A Place for Sharing

When I was an acupuncture student, my childhood acupuncturist told me, “Never marry an acupuncturist. You will be spending your days in the clinic helping people with sadness, pain, and suffering. When you get home, you want to have a wife who will take your mind off your day and fill your home with laughter and song. If you marry an acupuncturist, all you will ever do is talk about acupuncture.” He was correct about that last part. My fiancée, Rachel Hartstein, and I have been together now for almost 9 years and most of what we talk about is acupuncture (although our home is full of laughter and song).

What my acupuncturist did not know was that it is a blessing to have someone close to me who truly understands what I do and can share in my work. And so, for the past almost 9 years, Rachel and I have been developing theories, refining techniques, and discussing all parts of our field, from daily readings from the Nan Jing to comparing the pros and cons of different needle brands on the market.

We used to teach, but took a break about 4 or 5 years ago and started focusing much more closely on building our practice and refining every aspect of how we work. We have also been writing down everything we have found along the way. The trouble is that teaching is something that I have missed terribly, because teaching brings me great joy.

Rachel turned to me a few weeks ago and told me that I should gather together all the information that I thought an acupuncture school graduate would need to know in order to work in our clinic with my blessings. This was particularly good timing, since we recently took on a fabulous intern and have started training her. I sat down and outlined the information and set it into continuing education class format. I came up with 19 classes, but I know there are several small things that are really important, but do not fill a whole class. I thought a blog would be the perfect way to share all of these thoughts that might one day fill part of a book but do not fill a class right now.

As we start to teach classes, I will post descriptions and dates here. I will also be posting thoughts and details that are significant for upcoming classes, as well as those little things that are not going into a class right now, but could be of use to the thoughtful and creative acupuncturists who I invite to join me here, and who I am so happy to call my community. As we are fond of saying at our clinic, we are all in this together and health is better when it’s shared.