Acupuncture: Medicine Without All The Answers

The Intention of this Blog is to explore questions and topics that should be of interest to most of us about healing and living in this world with a physical body. My feeling is that acupuncture can serve as a great bridge between the practical and the esoteric, being both a most useful and versatile physical therapy, as well as a storehouse of ancient knowledge about the subtle workings of the body and its relation to the larger cosmos. 

Acupuncture works despite the fact that we don't have a full understanding of its mechanism. Of course, it's not acupuncture but the body itself that is a great mystery. And being a great mystery, the body should be approached - even by doctors - with deference and wonder. One way in which we often show disregard for this great mystery is by imposing our ideas and answers upon it. We demand things of the body based on a limited knowledge of its workings, without really understanding its needs or its limits. We have difficulty seeing and understanding things from the body's point of view, and this can lead to illness and injury. 

My feeing is that acupuncture is so effective - and safe - because it doesn't make demands or impose ideas on the body. The needles do not in themselves heal, but rather indicate to the body's healing control center that some action needs to be taken. The needles provoke a healing response from the brain, like a request coming from outside for the body's own intelligence to awaken and respond to a need it somehow did not recognize. The needles, and the particular form of stimulation they give, seem to speak in a language that the body understands. 

My hope is that these writings will  provoke thought and inspire people who have not yet explored the vast world of acupuncture as a healing therapy to give it a try. I see acupuncture as a hidden gem in these dark medical times - a low cost and versatile therapy without side effects. Much is to be learned about the body from delving deeper into the healing mechanism of acupuncture, and the purpose of this blog is to serve as a forum for such a study.