352 Quiet Presence, The Gentle Power of Teishin • Gary Klepper, Thomas Sørensen & Ehrland Truitt
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.
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351 The Trouble With Men • Damo Mitchell
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.
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350 Sa Sang, Bazi, and Food as Medicine • Jaguang Sunim
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.
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349 History Series, There's No End to The Study • Stuart Watts
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.
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348 The Strange Flows • Daniel Atchison-Nevel
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.
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347 The First Four Palaces of Alchemy • Leta Herman
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.
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346 Weaving Together East and West • Joseph and Sam Audette
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.
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345 History Series – Things That Don’t Make Sense Will be Helpful to You Later • Ted Kaptchuk
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 that took Ted from New York to San Francisco to Taiwan and then Macao. The twists and turns involved learning the medicine, and how the Web That Has No Weaver came into being.
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344 Jing, Authenticity and Mushrooms • Mason Taylor
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.
Listen into this discussion of mushrooms, longevity and the search for authentic meaning.
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343 Chinese Medicine Dermatology • Mazin Al-Khafaji
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.
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342 Laughter of the Universe, Qi in the Year of Yang Wood Dragon • Gregory Done
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.
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341 History Series, A Journey into Health, Wellbeing and Longevity • Peter Deadman
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.
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.
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340 Alchemy, Magic and Channel Personalities • Zachary Lui
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.
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339 Confusion on the Path, The Dangers of Meditation • Leo Lok
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.
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338 Researching Chronic Pain in Children • Jonathan Riemer
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.
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337 . • Michael Max & Rick Gold
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…
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336 Rock & Roll, Synchronicity and the Yi Jing, a history series conversation • Z'ev Rosenberg
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.
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335 Academy of Source Based Medicine • Michael Brown, Eran Even, Will Ceurvels, & Ivan Zavala
The vast wealth, and it is a wealth, of writing on Chinese medicine is in Chinese.
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.
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334 Lean Into Your Gift • Clara Cohen
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.
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333 Prescriptions for Virtuosity • Eric Karchmer
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.
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332 History series- Connecting Heaven and Earth • Efrem Korngold
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.
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