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.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- The early influence of art
- Acupuncture showed up while considering a career change
- Thoughts on the apocalypse
- Having things fall apart so they can fall together in a higher state of order
- Chinese herbal medicine card game
- What practice looks like these days
- Writing about rabbits was more fun than writing about Chinese medicine
- Rabbits like lasers, acupuncture… not so much
- Leningrad, summer palace, 1964
- What gets you through the moments when you don’t know what you’re doing
- Master Dong’s point for the nodes
- Where Michael’s interest in Sa’am acupuncture came from
- The universe does not understand a negation
- Navigating the chaos of life
- Tossing an idea back and forth between the two lobes of the brain
- Advice for new practitioners
- Supporting your practice with an eye toward the next 20 years
For back pain try Dai Mai (GB41 and TB5) with Four Gates (LIV3 and LI4).
For poison oak or ivy or rash of unknown origin, Yin Qiao is the bomb!
Diana Moll, L.Ac
As a child I was mostly interested in art and imagination games. When I was 8 my mother gave me a transparent 3D plastic anatomy model. All of the organs could be removed. It was satisfying to take them all out, mix them up, then quickly snap them back into place before the patient died. Gutsy was a much more interesting toy than the then popular Barbie. Looking back Gutsy introduced me to the unseen world on which life depends. Time passed. I had strange jobs and life experiences. Then one day I found myself to be a not very successful graphic designer. My work was too quirky to have a wide appeal and not quirky enough to make an interesting statement. Still I bungled along. A friend decided I need to take Reiki class, though I had no, zero, zilch interest in healing. The novelty and the peek into yet another body world was compelling. For a time I studied energy healing with Rosalyn Bruyere of the Healing lIght Church. Computers began to seriously take over the graphics field. I hated looking at the monitors and the idea of constantly buying upgrades. What to do ? I was hanging out diapers when it came to me. Go to acupuncture school ! I had had some acupuncture treatments some months before for “Parent Fatigue”. The seed had been planted then. Handily, I had all the prerequisites in place from an earlier attempt to go to veterinary school. In two weeks I was attending classes at Five Branches University. Ironically located in the same building where I had for a decade volunteered at the local public radio station, KUSP.
It’s been 20 years since I was licensed after taking my boards three times. The struggle with dyslexia is real. I practice differently than I thought I would. I thought I’d be creating amazing loose herb formulas in a charming two room clinic that was the perfect amount of busy and tea drinking. Just simple needles and herbs. As the years have gone by most of my patients don’t even want herbs or cannot afford them. I’ve expanded my tool kit to include: Dr. Bear touch needling, BioMagnetism, Gua Sha, cupping, lasers, blood letting, micro-current, Master Tung and Dr. Tan points and theory, Auricular acupuncture, lymphatic, and fascia techniques. I’m always trying to understand the body better; the vast diversity and myriad of functions, nameable and unknowable. Movement informs function and vice versa. On top of 17 years of Tai Chi and martial arts I have added the Gokhale Method and Original Strength studies. Although I don’t use use a lot of herbs in my practice I think about them all the time. I write about them for Acupuncture Atlanta and I’ve made a table top card game, Herb Apocalypse.
I love the medicine simply because it works. I love it because it helps people feel like themselves again and get their full lives back. From a more selfish standpoint, I love it because it allows me to be chronically curious and, like a good teacher, requires me to be fully present. Often I find that if I think “Oh I’ve got this, I know what to do.” the treatment wouldn’t work. Maybe another approach is needed or I need more data or something else. It’s the something else that sends me to books and the internet, searching for something that seems to fit. It's hard not to have a pre-conceived treatment idea. Over the years I’ve learned not to be too proud to start over. When the desired result arrives, it feels like good luck. Though really it’s more a cooperation between the Qi of patient, myself and untold strands of knowledge. That’s how it is for me at any rate, maybe it’s different for you. Is it tea time yet?
Links and Resources
Meaning of apocalypse (from Wikipedia)
“Apocalypse” (ἀποκάλυψις) is a Greek word meaning “revelation“, “an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling” From the Greek… .literally.. an uncovering, disclosure of knowledge or revelation.
Qiological is my favorite Chinese Medicine podcast and The China History Podcast provides historical perspective on the culture that nurtured the medicine.
More about Herb Apocalypse.
Diana writes for Acupuncture Atlanta’s blog.
My favorite on-line (free if you don’t need CEUs) source is eLotus.org.
Gokhale Method posture and movement for a pain free life.
Original Strength uses baby movements to reset the nervous and muscular systems.
Diana's newest book obsession is Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve by Stanley Rosenberg
Get a tee shirt with Diana's artwork by visiting her online tee-shirt emporium