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.

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.

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.

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...

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..

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.

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.

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.

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.