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 Ann 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.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- Acupuncture is weird, but it works. And just what is working?
- How do we declare that something is proven? Scientific methods and the immeasurable variables in acupuncture treatment
- Intention as a potent and defining variable for successful treatment
- The certainty and mystery in acupuncture
- Importance of having clarity and developing a strategy
- The issue with needling in more than three channels
- Learning to trust acupuncture as practitioners
- Acupuncture channels as external channels of enlivening—and how to make the channels flow freely
- Internal channels as a resonance of the grand flow going through the planet
- “When the mind makes the body, we call it placebo. When the mind makes the body ill, we call it hypochondria. What is up with the mind?”
- The great luo of the Stomach
- Acupuncture as having a conversation in a relationship
- The mysterious realm of the pulses
Practice like nothing else matters because everything does.
Ann Cecil-Sterman, L.Ac
Ann Cecil-Sterman is the author of three best-selling books, the Art of Pulse Diagnosis, Tongue Diagnosis and Advanced Acupuncture: A Clinic Manual, acclaimed as the first and only text with complete protocols for all the channels of acupuncture. Ann’s aim as a teacher is to play a significant role in helping to return acupuncture to its inspiring classical roots, not just to the Han Dynasty writings of the Complement Channels (sinew, luo, divergent and eight extraordinary), but even to earlier understandings.
Ann offers online courses in complex practices and hosts a warm, twice-monthly international online chat where practitioners present cases. She graduated from the acupuncture school founded by Dr Jeffrey Yuen in New York. During and after her time there she received direct transmissions from him in acupuncture, pulse diagnosis, history, food, herbs, essential oils, stones, qigong and philosophy. In her busy Manhattan practice which she loves, she specializes in seemingly intractable conditions.
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