Points Aren’t Points
One of the most common questions that I get asked in the clinic is about the acupuncture points. The question is simple, natural and usually goes like this… What do the points do? I love this question and the place of genuine curiosity that it comes from. My response to this inquiry has evolved with time. Initially, it was subjectively tailored to the patient or moment. This had me reading into people for how to best explain this seemingly mysterious form of medicine. The varied responses I was offering didn’t alway sit right with me, and didn’t always land how I hoped they would. So, I began to pause, take a few deep breaths, and look inside for a deeper, more universally relatable answer. After many deep breaths, and more than a few awkward pauses, my answer has become quite simple. It’s actually not even an answer… It’s more of an invitation.
Points aren’t points.
They are entryways.
The medicine that I practice comes from a worldview that is quite different from the one that most of us grew up in, in this (Western Hemisphere) part of the world. Chinese medicine comes from a area that pre-dates the nationalized borders of China. It is ancient and it is born from an energetic understanding, vision, and entirely immersive experience of the human being and cosmos. This may sound grandiose, distant and foreign, however the truth is much closer than we might think or feel.
The story of the worldview that birthed this form medicine comes from thousands of years of direct observation and integration with the patterns and cycles of the natural world. The observation of these patterns and cycles formed a relational model of understanding the functions, dynamics, adaptations, patterns and cycles of the human mind, body, and spirit. In fact, there was no perceived or experienced separation between the human being and the natural world, neither the individual or the community in which the individual existed, nor the mind, body, spirit connection. This is the bedrock of wholistic thinking and the topic of many important and emergent conversations in modern medicine.
The arrival of Chinese medicine in one’s life is an invitation into a different relationship with one’s experience of themselves and their experience with world around them. And, as is the aim with all medicine, hopefully it’s useful; perhaps even transformational. Points aren’t points, they are entryways. They are entryways into the energetic oceans, rivers, streams and tributaries that pulse, expand, contract, rise, sink, cool and heat the whole human being. These movements are initially perceived, then felt, and eventually experienced as an harmonious interwoven movement of energetic patterns that create, sustain and regenerate all of our life-affirming functions and movements. Disharmonies or blockages in our flows lead to disharmonies or blockages in our functional movements, both physical and non-physical. Disharmonies or blockages in our functional movements, both physical and non-physical, lead to disharmonies or blockages in our flows. Chinese medicine is based on the premise of harmonious movement or in modern medical terms, homeostasis.
One the most common reasons for people to seek out acupuncture treatment is for relief from acute or chronic physical pain. In the Chinese medical model pain is perceived, understood, seen and experienced as a blockage in the ideal flows of the energetic oceans, rivers, streams and tributaries within the body. It’s like when a tree falls across a river, blocking the natural flow of that river, creating stagnant pools, sediment buildup, dried conditions downstream or even an alteration in the pathway of the river. This can be translated as an injury that produces bruising, inflammation, swelling and compensatory movement or functional adaptations, leading to mal-adaptations. Like, I hurt my knee, now my back hurts too. This can also happen over time through habituated patterns of movement or shapes that we make to get from point A to point B, independent of any specific moment of injury.
We use acupuncture needles to access the entryways of our energetic oceans, rivers, streams and tributaries, to move the blockages disrupting our ideal flows. In doing so, we move the buildup of sediment and material that collects when the tree falls across the river, we cool areas that are inflamed or dried up, we relive pressures or swelling, eventually assisting that tree in its journey out to sea. We use functional movement prescriptions to bring people into alignment with the regenerative oceans, rivers, streams and tributaries coursing through the body. This is how we heal pain. This is regenerative medicine. This is my answer to the question that has evolved with some time, deep breathing and stumbling through the forest of words. This is the walk into the woods, the invitation, the entryway to healing, to come into greater alignment with our ideal flows, both physically and non-physically. This is the point, and it’s just the beginning.
