On seasonal reflections.

Fall for me is a reflective time. A time of returning home to myself, the same way the salmon return to their spawning grounds. This year, as I enter my second year in practice, I find myself revisiting who I am as a practitioner. Acupuncture chose me it seems. It wound its way up from past lives and long lineage to find its place in my heart and in my hands, in this lifetime.

While I feel very much like this calling chose me, it is the co-creation between practitioner, patient, and needles that keeps me here. My practice is evolving to be primarily hands on, with gentle techniques of rocking, shaking, tapping, massage and mobility.  

The needles often come secondary to the hands on work. They are used sparingly, specifically.  While many practitioners place needles and allow you to rest, we will typically work together for most of your treatment. Bodywork and acupuncture being used side by side, helping guide you home to the places in your body that haven’t felt welcoming or connected. 

These areas might present as pain, or an absence of feeling. Often times they are restricted mobility, or the way you stand. It might be something you are aware of, but it might not be either. However that disconnect is showing up, when you come back home within that space in your body you soften. Your breath changes. You remember things previously forgotten or simply not thought about. You find a way to shift a habit, bring in a new routine, maybe make space for something (like grief, or playfulness) that you have been avoiding.

This is where the magic lives.