How does acupuncture work? 

We hear this question all the time. From our patients, from someone we just met at a neighborhood BBQ, from out parents, and if we are honest— ourselves. 

The ancient Chinese mind that conjured up acupuncture did not consider nerve pathways, endocrinological response or brain chemistry. 

The ancient Chinese mind looked out into nature and used that reflection to dream into the body. They considered the natural tides of expansion and contraction. The formed and the unformed, and how physical form arises from an unseen patterning that leaves its trace, like wind on deserts sands. 

In this conversation with Ed Neal we discuss the importance of Chinese medicine terminology, the essential role of 理 a kind of patterning from which manifest reality arises and how the Nei Jing can help us orient to the constant unfolding of life through time-space and motion.