beautying crocus,
how is it you are able
to teach me of love?
desert night broken
thunder in the hills
welcome company
swallows swirling
like autumn leaves
from alder to alder
distant sky rumbling
evening storm approaches
I listen alone
A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want. Moshe Feldenkrais The way we do anything is the way we do everything. Martha Beck
In 1995 as I entered Chinese Medicine college I did not realize that in pursuing acupuncture, I was entering a career that would directly tie in with my longstanding interest in meditation, which is to say that I did not know Chinese Medicine could be pursued as a dao, a way. The 23 years since those early student days have clearly revealed to me over and over again that, if one is to get anywhere worth getting in acupuncture, it needs to be approached in this manner. Acupuncture is a path with no end, and we progress by elevating our perception abilities and our manual skills.
Continue reading Acupuncture As A Path of Self CultivationA Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
“If [man] thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole.”
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980
R. Buckminster Fuller is a known name to most of my generation. He was on the cover of Time magazine; he traveled to hundreds of campuses lecturing; he was said to be the only person over 30 that the hippies trusted; he was called the first poet-saint of technology. Fuller was a pioneer of what might be called a whole systems approach to life on earth. He advised us in every endeavor to start always with the whole. What might this mean for us in Chinese medicine?
Continue reading Patient As KoanA Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
In Traditional East Asian Medicine (TEAM) we find a number of mushrooms prominently recognized and esteemed:
A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
Gui zhi fu ling wan (GZFLW) is one of those formulas I studied in my TCM education but did not see often prescribed in our college clinic, so I graduated without much of a feel for it. Now, however, not a week goes by without me giving this formula to at least one patient. It is in my category of “tried and true” remedies. I credit Heiner Fruehauf, Ph.D. and Nigel Dawes with opening my eyes to this formula.
Blood stasis is a common element in many American patients. Chinese medicine has numerous formulas that can deal with this, ranging from very strong ones with insects to milder ones. GZFLW would have to be placed on the mild and extremely safe side of the spectrum. It was actually developed to treat breakthrough bleeding in pregnancy, so we know it is safe.
Continue reading Gui Zhi Fu Ling WanA Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
I’ve been treating the long-term patient of a good friend this summer while he is away gallivanting across the globe. I did the same for him last summer. By every reasonable measure this patient should have been dead ten years ago. His survival, I feel, shows the power of acupuncture.
The patient is a retired professor. For over ten years he has received weekly acupuncture treatments in the attempt to slow the loss of lung function from fibrosis. It has worked spectacularly well. He still lives independently, participates in groups and “has a life.” Sure, the disease progresses slowly, but that is much preferred to the death that was expected 8-10 years ago!
Continue reading The Power of Acupuncture – An Interesting CaseA Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
As I write this I have just left a unique class we offer at NUNM in Portland, OR: Advanced Palpation and Perception is what we call it. I co-teach it with another colleague, Michael McMahon. There is a basic idea we pursue in this class, and it is that manual therapy has an important role in the practice of acupuncture. We study the integration of Sotai, myofascial release, qigong tuina, teishin use, Trager rocking, and assorted acupuncture strategies. The result is that students enter their internship year well equipped to help patients with diverse physical medicine complaints.
Continue reading MovementA Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
Tuberculosis is once again rearing its ugly head globally as it did 100 years ago. In those long ago days we did not yet have antibiotics to combat this killer. Surprisingly there were practitioners in Japan in that era reporting success using direct moxa treatments on their TB patients. Wow, what a surprise! I believe patients received in general three treatments a week for six months.
Obviously burning this herb material on the skin does not kill bacteria. That should be clear. In our modern way of thinking of things we’d probably say that moxa seems to strengthen the host immunity, so that the patients can better combat the disease.
Continue reading MoxafricaA Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
I came across an article recently in which I read surprisingly that the number of practicing acupuncturists in the US is rather flat when measured over the last few years. It seems that with 3000+ students in the tube in our various schools we would be growing at a steady rate, not holding at a standstill. Apparently, we are losing as many as we are gaining. Not a good situation, obviously, and one that invites speculation.
Continue reading Whither Our Profession?A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
I have been practicing acupuncture-herbal medicine-bodywork for 20 years now. It’s hard to believe that many years have gone by. What a fascinating journey it has been. For most of that time I have invested my time and energy into mastering what we could call the “what” of East Asian Medicine, which is to say the information side of things: What do you do when you feel this particular pulse quality, what do you understand when you palpate the abdomen and discover a certain finding, what does this herb do when combined with another herb, and so on. This is all very important knowledge of course.
Continue reading What & HowA Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
Sometimes we remember a tidbit of information in the right moment, and it can become a major inflection point for us in our career. I’d like to relate just such an occurrence from 2004 when in a moment of need I recalled a passing comment from Kiiko Matsumoto from some years before in a seminar. My focus in writing this blog is not so much the tip itself, although it is a good one to be aware of, but more on citing an example of how change can arrive in our lives in quantum leaps.
Continue reading The Clinical Tip That Changed My Life