I got a job and began working my ass off in an amazing wonderful way–right around the time that a depression was lifting and a period was starting and life was running away without me.
So I’m really really tired right now. Really needed this day off. I’ve been resting all day–trying to catch up with blogging etc. But really just sorta watching T.V. and ignoring the messy house that needs to be cleaned.
Some things I’ve been thinking about the past few days:
** The Fillipina that talked about learning acupuncture so that addicted people in her community could be treated for extremely cheap in the neighborhood without stigma of treatment following them.
** The native man learning detox acupuncture points because there is no funding on reservations for detox programs and acupuncture is a cheap easy form of treatment.
** The white man who pointedly answered a woman who wanted “to help” people outside of the U.S. by saying that “there’s no need to travel “to help,” start with the person on your street”
** Acupuncturists Without Borders, the organization that:
provide immediate relief and recovery acupuncture services to global communities that are in crisis from disaster or human conflict. AWB also seeks to provide training and services to global communities that promote and sustain local self-directed, self-sufficient, proactive and long-term recovery, rebuilding and trauma resolution.
** The woman in Palestine that was a rescue worker and one of the first female suicide bombers. It is speculated by Arab feminists that she had seen so much death and horror as a rescue worker it may have made sense to her to do what she did. I wonder if anybody had given a shit about the trauma she experienced, the trauma she witnessed, and had the courage to help her, if she might be alive today.
** I wonder too, at the acupuncture industrial complex in the U.S. that gets mad because organizations that are spreading information on detox to poverty stricken communities or treating health care workers and survivors in violated communities are becoming the face of acupuncture in the U.S. I wonder at that anybody in the world could possibly not have experienced the desperation that comes with addiction, trauma, sickness and illness–it is the only way I can phathom that anybody would find Acupuncturists without borders to be a problem rather than a solution.
This is just part of what I’m thinking–yes, very acupuncture oriented I know. I was thinking on the drive home from Detroit the other day that my dearest blog readers must be ready to shoot their screens every time they see another post about acupuncture! I was also thinking about how I was going to help ease that tension by guest posting a whole slew of posts at the Detroit Community Acupuncture clinic blog about acupuncture!
But I know it will be ok. We’ll make it through the latest bfp obsession, I know we will!
And then I’ll get back to posting about bees and rainbows and then we’ll all be happy, yes???
:p
- Share
June 4th, 2009 at 11:17 am #
i can only speak for myself, but i am thrilled to death by your current obsession and all the info you are sharing on it. it is such a blessing, so helpful and so inspiring.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:26 pm #
I second what Aaminah says. I never knew anything about acupuncture really until you started blogging about it, and I SURELY never knew anything about this radical kind of acupuncturing. And I am in love with it. Do blog about whatever you like, obviously, but if you never got sick of talking about acupuncture, I’d never get tired of hearing you talk about it. xo
June 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm #
I’m very interested in your current obsession. I called in sick today too!
June 4th, 2009 at 2:39 pm #
Ditto.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:07 pm #
…and all those in favor say “aye.”
Your blogging about acupuncture made a world of difference in my life. Keep up the good work!
June 4th, 2009 at 4:42 pm #
Holy moly. I had *no idea* that accupuncture was used to treat addiction.
:::Must move out from under rock:::
June 4th, 2009 at 4:54 pm #
I think your postings are perfectly timed. There’s lots of fear of “pain” surrounding the practice and for folks who have some reservations about the practice, reading the thoughts you share helps demonstrate how interdisciplinary the practice is!
I’m so glad you found a space that you are comfortable in and that is helping in any way. One thing I really appreciated about my last acupuncturists is that she did not pretend to know everything and we spoke about how that is also part of the healing process.
besos!
June 4th, 2009 at 5:55 pm #
i do massage therapy right now and I would really love to start an organization here in my city of message therapists that volunteer a few hours a week providing massage therapy for working/poor class mothers. i would love that so much, not sure where to start.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:55 pm #
massage rather. haha spelling it right could help.
June 5th, 2009 at 3:00 pm #
Ditto what others have said – I find it fascinating, too!
Actually, the last part of your post reminds me of a conversation I had with my husband earlier today. I was talking about some issues around motherhood, work, and capitalism that I’d been mulling over, and when I was done, I automatically apologized for boring him – I felt like if *I* found what I was saying interesting, then by nature it must be silly and tedious to other people. All part of our training, I guess…
June 6th, 2009 at 8:33 am #
I must admit I can “take or leave” acupuncture in itself. But the way you talk about it, it’s always entwined with other strands about health and community and access to support and suchlike. So I’m not bored yet
June 6th, 2009 at 12:23 pm #
“I wonder too, at the acupuncture industrial complex in the U.S. that gets mad because organizations that are spreading information on detox to poverty stricken communities or treating health care workers and survivors in violated communities are becoming the face of acupuncture in the U.S.”
Thankyouthankyouthankyou for blogging about this. I am a student of Chinese medicine and it wears me out being surrounded by the acupuncture industrial complex day-after-day. It is so important for us, especially those of us from historically marginalized groups (people of color, women, the poor, etc.), to empower ourselves around our own health and well-being. Our “quiet revolution” as WCA likes to put it, is to become healthy and whole human beings. The systems of oppression that surround us would like nothing better than for us to not take care of ourselves and to think that we are not even worth taking care of.
Acupuncture, among other things, is a revolutionary tool for us because of its sheer simplicity and wholistic nature. Although every culture has its own form of natural medicine, Chinese medicine is the only one I’ve found that has been systematized into an accessible format without completely cutting ties to its nearly 5,000 year-old indigenous lineage. It has been used in the U.S. by revolutionaries of all kinds, from the Black Panthers and Young Lords at Lincoln Detox Center, to Chinese immigrants like Miriam Lee in California, to the people you mentioned in your blog above. And yet like you said, the U.S. industrial complex maintains the face of acupuncture in this country as either a young, white woman working in some pristine spa or an old Mr. Miagi-looking Asian man in silk robes. Neither does justice to the history or the power of this medicine (and I could go on and on about the racist and sexist undertones of each). The same, I would say, goes for natural medicine in general. It has become a commodity, only accessible most of the time to those with disposable income. To not ensure the availability of this effective way of healing for ALL people is so shameful and wrong that it tears my heart apart and leaves me with few words to express its travesty.
Blessings,
~adrianna