408 Peripatetic Acupuncturist • Irina Cividino
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.
read moreSubscribe To This Podcast In Your Favourite Player
130 Considering Covid-19, Methods and Safety • Craig Mitchell
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...
read more
129 Currents, Culture and Conversation Through Time • Volker Scheid
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...
read more
128 Saam Acupuncture, the Scholar Tradition • Andreas Bruch
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...
read more
127 Tracking the Void, Non-Linear Methods of Research • Lisa Taylor-Swanson
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,...
read more
126 Special Episode- Treating the Coronavirus With Chinese Medicine • Jin Zhao
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.
read more
125 Mirror of the Interior- Chinese Medicine Dermatology • Olivia Hsu Friedman
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...
read more
124 Attending to the Field of Healing • Esther Platner
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.
Discovering What It Means to be a Doctor • Poney Chiang
In our last conversation with Poney, we talked about the neurological view of acupuncture points. In this Part Two conversation we’re exploring what got Poney interested in medicine in the first place and how he ended up becoming an acupuncturist when his first interest was in herbs, philosophy and metaphysics.
In this conversation we talk about the deep structure of Chinese medicine, kung fu movies, the Yi Jing, feng shui and how life takes unexpected turns. Poney also shares how Chinese medicine allowed him to grow as a person and how it helped him do things he never thought would be doing.
read more
123 Creativity, Presence and Attention • Michael McMahon
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.
read moreUsing Saam in the Community Clinic • Toby Daly
This is the audio of a webinar conversation on the use of Saam acupuncture in the community clinic setting.
We get into particular benefits of the Saam system and why it’s well suited to using in the community clinic setting. And detail some challenges and considerations in terms of training that need to be addressed.
Finally, we talk about a few commonly seen issues in the community clinic and how to treat them.
read more
122 CBD, Neurology and the Inspiration That Comes From Unexpected Challenges • Chloe Weber
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.
read more
Coherence and Patterning • Edward Neal
How does acupuncture work?
We hear this question all the time. From our patients, from someone we just met at a neighborhood BBQ, from out parents, and if we are honest— ourselves.
The ancient Chinese mind that conjured up acupuncture did not consider…
121 A Neurological View of Acupuncture Points • Poney Chiang
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...
read more
120 The Archetypes of Confucius and Carl Jung • Pia Giammasi
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
read more
119 The Power of Connection- Business as an Aspect of Community • Brigitte Linder
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.
read more
Practical Cosmology • Deborah Woolf
How does acupuncture work?
We hear this question all the time. From our patients, from someone we just met at a neighborhood BBQ, from out parents, and if we are honest— ourselves.
The ancient Chinese mind that conjured up acupuncture did not consider nerve pathways, endocrinological response or brain chemistry.
The ancient Chinese mind looked out into nature and used that reflection to dream into the body. They considered the natural tides of expansion and contraction. The formed and the unformed, and how physical form arises from an unseen patterning that leaves its trace, like wind on deserts sands.
read more
118 Daoism in the Modern World • Josh Paynter
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.
read more
117 Getting Your Finances Right- What the Entrepreneurial Acupuncturist Needs to Know • Beverly Hacker
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 fundamental accounting principles that will help you to better understand the financial health of your practice.
read more
116 Qi Anatomy • Brenda Hood
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...
read more
115 Beyond The Visible – Electromagnetic Radiation and Health • Brandon LaGreca
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.
read moreSupport for Qiological Comes From
