Origin Story
I was originally introduced to Chinese medicine through my Tai Chi instructor who had a school in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Grand Master Tchoung Ta-tchen helped me recover from a broken ankle with tui na massage and Chinese herbs. This worked so well that I can no longer remember which ankle was broken. I was greatly intrigued by these healing arts and after a long career as an organic farmer in the US and Mexico, I decided to shift my focus from cultivating the soil to cultivating the soul. To this end, I returned to Vancouver to study medical and shamanic qi gong and traditional Chinese medicine.
Emotional & Spiritual Health
I am fascinated by the emotional and spiritual aspects of health and how they affect the physical body. In Chinese medicine we consider that the root of most chronic disease is in the emotional body. For example, stress and anxiety can lead to heart disease. Frustration and irritation can lead to stroke. Sadness and grief can lead to lung cancer. Of course these are oversimplifications but the understanding that emotional and spiritual issues show up in the physical body is profound and gives us many avenues of approach to otherwise very stubborn diseases.
Lessons of Nature
My experience as an organic gardener gave me a deep appreciation of the wisdom of nature. One of my favorite things about traditional medicine it that we apply the lessons we learn while observing nature to the human body. Branch and root, symptoms and cause. While it’s important to treat symptoms, resolving the root of a disease is what I consider to be the highest form of medicine.