What Does Acupuncture Do? Or, What’s the Point?
I have answered this many different ways over the years. It changes depending on who I am talking to, how I personally have been thinking about it, and the context of the discussion. My perspective on the question, “What does acupuncture do?”, after years of pretty dramatic transformations, has by now settled somewhat, so I will take another stab at an answer.
Tai Chi in Daily Life
Movement is life. The choreographed movements of Tai Chi help our bodies re-learn more natural ways to move. This brings more life into our bodies, and with that, more health, strength and focus.
Flow and Counterflow: Health, Humans and Natural Environments
We are constantly interacting with the rhythms of our natural environment.
The cycles of day and night (circadian rhythm), the four seasons (circannual rhythm), and the monthly lunar phases are the three fundamental cycles for life on Earth. We know that creatures of all kinds, from birds to insects to mammals, change their behavior based on daily, monthly and seasonal cycles.
As for those weird animals called human beings, those cycles continue to affect our physical and mental physiology, even when we try so hard to fight against them.
What Does “San” Mean?
San is the Chinese word for three. It is written as three horizontal lines stack one on top of the other. In the old books of East Asian medicine, numbers had a special importance. They organized information, and in so doing, shaped a way of thinking.
The number 1 is Dao 道 “Way”. This is the unifying principle of reality, the way that all things are in nature. Dao is that water always runs downhill. Dao is that hot air hitting cold air generates wind. Dao is that the Earth cycles around the Sun and the stars rotate precisely through the night sky, year after year without wavering in their paths. Dao is that every living thing proceeds from birth to growth, to death, and then to birth again, a part of something new…