging enough for me in the 1990’s to set myself on the path of learning acupuncture. and by then, we had established schools and clear pathways to licensure and a livelihood. But back in the early days it took a rare kind of individual with a big spirit to seek out the knowledge required to learn acupuncture.
The guest of this episode, Ted Kaptchuk, is one of those explorative pioneers that headed East because he was sure he’d find something, even though he’d no idea of how he was going to find it.
Listen into this conversation on the revolutionary spirit took Ted from New York to San Francisco to Taiwan and then Macao. The twists and turned involved learning the medicine, and how the Web That Has No Weaver came into being.
Medicinal mushrooms have made their way into the everyday lives of the “old one-hundred names,” us common folk. Formerly rare and precious substances like Ling Zhi and Dong Chong Xia Cao are now cultivated and readily available for people like you and me.
Considered to be “higher” level medicinals, these are substances considered more for promoting wellbeing, than treating illness. Which brings us to the topic of “Tonic Herbs” and Yang Sheng, the nourishment of life.
In this conversation with Mason Taylor we discuss the differences between “Tonic Herbs” and the use of herbal medicine to treat illness. We touch on Daoist practices, the fundamental role of Jing, and the challenge and opportunity of running your own business that allows you to explore something that is of vital personal interest.
Listen into this discussion of mushrooms, longevity and the search for authentic meaning.
Clinical experience and results are paramount in developing skill as a Chinese medicine practitioner. Theory should serve practice, not the other way around. Specializing in certain disease categories like dermatology can accelerate your learning process.
In this conversation with Mazin Al-Khafaji we explore how he’s spent the past few decades using Chinese medicine to treat difficult skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis. His study of Chinese medicine and unexpected collaboration with conventional doctors on eczema trials added fuel to the fire of his interest in dermatology. Since then, he’s dedicated his work to researching and treating recalcitrant skin disorders, and teaching others who have an interest in this speciality.
Listen into this discussion on approaching and working with seemingly treatment-resistant skin conditions, and learn how the power of Chinese herbal medicine helps people not only with troublesome dermatological problems, but auto-immune issues as well.
We are here in the midst of winter cold going into the Spring Festival— the new Chinese Lunar year. It might seem strange to consider Spring as beginning in the deep middle of dark and cold, but all beginnings start in the dark. They begin before they can be seen.
Qiological is delighted to have Gregory Done back with his perspective on the coming Wood Dragon year. This 12 year Earthly cycle of animals began anew with the Metal Rat in 2020, and we know how that shifted our world in profound ways. This past year of the Water Rabbit, as Gregory suggested, would be weird— and indeed it was.
LIsten in as we review the Rabbit and consider the energies and symbols of the coming Wood Dragon, which begins a new Heavenly Stems cycle. Get ready to ride the Dragon, and know what to pack and what to leave behind.
In the mid 70’s there were four English language books on acupuncture. Which wasn’t much to go on. But for the people that started learning acupuncture in those days. It was enough to get started.
Suzuki Roshi is famous for saying “in the beginners mind there are many possibilities, in the experts mind there are few.” Which is another way to say being young and foolish is not a bad way to get started with things, because you don’t know what you can’t not do. and exploring new territory brings its own satisfaction.
In this conversation with Peter Deadman we revisit the early days of when acupuncture was emerging into the mainstream culture of Great Britain.
Listen into this discussion of cultural change, personal exploration, the structure of TCM and how a copy of bootlegged clinical notes helped Peter to learn the medicine, and then in turn share it with the rest of us.
There are aspects of East Asian medicine that touch on the frameworks of Buddhism, Daoism, Shamanism, and Alchemy. What’s more the lenses of philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and cosmology also can come into play when we consider the nature of the channels and points.
Touching on existential questions and potentials for healing transformation, our guest in this episode, Zac Lui, discusses the Five Phases and channel dynamics from a perspective you’ve likely not considered. And touches on the cultivation of consciousness and how it’s helpful to rid ourselves of limiting beliefs.
Listen to this conversation that offers a shamaic and esoteric perspective regarding the integration of different paradigms into your understanding and practice of medicine.
Meditation is seen as an ancient panacea to modern problems. Mindfulness and equanimity will help with your productivity at work, relationships at home, reduce your need for certain medication and in general make you a better version of yourself.
But the inward turned gaze often enough does not reveal a tranquil garden, but a junkyard. The promise of stillness and equanimity evaporates in the onslaught of our unruly human minds.
In this conversation with Leo Lok, we investigate how mediation can be a source of greater suffering and contribute to mental illness.
Listen into this discussion of meditation as repetitive stress injury, misconceptions about self/not-self, and how some core tenants have changed their meanings in the translation from the original Poli.
Pain is a helpful signal when it works properly as a warning signal. But when that signal goes awry, it dramatically changes a person’s life and also affects their close relationships.
Jonathan Riemer has been researching chronic pain in children and he’s found there are social, neurological and psychological aspects to pain and its treatment.
Listen into this conversation on illness and how it functions within the family systems, disconnections between the mind and body, and the importance of opening the mind to possibilities.
The curious thing about having someone ask me a question and engage in a conversation of inquiry is that I hear myself saying things that are usually hidden just under the surface of habit and belief.
In this episode the guest of the podcast is me. and the host steering the boat… it’s Rick Gold. if you don’t know Rick, listen to episode 323. He’s had a hand in hundreds of people learning our medicine.
Listen in for a discussion of the influence that shop class has had on me over the years, some of the nudges that shapeshifted my life, and how a panic attack turned out to be a birthday present.
We all have some kind of call to follow medicine, otherwise we wouldn’t be in the trade. If you answer that call today, you’ve got a profession you can work yourself into.
But back in the late 70’s early 80’s, the profession was still finding its footing. And if you’re like the guest of this episode, Z’ev Rosenberg, having an established professional track was less of a concern than following a hunger he had for natural methods for restoring and maintaining health.
Listen into this conversation on rock music, synchronicity, the Yi Jing, and how a feisty attitude can take you a long way.
The vast wealth, and it is a wealth, of writing on Chinese medicine is in Chinese.
Granted, at this moment in time there is enough material that has made its way into English that you wouldn’t be able to read all of it in one lifetime. That’s far cry from the handful of books of 40 years ago. Still, the history and perspectives that have found their way down to the present in Chinese. It’s like an alternative universe. Maybe several of them.
In this episode with Michael Brown, Will Cerveles, Eran Even, and Ivan Zalava, we have a discussion not just on translation, but more importantly the varied perspectives of practitioners whose work others thought was interesting enough to print and re-print through the decades and even centuries.
These guys are the new wave of practitioner/translators and they are fired up about what they’re discovering. And keen on sharing it with the rest of us.
Listen in for a lively discussion on the perspectives of some doctors you’ll only meet through the written word.
Some people dream of being influencers and social media stars. They are looking for a glamorous life in front of the camera.
Not so for the guest of today’s episode who first published a Facebook video as a way to help support her students. It was a complete shock when someone from another country wrote to tell her how they appreciated the help in learning medicine.
In this conversation with Clara Cohen we reflect on how she got started with her YouTube channel, Acupro Academy. It’s been an accidental journey that’s helped her to be of assistance to so many and given her an opportunity to discover how to use social media as a force for good.
Listen into this conversation on grit, persistence, exploration and the connective power of a virtual community.
We practice traditional medicine, or do we?
Because Chinese medicine has roots and writings that go back into misty history, it’s easy to imagine we practice much like your average Qing or Ming doctor. But the truth is, the way practitioners worked even just a hundred years ago would be quite foreign to the standards of today.
In this conversation with Eric Karchmer we explore some of the themes and historic insights from his new book Prescriptions for Virtuosity, The Post Colonial Struggle of Chinese Medicine.
I’m serious when I tell you— it’s going to blow your mind.
Listen into this discussion of how Chinese medicine became the slow medicine, the brilliant innovation of the early textbooks, and how it is that what you think is the ancient bones of our medicine, is in many ways a new innovation. One wrought not through the communists stripping out the shamanistic practices, but rather by Chinese doctors themselves figuring where they stood in relation to the potency and power of modern biomedicine as it changed the landscape of economics, power and practice.
In this conversation, our guest Efrem Korngold said, “the definition of a good paradigm is that you can apply it effectively to new problems.”
You know how sometimes you hear something and it stops you dead in your tracks, it rings true in a way that you can feel in your bones, muscles and blood. I heard this and felt the truth of it. What’s more was his further comment that Chinese medicine; it’s good paradigm.
Listen into this conversation on the early days of Chinese medicine emerging into the mainstream in California, the way fearlessness helps to develop you as an acupuncturist and why imagination is so vitally important to the craftsperson.
“My Po made the decision”
I’m usually skeptical about most explanations of the “Spirit” of the five Zang viscera. Not that I don’t indulge speculation myself, I most certainly do. But given these ideas come down to us from another time, language, and culture. Given they’ve traveled through through the millennia I’m mightily reluctant to stake a claim on what the ancients might have intended.
That said, the guest of today’s conversation Karine Kedar said the above quote towards the beginning of our discussion and it landed with an in-the-bones sense of “that’s right.” Which is an interesting place to start when the topic is polyvagal theory and East Asian medicine doesn’t even recognize a nervous system.
This conversation comes with a warning label. Probably best not listened to while driving or if your attention needs to be focused out into the world. There is a notable inward falling of attention as we traverse the landscape of the polyvagal not so much talking about it, but rather strolling through the landscape it offers.
Listen in for a felt sense of parasympathetic polyvagal tone, a possible way the Spirit of the five Zang might be involved, how the interplay of the nervous and hormonal systems helps create social bonds and the pre-heaven influence of epigenetics.
You don’t need to practice acupuncture for very long to realize that people frequently slip into a deep state of quietude and repose. Often enough, they come out of a session with a completely different look to their eyes, they move slower and with a more integrated coordination, they’re focused less on the noise in their life, and more on the potency of the present.
In this conversation with John Myerson, we explore acupuncture and non-ordinary states of consciousness. This was part of a PhD dissertation he did in Psychology, but what’s more interesting is how he has evolved this exploration into his clinical work. A practice which looks quite different from his original inquiry of using needles and music to induce non-ordinary states.
Listen into this discussion of trance, leaning into the yin influence that comes from power under and how getting out of the way just might be the best way to help others.
I’ve often enough equated the word Alchemy with Magic. Hoping for something that would quickly and painlessly transform the troubles dogging me.
Perhaps this is possible with magic, but alchemy, that is a process of preparation, distillation and attentiveness. It’s a undertaking that requires a kind of containment and the transformative power of time is a key ingredient. Maybe not unlike the process of learning medicine by practicing medicine.
In this conversation with Leta Herman we discuss alchemy as a mindset, as a perceptual filter that allows for interacting with points in a way that allows for patients to tell and hear their story more fully.
Listen into this discussion of transformation, perspective and presence in how we engage and listen.
It’s surprising the unexpected paths we trod that lead us to our destiny. Especially when you’re headed into a profession or line of work that does not yet exist.
In this conversation with Jake Fratkin, we meander through tales of back pain, bitter herbs, beginner's luck and crooked judges. We reflect on the joys and uncertainties of following your fascination to wherever it leads, and making a go of life on the edge of the establishment.
Listen into this discussion on blackjack statistics, monkey behavior, apprenticeships with Chicago masters and being involved with a call to standards in an emerging profession. Jake took an eccentric path to Chinese medicine in an era when it was still a fringe pursuit. It would seem you write your own destiny when following your interests and curiosity, and keep on going.
There are several foundational texts that lay the groundwork for Chinese herbal medicine. Usually when you think about the Shang Han Lun, you’d immediately think of herbs. And when you think about the various herbs that make up the classic prescriptions, you’ll realize they all have a flavor, direction and character. In essence— a kind of qi.
In this conversation with Maya Suzuki we discuss the dynamic of Gui Zhi Tang. How it leaves palpable traces in the body. And how to use acupuncture in a way that speaks to the action of each of the individual herbs, and the overall character of the formula.
Listen into this conversation on the character of qi, inquisitiveness in the clinic, the trouble (and benefit) of not being able to remember everything, and how using our hands and attention helps to create a stream of attention that allows us know in the moment what to do next.
Confused by all the diet advice out there? Me too! Seems like there's always a new fad telling us what to eat– or not. I'm a fan of the 80/20 principle and I’ve been wondering if that might apply to diet, especially if you’re using diet as a way to improve health.
I chew this over with acupuncturist and nutritionist Brenda Le and see if we can untangle some of the noise and drama around food.
We’ll discuss the intertwinement of food and emotion, dealing with shame, listening to your body's signals, and more. Brenda suggests just 4 key guidelines: eat close to nature, make it yourself, plan ahead, and chew well. We also get into what to avoid - like diet cults and over-researching isolated studies.
Listen into this conversation on age-old wisdom, self compassion, and making friends with food by finding your 20% for 80% success. Food should feel good!
We have plans, but our destiny usually is not found in the maps we make of the world. It shows up in unexpected, random and often unguarded moments. There’s a lot we “do.” It does not come from knowing, but we can spin up a story in retrospect.
In this conversation with John Nieters we notice how our work in time tends to simplify. That our plans and often enough lead to an unexpected potently changeable moment. We explore the East and West of blood stasis, and curiosities of the circulatory system. Along with noticing how strange it can be when you notice something everyone else seems to be missing.
Listen into this discussion of potent paired points, poker, Zhuang Zi, real estate and attending to the smooth circulation of blood.
Ghost points.
Read those words and let the sound echo into your head, your heart and body. Ghost points. Just the words carry an energy. An energy of spirit, of embodiment, or not. The words suggest something of the spirit that can go astray. Like a decision to never let a particular bad experience ever happen again, or on the other side, the addictive desire to recreate again and again something of the sublime.
In this conversation with Ivan Zalava we consider the realm of spirit, ghosts, embodiment and psycho-emotive states that can generate a reality of their own..
Listen into this discussion of memes and slogans as modern “possession”, trance states for shifting consciousness and a Chinese medicine view of ADHD.
If you don’t know where you want to go, it’s fine not to know where you’re going.
Not all journeys have a destination– at least, not in the beginning. In the beginning you’re opening to options, surveying the landscape, getting a feel for who you are in the territory. It's the Open part of “Open, Close, Pivot.”
Rick Gold, one of the founders of the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine did not start out to found an acupuncture school. He started out aiming at being a hermit in backwoods Kentucky. But as with most things in life, where we start and we end up– it can be surprising.
Listen into this discussion of inquisitiveness, and how following something you find interesting will take you to places you didn’t know existed. And you just might help a lot of other people along the way.
Li Shi Zhen and Sun Si Miao, they shared an interest in alchemy. Often enough in our clinical work, patients will describe what happened with them as being magical, but as practitioners we know its not magic, its medicine. But it’s a medicine that works outside the parameters of Western thought, and the consensus of settled science.
In this conversation with Peter Firebrace we explore being a Zhen Ren, a True Human, and internal alchemical practice. The journey to Emptiness through the three Dan Tian, and the process of returning to source, unity and simplicity.
Listen into this conversation on the cultivation of Authenticity that goes from simple to complex and back again to simple.
Chinese medicine looks to the perspectives of the past to understand the unfolding present. And for sure, there are threads of connection and perspective that come down to us through the curious tides of history. At the same time, there is this unique moment.
What we hold, what we discover, these are yin yang aspects of how to make sense of a medicine patinated with history and lore.
In this conversation with Volker Scheid we discuss continuity and change in Chinese medicine. And the starting point is not the deconstructivism so popular in our present moment, but rather the inquiry of Chinese poets in the 12th century.
Listen into this discussion of living and dead traditions, the influence of Tang poetry, and the position of Chinese medicine in the modern world.
I still remember the moment when I realized that the character for Listen in traditional written Chinese was composed of the characters for Ears, Eyes, and Heart. Twenty two little strokes that unambiguously describe what is required to genuinely listen.
Deborah Woolf has spent the past year teaching a course on basic Chinese for East Asian medicine practitioners. And while the content of her course is of interest to me, in this conversation what I’m more focused on is what it is that she’s learned in the past year from teaching this material.
Listen into this conversation on the challenges of translation, the multidimensional nature of Chinese medicine, and key learnings and questions from the past year.
If you’ve studied Traditional East Asian Medicine in English, you no doubt have benefited from the work of today’s guest.
Dan Bensky has translated, written, published and taught for more years than most students entering an acupuncture school now have been alive.
He set off for Taiwan in the early 70’s to follow his interest in learning Chinese. Taiwan was still under martial law and the mainland… the mainland was going through the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. Chinese medicine, not even on the radar for him, but something happened in Taiwan.
Listen into this conversation on language, cultural, and learning medicine street smart style.
The book we used for studying acupuncture points at the Seattle Institute of Oriental Medicine was Foundations of Chinese Acupuncture. That along with Grasping the Wind were my entry into the study of channels and points. Both of those books had the handiwork of today’s guest, Andy Ellis.
Beyond those early translations, Andy has his fingerprints on a wide swath of books on herbal medicine and acupuncture.
Andy wandered his way into most of his learning. And he’s been generous with what he’s found.
Listen into this conversation on learning, finding teachers, and how putting yourself in front of what you’re curious about will open 緣分 Yuan Fen like opportunities, you can’t get any other way.
Often enough at the beginning of a sea change, you don’t know what’s coming next. You’re already part of a current, a flow, and while you can steer within current, you’re caught up in a flow that is beyond your capacity to fully understand.
In this conversation with Malvin Finkelstein we take a trip in the Wayback Machine to 197xx and his first encounter with acupressure, acupuncture and the potency of nutrition. We visit the early years of acupuncture education, the challenges of making a living when most states did not offer licenses to practice acupuncture, and crafting of standards and valid testing that would become the foundation for licensure.
Listen into this discussion of serendipity, passion, persistence and contribution.
What you grow up with, that’s what becomes normal. You could be smack dab in the middle of something extraordinary, but it’s simply everyday life for you.
In this conversation with Yvonne Lau we reflect on her experience of growing up as the daughter of immigrants from Southern China who ran an herb store in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was a time when a few dedicated young people from the mainstream culture began to show a respectful and insatiable interest in Chinese medicine.
The interest of those young people was part of what would become a growing acceptance of Chinese medicine in the west. And the herb store; it too has grown through the years.
Listen into this conversation of playing hide and seek behind bags of uncut herbs, some of the characters who made up the Asian Chinese medicine community, how her parents herb store has become a major supplier of medicinals, and some of the challenges we face in this moment of time.
What do you do if you’re interested in learning and practicing acupuncture, but there are no schools, standards or licensure?
You built it yourself; with help of other spirited colleagues.
In this conversation with John Myerson we go back to the days when acupuncture was just coming into the mainstream of American life. It wasn’t there yet— but it was close enough to intuit.
John was there in the early days of the New England School of Acupuncture. And he helped to create the academic structures required to give our profession legitimacy in mainstream culture.
It was a grand experiment, gutsy when you think about it. And those early influential pioneers, they created the foundation we stand on today.
Listen into this discussion of vision, steadfastness and risk taking as we take a trip in the Wayback Machine to a moment when acupuncture and East Asian medicine was just beginning to emerge into mainstream culture.
The transport points are rich in story, function, connection and seem to have a capacity for engaging qi in profound ways as it flows from the tips of the fingers and toes, up to the elbows and knees. Lou points are particularly interesting as they both connect yin and yang channels.
In this conversation with Sean Tuten we investigate the capacity of the luo channels to act as a first defense against overwhelming experiences that come from the outside. How they both protect against and can storage pathogenic influences. More importantly, the kind of treatment that removes these obstructive influences.
Listen into this conversation on time streams, channel dynamics and understanding pathology as a useful response by the body.
The heart of our work, often enough, leans on the connections and capacity of the heart.
In this conversation with Ross Rosen we explore the importance of the patient-practitioner relationship, the concept of negotiating a diagnosis and some Daoist practices in medicine.
Listen into this discussion on practical clinical strategies and how traditional medicine intertwines and overlaps with our everyday lives.
East Asian medicine is a nature based medicine. And nature… nature is weird, and mysterious. And as much as we like to come up with “Laws of Nature” they are more like approximations. Useful for sure. But you’re asking for trouble if you confuse the map with the territory. And with nature, the territory is always changing. How do you keep your senses open and unencumbered with habit and belief? How do you stay present to what your patient might need in this particular moment? How do you wisely use knowledge in such a way that it doesn’t become dogma?
In this conversation with Edward Neal we discuss understanding nature’s patterns through East Asian medicine, the impact of technology on human consciousness, and how the Nei Jing helps us to map our way through nature and healing.
Listen into this discussion of nature based medicine, technology, consciousness and the importance of illuminative beauty and Shen based living.
The story of the blind men exploring the elephant is alluded to often enough that it’s easily dismissed as cliche. And yet, the profound truth of how our senses and meaning making influence of our mind are worth pausing to consider.
In this conversation with Jason Robertson and Stephen Brown we consider the 理 Li, the patterning or connective coherence that runs through creation. As acupuncture and East Asian medicine are pattern languages, this concept touches on the core of our work.
We touch on how our methods and ways of working come from this foundation of understanding pattern. Along with how theory is most helpful when balanced with know-how, and the importance of putting our hands on people. Perhaps our work is so not different from the blind men and the elephant.
Mind and body are inextricably entangled together. The effect of emotions on the physiology leave a palpable trace. It’s something that we as practitioners can acquire the capacity to discern and use as part of assessment and treatment.
In this conversation with Maya Suzuki we touch on how touch is a potent aspect of treatment. How it gives us direct access to a patient’s inner terrain, and how it gives us reliable information that stands apart from theory and protocol. We also explore unique properties of moxa and how it engages the adaptive healing process.
Listen into this discussion of how Maya followed the circuitous route that landed her in exactly the right place to study the medicine she wanted to learn since she was a child. And just happened to have the language skills that would allow her to engage it with depth.
Is it the end of the world, or the beginning of a new one?
That is the question of the day when cultures go through seatide changes. Ever since the turn into of this yin water rabbit year in February, we’ve been hearing about power, potential and perhaps peril of ChatGPT and the other Artificial Intelligences that have burst into the digital landscape.
What is in store for us as acupuncturists? That is the question I put to Heidi Lovie who has been getting her hands dirty with various kinds of silicon based intelligence for quite a few years now. You might not know this, but she can make Excel spreadsheet datasets dance and sing.
We practice old medicine and we live in the modern world. AI– it’s not going away.
Listen into this spirited conversation on data, signal, noise and in many ways, you’re already using AI
The acupuncture channels are a curiosity that practitioners have puzzled, and argued, over for centuries. Even as these structures and processes so fundamental to life have been used for treatment and well being since Chinese medicine first began to emerge far beyond recorded history. In a sense, the channels are maps that help us to orient and navigate life, health and meaning.
In this conversation with Jason Brazil we discuss his voyage of discovery as he took his hand's on experience as a massage practitioner, and began to investigate the clock opposite organ pairs of the Chinese meridian flow clock. We'll touch on the importance of fostering a presence between practitioner and patient, the crucial role love and connection play in healing, the impact of self-cultivation on a healer's capacity to work and the way love creates a matrix of connection for healing and wellbeing.
Listen into this lively discussion of body constellations, qi maps, and the reminder to bring love into your practice.
It can be hard, impossible perhaps, at the beginning to know that you’re at the start of a tidal shift. It’s only in looking back and connecting the pivotal moments that you can see a challenging moment didn’t happen to you, it happened for you. It’s only later that you can see how attempting to solve a troublesome problem would take you down a path your imagination couldn’t dream up in that moment.
In this conversation with John Scott we take a trip in the Wayback Machine to a time when acupuncture was more of a curiosity than a career. We look at the troubles and challenges of the late 60’s and early 70’s and how the influences of those times created opportunities that would in turn lay the groundwork for the profession we enjoy today.
Listen into this discussion of flower power, entrepreneurship and good old American ingenuity and self-reliance.
There’s a saying that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Maybe. I suspect that it has something to do with the capacity of your 意 Yi to make meaning, and the vitality of the 志 Zhi to take that meaning and marry it to the sense of what you’re here to do in this post-heaven formed world of the created.
In this conversation with Chris Shelton we hear how his troublesome childhood laid the groundwork for a qi gong practice that would not only help him to heal himself, but to be of service to others as well. We’ll touch on the impact of emotions on our physiology, the central practice of accountability and the importance of being both present and non-attached in the face of difficulties.
Listen into this discussion of troubles, trauma and transformation.
You probably have an image in your mind, and a feeling that goes with having had a bad marketing experience. But do you know what good marketing feels like?
It feels like someone cares and is trying to be helpful.
Effective and ethical marketing is about connective communication and helping your patients to solve problems.
In this conversation with Danielle Weil we focus on the importance of understanding our patient’s needs, and developing the skill to be able to accurately describe their problems. We also discuss some basic copywriting frameworks that will help you both connect with your patients, and to invite them to take the next step in resolving their health concerns. Additionally we explore old school advertising and how to use AI to help with your marketing research and content creation.
Listen in for a lively discussion of marketing, copywriting and the effectiveness of mental shortcuts in decision-making and how to use them ethically to better get your message across to patients.
East Asian medicine uses a completely different map of physiology and function from that of modern biomedicine to understand health and illness. It’s a set of tools and perspectives that gives us a unique look at the entanglements of function and form. And when using acupuncture to help our patients it’s all about the qi, right? Maybe not.
In this conversation with Leah Fehres we consider the relationship between acupuncture points, nerve structures, and the body's intricate nervous and fascial systems. How the bifurcation of nerves is frequently the location of an acupuncture. And how traditional diagnostic methods might not reveal for us how we can consider neurophysiology in formulating an effective acupuncture treatment.
Listen in to this conversation that invites you to question traditional practices and embrace acupuncture through another lens.
What’s more powerful, a whisper or a shout? What has more impact, a punch to the gut or an intended and targeted slight? Strength and power, these are two different things.
In this conversation with Bob Quinn we explore the gentle practice of using the Teishin, and the landscape that emerges as we attend both to the quiet sensitive aspect of the nervous system as it manifests in the skin, and our rooted sense of perception and attentiveness to the space we inhabit with our patients
Listen into this discussion on the potency that can arise from stillness and gentle quiet as you traverse ordinary and sacred space while listening through the teishin.
Business and medicine are interwoven together. Both deeply connect people together through relationships that have an impact.. Yet it’s easy to see the business of medicine as something separate from the practice of medicine. Consider challenging the limiting paradigms and stories you might have on running a business in medicine.
A successful business is founded on the principles of providing honest value. And technological advances through social media give us the possibility of connecting with people who are looking for your services. It can be an opportunity to create something that reflects who you are and to promote our medicine by facilitating learning.
In this conversation with Jimmy Yen, we dig into the intersection of running a business and leveraging social media for your practice. We discuss self-cultivation, getting our hands dirty with the business of medicine, and the need to band together as Chinese practitioners for the betterment of our medicine. Jimmy also shares his perspective on social media and some tips to make it work for you.
Listen into this discussion on the business of medicine and the role of social media as a tool to promote our profession.
In the realm of East Asian medicine, uncertainty is a constant companion, a persistent reminder of the mystery of life. Like a meandering river, the health status of our patients is in a state of constant flux. It can be a daunting task to navigate these changing waters, but it is a challenge that we must embrace if we are to become better practitioners.
In the face of the unknown, we find the greatest opportunities for learning and healing. We are reminded to trust in the innate wisdom of the body, to be more attentive to the needs of our patients, more sensitive to the subtle cues of the body, and more attuned to our own habits of dealing with change and uncertainty.
In this conversation with Stephen Brown, we explore different paradigms of medicine and how they impact our work. We talk about the need to embrace the unknown as a catalyst for growth, the importance of the patient's frame of mind, and how we can find meaning in our work. Stephen also shares some of Dr. Shudo Denmei’s perspectives and treatment techniques.
Listen into this discussion on navigating the fluid nature of our medicine and how the uncertainties can be learning opportunities.
Medicine is always a discussion, Be it between practitioner and patient, between colleagues talking shop, or through the stream of history and commentary that accompany the classics of Chinese medicine.
In this conversation with Dr. Shou-Chun Ma and Dan Bensky we discuss their recently published translation of the Shang Han Lun. And beyond that the importance of building a dimensional understanding between the text, your experience and clinical practice. How the essentials of the classics do not change, but the skills in applying them does. Along with a look at how different kinds of case histories can help to illuminate the text and our understanding, while others might be interesting, but ultimately not clinically helpful.
Listen into this conversation on tradition, doctor slams, how to avoid flattening your perspective on medicine and Dr. Ma’s insights into the Jueyin.
Western and Eastern medicine have often stood at odds, separated by skepticism and worldview. But perhaps the best path is neither, but both. Perhaps the best path to healing lies in bridging the gaps between approaches to medicine—cooking together science and tradition, innovation and adaptive ancient wisdom.
The medical systems may contrast, and in those differences perhaps reveal a greater whole. It could unlock a wider perspective and more capacity to help patients.
In this conversation with Robyn Adcock, we delve into the curious (and oftentimes contentious) topic of integrative medicine. We look at navigating the barriers into the conventional medicine world by helping those working in conventional medicine ‘experience’ the value of East Asian medicine from the inside through direct experience. Along with why we may need qualitative methods in our medicine, and how we can leverage scientific improvisation in our clinical work. We also touch on the innate trustworthiness of East Asian medicine and its untapped potential.
Listen into this discussion on clinical curiosity and expanding integrative medicine through experiential learning.
Tools in East Asian medicine are not just inanimate objects. They are a tangible extension of the healer's touch, a conduit for their energy and intention to flow through. Our tools are essential for turning stagnation into flow, pain into ease, and the discordant notes of illness into wellness.
And while the true power of our medicine lies in the practitioner’s ability to evoke the body’s innate capacity for balance and harmony, the tools are essential to the work. And fine tools are a joy to use.
In this conversation with Kevin Ferst, he walks us down the unexpected path that brought him to working with local artisans in the crafting or vessels for healing in the remote Appalachian mountains of New York. We explore the nuances of cup making, from the intricate art of glassblowing to how the quality of the tool makes a difference in the clinical experience of both the patient and the practitioner.
Listen into this discussion on creating and using quality tools, and a glimpse into the complexity and challenge of designing and bringing to market handmade cups from rural USA.
In a world where change is the only constant, East Asian medicine offers a way to track change even in the midst of change. Our medicine has a way of adjusting to changing times and has the capacity to bring the essence of ideas and perspectives from the past into the unique moment of the present. History rhymes with itself, and it’s our job to figure out how.
In this conversation with Nigel Dawes, we take a dive into the mutability of Covid and other wind viruses, the long-term sequela of Covid, and how to be inventive with our formulas as we look to adapt to ever unfolding change in our clinical work. We also touch on the impact of political, behavioral, and psychological underpinnings of the pandemic.
Listen into this discussion on the public health and clinical implications of Covid, and how our medicine offers an opportunity to be of service when the world is coming apart.
The principles of Chinese medicine, with its focus on balance and harmony, have long offered effective treatment methods for respiratory disorders, by both fighting pathogenic influence and by allowing the essence of health to flow freely. Our treatment modalities are steeped in time-tested methods and in experience carried forward from one generation to the next.
Our experience of the past three years has revealed gaps in our knowledge, fractures in our social fabric and the influence of toxic social media. It’s been a pandemic that has not only affected our bodies, but our minds as well.
In this conversation with Beau Anderson, we look at long Covid through the lenses of Western and East Asian medicine, discuss the flexibility and adaptability of Chinese medicine for systemic disorders like long Covid, and the shortcomings of attempting to validate the ancient healing practice using modern scientific methodologies. We also explore possible ways of harnessing and positioning our medicine for the future.
Listen into this discussion on the state of long Covid research, including where we’ve been, what lies ahead of us, and the role of East Asian medicine in navigating the terrain.
Chinese medicine is a rich tapestry of knowledge and techniques, ancient wisdom honed and passed down through the ages. But the ‘superpower’ of our medicine lies in its ability to explore the unknown. To navigate uncertainty and delve into both the unknown depths of the human body and the ever changing environment.
Just as stars guide sailors on their voyage, the ancient wisdom of our medicine helps us to chart the unknown and steer our patients toward wellness and balance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the past few years of the Covid crisis.
In this conversation with Sally Rappeport, we mull over the clinical experience of living through the pandemic, including the stigma and psychological effects of a fear mindset and addressing lingering symptoms like coughs. We also talk about some of the different herbal formulas and strategies practitioners developed in response to the Covid crisis.
Listen into this discussion on the lesson we’ve learned (and continue to learn) from our co-evolution with SARS-C0V-2.
Amidst the chaos of contagion and windstorm of viral woes, Chinese medicine offers ancient remedies, and beyond that, perspectives to guide us through the turmoil.
While our bodies may be ever-changing, our medicine offers both a rooted stability and capacity to follow change in the moment. There’s more than one helpful way to track the winds of disharmony, to follow the tides of illness and health, and invite balance into an unsettled system.
In this conversation with Daniel Altschuler, we delve into the Covid19 pandemic's tumultuous past and the challenges of the present. We discuss its parallels to the 2003 SARS epidemic, the long-term issues with some viruses, questions surrounding the vaccine, and the multifaceted approaches of East Asian medicine in treating these wind viruses.
Listen into this discussion on the personal and clinical experience of restoring balance in the face of Covid.
Like the patina and wear on something touched often, or the way shoes and fabric carries the memory of the wearer. Our life and spirit shows its presence on our face. To read the face is to delve into the intricacies of the being woven into the lines, curves, and expressions of the human face.
The face reflects the depth of our being. It’s an invitation into a world of untold stories, capacities and potential. Sparse eyebrows speak of emotional strain, the fullness of your lips reveals the ability to express emotions, and the ear lobes indicate prosperity. Perhaps the tales told by face could help foster greater understanding and healing for those seeking vitality and wellbeing.
In this conversation with Juli Kramer, we delve into the art of face reading and how it can serve as a valuable tool in our work. We explore the parallels between psychology and face reading—with Juli sharing some practical tips on how to decipher the narratives etched within the lines and curves of the face. We also look at the state of mental health among young people today, and why a rethinking of our attitude and healing approaches may be necessary.
Listen into this discussion on using the lens of face reading to guide and enhance clinical conversations.
As the winds of change sweep through the healthcare landscape, the acupuncture profession stands at a crossroads, and as is the nature of a crossroads-- there is uncertainty. But as with any crisis, there is both danger and opportunity. It is an opportunity to consider where we have been as a profession and what kind of future we’d like to see for ourselves and our profession.
Perhaps it’s time to retool our approach to how our medicine fits into the landscape of modern American. Maybe it’s time to pause and examine how we have approached our education and business practices. This may be how we ensure a place for acupuncture in the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare.
In this conversation with Lisa Rohleder, we chew over the state of our profession, including an out-of-the-box approach to integrative medicine, the issue of student debt, changing our perspectives to thrive as small businesses, and how we fit into today’s economic and medical landscape.
We also weigh up on the potential withering of our organizational infrastructure and possible ways forward.
Listen into this discussion on why we may need to reimagine our education model and business approach to our practice.
Crafting the meaning in life, choosing our purpose and then having the courage and wherewithal to unfold that is not an easy task. Are we puppets in the hands of fate, or do we have the capacity to influence the rudder and chart our life path?
Human beings have long grappled with questions surrounding our fate and destiny. And according to traditional Chinese medicine, the answer may lie in the extraordinary channels. Accessing the Chong meridian may be key to tapping a stable foundation that allows for accessing our truest nature.
In this conversation with Ann Cecil Sterman, we unravel the notion that all intention is heart-centered unless interfered with by the mind. The topic takes us down a fascinating path where we mull over the idea of accessing the Chong meridian and uncovering the blueprint of our life. We also explore what it means to be a proficient practitioner, the issue of the mind defending against destiny, and why acupuncture is all about the channels.
Listen into this discussion on mind, intention, fate, and navigating the blueprint of one’s destiny.
This is a continuation of the discussion I had with Damo. I had a few lingering questions from our previous conversation. So we got together a few days later to noodle on those.
If you like the previous conversation, you'll likely find this one interesting as well. And perhaps, leave you too with some fruitful questions.
We all know that Chinese medicine is a path of balance. A journey of harmony and restoration. An art that seeks to align the channels and tend to the ebb and flow of Qi. As practitioners we are trying to unravel the knots that bind or drain away imbalances so as to invite the body back to health. Our medicine is an art that seeks to bring harmony to the whole.
Attention to the body's subtle cues and responding with nourishment and care is of the utmost importance. Cultivating attention brings about a potential that allows us to discern subtle changes and fully immerse ourselves in the healing process, connecting with our patients on a deeper level— and at the same time releasing our attachment to results.
In this conversation with Damo Mitchell, we go off the beaten path as we discuss some arguable topics revolving around the use of attention versus intention in the clinic, developing a sense of discernment for what’s valuable, the linear nature of our medicine, and how cultivation ties into all this. It’s a conversation that is bound to raise a few questions (and perhaps some eyebrows).
Listen into this discussion on the cultivation of qi and why attention should take precedence over intention in our clinical work.
Additionally, there is a “Part Two” portion to this conversation that takes us further into simplicity, attention and natural flow
Mingmen (命門) is a lifeblood point in the flow of fire and qi in the body, yet remains shrouded in an enigma. For those who seek to understand their fate, the point—which translates to “Gate of Destiny” or “Gate of Life”—can be perceived as a gateway leading to a realm beyond our understanding, offering a glimpse into the unknown.
Like the beating of our hearts, the strength and vitality of the Mingmen can determine the course of our lives. Its fiery heat, fueled by the blood of life that courses through us, illuminating the path to our destiny.
In this conversation with Thomas Sorensen, we seek to understand and unlock the mysteries of the Mingmen—including its significance in our clinical work and how to attend to it. Thomas talks about the need to get heat in the right place and how the heart, the kidney, the Mingmen, and the San Jiao (triple burner) tie into all this. We also fiddle with the idea of destiny, the physiological and psychological aspects of our clinical work, and the role of the small intestines.
Listen into this discussion on the relationship between the pericardium, the San Jiao, and the Mingmen.
As the earth awakens from its winter slumber, the gentle spring wind brings with it the promise of new beginnings. A new fate, a new story waiting to unfold like a delicate silk scroll, unfurling its beauty and mysteries with the turn of the Zodiac wheel.
As cherry blossoms bloom and fireworks light up the night sky, the rabbit burrows into the subterranean, only to reemerge and hop its way into the spotlight, soothing the rough shores of the past and guiding us into the unknown in a voyage of discovery. The soft thump of its heartbeat is like a soothing lullaby, reminding us to approach the new year with a kind and open heart. Its long ears, keenly attuned to the slightest sound, remind us to be open to opportunities and to listen to our intuition.
As we welcome the new year, may the stars align. May we all find the courage to navigate through life's challenges with elegance and balance, while cherishing the precious connections we share with others.
In this conversation with Gregory Done, we delve into the mysterious realm of the water rabbit and explore how its gentle yet powerful energy can guide us through the ebbs and flows of life, helping us to make the most of opportunities and weather any storms that may come our way. We talk about the transformative power of the water rabbit as the bringer of diplomacy, close-knit relationships, and sneaky guile. Gregory also unravels what lies ahead for the 12 animals of the Chinese cosmological Zodiac.
Listen into this discussion on the symbols, energies, and cosmological influences that we may encounter this coming water rabbit year.
As practitioners of East Asian medicine, we are informed deeply by the ancient medicine, experience and wisdom passed down through generations. The holism woven into the East Asian medicine traditions is especially important in a modern world that often separates the body from the mind and spirit from the material.
But like a tree rooted in ancient soil with the branches and leaves adapting to the environment as they reach towards the heavens, we need to incorporate influences of the modern world into our medicine while still maintaining a connection to fundamental principles. Seeing how the old can arise in the new offers a bridge, a way to find how the medicine arises in our lives at this time.
In this conversation with Mark Petruzzi and Jeffrey Dann, we explore how the art of Japanese acupuncture blends with the modern medical understanding of the body. We investigate the co-mingling of old and new to better understand the integrative power of this holistic treatment. We share our ideas regarding the need to preserve the flame of tradition while adapting to the needs of the present.
Listen into this discussion on what it means to be part of a tradition and how we can bring our medicine alive in this modern moment.
Our language tells the tale of our evolution and the movement of the mind. It captures the experiences, attitudes, and wisdom of our ancestors and allows us to reflect upon our own.
As herbalists and acupuncturists, the language of our medicine allows us to explore the body’s terrain. And by working with the body, we avail ourselves of the opportunity to communicate with the Spirit, the Five Phases, along with the channels and collaterals.
And like classical Chinese language, our medicine typically leaves things open ended. It requires a fluid mind and a capacity to look both at ‘process’ and ‘thing.’
In this conversation with Stefan Grace, we touch on a number of topics—including unpacking portions of the Nei Jing, considering the meaning of the Chinese character Tong (通), the importance of Yi (intention), and the relevance of tensegrity in our work. We also talk about the influence of the Chinese language in our practice and the need to verify the teaching passed on to us.
Listen into this discussion on the lessons of the Nei Jing, cultivating Yi, and the influence of Tong in our clinical work..
Treating what you see sounds easy. And it is essential if you want to craft a targeted and effective treatment. It’s those well aimed treatments that hit the mark that conflated with magic.
But seeing clearly the underlying dynamic that gives rise to the troubles and symptoms for which patients seek us out. That is more complicated.
In this conversation with David Toone we discussion the perspectives and work of the blind Japanese acupuncturist Dr Bear, who passed away a few months ago.
Listen into this discussion where we untangle excess and deficiency, consider the troubles that arise from having a salvational mindset, and consider the vital importance of invigorating the yin with yang.
So much of our medicine is conveyed in stories—the ones we live, the ones we tell, and the ones we hear. Storytelling is an innate human impulse. It provides context and meaning, allowing us to share complex ideas and navigate our experience. Stories—of both success and failure—enrich our lives and convey the values, history, and culture that connect us.
No matter how automated, evidence-based, standardized, or computerized medical systems become, the clinical encounter boils down to a story between a patient and the practitioner. Medicine is not just about reciting a chronology of data points. A practitioner’s role is to recognize and pull meaning from a patient’s story of illness in such a way that can guide us in being helpful.
In this conversation with Sarah Rivkin, we talk about the place of East Asian medicine in a world that leans more towards a standardized approach to medicine. We noodle on the similarities between case studies and novels, and what Sarah’s research could tell us about navigating a Western world without losing sight of what makes Chinese medicine a treasure.
Listen into this discussion on narrative medicine and how to use case studies as a powerful storytelling tool.
Making the leap from the classroom to the clinic is an opportunity to explore a new world—but without a travel guide in the form of teachers and colleagues to help guide you along the way. You’re tasked with the lifetime opportunity of applying and refining your medicine in the wild.
Even after your training, you may wonder if you’re truly prepared. You may keep coming back to the question: “Do I know enough?” Probably not—and that is not necessarily a comment on your competence as a practitioner. This is because the transfer of learning is an ongoing process; it is cyclical; it is spiral. Even the most seasoned practitioners are learners to some degree—especially in our medicine.
Understand that everything in creation is evolving. Learn to honor where you are in your journey as a practitioner. Integrate knowledge and experience in your practice until they become one. You stop growing as soon as you stop learning.
In this conversation with Kristen Lambertin, we pore over the cyclical process of learning, the difficulties students face when transferring what they’ve learned in the classroom to the clinical workplace, how to improve the learning process in our profession, and some practical skills and mindsets that can help you adapt to the future. We also share opinions on how we can approach our patients and work by building on our strengths and leaning into our shortcomings.
Listen into this discussion on the transfer of learning and making the transition from student to practitioner
To use herbs within the scope of traditional Chinese medicine, we must first understand the qualities, temperatures, and tastes that dictate how each herb will function. Flavor, Taste and Nature gives us a snapshot of how an herb travels in the body, how it functions and the dysregulation or disharmony it may address.
With the botanical world lending us a diverse palette of flavors to promote health and healing, the art of herbs in Chinese herbal medicine comes down to the skillful use of flavors individually and in combination to balance the phases and the corresponding channels and organs. It’s like the artful combination of textures and flavors in a kitchen—but to restore health and harmony to the body.
One of the defining strengths of our therapeutic practice is the ability to match individuals with particular botanical medicines. As such, a practitioner’s experiential understanding of an herb’s energetics via the direct perception of taste, flavor, and nature was—and still can be—a powerful tool for healing.
Today’s conversation is one borne out of synchronicity. What was scheduled to be a 3-person panel discussion with Simon Feeney, Loren Stiteler, and Boris Bernadsky turned out to be a ‘party’ as Andy Ellis and Frank Griffo joined us. The outcome was a lively exchange that covered diverse topics around herbs. We mulled over the flavor-based nature of herbalism, the shortcomings of our education system, the variability of herbs, and the processing/preparation of Chinese herbs
Listen into this discussion on how flavor, taste, and nature can inform our understanding and clinical application of herbs.
Practitioners today navigate a dynamic and ever-evolving world of marketing and communications. There are so many ideas about practice building and how to use technology when it comes to attracting the attention of potential patients, and inviting them through our clinical door, and then retaining them as patients.
How to get your message across in an effective way to the people who are looking for someone like you can be a challenge in the chaotic noisy world of the Internet. You have to know who it is you want to serve, and then speak to them in a way that they feel heard and understood.
The goal of marketing is to reach the right people, using a language that allows them to feel seen and understood. This might sound easy, but the reality is you need to continuously recalibrate your message and approach.
In this conversation with Michelle Grasek, we look into the increasingly nuanced layers of marketing our medical practices and prospecting for clients. We cover some gems of marketing wisdom regarding the fundamentals you should not ignore and how to craft a compelling marketing message that resonates with patients. We also discuss the best marketing mediums to explore along with the best practices to explore them.
Listen into this discussion on the marketing strategies, dos & don’ts, channels, techniques, and tactics that can help your phone to ring with patients saying “I want to schedule an appointment.”
Getting off track is not something uncommon for us. In fact, it’s an everyday part of our human experience. The question is, how do you notice when this happens and then how do you reorient? More importantly, how do you navigate when in unfamiliar territory? And likewise with your clinical work, how do you deal with the new and the unknown when it comes to treating patients?
In this conversation with Heather Becker-Brungard, we discuss some ways of approaching our work, as well as how we interact with the body. Much like the ancient navigators who mastered navigating by listening and sensing the water, weather, tides, currents, and wind. In clinical work practice and repetition make you better at what you do. And as we learn to work and interact with nature, our senses become refined and open up opportunities for new discoveries.
Listen into this discussion on healing and why it isn’t linear. And navigating the passage of illness to heal, and how you can be a trustworthy navigator to your patients in the clinic.
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The principles behind our medicine are relatively simple. The idea is to restore balance to a body that is in disharmony. To detect the patterns and ripples in the system. To facilitate the unimpeded flow of qi as a river does.
Yet applying these theories in the practice of actual patient care is more complex. Learning in school or from mentors is one thing; cultivating the wisdom to apply this knowledge in the wild, it’s not always straightforward. Sometimes things don’t go how we expect. And all too often, we find ourselves in unchartered territory feeling our way through the unexpected.
The knotty question then becomes: How do you navigate an unfamiliar terrain? How do you deal with the uncertainties that accompany the practice of medicine?
In this conversation with Karina Smith, we discuss the difficulties of attending to complicated cases in our practice based on one of her student clinic experiences. We dig into the issues of competence, the role of intention, the irrationality of Chinese medicine, and concerns around overtreatment. And as both a Yin Yoga teacher and Chinese medicine practitioner, Karina also touches on how these two worlds seep into each other.
Listen into this discussion on the enduring lessons from difficult experiences in the clinic, including navigating adverse reactions and mediating a truce between warring organs.
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Heaven and Earth, the creative and the created, micro and macrocosm. All ways of saying there is a reality we inhabit, and beyond that a lot of mystery. And mystery is something us humans have, at best, an ambivalent relationship with.
We seek to find some sense of order in what can be a captiously unsettling and unpredictable world. We look to the heavens and seek a larger frame for our experience as we look for the patterns that connect.
In this conversation Deborah Woolf graciously entertains some questions that I had arise after her Qiological Live presentation on the Earthly branches.
Listen into this conversation on how the Earthly branches reflect back the influences of Heaven, and help us to understand where we stand in the cosmos and in relation to the seasons, cycles and tides of time.
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Classical Chinese medicine recognizes the Heart (心 Xin) as a central organ to our being. It’s seen as holding the sovereign position as the emperor of the kingdom (i.e., the body).
The Heart is where the Shen (神), the spirit, resides. It’s what gives us discernment and consciousness. In a way, phrases like “follow your heart,” “home is where the heart is,” and “from the bottom of my heart” seem to pay homage to the spiritual and coherent nature of the Heart. But how does this influence our work in the clinic?
In this conversation with Josephine Spilka, we discuss the importance of being in coherence, acting from a place of presence amid impermanent stories, staying true to our capacities, and setting boundaries in the clinic. Josephine also touches on the influence of the eight extraordinary channels and their connection to the Zheng Qi.
Listen into this discussion on coherence, and the need to honor our faculties, integrity, and capacity in any clinical encounter
Tuning in is a cultivated skill that’s in many East Asian Medicine practitioner's toolbox. We learn early on to bring our intention, attention, and awareness to the clinic encounter. To pick up subtle movement and cues on the diagnostic table. But our "tuning in" often tends to focus on "outside facing" senses; the appearance, smell, sound, taste, or feel of something. Interoception turns the gaze to internal sensing—from the clenching of the stomach, to the beating of the heart, or tension in the muscles. It's tuning in to what is going on inside the body. Nurturing interoceptive awareness and honing a heightened bodily awareness helps us and our patients in our clinical work. It improves our capacity to understand, interpret, and process the world around us. In this panel discussion with Lisa Taylor Swanson, Elizabeth Osgood-Campbell, and Nick Lowe, we explore interoceptive awareness. We unpack how mindfulness practices can help us cultivate our inner knowing and how ancient Chinese theories factor into all this. We also touch on the use of cutting-edge technologies to track our clinical outcomes and how placebo is merely stuff we don't yet understand about medicine. Listen into this discussion on making meaning of our inner sensations and leaning on this to improve our embodied experiences and clinical outcomes.
No one gets through life without difficulties. We all carry wounds and the consequences of the meanings we’ve made in the moments of heartbreak, fear and confusion. In this second conversation with Randle Lyons we discuss the dark forest of transformation. How our wounds can be a source of healing, if properly digested and how it’s harder to surrender when you have something to lose. Listen into this conversation on addiction and what can happen when we work with an open mind and heart when exploring story, experience and belief.
I recently got to thinking about wei qi, especially as we are moving into the dark of the year in the northern hemisphere, and I realized that I hear discussions about wei qi, and how we should attend to it, or nourish it. Often enough, perhaps too often, we equate wei qi with the immune system. And think about strength, rather than balance. What’s more, the commonly used formulas that are famous for ‘stabilizing or strengthening the exterior” are frequently prescribed without any kind of actual differential diagnosis. Concerns about effectiveness and maybe even safety naturally arise. In this conversation with Ann Cecil-Sterman, Laurie Ayers and Master Wu, we bring together the perspectives of an acupuncturist, an herbalist, and a qi gong practitioner. The intention here is to see how experienced clinicians from these three disciplines within East Asian consider the Wei and its use in clinical work. Listen in to this discussion of the Wei qi, its source, cultivation, and connections with the yang, zheng, fluids and Heart.
Our job as Chinese Medicine practitioners is not so much to impress our ideas on patients but to cultivate a capacity and restraint to allow them to come back to themselves. Our assessment is meant to determine the patient’s understanding of their disharmony, and uncover blockages or excesses. As trusted intermediaries, our role is to increase our awareness, bring our focus to the unfolding moment, listen from a place of genuine curiosity, and see the patients’ experiences from their perspective while letting go of attachments to a particular outcome. You may be an expert in your modalities, but the patient is the expert in their personal experiences. Our job is to help them discover their own inner wisdom, to help them chart and navigate their own path to wellness. Zoe Brenner has engaged the practice of acupuncture with a renewable curiosity for the last four decades. In this conversation we explore the delicate world of subtle sensing, intention, and awareness as tools to help the patient emerge into a great state of wellbeing. We talk about the issues of looking too hard at a point, confirmation bias, over-treatment, and knowing where to bring our attention in the clinical practice. Listen into this discussion on meeting patients where they are, engaging without imposing, and allowing them to emerge.
Many acupuncture traditions share the idea that our troubles stem from a root cause , and treating the root is an essential part of the therapeutic process. Then there is the branch where symptomatic issues present themselves, this is the focus for the patient, and often enough the practitioner as well. But with Ishizaka-ryu, treating the root is the most important thing. In this conversation with Kubota Sensei, we discuss Ishizaka-ryu, a traditional Japanese acupuncture method. Sensei focuses on stimulating qi blockages along the primary meridians surrounding the entire spinal column, so as to increase blood flow, open the central channel and utilize the body’s own healing power. His method of acupuncture includes using a spiral motion of his supporting hand, to add a vortex of qi to the needle. Listen into this discussion and learn about the Torus, a core around which the acupuncture meridians are all connected. How acupuncture affects the electrical flows in the body. And the key importance of having an open and empty space in the great Chong vessel.
Life is built on rhythms, the natural world is constantly in a state of transformation. A cyclical flow of growth and decline—manifested in the turning of the seasons, waxing and waning of the moon, and the oscillation of day and night. The intertwined correspondences to the universal tidal flows are the warp and weft upon which our lives, our health, and our medicine is woven. This knowledge is preserved in the Chinese Lunisolar calendar. Harmony comes from living in accordance with the shifts in time; honoring and riding those waves. Leaning into the seasonal flows brings us closer to the natural rhythm of our medicine. It invites the universe to run through us as we live into greater states of coherence. In this conversation with Sheri Lee, we explore the seasonal cycles of qi according to the Chinese Calendar and how to align ourselves with the changing tides and flow of time. We discuss the seasonal markers to keep an eye on, the earth phases, the 24 nodes, and the Japanese concept of doyo. In addition to aligning ourselves with the seasons, we talk about aligning ourselves to what our patients are showing up with. Listen into this discussion on living right with time and being in harmony with the seasonal rhythms and tidal flows of the year in our personal lives and clinical work.
Movement is life. Movement is part of how our body communicates with itself and senses itself in the outside world. Proper and ease filled movement, be it with our emotions, the circulation of our blood, the way our joints through their range movement, and how we can move and be in the relationships, work and interaction with the 10000 things. All of this is tied in with our well-being and capacity to thrive. In this conversation with Margot Rossi we explore the terrain of movement and sensing and how this fundamental capacity is the foundation of our life, and gives us the ability to live the seasons of our lives. Listen into this conversation on the wisdom of the body, and how movement with attention is part of the language of wellbeing.
To most, acupuncture is a curious riddle. An ancient medical art whose theories are poetic, and healing outcomes seem lopsided considering the gentle stimulation of a thin needle. And regardless of context or complaint, the goal remains the same as it was millennia ago: restoring balance to the whole being. While our medicine has gained significant traction poking its way into the mainstream healthcare landscape, the journey has been non-linear and, at times, haphazard. But from our conversation with this episode's guest, perhaps trust and mutual respect are the catalysts to bridge the still-existent gap and facilitate the confluence of ancient medicine with modern culture. In this conversation with Jenny Nieters, we discuss her clinical work as the team acupuncturist for the San Francisco 49ers, the place of East Asian Medicine in sports medicine, and her personal experience enhancing physical performance for both elite professionals and active patients looking to maintain their strength and mobility. We also touch on the need for soft skills as a practitioner, including simplifying and communicating the 'magic' of acupuncture, being present, inviting mutual respect, and creating space for trust. Listen into this discussion on acupuncture in sports medicine, the experience, the challenges, and the opportunities it holds.
hinese medicine is a godsend for women's health. There are plenty of resources for us to tap into, and our medicine is great at addressing the challenges women face through their reproductive years and beyond. But what about the other half of the population? Well, not so much. Men's health is often shrouded in invisible inequality. Some of it is cultural, men seek medical attention less frequently than women. Generally speaking, men aren’t as proactive in seeking to resolve health concerns, we pride ourselves on toughing through problems. I would have thought that there would be more in our East Asian medicine toolkit for treating men’s reproductive or sexual issues, But if you look, you will not that much. It’s a bare storehouse compared to the treasure house of medicine and methods we have for women’s health. In this conversation with Lisa Lapwing, we explore men’s health and see what Chinese medicine has to offer. We look at the taboos behind men's health, the emotional underpinnings of the issues, and how to hold comfortable conversations with patients for better outcomes. We also discuss the diagnosis and treatment of common problems, including prostatitis, BPH, and prostate cancer. Listen into this discussion on common sexual/reproductive issues that trouble men and the need to address the gender gap in health outcomes.
The first episode of Qiological aired at the end of August in 2017. I’d gotten more than a few emails from practitioners telling me how much they liked my previous podcast experiment…. Everyday Acupuncture, and that was surprising to me because I did not make that podcast for acupuncturists, it was aimed at the general public. So Qiological was an inquiry into seeing if acupuncturists and East Asian medicine practitioners might enjoy a podcast that goes more deeply into the medicine we share. Turns out…. Yes. As we are coming up on 300 conversations now. Starting today, the podcast is again freely available to all and will carry sponsorship advertising in each episode. I’ve got more details about the changes to the podcast in this short solo show that commemorates five years of Qiological, along with some thoughts on medicine, practice and this new Gutenberg Press we call podcasting.
Listen with the whole body Accept that comes When I think about connecting with others, two of the most powerful ways are with non-verbal touch, and the other with the use of attentive language. It would not be a stretch to suggest that this is the yin and yang connection. One that engages the body and the other the mind. But, of course, as you already know, you can’t touch one part of a person without connecting to all of them. Should you care to take that journey. In this last conversation of our series on Bodywork in East Asian medicine we talk with Nick Pole who brings both the honed senstivies of a Shiatsu practitioner, and the skilled verbal invitations that are so emblematic of Clean Language. Listen into this discussion of connection, curiosity, non-doing and presence.
Notes go hereIn our work, we often lean on the metaphors of nature. We speak of landscapes, flows, seasons and cycles. And yet often enough, our treatments are geared to interfere with what we find. We look to ‘re-channel’ the flow. To drain away that which we deem obstructive. To bust up qi, especially if we find the Liver to be involved. From an outsider’s perspective, we seem to have a bad attitude towards the Liver. I often enough have asked myself the question when seeing patients, “Am I working from the perspective of Husbandry or from that of a Corps of Engineers manager?” Am I working with the environment or in some ways against it? In this conversation with Karen Elisa we investigate what it means to attend and follow. Do we listen to what our patient needs, or our own ideas of what they should have? And short, do we trust our patient’s body and being, or not? Listen into this conversation on using our hands and senses to attentively follow the body’s flow and get out of the way so our patients can allow themselves to bring forward a great state of wellbeing.
Patients come to us expecting a change in their situation—whether that is to gain or get rid of something. And as the 'expert' in the room, there's a proclivity to go in with the intention to find what's wrong and remediate it. Consider that as a practitioner, your role is to inquire by touch and not impose your ideas of what is right for a patient. To touch with curiosity, listen with your hands, allow patients to express themselves in a process of self-discovery and transformation, create space for the expression of their Jing (精), and make available the quiet comfort of no expectations. For this, our guest on this Qiological episode recommends we lend our consciousness or awareness to the landscape. Hone your attention to what is there, to the present moment. In this conversation with Stephen Schleipfer, we explore the concepts of intention and attention, and how they impact the palpatory experience. We discuss the importance of bringing our attention to the causative space, the practice of self-cultivation, connecting our particulars to the whole, and learning to both connect and let go as vehicles to transform our practice. Listen into this discussion on the key role of palpation, the use of attention in the clinical encounter, and working in the causative space.
Like quantum physics, our medicine is built on a sense of connection and potential. It inhabits the reality of a unified field where the boundaries of mind and matter, time and space, rest and motion, or sickness and health blur. Humans are part of a universal continuum, a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosm. The timeless and dynamic experience of East Asian medicine teaches that well-being or healing hinges upon cultivating the uninhibited flow within the human existence—including the structural body and the energy field. And as practitioners, we should be attentive enough to induce a sense of synchrony between our rhythms and the universal pulse of qi in order to create room for healing and mediate the unification of the energy within and around. In this conversation with Beth Hazzard, we explore sensing and perception in the clinic through the lens of Quantum Shiatsu, which blends physicality, field dynamics and mindset. We discuss our multidimensional reality, tuning into the energetic field, how to grasp and tap into the innate intelligence of qi to promote healing, and interaction with the meridian system. Listen into this discussion on how sensing influences perception, and how to develop a capacity to gather and move forward with the information gathered in clinic.
Touch is our first sensation. It's a universal language. And it's a capacity we all have that can be used to restore health and nurture life. Hands may not be represented in the Ancient Chinese symbol for listen 聽, ting. But as practitioners of East Asian medicine, we need to understand the importance of listening with our hands, of tapping into the power of intentional touch, and contacting our patients with awareness. Listening with the hands is the foundation of Sotai, Tuina, Shiatsu, and other bodywork modalities. In this conversation with Bob Quinn, we touch on the use of Yin Sotai as a gentle method of bodywork, including its foundational principles and the implementation of the treatment in the clinic. Bob also highlights the influence of mentor Peter Thompson, the connection of Yin Sotai and Jeffrey Dann's Koshi balancing protocol, the legacy of Dr. Hashimoto, and the philosophical genius of Buckminster Fuller. Listen into this discussion on the influences, principles, and clinical application of Yin Sotai, which is a unique contribution by Bob Quinn on the technique founded by Dr. Keizo Hashimoto.
Qiological is on vacation for the month of July, this discussion is one of a series of ‘summer re-runs’ of some of our favorite conversations from Everyday Acupuncture Podcast, which was the forerunner of Qiological. We often think of germs, genetic abnormalities, poor lifestyle choices or plain bad luck as being the cause of illness and disease. We go looking for the “smoking gun,” for the one thing that was the source of our troubles, but often the health issues we face arise out of a much more complex stew of causes and conditions. In this episode Greg Bantick and I discuss the various ways that both illness and health can arise, how at times the symptoms we are troubled by are helpful messengers and how the influence of the mind plays a profound role in our wellbeing.
Qiological is on vacation for the month of July, this discussion is one of a series of ‘summer re-runs’ of some of our favorite conversations from Everyday Acupuncture Podcast, which was the forerunner of Qiological. Taiwan is famous for its high tech computer technology, bicycles, fragrant tofu, rivers of scooters, delicious street food, and of course, tea. Today’s episode is a bit of a soundscape as we spend a portion of the afternoon drinking and discussing tea. Unlike your Western coffeeshop where you pop in for a beverage to go, or you grab a drink and sit with a couple of friends or work on your computer, a Taiwanese teashop has time unfolding at a completely different pace. And it is about dipping not only into something delicious in a cup, it’s about connecting with your community and making new friends. Listen as my friend Pia and I imbibe tea and tea culture in a way that you only find in Taiwan.
Qiological is on vacation for the month of July, this discussion is one of a series of ‘summer re-runs’ of some of our favorite conversations from Everyday Acupuncture Podcast, which was the forerunner of Qiological. I thought my conversation with Njemile would walk through some of the step-by-step things women could do to improve their fertility. Turns out the conversation pivoted into including a deeper investigation of living a life that is connective, generative and mindful. Listen in as we explore the cultivation of fertility and connectedness in all the aspects of our lives. And gain some insight into what it means to live a fertile life.
Qiological is on vacation for the month of July, this discussion is one of a series of ‘summer re-runs’ of some of our favorite conversations from Everyday Acupuncture Podcast, which was the forerunner of Qiological. Many of us fire up a meditation practice only to find ourselves sitting in an overwhelming riot of thought and agitation. Isn’t this practice supposed to calm us down, lower blood pressure, ease the migraines, and maybe give our recurring assortment of anxieties, troubles and tribulations a nudge to the curb? Yeah, that’s a common story, but the reality of a clear mirror held up to the mind will not have you feeling like those just-so poised and apparently calm models on the Internet. You’ll probably want to get away from the noise and chaos between your ears. And that’s a good reason to learn to sit in the storm. Our guest today has decades of experience with both meditation and acupuncture. And in this show we will get into the details of why you shouldn’t believe everything you think, and why healing often defies the logical stair-step process we think it should take.
One certainty in life is that it’s uncertain; we can’t accurately decipher how our stories unfold. But having an outline helps as we chart a course through the seasons of time. A key part of navigating the ever-changing phases of life is embracing the duality and non-duality within the cycles of yin and yang. It’s helpful to accept that there are different seasons and adapt to their ebb and flow. Tune in to the rhythm and harmony of the cycles. This is the underpinning of Chinese Polestar Astrology, which offers a symbolic lens through which we can look at our experience—leaning on the insights of the cycle of 60 and the influences that inform its unfolding. In this conversation, we visit again with Gregory Done as we transition to the second half of the year. We spoke earlier this year in episode 249, where we discussed the interaction of character, nature, and fate—and how this informs our experiences. In this conversation, we explore the harmonizing of capacity and opportunity as the annual cycles of yin and yang change into each other, and how symbols in Chinese Astrology can help interpret the past, present, and the blurry future. We look back at the last 6 months before turning our gaze on what the rest of the year might hold for all the 12 Zodiac animals. Listen into this discussion on the influences of the year according to Polestar Astrology, and the possibilities, opportunities and challenges for the coming 6 months.
The ability to perceive with our hands, to assess the flow of life through the body, is a valued skill in East Asian medicine. It’s a fine and discerning art that takes full form when thinking does not overshadow; when cognitive understanding of anatomical landmarks combines with the attentive impressionable mind. To fully understand and interpret what is felt underneath the hands, you must learn to listen respectfully to the ebb and flow of the fundamental substances Qi, Blood, Body Fluids, which are keenly involved in supporting human life itself. For this your critical, conscious mind has to quiet enough to accept the knowing that comes from your hands. In this conversation with Jeffrey Dann and Mark Petruzzi, we touch on the concrete yet nuanced experience of reading the body through touch, including how to create space for a more therapeutic connection for both the patient and practitioner. We explore the need to be attentive, the value of appreciation in our clinical work, and the application of the teishin. We also talk about their fittingly titled Qi, Blood, and Fluids class. Listen into this discussion on palpatory findings and the refinement of touch from a Japanese acupuncture perspective.
Our medicine is rooted in the understanding that mind, body, and spirit are integral parts of the whole – reflective of each other and inseparable in human experience.. The tools and perspectives of East Asian medicine invite us to attend to holistically healing mind-body-spirit by mediating between worlds with focused intent. We at times journey beyond the veils of rationality and time—navigating between the seen and unseen, ancient wisdom and modern technology, the ordinary and non-ordinary reality, the magical and scientific. This therapeutic bridge between the irrational-mystic and rational-material may seem novel to mainstream Western thinking, but it has long been understood by indigenous people through shamanism. In this conversation with Sean Fox, we traverse the world of shamanism and how it connects with our work in the clinic. How it can be a bridge between time and reality. We explore how we can use physical sensing and guidance from non-ordinary reality to intentionally set up spaces for healing. We also touch on the role of the fascia network in Chinese medicine, the connective threads of synchronicity, the power of voice, and cultivating trust in our practice. Listen into this discussion on shamanism and facilitating space for the harmonious interaction of body, mind, and spirit by walking between worlds.
Everyday we sit with people in our clinic and puzzle through the questions of “What is going on for them,” “Can I see clearly what they need,” and “Do I understand how this person is an expression of yin/yang, heaven and earth?” Our patients have a story. And so do we, except we usually call it Chinese medicine theory and we are seeing if we can take our Western minds into the world of East Asian medicine, which is no easy task, and come back with something helpful. Our Western minds orient us towards the linear, but Chinese medicine thinking– that has us going in circles, cycles and waves. Today’s conversation with Deborah Woolf came about because I had some questions, and more than few, about the Heavenly Stems after her recent Qiological Live presentation on the topic. It’s not that I previously gave this topic of study a pass, I’ve talked about it with friends who have investigated this aspect of medicine in a significant way. But I wasn’t able to grasp the dynamics of the Stems in any meaningful fashion. That changed with this conversation. Deborah has been studying and teaching this stuff for a while now. And thanks to this conversation. I think I’m starting to get it.
The ability to communicate is one of life's most valuable skills. It's at the core of our human experience, and it fuels the connections that add so much to our lives and businesses. As such, especially for business, it's essential to hone how and when we communicate, and the tools we use to for connecting. Good communication often hinges not on the simply on the message, but on our ability to be present; to listen mindfully with intent. This holds true both in the clinic and in creating a website which is your hub of communication in a digital world. Understanding the user's needs is the key to both effective treatment and a good website. In this conversation with Mike Kay, we decipher websites for acupuncturists—including where to begin, the platforms to use, useful design elements and imagery, tuning up your SEO, and perhaps most importantly—creating compelling website copy. Tech-talk aside, we also touch on clinical work, discussing topics such as the need for boundaries in practice, the importance of engagement with patients, and finding value in skepticism. Listen into this discussion on how to create a website that draws new patients into your practice, and how to go about it in a way that sets you apart.
Sometimes our curious venture into solving our problems lures us to overstep the boundaries we did not realize were important. A need to control pain may leave you chained to pain medication. An attempt to numb life stressors may plunge you into alcoholism. Solving a problem in the immediate moment, could lead us into habits that over time wear on the body and spirit. Defining addiction has long attracted a medley of explanations—with some leaning towards nature, some nurture, and others towards a perfect storm of both. It’s a complicated subject. Especially when our addiction fueled behavior is seen as socially acceptable, or perhaps even valued. In this conversation with Randal Lyons, we step into the dark forest of addiction, recovery and Chinese medicine. According to Randal, we need the right language to recognize and treat each patient's different expressions of addiction. We discuss the concept of spirituality in medicine, inviting patients to participate in their healing, leaning on remembrance, and how being present goes a long way in connecting with our patients. Listen into this discussion on understanding the complexities of addiction and recovery from a Chinese medicine perspective.
As acupuncturists, we practice our medicine as both a science and an art. Science in the sense of organizing the learned or experiential structure of the lens through which we view imbalances. Art in the sense of recognizing that each individual is a unique, multidimensional, and dynamic entity who embodies both revelation and mystery. Our job is to encounter the energetic mystery of our practice with certainty. Even in the midst of complexities, we should seek to grasp the spirit of the medicine, of the moment, of the individual; to be in tune with the Dao. In this conversation with Anne Cecil Sterman, we explore the potency and mystery of acupuncture, how it works, the importance of through intention, being present, and approaching the treatment with an element of certainty. We also touch on the need to trust acupuncture, the power of the mind, and the great luo of the Stomach. Listen into this discussion on navigating the mysterious realm of acupuncture, the need to approach patients with intention and certainty, and an interesting perspective on channels.
Like everything else, power is a two-sided coin. It can be coercive and oppressive, but it can also be empowering and nurturing. And according to ancient Chinese texts, true authority is based on ethical inspiration rather than coercion. As physicians, we are in a position of authority—not by claiming the power, but by earning it from competence in our trade. Our position of influence demands that we use our expertise and influence to help others—and this starts from our own mastery of yangsheng. People will willingly follow someone with virtue; de. "Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power." —Lao Tzu
In this conversation with Sabine Wilms, we explore the complex dynamics of power and the idea of a virtuous hierarchy borne out of the authority of competence. We also bat around the inadequacies of translations and the limitations of language. And as a storyteller at heart, Sabine weighs up the concept of yangsheng using some popular Chinese teaching tales. Listen into this discussion on mastering the art of yangsheng (養生) as a practitioner, the role of virtue de (德 ), medical ethics, the dynamics of power, and stepping into your ming命).
Moxa doesn't just stimulate Qi; it replenishes the vital life force. This Chinese medicine treatment brings nourishment in the form of pure yang that potentially rejuvenates the immune system and restores dysfunctional internal environments. These functions raise the question: can moxa be an effective treatment for Long COVID, which appears to feed off a weakened immune system? In this conversation with Merlin Young, we talk about the mission of Moxafrica in designing a cheap, adaptable, and safe intervention for COVID long-haulers. We explore how his non-profit is trying to replicate the positive results they saw in moxa treatment for antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. And how the results of their research could make a difference for long-haulers and provide our East Asian medicine community with valuable research on how moxa might help with the sequela of the coronavirus. Listen into this discussion on Moxafrica's investigation into the potential effectiveness of moxa as a treatment for Long COVID.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Gregory Done, along with the other 250+ episodes when visit the website and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
The most powerful lessons come not from a school curriculum, but from life. Our world is full of both problems and opportunities. There is what we struggle against, and what we stand for. And the unfolding dance of yin/yang reminds us that everything has aspects of its opposite. Problems contain opportunity. Injustices in the world catalyze our values and actions in the world that in turn create a new balance. . “Let yourself be guided silently by that strange power of what you really love.” – Rumi In this conversation with Bess and Kyle, we explore their journey of creating a free student-run acupuncture clinic as an avenue to mature as professionals and scratch an itch for social justice-oriented and community-based work. We touch on the existing disparities in health care and their desire to change the narrative around acupuncture, its perceived accessibility, and how it is a potent medicine for healing that invites people into their own power. Listen into this discussion on the radical nature of acupuncture, finding opportunities to further your vision of what’s possible, and creating something that aligns with your heart.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Kath Berry, along with the other 250+ episodes when visit the website and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Gary Klepper, along with the other 250+ episodes when visit out the website and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Nishanga Bliss, along with the other 250+ episodes when visit out the website and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with David Allen, along with the other 250+ episodes when visit out the website and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
When traveling do you turn on the GPS and follow the instructions, look at a map to orient yourself, or do you have a sense of the terrain and the capacity to navigate by landmarks, waterways and a sense of where north lies? In your clinical work, are you orienting to a theory or idea, or toward something in the patient that is telling you in the moment what is needed? Are you working off a map, or attending to signals from the patient’s body and being? In this conversation with Dan Bensky we investigate some listening tools that have their origin in Osteopathy, but also can be used to help us find acupuncture points and interact with them in a potent way. Furthermore, these methods can guide us in tracking the patient’s response to our interventions in real time. Listen into this discussion on engaging our patients vitality through the use of palpation, sensing, and attention that will aid you in listening to the subtle messages from the patient’s body and qi.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Rachel Pagones and Beth Sommers on, along with the other 250+ episodes then https://my.captivate.fm/dashboard/podcast/2e7fc70e-9d7c-45d8-9fd0-ebb5ce7239cf/www.qiological.com/qiologician-community (visit the website) and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Jessica Baer, along with the other 250+ episodes then visit the website and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Mark Parzynski, along with the other 250+ episodes then https://my.captivate.fm/dashboard/podcast/2e7fc70e-9d7c-45d8-9fd0-ebb5ce7239cf/www.qiological.com/qiologician-community (visit the website) and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
Building a successful practice is rewarding, but it's rarely a smooth ride. It's a path that takes us beyond our healing work and into the depths of business practices—from marketing to managing finances. Amid the multitude of details that go into running a small practice, it's easy to feel overwhelmed— which is why clarity of purpose is so helpful. Navigating the ebb and flow of a small practice demands some self-scrutiny of our most intimate selves. What are your strengths? What are your values? Do we know what we're here for, and do have the courage to grasp it? And do we know what is not for us, and let it go? In this conversation with Sydney Malawer, we talk about monitoring the pulse of your business, whether that's paying attention to your overhead or being authentically you. We explore some intuitive approaches to running a thriving Chinese medicine practice. Including building a practice that reflects who we genuinely are. What works for you? What are your strengths? What is not working, and when should you pivot? Listen into this discussion on what it takes to start and build a small successful practice by tapping into the magic of the authentic vision within you.
This is one of the podcast member episodes, and I wanted to share a few minutes of it, as it captures the spirit and essence of the conversation. Enjoy this bit of essential qi. And if you’d like to listen to the complete conversation with Jessica Baer, along with the other 250+ episodes then https://my.captivate.fm/www.qiological.com/qiologician-community (visit the website) and sign up for a monthly or annual membership.
Whether you're a young or seasoned practitioner, opening your own Chinese medicine practice is an exciting , daunting and worthwhile challenge. There's a lot that goes into being a practitioner—beyond the medicine part of it. You have to learn how to blend your medical expertise with business know-how. And as our society and life circumstances evolve, so must our perspectives and services. In this conversation with Cara Frank, we mull over the idea of evolving as a small business and as a practitioner. We talk about some of the life decisions we have to make along the way—and how to maneuver through the obstacles on our path. Sometimes you just have to jump into the abyss and trust that you'll figure it out. Listen to this discussion on the kind of practice we can build and inhabit that reflects who we are, and what we have to offer
Western medicine and East Asian medicine have often been seen as two completely different ways of approaching health and well being. Can they be blended together for the benefit of our patients? It has taken time for the Western world to familiarize itself with the modalities of Chinese Medicine. Similarly, maneuvering through large organizations like hospitals, the military, or the government can be like walking into uncharted territory. It requires an understanding of their lingo, procedures and methods of working together. In this conversation with Megan Kingsley Gale, we discuss her efforts in creating the Hospital-Practice Handbook Project as an open sourced resource for licensed acupuncturists working in hospitals and institutional healthcare systems. At its core, this is a resource for change-makers in the integrative health field to share their ideas and wisdom. It brings Chinese medicine to places where its benefits had not been utilized – while giving Chinese practitioners who are interested in hospital-based care new opportunities. Megan has a vision of helping us explore new frontiers as acupuncturists in the modern American healthcare system. A system of integrative medicine where acupuncturists are seen as professionals rather than technicians and ; where cooperation is embraced and the lines between the East and West are blurred for the benefit of our patients. Listen in to this discussion on the professionalization of Chinese Medicine and how change-makers are expanding Chinese Medicine into the healthcare system
Leaves on a plant curl and turn yellow when the soil is not right. The health of a cat is reflected in the texture of its fur and clearity in the eyes. Likewise with people we can discern states of wellness or illness by attending to those parts of the body that are the first to show the signs of change. And so over the centuries we’ve learned to trust the reflections we see from the pulse, abdomen, tongue and if you’re sensitive enough, the qi itself. In this conversation with Thomas Sorensen we explore abdominal and pulse patterns from the Japanese acupuncture perspective and investigate how they are reliable markers for finding patterns of disharmony that help both with diagnosis and tracking the efficacy of our treatment. And beyond that, how the Saam organ pairings show up as reflections of excess and deficiency on the abdomen and in the pulse. Listen into the discussion of hands-on medicine, as we traverse the terrain of Japanese and Saam acupuncture.
Heartbreak is unavoidable. It’s not a flaw in character or make up humans, it’s a feature. It’s what allows us to grow beyond the bounds and limits of family, friend group, peers and whatever group identity we find that gives a sense of belonging and security. Heart break expands our boundaries, the question is does it break you open or break you closed? In this conversation with Margot Rossi we give space to how our brokenness is the source of both suffering and redemption. How our greatest troubles, self destructive tendencies and unexamined suffering are all opportunities to cultivate an open field of attention that can be shifted with our intention and spirit. Listen into this discussion that touches on the principles of attention, stillness and healing that she brings to life in her recently published book “To Be Like Water.”
It’s easy to have beliefs about people we don’t know. Especially if they tick the boxes of our biases, prejudice, ignorance and the opinions of our friends. When you think about successful stock market investors you’re probably not thinking about people with compassion, curiosity, spiritually and a sense of fair play. But for some of the top level investors that he interviews, you’ll find humility, generosity and a deep abiding sense of the ephemeral nature of the world and a habit of “cultivation” that would not be foreign to a Daoist, Buddhist or practitioner of the Kabbalah. In this discussion with William Green we talk about how top of the game investors lean on morality, responsibility, humility, intelligence and are eccentric in that they are able to face the uncertainty that goes hand in hand with investing and keep their own counsel when the rest of the world is telling them their wrong. We are talking about some high level Gong Fu here. Listen into this conversation with William Green as we discuss his book Richer, Wiser, Happier and what he has learned about spiritually, generosity and self-cultivation from Masters of the Dow.
I’m reminded of the stillness of cats. How they can sit both still and yet completely and serenely attentive. So too with resonance, there is the yin aspect of stillness with the yang expression of vibrating with the influence of the environment. And in the middle, ren, person, the human heart. In this discussion with Diane Fabian-Smith we look into empathy, along with the filters and boundaries that allow us to connect without getting lost in the encounter. Listen into this conversation on resonance, maintaining boundaries in our practice with patients, creating a friendly but firm relationship with our stories and egos. And respectfully engaging the inner terrain of our patients and ourselves in our clinical work.
How we are with ourselves affects how we are with patients. Our own difficulties in life can assist us in helping others, but it requires that we are able to come to a sense of neutrality with those traumas of the past. In this conversation with Seanna Sifflet we discuss using our own feelings, the healing potentials in empathy and forgiveness, and the importance of overcoming our own biases. Listen into this discussion on the importance of of managing our own nervous systems and cultivating the capacity to remain present and neutral when patients bring forth emotional material that rhythms with our own experience.
“What is my purpose? Why am I here?” These are questions that we all grapple with at one time or another in our personal and professional lives. But finding the right answers is often elusive—mainly because our focus tends to be narrow and we fail to ask the right questions. In this discussion, we welcome back Sam MacLean to delve into the topic of knowing your path, drawing on her experiences. Sam previously worked in the corporate world helping businesses with their purpose. But following certain situations that changed the trajectory of her life, she transitioned to her passion of connecting with horses. Listen in on this conversation with Sam—in which we discuss and share some insightful tips on self-awareness, the impact of culture, knowing who we are, and the rightness of our paths.
Language creates walls or openings. We can attempt to coax our patients into our view of the world, or softly and with respect enter into theirs. There are clever ways to use language as a trick. But in the therapeutic setting it is far better to use language with respect, and that respect comes from a deep rooting in our presence and embodiment. In this dialogue with Margot Rossi and Nick Pole we learn some key fundamentals of staying in our own experience while helping guide our patients deeper into theirs.
Grief and fear are a potent combination of influences, and when you add the pressure cooker effect of Covid-19 and all that entails it can be powerfully disruptive to our collective wellbeing. Seanna Sifflet and Heidi Lovie explore how our medicine and our presence can help our patients and our communities to navigate through the choppy waters of our times.
In Oran Kivity’s review of Finding Effective Acupuncture Points we not only get a taste for the character and content of the book. We are also treated to some valuable insights into acupuncture points, needle technique and useful fundamentals on thinking about and locating points.
When we think of the essential aspects of the human being, we think Jing, Qi and Shen. When you think about the health, wellbeing and flourishing of your business; what are the essentials you consider? If you did not consider marketing, you might want to think again. And give MB Huwe a listen here, because marketing is an essential aspect of your practice that you ignore at your peril, and your marketing has to resemble no one other than you. So you can’t buy a solution off the shelf, because it has to reflect your genuine character.
Shaoyang issues have a kind of cyclical nature. The problems come and go with a wobbly periodicity. Not unlike the wheel of a bicycle that is slightly out of true. The flaring of heat and uprising of qi can be seen through this lens. In this case presentation with Eran Even we get a glimpse of this shaoyang dynamic and see how a clinical presentation that you might also see illuminates a line from Jin Gui Yao Lue.
Knowing a little medical Chinese can be very helpful in learning and practicing the medicine. This review of the Chinese Medical Characters app will give you a good overview of the app, along with some encouragement for the process of helping yourself by learning the basic characters that will help you to better understand and think about our medicine.
It’s easy to think of our practices as “acupuncture.” But the truth is our practices are first and foremost— a business. An infrastructure that allows us to do the healing work we do. The business is as separate from the practice as the mind is from the body. Which is to say; not at all. If you’re taking the pulse of your business, the overhead is one of the parameters you need to pay attention to. Stacey Whitcomb gets in your business on this. Listen up!
Through the boundaries of time, language and culture East Asian medicine has found its way into the West. But there is a cultural component that we often don’t consider. And that can make a difference in the effectiveness of our clinical work. Furthermore, our modern culture disportionately values curing over healing, and sometimes there is no cure. But the whole-person aspect of our medicine gives us a unique perspective on illness, suffering and bearing witness. In this conversation Jonathan Bluestein and Stephen Jackowicz discuss the unique potential in our medicine, and the challenges of practice in the modern Western world.
Any seasoned practitioner leans on the patient practitioner relationship. There is something in the interaction that cannot be separated from the response they have to our treatment. In this conversation with Vitaly Napadow we discuss the Art of Medicine and how fMRI imaging from the brains of patients and practitioners with an established clinical relationship gives us a breathtaking glimpse into how our brains mutually interact with each other. And more importantly, how that can affect clinical results. Listen into this discussion of mirroring, rapport, neuroplasticity and how human connection and therapeutic results are intimately connected.
The ancient Chinese were not the only people to observe nature and develop medicine in the service of relieving suffering and promoting health. But they were the only culture that wrote it down and managed through the centuries to preserve significant portions of it. In this conversation with Edward Chiu we discuss writing case reports, which is a time honored process of how medicine has been preserved, passed along and learned throughout time. Not only can we learn from the past, but we can also help to educate future generations of practitioners. Listen into this discussion of how to write case reports that will not only help you to clarify your own clinical thinking, but also to effectively share it with others. Head on over to the https://www.qiological.com/blog/writing-case-reports (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
There is a saying in Chinese, 以人為本, Understanding a person is basis of knowing how to treat them. Our work requires we both understand our medicine, and understand how it applies to that individual who sits before us in our clinic. In this conversation with Bryan McMahon we explore the importance of congruence in health and illness, take a look at the dynamics of counterflow that will give you a new perspective on this pathomechanism. And we’ll look into how more deeply understanding physiology will help you with difficult presentations in the clinic. Listen in to this discussion of medicine, service and the interactions of heaven and earth through the dynamics of the five phases and six qi. Head on over to the https://www.qiological.com/blog/physiology-congruence-counterflow (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
There is a moment in between sensing and allowing what is felt to enter the world of cognition and concept. It’s a liminal space of being and feeling and if you can linger there for a moment there is information that is beyond the ken of words. In this discussion with Nigel Dawes we explore how palpation allows us an opportunity to imbibe that sensual place between being and thinking, and how that can help us with our diagnostic work. We also consider how our herbal medicine readily lends itself to the treatment of Post-Covid syndromes and how our medicine can be of great service in the aftermath of coronavirus infections. Listen into this conversation on cultivating that attentive perceptual space just this side of language and the maps of the mind, the opportunities for using ancient formulas for modern problems and the circuitous journey that went into the writing of Nigel’s new book. Head on over to the https://www.qiological.com/blog/herbal-medicine-covid-aftermath (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Forty years is a long time to practice medicine and gives plenty of opportunity to follow your interests while helping patients. Our medicine includes various kinds of hands on bodywork, and in this conversation we explore the use of micro current. While electricity is often applied to needles in our work, Malvin Finkelstein has found a way of using a micro current probe along with bodywork to bring rapid and profound changes to the underlying tissues. Listen in to this conversation on electricity, touch and how profound change can occur right under our fingers. Head on over to the https://www.qiological.com/blog/hands-on-microcurrent (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Barry Danielian is one of the most in demand trumpeters and arrangers in NYC, having recorded on over 400 CD’s. Barry’s music is used throughout the television and media industry. His touring and recording credits include diverse artists such as: Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Jay-Z, Tony Bennett, Sting, Tower of Power, Queen Latifah, Eddie Palmieri, Blood, Sweat & Tears, KRS One, Branford Marsalis, Paul Simon, Tito Puente, James Taylor, Billy Joel, McCoy Tyner, Illinois Jacquet, Marc Anthony, Ricky Martin, & The Roots. In 2016, Barry was accepted in the MSTOM program at PCOM-NY, maintaining a 3.70 GPA while continuing a busy music career. In 2020, he was one of 3 recipients of the NuHerbs Scholarship. Barry is also a lifelong Martial Artist, training and competing in Boxing, Muaythai and Grappling for decades. He is a certified instructor in Pekiti Tirsia Kali (Filipino Martial Arts) and Silat Kuntau Tekpi (Malaysian Martial Arts). Head on over to the https://qiological.com/learning-from-heart (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Research when done well is an inquiry that can shift the foundation of your cognitive model. And that’s exactly what it is for. In this conversation with Brenda Le we both explore how TCM is seen in our Western Chinese medicine world, and how doing this research opened her up to aspects of medicine and practice that she did not previously see. Listen in to this conversation on inquiry, exploration and discovery. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Jing, Qi and Shen— the three treasures. Like so many of these pithy quotes about Chinese medicine there is a lot here if you have taken the time to investigate it and see how it fits within your experience of practicing medicine. In this conversation with Yair Maimon we touch on the three treasures as they relate to treating cancer with acupuncture, immunology from Chinese medicine perspective, and ways of working with research that help us to further our understanding of our medicine here in the modern day. Listen in to this discussion that touches both on the classics and modern day perspectives in health and healing. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We often consider the Five Phases when doing acupuncture, and the Six Conformations when treating our patients with herbal medicine. In this conversation we consider the interplay of “wu yun, liu qi” the five movements and six climatic qi from the perspective of diagnosis and understanding not just what problem a patient has, but also its progression through time. Listen in to this discussion on understanding the cycles and interplay of yin and yang that will help you to better understand why a patient’s illness has manifest and how to use both the movement of the phases and the influence of the conformations to treat illness and help your patients. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
It is surprising where life can take us. We follow a hunch or a nudge and somehow gain some momentum that in time generates wind for our sails. Not many westerners in the 1970’s started along the road of Chinese medicine. In this long ranging conversation with Jake Fratkin we discuss his perspectives over time and his current thoughts on medicine. Listen in for a conversation about herbs, TCM, Japanese acupuncture and the curious road of practice that unfolds when you follow your interests. Head on over to the https://qiological.com/balance-flow (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The prolific science fiction write Issac Asimov wrote “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny …” The wonderful thing about research is that it invites delicious questions and opens avenues of inquiry that lead us beyond the borders of our maps of the world. In this conversation with Richard Hammerschlag we hear about how his curiosity with how acupuncture was helpful lead him to a shift in career that has had him in the forefront of acupuncture research for a couple of decades now. Listen in to this discussion on the process of inquiry, and how it’s hard to go wrong when you follow what’s interesting for you. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Listening is not a skill that I expected to develop. I thought I’d get good with palpation or pulse reading. After all, the masters are said to get what they need with the pause and a few questions. That’s what I was aiming for, however it did not work out that way for me. I’ve found over the years that there is a way of listening to a patient that has allowed me to both uncover what I need to know to treat them, but more importantly, help me to better understand innate resources they have that they either are not in touch with, or curiously enough think are deficiencies or problems. Listening is not passive, nor about just hearing what the patient says, it also involves an inner ear to our own experience. This episode is a solo show in which I share some what my clinical experience has taught about an often overlooked yin aspect of our work— listening. Head on over to the https://qiological.com/telemedicine-tech (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
You’ve probably seen patients who are on thyroid medication and the numbers are “fine” according the their conventional doctor, but they just don’t feel right. We know from our experience as practitioners that often our patients are deeply frustrated because they’ve been through thousands of dollars of testing and yet they are told “there is nothing wrong with you.” But the truth of situation more often is “we have not been able to find the source of the problem your having.” In this conversation with Heidi Lovie we taken a deep enough dive into the hormonal interactions of the thyroid that you’ll be able to better understand the numbers on a thyroid panel. And we then flip into how Chinese medicine, especially the ideas of Li Dong Yuan, can help you to make a substantial difference in your patient’s life. Understanding the story that certain key factors of the bloodwork tell along with the methods and perspectives of Chinese medicine can make a big difference in the life your Hashimoto’s patients. Listen in and find out how! Head on over to the https://qiological.com/treating-hashimotos-with-chinese-me (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
With Covid-19 knocking the bottom out of our practices, there is a call from experts in the field to “get online.” Which isn’t bad advice as it does provide a channel to our patients in a time when we can't put our hands on them. But, and this is important, many of us don’t know what we would do online.
Somehow the idea of teaching acupressure leaves me completely cold. And as to helping people with their nutrition, well, most people I see don’t have much of an interest in that anyway. Add on to it, the fact that there are some things I know in theory, but from an embodied understanding I don’t have much to say.
So the question arises for me of “What in essence, and with integrity, can I share online?”
In this conversation with MB Huwe as we dig into that question. Listen in if you have questions about what can you from that genuine place in your bones bring to the online world.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Listening is not a skill that I expected to develop. I thought I’d get good with palpation or pulse reading. After all, the masters are said to get what they need with the pause and a few questions. That’s what I was aiming for, however it did not work out that way for me.
I’ve found over the years that there is a way of listening to a patient that has allowed me to both uncover what I need to know to treat them, but more importantly, help me to better understand innate resources they have that they either are not in touch with, or curiously enough think are deficiencies or problems.
Listening is not passive, nor about just hearing what the patient says, it also involves an inner ear to our own experience.
This episode is a solo show in which I share some what my clinical experience has taught about an often overlooked yin aspect of our work— listening.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The opinions we have about “doing business” can dramatically affect the kind of practice we have, the opportunities we recognize or are blind to, and how we feel about ourselves as we begin to generate some momentum and success in our work.
Success brings its own issues. And it does not guarantee your insecurities will go away. The more successful you are, the more responsibility comes your way— and there is more to lose if it all comes apart. Sometimes it might seem “safer” to stay small, but our practices ask us to show up with spirit and resiliency.
In this conversation with Lamya Kamel we look at how our practices ask us to grow in challenging, yet essential ways. And that while we may not have confidence in the beginning, over time it can arise when we approach our work with integrity and passion.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
For those of us in North America the world changed about three weeks ago as the Covid-19 began to make itself known. And as Chinese medicine practitioners begin to close their in-person practice and open up video visits with patients for herbal consultations there is an increasing interest in how we in the modern world, facing this particular pandemic, can use our medicine to help.
Heiner Fruehauf has been translating some of the writing and communications of his friend and colleague Dr Liu Li Hong who has been in Wu Han treating patients for a couple months now.
In this conversation we touch both on the one size fits all formulas that have shown effect in protecting staff from infection, and the importance of applying our Chinese medicine 辨證理論 bian zheng li lun, principles of differential diagnosis.
Listen into this report from the front lines of China, and how we can help our patients and each other as it is now our turn to confront this epidemic.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Some of the difficulties faced by many of us in this time of pandemic are the disorientation, anxiety and fear that arise from uncertainty. But if you look more closely, you’ll see that there never is in this life the guarantee of certainty. It can feel that way because of habituation, but when you strip away the daily habits and sense of continuity, then the profound and often unbearable uncertainty that all self-aware mortal beings share, is always there. These past few months in Asia and past few weeks in the western world have been tearing away at our sense of certainty and security. We fear for our lives, our livelihoods, families and increasingly… our communities as well. In this conversation with Greg Bantick we look into how this ever-present moment arises from innumerable causes and conditions, and how curiosity can help us to more fully inhabit all the moments in which we find ourselves. This is an episode that is not just for practitioners, your patients, family and friends could benefit from this conversation as well. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Moxibustion is one of the more interesting methods in toolbox. Stunning in its simplicity and often brings deep relief for those who are a good fit for this method. It’s curious how the burning of this particular herb can bring about healing.
Alice Douglas has loved moxa since before she became an acupuncturist. In this conversation we discuss her survey of research into moxibustion. There is a lot you probably heard about moxa in acupuncture school and might have wondered, “is that really true?” Listen in and get the answers!
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Ours is a portable medicine. In the 1960’s the barefoot doctors in China took Chinese medicine into the countryside. Over the years acupuncturists’ response to natural disasters has show us that acupuncture can be practiced in makeshift shelters or tents. It also has a place in refugee camps, churches of impoverished communities and rural villages.
In this conversation acupuncturist and activist Ryan Bemis talks about how acupuncture and liberation theology go together and can help to relieve a lot of suffering.
Listen in and found out about how Crossroads Acupuncture is not only helping refugees at the border, but also assisting poor communities to better care for themselves with acupuncture. And training acupuncturists in how to be of service to those in difficult situations.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We often think of the bioelectricity of the nervous system as a signaling system for the body to communicate with itself, but it might serve an even greater function of allowing us to interact with our larger environment.
This conversation with John Hubacher started off as an inquiry into electro-acupuncture, but it quickly took a hard left turn into neuro-psychiatry, parapsychology as well as the importance of using standardized measures in research so we can build a common language around treatment and experimental findings.
Listen in to this conversation on the perspectives of a long time researcher into bioelectricity, and how he sees this interacting with biology and quantum fields.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The coronavirus has not only found its way into our bloodstream and mucus membranes, it’s worked its way into our social fabric, economic relations and political disagreements. In this age of global electronic connection news of this new virus creates perhaps more noise than signal.
In this conversation with Craig Mitchell we discuss how the effectivness of Chinese medicine is based not on someone else’s successful prescription, but on our ability to skillfully apply our diagnostic methods. We also touch on the importance of not just treating this disease, but also being sure we don’t become vectors for its spread.
Doctors in the past have confronted these kinds of epidemics. Now it’s our turn at bat.
Listen in to this conversation that reminds us the power of our medicine lies in how we apply it, and the need to attend to limiting the spread of infection.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Many of us like to think we are connected with doctors throughout time, that we practice the same medicine in a continuous flow from the days of Huang Di down to this modern moment. It’s a lovely narrative. One that our patients often think about as well when they say “It’s been around 2000 years, there must be something to it.”
But as Volker Scheid, the guest of today’s conversation, points out “The way patients were even 40 years ago, the way they spoke and thought of their issues is already different from how it is now. Within this small time span the changes from cultural already influence the practice of medicine.” And yet even as this is true, we can find a way to have conversations with doctors across the span of time, culture and language.
Listen into this conversation on the yin and yang of diversity and heterogeneity in the practice of Chinese medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The Saam tradition traces its roots back four hundred years to a monk who as part of his meditative practice received some insight into medicine that allowed him see and work simultaneously with the five phases and six conformations. But monks are not doctors, even if they can relief a lot of suffering with a few needles. And so the methods of Saam have over the years found their way into scholarly and educational traditions of Korea. To the degree that a Pubmed search will find you all kinds of modern research acupuncture using the Saam method. Andreas Bruch has spent time in Korea and was studying Korean Hand Acupuncture. But there were some aspects of that method that were not quite making sense. That’s when he started studying Saam and all kinds of things began to fall into place. Listen into this conversation on the more scholarly stream of Saam Acupuncture, which can give you a whole new way to approach thinking about and using the antique transport points . Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Humans have an innate drive to make sense of the world. To understand how things work and see if we can reliability influence the outcome on something. To find a way to get more of what we want, or less of what we dislike.
When you think about it, life is one big research experiment as we are constantly testing out ideas of how things work.
But often when we think about research we are thinking about laboratory controlled environments or double blind studies. And there is a place for those, but those models aren’t that helpful when it comes to using a researcher’s eye to better understand acupuncture.
Lisa Taylor-Swanson fell in love with research before she fell in love with acupuncture. She’s a researcher with the heart and eye of a clinician who is investigating the use of non-linear and complex adaptive systems theory to design research that helps us to go from “does acupuncture” to “how acupuncture helps.”
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The corona virus that emerged in Wu Han earlier in this year has disrupted travel and business and has been a deep cause of concern as doctors throughout the world, and especially in China, strive to understand the nature of this pathogen. Conventional medicine brings it’s modern research techniques to this inquiry. While those of us in the Chinese medicine world seek to understand this modern epidemic disease through the lens and prisms of Chinese medicine.
In this conversation with Cheng Du doctor Jin Zhao we discuss his perspective on the illness induced by the corona virus based on the observations and experience of a number of doctors he’s working with along with his own experience and his perspective gleaned from his long term study of various schools of thought in Chinese medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
It’s easy to think of our skin as the outside wrapper, but really its a mirror of the internal environment. And while topical treatment of skin has it use, it’s learning to adjust that inner milieu that over time makes for the biggest changes with the skin. It’s quite in line with Chinese medicine that we work on the inside to change the outside.
Olivia Hsu Friedman is well studied and practiced with treating skin conditions with Chinese medicine. And beyond that she also works with conventional medicine practitioners and uses an integrative perspective to help those with difficult and recalcitrant dermatological conditions.
Listen in to this conversation on an evolving holistic approach to treating skin problems.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
There is something about connection that goes beyond words. There is a way of engaging with those who seek our help that goes beyond the ten questions. Connection is not something we do, it’s a way we are.
In this conversation with long time practitioner Esther Platner we explore the spaces that don’t quite fit into words. Tread into territories without maps. And sit for a bit with the curiosities and surprise that arise in clinic when we attend with an open awareness.
Beyond our theory, and beyond understanding there is a way we can meet our patients with a wide-open sense of inquiry that asks us to bring everything we have, and leave behind our preconceptions. Chinese medicine has its scholarly tradition, but we don’t so often hear from the poetic.
Here’s your opportunity.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The practice of medicine is not completely about what we do, it’s also informed by how we are. How our presence, perception and allowing ourselves to abide in that space between knowing, sensing and being can invite a quiet, non-rational part of ourselves into the clinical encounter. Michael McMahon, like many of us, did not initially set out to become a Chinese medicine practitioner. It was more a process of discovery— of a kind of feeling your way in the dark. It was a following something that lead to the next, which in turn opened a new opportunity. Not unlike the threads we follow in clinic that take and our patients to surprising places. Listen in to this conversation that reminds us there is something quiet and still that helps to inform the "doing" of our work.
Head on over to the https://qiological.com/creativity-presence-attention (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The changes that come from an unexpected direction tend to be the ones that transform our lives the most. Chloe Weber did not plan on becoming an expert in neurology. She was on the path of providing herbs and acupuncture to low income populations. But when her son’s rare neurological condition invited her to move in a different direction, she took that invitation.
Listen in to this conversation on neurology, CBD, Chinese herbs and how a business can be built because it turns out that in solving your own problems, you can help a lot of other people solve theirs as well.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Just how do you locate an acupuncture point? Are you looking for bony protrusions, a palpable change on the skin, or a rule based measurement from a book? Locating acupuncture points is something every practitioner needs to do, and do well. And there are plenty of different criteria that can be used.
This question about point location caught the attention of our guest in this episode. He started to seriously look into this issue, serious as in with a scalpel and cadaver.
And what he’s found has been illuminating. Listen into this conversation on how one practitioner’s curiosity has allowed him to use modern science to find connections between the classics, acupuncture points and neurophysiology.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Archetypes are deep influences that all humans share. They give us a glimpse into the complicated landscape of our psyche. They can live in the light or influence from the dark. Carl Jung had a lot to say about our intrapsychic world, how these influences are shared across culture and time, and how they manifest in personal and societal behavior. And while they are separated by the distance of culture and thousands of years Confucius had a lot to say that rhymes with the Jungian ideas on Being, Doing, Thinking and Feeling.
Listen into this conversation with a translator of Buddhist texts who also has a background in Chinese medicine for a discussion on the similarities in outlook between these two great influencers and thinkers.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
An often overlooked aspect of running our own business is that it gives us a potent way of connecting with others and serving a community. Sure there are additional responsibilities that come with this kind of an opportunity. But the freedom it can give us, and the ways it will challenge us with personal growth, opens up experiences and opportunities we’d otherwise not have.
Listen into this conversation on how doing business asks each of us to develop untapped potential in ourselves, connect us with a larger community and give us the opportunity to live a life where we get to choose our own responsibilities.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Daoism and Daoist thought is something that many acupuncturists have been exposed to. It might have been part of what launched our interest in studying medicine. And perhaps you’ve had the experience of reading books like the Dao De Jing and come away more with a sense of confusion than clarity. It’s challenging for us as modern westerners to grasp the meaning of writings that have come to us from across the expanse of time, culture and language. Daoist traditions are alive, but they are passed down within the confines and structure of community Listen in to this conversation on Daoism, hermeneutics, living traditions and medicine. Head on over to the http://www.qiological.com/daoism (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Money, for many, is the pebble in our shoe that irrates enough to annoy, but not enough for us to make a fundemental change. And if our accounting systems mirror our confusion or conflict around finances, then that adds more one more thing that we’d prefer not to think too much that will undoubtly circle back and be a source of suffering.
A good accounting system, and the basic understanding of the principles involved can save us a lot of trouble. And it’s not that difficult. If you can learn Chinese medicine, you can certainly grasp the fundemental accounting principles that will help you to better understand the financial health of your practice.
Listen in to this discussion on basic accounting for acupuncturists, embracing financial responsibility and why the 80/20 rule is your friend.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The way we make sense of structure helps us to understand function. Drawing lines and divisions helps us to understand parts. But a keen understanding of the parts does not always help us to see the whole of the functioning of those parts.
The anatomy of qi gives us a kind of bi-ocular view of function and form. It helps us to understand a system, even as we are part of that system. And it invites our western minds, which have been cultivated on carving the world into pieces, to glimpse the unity of those parts.
Listen in to this conversation on qi anatomy, Daoism and the influences of pre and post heaven influences.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Chinese medicine reminds us that we are one part of a complex, interdependent and ever evolving ecosystem. That we both influence and are influenced by the world. Our toolmaking ability has wrought remarkable changes on the world, and on ourselves.
In this conversation we look into the prevelence of manmade electromagnetic radiation, how it has dramatically proliferated in the past 40 years, and how some common health complaints could be a sign how the increase in electromagnetic fields in our living spaces might be effecting our wellbeing.
Listen in to this discussion that gives us some of the basic science behind the technology that allows you to read this on your mobile device, and how we are at the very beginning of starting to understand the effect of electromagnetic radiation on human health.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
What gets us started is not what sustains us over the long haul. The energy of beginning is essential at the start of any new endeavor. But what got us to here, will not get us to there.
It’s easy to think that we are broken because what brought us success does not help us in managing success. Nor does it help us to move through the stages of development as we age and face the challenges slowing our practice down, passing it along or letting go of it altogether.
In this conversation we explore our practices in mid and late career. How we find sustenance in our work. How at some point we let go of the business and practice that has sustained us for decades. And the vital importance in sharing something of what we have learned with those who are at the beginning of the journey.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The classics are helpful not just because they contain pointers to how medicine works. They are helpful because of the discussions they have generated amongst practitioners over the twin distances of time and space. They are a kind of thread that connects us with the doctors of the past who have gone to this well for the wisdom within. Listen in to this conversation on the pulse as seen through the perspective of the Classic of Difficulties, how the principle of 理 (coherence) shows up in the work we do, issues of free will and that troublesome question of what constitutes a cure. Head on over to the https://qiological.com/ripples-pulse-nanjing (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Most of us spend our days treating illness and working to bring out patients into a great state of health and wellbeing. But there are moments toward the end of life when the greatest state of health and wellbeing means helping someone to more gently leave this world.
Listen into this conversation on the place of acupuncture in hospice care, a glimpse into the complexities of working in this kind of integrated environment and how about we can broaden our view of helping people at the end of life.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
This is a series of short conversations with some of the attendees of the Pacific Symposium.
Listen in to the wide variety of perspective and practice as it relates to Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Access to acupuncture point location and function has not always been a matter of a few clicks on your mobile phone. This kind of information has not always been at our fingertips. And there is a great wealth of material has not made its way into your digitial library, let alone into English.
In this conversation we talk about knowing what’s true in Chinese medicine, the problem of cherry picking resources, and the work of translating a Qing dynasty text on acupuncture.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Stems and Branches are old Chinese science. Our medicine touches on it, but most of us rely on the more modern perspectives for our clincal work. The Stems and Branches speak to a perspective of the universe and our place in it that is foreign to our minds not because of language and culture, but because we live a world that focus more on humanity than cosmos.
In this conversation we touch on the influence of numbers, the spiral nature of unfoldment and change, a few things about the Hun and Po that will surprise you, how time and space give us different glimpses into reality and how a sense of playfulness wtih medicine and philosophy just might be a most wise approach.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The medicine we practice doesn’t just help us to help others. It can help us to live more deeply into our own lives. The challenges, adversity and difficulties we encounter show us what we are made of and build resiliency. The practices we create are a living expression of who we see ourselves to be. Furthermore, the process of creating a successful practice that we want to work in, it’s an on-going process.
Listen into this conversation on the power of mentorship, the transformational influence of having a business, and how being your authentic self is the best way to build a practice you want to work in.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
With Chinese medicine we know that issues of the skin are more than skin deep. That imbalances in the internal environment can manifest on the exterior. And that if we focus solely on what is seen on the surface, we’ll miss the larger picture that is unfolding below.
In this conversation we explore dermatological conditions with an eye toward internal organ function, the emotions and how diagnosis can be easy but the treatment more difficult.
Listen in to the conversation on healthy skin from the inside out.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The characters for acupuncture in Chinese, 針灸zhen jiu, literally translate as needle and moxa.
You surely were introduced to the cigar-like pole moxa and large cones of smoldering mugwort on slices of ginger or aconite in acupuncture school. Perhaps you also were exposed to the Japanese rice grain moxa techniques or burning balls of moxa on the head of needle. Not surprising there are a variety of forms of using Ai Ye to bring a kind of simulative heat into the body.
In this conversation we explore the use of moxa that is combined with touch, rhythm, warmth, and with an eye to the channel dynamics that Yoshio Manaka, one of the great masters of the 20th century, wrote about in Chasing the Dragon’s Tail.
Even if you don’t use much moxa in your clinical, you’ll find this percussive bamboo method goes beyond the simple induction of heat into the body. And indeed can be used in a variety of contexts where you’d usually employ a needle, but in this case, it’s motion, rhythm and moxa.
Listen in to this conversation that will have you looking at moxibustion in a whole new way.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Musculoskeletal issues are the bread and butter of many acupuncture practices. Many people only think of acupuncture when they think about the treatment of pain, and not without good reason. Acupuncture is helpful in the treatment of pain. And as acupuncturists we know we could probably do a lot better too.
In this conversation we explore the use of the Dao Zhen, the knife needle. But more importantly, we take a look at how the body is put together. And how to “see” the story of a person’s physiology.
Listen in for a conversation about understanding structure and function and a surprising method of needling.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We pride ourselves on being connected to an ancient medicine, to a way of thinking, working and treating that ties us back to the luminaries of our field. But medicine is always influenced by the times. And the influences that brought Chinese medicine to the west, and the ways we learned it shape our thought and practice.
In this conversation we discuss the difference between 辨證理論 bian zheng li lun, pattern differentiation, and 陰陽五行 yin yang wu xing, the transformation of yin and yang through the five phases. And take a look at how 醫 yi, medicine differs from what’s commonly called TCM.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Resonance, 感應 gan ying, is an aspect of Chinese philosophy that runs through many aspects of our medicine.
We see resonance as we look through the unfolding of life through the five phases. The way we see east, spring, liver, green, beginnings and wood as having shared energies; the way they resonant the phase of wood. We see it in the how the six conformations express health or illness through five phase relations that are emblematic of each side of the conformation. The way Tai Yang can express with the cold of the Urinary Bladder, or the heat of the Small Intestine. The way Shao Yang Gall Bladder and San Jiao tend to go outwards, while the Jue Yin aspects of Liver and Pericardium move inward.
Resonance is built into how we work. And in this conversation we explore how resonant nature of music and vibration can be used in our clinical practice. Along with a look at the kind of knowing that arises when you have the ability to cozy up to irrationality.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We all know that Tech is part of a modern practice. And regardless of whether we love it, or hate it, it plays a central role in our day to day operations, marketing and communications.
Just like our patients find the language of Chinese medicine to be confusing. Many practitioners find the language and work flow around technology to be foreign territory. Where to find a translator who can speak our language? Right here on the podcast!
Listen in to this conversation as we discuss tech in a down to earth way with an acupuncturist who used to inhabit the high-tech world. Tech really is not so difficult when you understand some fundamentals. You might even find you have some fun with this stuff. Especially after you learn not only how to get yourself onto the first page of Google on a local search, but also make your phone ring with people looking for an appointment.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We can approach the business and financial aspects of our practices a distasteful task that we’d prefer to delegate to someone else. Or we can take it as the opportunity it is to work through our shadow material around the issues of money, power, authority and integrity. In this conversation we explore how wealth allows us to interact more fully with our world. How finances are just one aspect of a balanced and integral life And how the relationships with community and ourselves are not separate from our relationship to money and purpose. Impoverishment in any aspect of life will limit our capability to live fully in any other aspect of life. Listen in to this conversation with a long time meditator, with a hearty ability to laugh, who leans on the wisdom of the DAO and the DOW. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Last year for the first anniversary of Qiological I invited a listener of the podcast to join me for a conversation, this year I did the same. Part of the reason is that I love hearing from listeners of the show. And the other part is that we all have something to share with each other, and I especially love talking to practitioners that you might not know.
I love talking to people that have been working away in their clinics, usually without fanfare or desire for public recognition. And have through their experience learned something of our medicine, and how it helps people.
Medicine is learned anew in each generation. Yes, we have our old books, and plenty of newer ones as well. We have the conversations, discussions and clinic notes of doctors from past dynasties. But medicine only comes alive when we take what’s been shared with us and learn to see it with our own eyes. Learn to understand it through our own experience. And if we are lucky, work hard and are attentive to that curious interplay between what someone showed us and what our experience is asking us to learn, then we might understand something well enough to pass it along to another practitioner.
We are ever students of the medicine. Perhaps it is that sense of curiosity that unites us more than anything else. Listen into this conversation where we touch in on persistence, creativity and why it’s often helpful to not listen to the teachers who tell you that you can’t do something.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
I started this episode thinking we would be talking about lions, tigers and bears. But we ended up with glial cells, learning and neuroplasticity. Just like in clinic there are often surprising things that show up, and so too it is podcast conversations.
In this conversation we start with veterinarian acupuncture. But then take a hard right and go deep into neuroscience, the treatment of pain, nervous system regulation and how medicine is beautiful. I loved our discussion as it ranged from the clinical ‘how-to’s” of working with animals, to the deep science of neurobiology, and all woven together with a sense of inquiry and appreciation for the beauty of nature and the practice of medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Medicine is an unending study. A process of learning, sifting what helps from what doesn’t, and recognizing that we often are students of the unknown.
In this conversation we explore healing, sacrifice, the importance of learning a tradition and finding a mentor.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
There is more to growing herbs than understanding plants. There are the considerations of soil, economic environment, weather patterns, cultural and market forces, and the kind of eye and vision that can see the interactions of these forces not just over seasons, but years or decades.
In this conversation we explore the cultivation of Chinese herbs here in the West with one of the pioneers of the movement to bring domestic cultivation of Chinese herbs from a curiosity to viable economic reality.
Listen in for a glimpse the ecosystem required that makes domestic production of Chinese medicinals a possibility.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Mushrooms are a curiosity. Neither plant, nor animal, they are stuff of fairy tales and dreams. They hint at something dangerous. They could be delicious, or they could kill you. They sprout up unexpectedly and then quickly melt away. Their underground mycelial networks make them some of nature’s largest collective organisms. Yet their fruiting body is just one small momentary expression of their unique life.
Mushrooms like Ling Zhi (Reishi) and Dong Chong Xia Cao (Cordyceps) have long been part of the Chinese medicine materia medica. But these substances, until recently, were preciously difficult to come by. Now with modern cultivation methods and scientific assay tools we have increased access to these unique healing substances.
Listen into this conversation on the use of medicinal mushrooms that are you familiar with, as well as some mushrooms that have recently emerged onto the “superfood” scene.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We rely on the skills of experts. The car mechanic, plumber, web designer, business coach. We want to trust the people that are in the position where our lack of knowledge leaves us vulnerable. We’d like for them to have our best interests in mind, and we also know from experience that we question the car mechanic’s assessment when they find more problems with our vehicle than we’d suspected. Most of us would like some kind reassurance that the person diagnosing the problem is trustworthy, especially when they stand to gain financially.
It can be difficult for the expert to have a clear-eyed view when their livelihood is based on finding and correctly problems. And because the expert is used to knowing their territory inside and out, they can be blind to new information that does not fit the metrics of how they usually operate. The downside of being an expert is that our knowledge and sense of understanding can blind us to valuable information and give us a false sense of security. As acupuncturists we too are experts. Which gives us a level of skill that truly can help others. But at the same time we run the risk that all experts face of thinking we understand, when in fact we are ignoring vital information. Listen into this conversation on the benefits and challenges of being an expert.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Business is one of those aspects of practice that many new practitioners approach with a not small amount of fear and loathing. Business is often viewed as something bothersome and takes away from focusing on our practice. But the truth is, just like there is a false dichotomy between mind and body, the idea that business is somehow separate from our practice not only is not helpful, but cuts us off from all kinds of creativity and learning.
In this conversation we use the entrepreneurial mindset to discover solutions and opportunities where previously you might have only seen obstacles and annoyance.
Listen in to this conversation and learn why learning to care for your business is not so different from learning to care for your patients.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The experience of trauma is as much a part of life as is falling in love, having family disagreements, and wondering how we fit in this life. And while we tend to focus on the problems that have their roots in traumatic experiences, it is also possible that we can become more resilient and anti-fragile by moving through traumic experiences in a way that allows us to harvest the lessons of the experience.
In today’s conversation we explore aspects of modern bio-physiology, the insights and perspectives from somatic experiencing, and how these relate to the five phases.
Listen in for a discussion of how the fact of trauma is less important than how we move through the cycle of resolution. As we know from Chinese medicine, when things stagnate there are going to be problems. But if there is movement, then the zheng qi of our system will work to help us to resolve the difficulties and bring us to a place of harmony, health and resilience.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
What we tell ourselves might be more powerful than our actual experiences. Not only that, our thoughts shape our bodies. Practitioners of East Asian medicine have hard-won, clinically derived tools for conceptualizing how biography affects physiology.
Importantly, this is not limited to counseling our patients. Instead, through palpation and other components of East Asian medical physical exam, patients can physically experience how emotional patterns affect structure and function.
Effective treatments can then help shift that monologue running between the ears to change the state of our sympathetic tone, organ function and blood chemistry in order to ultimately shape the way our sensorium interacts with the world.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
When I was a kid it was easy to smell a snow storm coming, or to be able to feel how the wind shifted and the light in the sky meant that you’d better take cover as a thunderstorm was maybe, if you were lucky, 20 minutes away. Us humans have the ability to sense deeply. And if you don’t’ think that’s true, reflect on the last time you knew there was trouble in your relationship, but when you probed your partner said, “nothing.”
Us humans have extraordinary abilities to sense deeply. Actually, these abilities are not extraordinary, they are just not in this day and time ordinarily used. As conventional medicine relies on the “evidence based” objective tests, and we in the Chinese medicine community have our own questions, theories and processes that prescribe how we use our sensing to determine what is going on for our patients.
In this conversation we go deeply into sensing. Into trusting our first impressions, and how listening attentively with our touch and presence can lead us to places where our patients need attention, even if they are not themselves aware of it. And even if it at first makes no sense to us either.
Listen into this conversation that explores the crossroads of Chinese medicine and old-school osteopathy.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
When you come right down to it… the practice of Chinese medicine is a kind of applied natural science.
What makes for an effective natural scientist? Mostly an abiding sense of curiosity. A willingness to have yourself proven wrong. The capacity for a kind of encouraging delight that emerges from following a thread of inquiry. And the fortitude to spend years or decades on following something that may or may not pan out, but journey is worth the effort.
In this conversation we explore and reflect on the path of practice, and the unexpected places to which it will take us.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Fake it till you make it is not a helpful strategy for acquiring confidence. Any halfway competent human being can sniff out inauthenticity. We can only work at, and improve from, our genuine growing edge of ability and skill. Cultivating confidence requires time and experience, generous amounts of both failure and success, and a kind of dogged persistence. It requires confronting what we don’t yet understand with an inquiring mind and willingness to be teachable. It demands a kind of steadfast trust that we can learn and adapt. And it takes both patience and a sense of urgency that we don’t waste any opportunity that shows up as challenge on a good day, and trouble on a bad one. Gaining a sense of confidence is not something we can learn in a class, or purchase as a service. It can only arise from being lived. Listen into this conversation as we inquiry into the practices and experiences that help us to gain a sense of confidence and comfort with our clinical work. Head on over to the http://qiological.com/cultivating-confidence (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Some learning is more transmitted than taught. Observation, touch, the kind of connection that does not rely upon words. We love to make sense, especially to ourselves. But the theories in our heads, the maps of thought that can point the way, but are not the way; these can lull us into a feeling we understand when in fact our understanding is limited and limiting.
Developing a way to sense directly. Learning from pre-modern books that show us another way of perceiving. And being able to be present to our own unfolding experience in an attentive way. These are more than skills; these are ways expanding our sensorium so that we can both get out of our way and at the same time be present with our patients in ways that can help us not to miss the clues and cues that our theory focused mind would certainly overlook.
Listen into this conversation on the benefit of old books and how sensing opens vistas that theory can only point towards.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Chinese medicine is fractal nature. We can take the broad principles outlined in the Yi Jing, Five Phases or Six Jing and watch as they help us to tune in the particular level of life in which we are embedded or observing. Be it the resonance from tendon, to Liver, to Spring to the arising energy of the East. Or the way Taiyang cold balances Shaoyin heat. Or how the trigrams of water and fire are mirror images. The ancient Chinese sciences and philosophy can help us to unfold a phase within the ever-shifting tides of change.
Today’s conversation takes one of these fractal perspectives, the heavenly stems and branches, and investigates how it shows up in the practice of acupuncture.
Listen in to this conversation on how the stems and branches are reflected not just in heavenly cycles, but in the arrangement of acupuncture points and how this fractal energy can help enliven the work we do with our hands and needles.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Our lives unfold in space-time. It’s the water in which we swim and so like fish, it is difficult to know the influence of the matrix within which we live our days and experiences our lives.
The Chinese ba zi, the eight characters, is a system based on the heavenly stems and branches that can help us to orient to the influences that shape us and can guide us in making sense of certain seasons of our lives.
While often used as a kind of 算命, suan ming, fortune telling system. The Ba Zi can help us or our patients to better understand the arising and falling away of particular influences that can affect our health and wellbeing.
Listen in to this conversation on how these eight characters of influence can help us to orient to the cycles of heaven and earth.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Books on herbal medicine go way back, back into the misty time of myth and story. We have Shen Nong with his peculiar ability to taste and feel the influences of plants. We have the foundational writings of astute practitioners like Zhang Zhong Jing, Li Shi Zhen and Ye Tian Shi. And then there are the thousands of years of regular doctors like you and I, who have recorded their clinical experience so future generations of practitioners might glean something of their experience and perspective.
As with all East Asian medicine there is more than one perspective we can use to understand the nature of humans and world, and how we might be able to assist with our patient's health. The Tang Ye Jing, the classic of decoctions, is an ancient text that looks at herbal medicine from the perspective of the five phases and invites us to consider the use of flavor in a way you might not have considered.
There is some debate on the authenticity of this text. Regardless of origin, the Tang Ye Jing provides us with another perspective that can help us to think in another way about the actions of herbs and the workings of human physiology.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The classics are more than just a way to focus our thinking in clinic, they are part of a perspective that sees the world as an integrated and ever evolving whole.
It can be a challenge for us with our modern linear, rational, material perspective to grasp the the fractal perspective of a world that made up of resonance, and where observer and observed are both parts of a greater whole.
Listen into this conversation on the classic medicine perspective as it can unfold both in clinic and our lives.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
In this episode of Qiological we are taking a look at dry needling not from the legal or scope of practice point of view, but rather from the viewpoint of how acupuncturists can learn something from this form of acupuncture that has quickly grown in popularity among our conventional medicine colleagues.
We all know that acupuncture can be powerful medicine. Little wonder that other professionals would like to be able to access its healing power. And in some ways, conventional practitioners have a leg up, as they already speak the language of the dominate culture, and have a certain status due to being associated with “scientific” medicine.
In this panel discussion with three experienced and dedicated acupuncturists we explore what East Asian medicine practitioners can learn from the dry needling community.Listen in to this conversation that is less about legalities and more about opening up an uncomfortable avenue for learning.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We often think of moxibustion as a potent way to add heat and yang into the body. But if you only think of moxa as heat, then you’re missing the power of the perspective that moxa is about creating a specific kind of stimulation in the body. Listen in to today’s conversation as we explore how Japanese moxa techniques can be helpful in treating antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. And how our guest has taken resources from Japan, along with research and his own experience in Africa of using moxa to help make a difference in the lives of those suffering from the modern drug resistant forms of TB. Head on over to the http://qiological.com/moxa-africa (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Perceiving and sensing are not the same. It might seem that the stream of information coming in through our senses arrives passively. But further investigation proves this incorrect. And in fact our perceiving not only is an active process, but can become richer, deeper, more nuanced and integrated when we actively bring our attention to help us sense more deeply into our work and interaction with others.
In this conversation we explore how sensing and esthetics help us to better connect with our patients and ourselves. How perception moves through the six levels. And how non-dual states of awareness change what is an “effective action” with our patients.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
East Asian medicine has one foot in the skills and practice of medicine, and another in the traditions and influence of culture. How it is thought about and used in a place like Taiwan bears some similarity to how we practice in the West, and there are also significant differences.
Culture and habit are inseparable from the experiences people have in making sense of world and how they approach illness and health.
Listen in to this conversation on a Western practitioner’s view of doing Chinese medicine inside of the traditional culture of Taiwan.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
As herbalists we know a thing or about the therapeutic application of botanicals. But the lifecycle of plants we work with, the way they interact with their environment, the differences between cultivated and wild medicinals, and the farmer’s eye that takes in the influence of weather, the rightness of soil, companion plants, insects, nutrients and stressors, all these are hidden from view when we are not connected to the growing and harvesting of the herbs we use.
Cultivation is not just giving the plant what it wants. It also includes giving the plant what it needs so it can develop its medicinal properties. And there are risks when bringing a plant from one ecosystem to another. What lives in balance in place could become an unrestained problem in another.
Listen into this conversation on the challenges, risks and opportunities of cultivating Chinese medicinal herbs in the west.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We all can feel the difference between a sunny and cloudy day. The influence of long summer days brings a sense of expansion, while the short weak light of winter naturally makes us turn inward. Light, the quantity and quality of it powerfully effects us. You know this in your bones.
In today’s conversation we looking into a particular kind of light— lasers. These concentrated beams of focused coherent light can be used to upregulate certain biochemical processes that help to promote healing and even can be used to promote neuroplasticity in the brain.
Much like acupuncture, laser light is a a technology that seems kind of magical. And so sorting out science from imaginal flights of fancy is important if we want to understand how to skillfully apply this tool in our clinical work.
Listen into this conversation that will give you some helpful basics on using lasers in your acupuncture practice
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Many of us think that business is something we “have” to do. But really, it is something we “get” to do. It is a kind of privilege to create a life and practice that deeply reflects who we are. And it is an opportunity to work through any issues we might have with money, power and authority.
In this conversation we explore business as a creative process that allows us to bring our unique vision of health and healing into the world. And at the same time invite us to grow beyond self imposed limits and beliefs that keep us from growing into more skilled and able practitioners.
Listen in to this conversation about discovery, creativity, profitability and the resources we find in ourselves when we willing inhabit the opportunity of creating a business that allows us to bring forth our latent talents.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We mistakenly thought our conversation with Dr Yu had ended, but what can I say… wrong again. There is a little more of the conversation genereated from Dr Yu’s thoughts on the qi transformation of the six confirmations and the role of theory in the clinic. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Learning formulas is far more than memorizing as series of functions and indications in a book. It requires a kind of attentiveness. A sort of rigorous and yet flexible way of parsing a patient’s signs and symptoms and checking it against both your book knowledge and clinical experience. In this discussion we explore that tender edge of knowing, not knowing and how to operate in the clinical reality of uncertainty. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Discussing medicine with a seasoned practitioner is like drinking well aged whiskey. Dr. Yu Guo Jun graciously agreed to sit down with Michael Fitzgerald and myself after his morning lecture at the Shen Nong Society’s conference. If you’re an herbalist, you’ll enjoy this discussion of the six confirmations. Listen carefully, there is something in here about how the levels connect that you might not have heard before. And do check out the PDF in the show notes area that our friends at The Lantern sent along. It will help you to better understand some of the turns in this particular conversation. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
When we are putting herbs in a bag, or mixing together granules we are probably not thinking about the various laws and regulations from the FDA, or the historical arc that actually allows us to work with herbs in the way that we do. In this conversation we go into the history and impact of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. There is a lot in the background that we don’t think about on a daily basis, and yet it provides a foundation for being able to practice with herbs. Listen in to this deep dive into the regulations that affect our practices, but which we rarely consider on a day to day basis. Head on over to the http://www.qiological.com/shen-nong-society (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Some of the most important crossroads in our lives were not marked with a big Flashing Warning Sign, but rather instead were barely notable moments of “Oh, maybe this would be interesting.”
Our guest in today’s conversation had just completed a medical degree and was looking to take a little vacation. That vacation turned into a lifelong inquiry into acupuncture and East Asian medicine.
Listen into this conversation on how a sense of curiosity lead our guest from California to England to Korea and back. And has taken him deep into the investigation of pulses and constitutional medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Electro-acupuncture is a fairly new innovation. And thinking about its use in clinic does not quite match up with the traditional ways we’ve been taught to think about acupuncture and how it works.
We know the body has a profound reliance on electricity for everything from how our brain’s function to how we sense and move our body. But how does electro-acupuncture influence our systems? And how can we combine our traditional thinking with modern bio-science?
Listen in for a discussion about needles and electro-medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
It’s not uncommon for children of doctors to also become doctors. Sometimes there will be a string of docs that run for a number of generations. Which can be a good thing as you can learn at lot at your grandparents knee.
In today’s conversation we talk about a lineage of practice that goes not just a few generations, but a handful of centuries.
Zhejiang province is well known for its fu ke, gynecological doctors. There are actually several streams of doctors that have attended to women’s health over the centuries. Listen in to this conversation on women’s health and pick up a few easy to employ in your clinic tips for making your herbal prescriptions both more effective and tasty as well.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
How we make sense in clinic is not as simple as ticking items off a list. It’s more than mentally sorting through the models, theories, admonitions from our teachers and some chatter from a recent glimpse at Facebook.
While the theories and mental models we crafted through our experience have a place in clinic, there is also the experience of sensing without a story being attached. If we are attentive and quiet enough there is something that arise in our mind, before the label of “it’s that!” gets attached to our experience. Sometimes we can have an experience in clinic that does not yet have words attached to it.
In this discussion we explore perceiving, thinking, evidence and sensing. Listen into this conversation on how we make sense at the edge our unfolding clinical experience.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
It is easy to think of Chinese medicine as a clear step by step process of diagnosis and treatment, but it does not always go that way in clinic. It can take time for a diagnosis to clarify, and then there is the level of skill we bring to treatment. It’s a process that reveals itself as we go. And while it is easy to look back and see the solid stepping stones that lead to a successful treatment; that clarity can be quite elusive while in the middle of the process.
In this episode we discuss the experience of learning from our patients and clinical encounters. How diagnosis is not a series of boxes to check, but rather a process that emerges and clarifies as we engage with our patients and how they respond to our treatments.
Listen in to this conversation with long time practitioner Sharon Weizenbaum as we explore the art of diagnosis and how the way we bring ourselves to the clinical encounter is an essential element of the treatment process.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The textbooks tell us that sinew channels are important in the treatment of pain and musculoskeletal issues and they are accessed through the jing-well points. But beyond that not much else is said.
In this conversation we investigate the channel sinews from both the Chinese medicine and western functional anatomy and physiological perspectives. This gives us a more nuanced look into how structure influences function and it further helps to illuminate channel theory and its profound impact on both organ function and channel based issues.
Listen in to this conversation on how the tensegrity of the sinews and fascia influence health, movement and wellbeing.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
It’s not hard to study acupuncture these days. A quick internet search will bring up plenty of choices. But back in the 1980’s, it was a different story.
Our guest, like many of us, did not set out to become an acupuncturist. It was a process of fortuitous circumstances that opened those doors.
Listen into this conversation that covers some of the early days of acupuncture in New York City at the beginning of AIDS epidemic.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The Yi Jing speaks in the language of image, resonance and metaphor. Its not a good place to go for direct answers, but can be helpful in finding some guidence. Our converation today touches not just on the ways it is used for divination, but more importantly how it is a mirror and once you have a knack for it, you don’t need it for divination. We discuss how the commentaries are as important as the original text itself. And touch on how it is a kind of operating system that can help you to understand Chinese medicine, as well the curious unfolding of your own wondrously mysterious life. Listen in to this conversation on the power and importance of image and transformation. Head on over to the https://qiological.com/yi-jing-os (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We know that Chinese medicine and the martial and cultivation arts of East Asia share a common root.
In our healing practices we are paying attention to the medicinal side of this continuum. We don’t think about the points can be used for martial purposes, or how structures in the body can be used to generate power and force.
Our conversation today looks at some of the internal dynamics and structures from the martial point of view, as well as a tour of some of the points that can be used in particular ways if you find yourself difficult situation.
And as this conversation is the other side of the continuum we use in clinic, you’ll find some helpful clinic observations as well.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Ahhh, the new year. A moment in time to reflect on the path recently traveled and what’s up around that bend in the road. This is a solo show reflecting on some of the podcast highlights of the past year, a glimpse into some things already on the calendar. Along with my clinical observations about using the Sa’am acupuncture method in clinical practice, how it has helped me to better understand the connections between the 六經, the six levels and the 五行, the five phases, and some thoughts on the forgotten fu organ in TCM— the small intestine. Head on over to the http://www.qiological.com/new-year-reflections/ (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Sometimes takes an instant to know you might fall in love with something. And then it takes years, even decades to unfold all contained in that initial spark.
When it comes to the study and practice of Chinese herbs, you’re signing on for a lifetime of learning. Some would see that as a barrier, other’s as an opportunity.
The guest of today’s podcast conversation took it as an opportunity. One that not only has helped her to expand her own clinical understanding, but also assist others with their study and clinical application of Chinese herbal medicine.
Listen into this conversation on how one person’s passion has helped to create a conference and resource network for those interested in Chinese herbal medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the conversation.
Page through the Material Medica and it is easy to think that Chinese herbal medicine is one unified body of knowledge and practice. But, it’s not.
If you look closely you’ll see that different formulations come from different dynasties. Some were written in times of famine and war, others first penned during heights of peace, cultural exchange and affluence. While it looks like one coherent collection of prescriptions it is actually a history of doctors striving to cope with wildly different conditions.
In today’s conversation we explore the dosing and cooking methods of some of our oldest and most used prescriptions. Listen in and discover the differences in dosing between ancient and modern times and why harmonizing formulas require a particular kind of attention to how they are prepared.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Chinese medicine and Korean medicine share a lot of similarities. But there are a few differences. And when it comes to constitutional types, there are some significantly dissimilar perspectives.
This is one of the delights of East Asian medicine. Coming across a perspective that is close to something we understand, but different enough to edge us toward either a feeling of “wrong, this can’t be right,” or “oh, I’ve not seen it that way, I wonder how this works.”
It’s at the edges of our understanding that new information can arise and help us to deepen our perspective and understanding.
Listen into this discussion on constitution, the Confucian influence on Korean medicine and how dietary habits and constitution can play a vital role in health and wellbeing.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We tend to think of movement in mechanical terms. How this muscle contracts, how blood perfuses a certain kind of tissue or how tendons and bones allow for particular kinds of movement.
But beyond this we we can see that movement is a kind of vocabulary of the body. It has nuance or not. It has a range of expression or not. And just like micro-nutrients are vital to our metabolism, so to micro movements are vital to our physical wellbeing and nervous system.
Today’s conversation is not about taichi or qi gong, but about another kind of “kung fu” another kind of attentive focus on movement and movement practices that can help us to heal ourselves and our patients.
Listen in to this conversation on how a modern perspective on movement goes hand in glove with our traditional medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Inflammation is a popular topic in the worlds of both alternative and conventional medicine. It’s a pathologic process that is the result of certain disease processes and the generator of others. It is also something that can be treated very well with East Asian medicine. In this episode we explore how the fundamentals of the Liver/Spleen relationship, the Heart/Kidney axis and digestion in general all can contribute to treating lingering heat in the body. We also take a look at lingering pathogens, and discuss how herbs with opposite effects are useful in treating these kinds of conditions as they help to reestablish dynamic equilibrium to the body. Listen in for a conversation on the power of harmonization in the treatment inflammatory conditions. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
The best teachers are perpetual students. They are ones who when things don’t work as expected don’t say the medicine doesn’t work. These people dig into finding out why they don’t yet know how to make it work.
While aspects of medicine can be taught, there is much more than can only be discovered. Discovered anew within the experience of each generation. And it is those teachers who can help us along in that this kind of learning to learn who set us off on a life-long voyage of discovery.
In this conversation we listen into one practitioner’s apprentice experience with Dr Wang Ju Yu and the path of practice that it opened up.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
It’s easy to think there is one way to take the pulse, and natural to fall back on the habits that formed early on in our learning to attend to this vital aspect of diagnosis and prognosis.
Pulse is something our teachers help us to orient toward, but it is our experience and patients who help to understand and learn to trust what we feel.
In this episode we have a research scientist’s eye view of the pulse. And how outward beauty is an expression of inward strength and balance.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Sa’am has a good backstory. The meditative attainment of a Buddhist monk sparks a stream of acupuncture that can be taught to simple monks to help alleviate the suffering of the world.
It is a good story.
But, more importantly this is a perspective on acupuncture that gives some penetrating insight into the connections between the six levels (六經) and the five phases (五行). This method can help us to work with our patient’s constitutional, physiological and psycho-dynamic process all at the same time.
It is easy to use in a wide variety of settings as it primarily relies on the transport points of the arms and legs. It does not require a lot needles, and the effects of correct, or incorrect treatment are readily apparent.
In today’s group discussion a couple of practitioners who have recently begun to engage the Sa’am method bring their questions to Toby Daly.
If you have started to use this method, or mulling over in your mind how it works and how to use it, then you’ll enjoy today’s nuts-n-bolts discussion based on actually clinical cases.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
There are basics, principles, fundamentals, some building blocks of how the matter and energy of creation interact and transform. Over the centuries, through wildly different ideas of illness, health and workings of the human body, doctors have applied these principles to the challenges of their day to relieve suffering.
As practitioners, we too are part of this stream. We use the ideas and perceptions of those who came before, and do our best to see how these fundamentals play out in our clinical work.
In this conversation we explore how the basics have been both useful and effective in treating degenerative eye conditions such as macular degeneration and retinal tears. Our guest takes the fundamentals we all share, and applies them as seems appropriate in his clinical work. The result is a deeper understanding of how “incurable” illnesses can respond to the principles of medicine we all share.
Listen in for a conversation on how to learn from your patients.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Liver qi constraint might be one of the most common diagnosis in the modern Chinese medicine clinic. But the role of the Liver has changed over time, and at one point it was even considered to be part of the neurological system. In this episode we take a nuanced look at that wide and slippery constellation of symptoms that falls under the general rubric of “stress.” Listen in for a conversation about Chinese medicine from a historical, anthropological and clinical perspective. And be prepared to be surprised! Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We trace our medicine back to the Nei Jing, but most of our actual practices come from a more modern perspective.
Going back to those roots is not easy. Even for native speakers of Chinese, reading the 文言文 wen yan wen, the classic Chinese is difficult. For those of us in the modern West, these ancient texts are challenging. They require not just language, but a minset that views the world from through a completely different set of lenses and prisms than Cartesian and materialistic science offers to us.
Immersion in this ancient material changes us if we allow it. Gives us hints at seeing how matter and energy interact in ways toward which modern medical science is blind.
In this conversation we listen into how the Nei Jing gives another way of approaching acupuncture, the 脈 mai, channels, and helps us to understand our bodies as fluid based ecosystems.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Like hitting black ice, suddenly all sense of traction and stability evaporate into a gut wrenching vertigo. Adverse reactions of our patients to acupuncture can trigger this kind of disorientation. And this is when we have an opportunity to learn something that we didn’t previous know.
Adverse reactions could be due to a botched treatment, we were thinking one thing, but did another. Or our diagnosis was off. Or maybe it was on, spot on but the patient’s processing of the treatment gives rise to a frightening amount of discomfort and sends them scurrying for a quick pharmaceutical fix to calm their fear and anxiety.
It requires a certain amount of maturity the part of the practitioner to hold steady in a moment of deep uncertainty. And degree of personal development on the part of both patient and practitioner to not let unforeseen reactions stop what might be an important turn in a patients healing process.
In today’s conversation we consider adverse reactions to acupuncture, how to tell the difference between an uncomfortable healing process and an unskilled treatment, and how uncertainty is part of the game when practicing medicine.
It’s easy for us to think that because we have a darned good English version of the material medica that the centuries of herbal knowledge is at our finger tips. But there is a lot of back story to the medicinals that we use everyday in our practices Where herbs come from, how they are cultivated, how different plants have been used over the centuries; there is a lot we take for granted. Or simply trust our suppliers to have worked out the details of identification and quality. The medicinals we use regardless of whether they are granulated, tableted or raw have a natural history. This includes not just the process of growth and harvest, but also various kinds of processing as well. In today’s conversation we look at the identification, cultivation and processing of the plants we use everyday in our clinical work.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
These days we worry about getting through school, passing the boards and then getting a practice started. But there was a time when there were no schools, or national accreditation and practicing acupuncture was a felony. That world was not so long ago, and as is often the case, it is difficult to understand the present moment without a sense of the history that it contains. Our guest in this conversation began practicing acupuncture before there was licensing and accreditation. He has a view of our medicine and it’s practice that can only come from decades of engagement, learning and integration. Listen in to another discussion on a view of medicine that comes from the experience of practice over the course of decades. Head on over to the http://www.qiological.com/learning (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Even when speaking in our mother tongue we often misunderstand each other. Due to our biases, perspectives, and background it is easy to overlay our story on just about any situation. Add in that we are dealing with translation between language and culture; it gets even trickier.
In today’s conversation we explore the use of “upper, middle and lower” class herbs. This does not mean that upper is better; it means each medicinal has an affinity for more formed or less formed aspects of a person. “Upper” does not mean better, nor “lower” mean worse, these are simply demarcations on where a particular herb will be effective. It’s our job as practitioners to choose the right tool for the right job.
Listen in to this conversation that cautions about conflating “upper” with “better.” And goes into how Chinese medicine can be used for acute and emergent conditions that some doctors used to treat quite well before the advent of emergency rooms.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Needle technique is more than knowing how to insert a needle and count the turns in a particular direction. It requires more than the memorization of some protocols, or the rote following of a recipe of steps.
In this conversation we explore needle technique as a part of understanding how to feel into the tissues of the body. We discuss the creation of a treatment that relies not on someone else’s outline, but from your own understanding of first principles.
Listen in for a discussion of using ourselves as much as using the pins when doing acupuncture.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
In acupuncture school we learn about the 10 questions. But really, the questions are endless. And we are given the image of the scholar/doctor who doesn't say much, just looks at the tongue, takes the pulse and then has everything she needs to treat the patient. But that image does not fit the clinical reality in which most of us find ourselves.
Learning to ask the right kinds of questions. Learning to listen into the places that are silent, or hidden, these are skills that require the honing of time and attention,
In this episode we discuss modern brain science, the verbal and non-verbal aspects of our brains, and how the body has its own multi-textured way of communicating that is often baffling to the voice in our heads that trying to make sense of things.
Listen in for a discussion on the use of words to get beyond words.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is a complex of metabolic and hormonal imbalances. It not only causes menstrual irregularities, but also effects fertility, secondary sex characteristics, and can be related to elevated cholesterol and blood sugar levels as a woman ages.
While conventional biomedicine can control some of the symptoms of this disorder, there isn't much it offers in terms of getting to the root of the issue.
Chinese medicine on the other hand offers a wealth of possibilities that can help to get to the root of the causes and fundamentally shift a woman's physiology and bring balance to the body.
Our guest in this episode knows a lot about PCOS, as she suffered from this disorder and after being dismissed as a troublesome patient decided to see if she could find another way to heal. She did, and today she helps women find their own natural balance without the use of drugs or hormones.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We know that the language and perspective of Chinese and east Asian medicine gives us a whole different glimpse into physiology, health, illness and healing. And if you’ve learned a foreign tongue, then you’ve had experience how language shapes thought, perspective and possibility.
The systems or currents of medicine we practice, that too gives a framework, a perspective, that helps us to orient and make sense of a patient’s experience and then how we might be able to help them.
For many cultures, dreams are a powerful kind of sensing that speak with a language of their own and can carry important information from our subconscious up into that sliver of awareness that we usually give credit to for running the show. But dreams have their own way of holding and conveying information, and our rational mind is not particularly well suited to that particular non-verbal language. So how do we learn to tune our ears and sensing to the fluidic symbolic language of dreams?
It is doable and there are some surprising possibilities that arise with the right kind of inquiry. Listen in as we sit down for a discussion on dreaming and East Asian medicine.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
This "part two" conversation with Toby Daly came about because I've been trying to learn the Saam system of acupuncture as he detailed it a recent Journal of Chinese Medicine article. In that process I've had some surprising good results, as well as a few cases that I really took in the wrong direction. Toby points out, when you get it wrong, it's really wrong and you'll know pretty quickly. Unless you're still fairly new at it and not yet tuned into the warning signs of trouble. This discussion comes from my own clinic experience with trying to learn the diagnostics and how to tune my clinical thinking. Toby really makes the Saam perspective come alive with relevant clinical examples as he helps me to "correct my errors in the forest of medicine." If you have an interest in employing this powerful method of acupuncture, pull out a notebook and pen, because you are going to want to take notes!
Learning the basics of promoting or controlling the flow of qi through the Five Phases is an elemental part of every acupuncturist's training . We learn how the antique points can be used to nudge a response or invite a different kind of resonance into a patient's life. The Korean Saam acupuncture tradition has been passed down through a lineage of monk/practitioners. It not only uses "wu xing" elemental qi transfer, but additionally blends it together with the the six confirmations, yin/yang organ resonance, the yi jing, and constitutional body types. If you think that acupuncture done well is transformative, but if less skillfully applied will simply do nothing, then you'll want to listen in to this conversation and hear how our guest really took someone off the rails with four thin needles. Powerful things can happen with this style of acupuncture and correct diagnosis is essential. Listen in and get the basics on how to begin learning this powerful method that will not only help you to help your patients, but help you better connect up what seemed like different theoretical perspectives. Head on over to the http://qiological.com/saam-acupuncture (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Chinese is not that easy, and the 文言文wen yan wen the classical Chinese, that stuff is a whole other order of magnitude in challenge to the modern Western mind.
And yet if we are going to practice this medicine with deep roots into a long gone time and culture, we need access to the stepping stones that have been handed down to us over centuries through books and writing.
Translating language is one thing. But translating culture, bringing something of the mind and perception from another time, that is a whole other task.
It helps if you can understand the poetry, the stories, the world view and beliefs of the time. And it helps if you can track the changes in the meaning of words and ideas across the centuries of commentary.
In this episode we are sitting down for tea with a self described "lover of dead languages," for a discussion of Resonance from chapter five of the Simple Questions.
Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Forty five years is a long time to have a practice. Especially when you consider that the average American marriage isn't even half that number, and in this day and age people change jobs like they change their hair style.
How do you stay interested in something for decades? How do you change with the times? Work through the areas that you don't yet know, and let the practice itself give you insight into how you work?
If you've read more than a few books on Chinese medicine, the
The words "qi and blood stasis" frequently work their way into our diagnosis of a patient's situation. But getting blood stasis from the realm of theory and into our perceptual vocabulary takes some practice. And this can be quite helpful especially when working with cases that don't resolve the way we think they should. In this conversation we look into how the long term effects of blood stasis can cause problems 5, 10, 20 years down the road that become baffling as the usual stuff just doesn't work. Or makes things worse. Listen in for how paying attention to this commonly seen problem in clinic can help you to improve clinical results and unwind some knotty problems. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
We are trained to know a lot about a person from looking and touching. And while we have our “10 questions” or other interviewing checklists, there is a lot that comes from the interview and relationship with the patient that can help us to better understand them and hopefully be of service to them as well. In this conversation we take a look into how the connection we cultivate with our patients can help not only to inform our clinical thinking and treatment, but become an essential part of the therapeutic process as well.
Listen in for a discussion on the importance of rapport, why judging our patients is not helpful (but we do it all the time), the power of gaining comfort with uncertainty, and a few gems from the Simple Questions and Classic of The Virtuous Way
Head on over to the http://www.qiological.com/listen-like-water (show notes page) for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
As practitioners we all work with a mix of theory, clinical sensibilities developed through years of practice, and the immediate moment of encounter with our patients. What we feel with our hands can deeply help to inform our treatments and ground our mental models into the physicality of the present moment. Our colleagues on the shiatsu side of the house have a bit of an advantage in connecting and working with the channels and points in a sensate way, as they spend much more of their time in physical contact with their patients. Listen in to this conversation with a shiatsu practitioner whose practice has been steeped in decades of clinical work as we explore the differences between intention and attention, working with the sensing of the hands along with the ideas of the mind, and the important difference between maps and compasses. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
There are many ways to attend to our patients in clinic. We can work through mental models that we’ve acquired from our schooling, study, and clinical experience. We can also use our innate human ability to touch, palpate and sense. In this episode we discuss the importance of down-regulating our nervous system. Along with the use of palpation and sensing references to anchor our ideas about what might be going on for a patient, and to track the progress of the treatment as it unfolds. Additionally we touch in on the use the eight extraordinary vessels and their relation to internal cultivation, take a look at the relatively new emergence of using the divergent channels, and discuss the difference between intending and attending during the treatment process. Head on over to the http://www.qiological.com/engaging-vitality (show notes page for more information) about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Dr. Wang Ju-Yi was ever curious about why some treatments worked and others did not. He deeply studied the classical literature along with his own clinical experience, and somewhere along the way started putting his hands on patients to simply see what the channels had to say. For those practitioners who find palpation to be a key part of their practice, the work of Dr. Wang opens a whole new way of interacting with patients. And for those who are interested in how to puzzle through confounding clinical cases, Dr. Wang has some ways of clarifying complex situations. Pull up a cup of tea and listen in to this conversation that gives you a personal view of Dr. Wang and his work through the eyes of his apprentice Jason Robertson, co-author of Applied Channel Theory in Chinese Medicine, Wang Ju-Yi’s Lectures on Channel Therapeutics. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
When I first went to Taiwan I noticed that around most of the larger temples there was a street of 算命師, fortune tellers. Some would use the ba gua, others attended to your birthdate, palm or some combination of numbers. Others would look at the face. The Chinese medicine section in bookstores would also have books that explained hot to use maps of the face to diagnose health concerns. In East Asia, it's common knowledge that there is more written on the face than we in West attend to. Our guest in today's episode learned to read faces at her grandmother's knee, she in turn had learned from her father, a successful businessman. Listen in and learn how paying attention to certain aspects of the face not only will help you better diagnose and treat your patient's, but give you clues in better understanding and communicating with them based on how they see the world and process information. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Precious and rare medicinal mushrooms like reshi (ling zhi) and cordyceps (dong chong xia cao) used to be available only to royalty, or those who knew how to spot them in the wild. These medicinals have a long history of use in East Asia and are associated with vitality, longevity and a connection to the spirit world. Even today it is said of the wild forms that "those who buy it don't eat it, and those who eat it don't buy it" as it is often gifted in a attempt to curry favor or influence. Fortunately for us "lao bai xing" (common people) these incredible fungi are available to us via cultivation. Or are they? In this episode our guest takes us on a deep dive into cultivation and extraction methods, and more importantly, how to read test results so you can better understand the potency of the products you are buying and giving to your patients. If you use medicinal mushrooms in your practice this episode will help you to better understand the important differences between polysaccharides, beta-glucans, and triterpenoids. Listen into to this conversation with an etno-mycologist who has been studying and working with mushroom cultivation for over 45 years. Head on over to the https://qiological.com/medicinal-mushrooms (show notes page for more information) about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Our guest did not start out with the intention of building a medicinal herb import company. It started out as a way to solve his own problems with sourcing herbs. And as is often the case, one thing lead to another. In this episode we take a look at some of the common concerns practitioners have about herb quality, issues surrounding the use of pesticides, heavy metals and sulfur. Additionally we discuss how the concerns of Western herbalists has to some degree changed the herb market and growing practices in China. In the later part of the show we explore the use of granulated formulas. Explain why the 5:1 concentration that most products tout is misleading. Why crafting formulas and dosing granules is not the same as dosing raw herbs because granules are a fundamentally different medium of delivering herbs. And finally, how we can begin to think about dosing this herbal product that is fairly new on the Chinese herbal medicine scene. If herbal medicine is part of your practice, you'll want to listen in to this conversation! Head on over to the https://qiological.com/andy-ellis-springwind/ (show notes page for more information) about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
In this episode we reflect on the burden and privilege of a clinical practice. How we grow into it by using a blend of our objectivity and subjectivity. And how mindfulness and a curiosity about our own internal landscape all help to inform our clinical work and development as a practitioner. We look at how learning the medicine not only helps the patients we see, but provides a deep benefit for our lives as well. And how to stay present in the moments of failure in such a way that we can gain a deeper clarity about our work. Listen in for a discussion of how to gain a balanced sensitivity that helps us to navigate the challenges of learning from clinical experience, and support us in moving beyond the comfort of reliable skills when they don't prove so reliable. Head on over to the https://qiological.com/causes-conditions-clinical-practice (show notes page for more information) about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
Studying medicine can be both a joyous exploration and a dry mind-numbing slog through endless technical material. In this episode we discuss the Eastland Press book "A Walk Along the River." This book is not just a glimpse into the mind of a seasoned and well-read practitioner, but also brings in the aspect of dialogue, as his clinical cases and considerations are further illuminated by the questions posed by three doctors. If you've ever read a book on medicine that gave you the "what" of a treatment, but left you hanging because it failed to include the "why," this book will be a useful addition to your library. In this discuss we discuss the process of translating, dig into Dr Yu's thinking, and touch in on how to move forward when you don't know what to do. Head on over to the https://qiological.com/walk-along-river/ (show notes page for more information) about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.
In this brief introduction to Qiological, show host Michael Max gives an overview of what you expect from this podcast show. You can http://qiological.com (visit the website for more information) and to get direct access to various links on the show notes page of the episode you are interested in. Thanks for listening. And if you have suggestions for a show, or want to hear more about a particular topic. Pop on over to the website and https://qiological.com/contact/ (send an email)!