November, 2007

As usual, I've had great posts in my head that never made it out of my finger tips. Now, I am sitting here at 5 am while my building manager is fixing the exploding pipe and subsequent flood of hot water in my bathroom that jarred me awake nearly 2 hours ago. Yes, I have one of my 2 morning shifts of the week in 4 hours and will be doing it on about 3 1/2 hours of sleep.

Just on a whim I started reading "How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead," by the fabulicious Ariel Gore. Now, on the surface, I'm not this book's intended audience: I'm not a writer, and I don't really want to be famous. But it's full of advice (her own and that of other published authors) about how to promote yourself so that you can make a living at something very few people understand, but that they might value. Sound familiar? Plus I realized that, while I don't want fame for myself, I DO want our clinic to be famous, at least locally.

I know this may be redundant for some of you that have already registered your comments with the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM) about the proposed standards for First-Professional Doctoral Programs in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (read--doctoral as entry-level education) BUT I think it is important that they hear a lot of noise coming from those of us who think this isn't such a great idea.

THREE things you can do BEFORE the DECEMBER 15th DEADLINE:

1-go to: http://www.acaom.info/ and scroll to the bottom of the page where you can create a user id and log in to comment.
You can give editing remarks on the actual wording of the document, or if you scroll to the end of the document there is room for more general comments.

2- Using the following script
[attachment 160 ACAOMFPDcomments.doc]

I have been suffering a major case of blogger’s block. I usually need to feel inspired to post, but I was feeling guilty for missing last month so I figured I would sit down and just write something mundane. Well, as serendipity would have it, I started by going back over my old posts to see how long I had been a CAN member and I started to see this amazing progression of events. I had not realized how things have come together over the past 8 months. I became very inspired to write this blog for those of you in the beginning stages of the CAN experience or anyone feeling stuck and wondering if things will work out. Here’s my year so far.

Early 2007

I drove the second shift. Ideally I would have slept for the previous 6 hours, but my little one woke up after 3 and I was only in sleep mode for 1.

Mom (Nana), baby Elijah and I went to Saint Louis for Thanksgiving to visit the extended family and get some time with my greats (elijah's great-greats). The big family gathering was on Saturday and _our_ big family gathering was happening Sunday. This meant driving back to Minnesota overnight. Ugh.

As I bopped my head to the Chemical Brothers to keep energized on my way up 35W, I got nervous. I was going 8-9 miles over the speed limit, which put me close to 80mph.

Iowa interstate is dark. Yeah, and I found myself braking off cruise control with a silent gasp a number of times in the beginning of my shift. I sat up straight, I turned the music down a bit and I had to pay attention.

Practically every Acupuncturist is a Cultural Creative by definition. But what is the definition? You had to ask. You see what I am talking about here is a large group of people in the country (and abroad too) that various researchers, sociologists, urban planners, and all around eggheads have a hard time defining. I tend to like Richard Florida's definition of the group:

[quote]Creative Professionals: "Knowledge workers" and expanding to include lawyers and physicians.
Super-Creative Core: This comprises about twelve percent of all U.S. jobs. This group is deemed to contain a huge range of occupations (e.g. architecture, education, computer programming) with arts, design, and media workers making a small subset.[/quote]

... but unlike Florida I strongly disagree that CC's are a Class. Here is the link to that definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class

Here is Florida's website:

http://creativeclass.com/

Thanksgiving was a lovely family time, but not exactly the best meal for my digestion, given my chosen diet and lifestyle for the past 20 years. I woke the next morning with an uncomfortable feeling in my lower abdomen and an even more uncomfortable memory of a nightmare!

One of the perks about leading workshops outside of my home in Portland is that I usually get to see another Community Acupuncture clinic. As we know, all of us are different and so by definition all of us who choose to define their Acupuncture clinic as a Community Acupuncture clinic all choose a slightly (or not so slightly) different way of defining what CA means. We wouldn't be human if that didn't happen as far as I can tell.

In case anyone on CAN has not seen it yet, I highly recommend the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" (2006). Watched it recently, on DVD. From the notes on the DVD cover: "A Lack of Consumer Confidence...or Conspiracy?... a murder mystery like no other...unravels the puzzling demise of General Motors' EV-1 " w/c ran solely on electricity.

The maintenance program for the EV-1 was every 5000 miles, rotate the tires and fill up the windshield washer fluid container.
It was made available for lease only and when the lease was up, the drivers (who loved the car bec. it handled very well, went fast -- to 75 mph, no emissions, very quiet) could not get GM to renew the leases. GM placed roadblocks in front of anyone who wanted the car. The EV-1 was on the road from 1996 to 2003. (I don't think I ever saw one. I did see the Honda electric car on the highway several times.)

hey skip and the folks are in the latest issue of YES! magazine(winter2008)
oh yeah great magazine

while I'm abloggin

Hey READ: Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken
it will break yer heart just the right way
and make you do stuff too

I gotta get me more recliners soon
Help Mary poppins!

Is this bloggin or what

Love james

This week marks the one-month mark since I opened my community clinic here in Victoria. (A quick shout-out to all those folks in Maine starting up, glad to know I will have a place to visit when I travel back to visit family!)

I have spent these past four weeks on a roller coaster of love -- up and down, and I realize that I am somewhat out of practice with things new. With kids turning seven and eight I feel like I pretty well have the parent thing down, and I certainly felt comfortable in my previous role of yoga teacher, body-worker, acupuncturist, and carpenter! But this new thing, community acupuncture, really has my brain and heart communicating again, though not always so gracefully.

Pedaling home one crisp Seattle autumn evening after my Tuesday evening class on Buddhist philosophy, my mind was like a still pool of water, mirroring the twinkling lights of the city and the infinite darkness above. We had covered the full philosophical spectrum in our meditations and discussions – from the beginningless continuum of mind to the theory that we’ve all been circling from life to life, leaving a pile of bones higher than Mount Everest in our trail – sometimes born as a mosquito or a cockroach, sometimes as a celestial being, sometimes a beggar, sometimes a king. And still we come up empty handed again and again, chasing after happiness outside our own mind – in material things, people, worldly status, and so forth – accepting the same second rate “goods” and dreams, completely confused as to the true causes of freedom.

Weighing in I have to say what a great experience it was to teach at CA training and to work with Andy and Diana, including some of Diana's staff and patients, and all of the other wonderful, enthusiastic, people who attended the weekend. Thank you to all of you and to CAN and all of you, and to WCA and all of you… To echo some of what Diana said, I too learned a lot from the experience. It’s funny how you can see something right in front of your face for a long time and not know how it fits into your life or maybe you have a feeling about some things you know a little about, but suddenly your are able to describe it. That is what has recently happened in my head in regards to the question of is it fair for other professions to practice acupuncture?

Some remarkable Lic. Acupuncturists here in the Northeast are gearing up to launch Community Acupuncture (C.A.) clinics. I know this because I had the great pleasure to work with 20 of them at our first ever two day East Coast conference and training Nov 10 &11, here on Cape Cod.

While driving north back home to NH from Cape Cod tonight after the CA conference in Brewster, MA, the normally busy stereo speakers were at rest in my car. In near-silence (I do drive a tin-thin Civic, after all) my mind reviewed several scenes from clinic this past week or so - maybe in order to make room to process the previous two day's events...

...a young man looking for relief of pain following multiple ankle surgeries, sits in his chair after needles are placed. Seven to eight other people around him are fast asleep during their treatments. He remains awake, reading a book titled 'How to Relax During Your Downtime'.

I bloged a while back (Western Medicine and Acupuncture) thinking I was addressing the tendency for natural medicine types to bash Western medicine. I gave my work history to show that I’d been around various blocks numerous times. I wasn’t looking for compliments and I wasn’t primarily talking about referrals. Let me be clearer.

When we decide where to go for goods and services, two things come to mind right away. “Does it work? Is this useful to me?” and, “What does it cost?” Then come questions like, “Is it close to me?” “Is it open hours that are useful to me?”

Here is a glimpse of what a typical acupuncture shift is like at the working class acupuncture clinic.

It’s Tuesday morning at 8:00 AM and I have just arrived at the clinic. My shift is from 8:30 to 12:30 and I hope to see around twenty patients this morning. There are 18 people scheduled in ten minute increments and that leaves room for about 4 more call-ins (new patients get two appointment spaces and I have two new patients today).

Sandy arrived a few minutes ago and put out the front door mat and brought last evenings cups into the kitchen. While she unloads the clean cups for the day and re-loads the dishwasher I walk through the clinic and check that all lights, heaters, and fountains are turned on. Once the gas ceiling heater is humming above me I make the rounds and visit each recliner and table to fluff the fleece cover and change out those that need to be changed.

Like many of you, many of the things that led me to community acupuncture was a simple wish to be able to provide Chinese medicine for and within my own community. And, there are lots of significant social positives to be had in actualizing this desire. A few for me are the ecological and political benefits of working a few hundred yards from home while trying to think globally, taking on classism and racism within my own life, and assisting a shift in the locus of our health care conscience from a finite physiology of the individual and her diagnosis to the unlimited relationships between elements within a person and persons within a community.

Last night I had this dream, I am in the belly of a very large wooden ship preparing for a long and wondrous journey (its been a long time since I could remember a dream). I am packing all the items I need carefully along the hull so they won’t be disturbed in the rocking seas. I can see the beautiful ocean swells out on the horizon, gentle rolling waves, 8-12 footers.

I’m into my third week of community acupuncture and all I can say is, “I built it, and they came!” Yesterday I saw ten people in about five hours. I am already fast approaching 30 patients per week, no advertising, and I am only open 3 days a week at present. In my private practice, working 3 days, I typically saw no more than 12 a week! I still feel a bit like a new waiter in a busy restaurant – I haven’t quite got my routines down, but that will come.

Hello all you CAN folks out there. I am calling upon you to think and feel abundant thoughts as a collective for BCA. We have been doing pretty well, but have just about maxed out our buffer zone credit line with the bank. EKK… Not sure how I feel about putting it out there so brazenly but this is what’s going on for me now. And so, I humbly ask for you to shine your powerful thoughts of love, abundance and prosperity on us. I have this strong sense we are at a tipping point and that domino needs to fall.

I have this theory that by putting it out on the world-wide-web dreams can come true. Yes/No, What do you think? or Dear God….

In the midst of a stressful day I had some amazing experiences that brought tears to my eyes. One of my patients gave me a thoughtful note about her experiences under my care along with a box of “abundance” scented incense.

This month I take a cop-out and link to my wife's blog. With much greater style and skill than I, she relates an experience we recently had at a pet-hospital. Even though it involves a cat instead of a human, it sums up the embarrassment and wounding of pride that comes from needing to request financial assistance to pay for health care.

Some back ground:

speaking of mercury retrograde... this time around it wasn't just mercury which was retrograde. neptune was also retrograde. this made for interesting living. mercury is all about communication, how you deal with your conscious life. when mercury is retrograde, communication and consciousness get all willy-nilly.
well, neptune is all about the dream life and the sub-conscious. so when it is in retrograde, these aspects of ourselves get all willy-nilly too. for a few weeks there conscious and sub-conscious living were out of whack. did you all feel it?
the neptune thing was particularly strong for me this time around. this geyser-like desire to create art started bubbling so strongly inside me, that i thought it might actually burst and leave me in a thousand incoherent pieces. it came in my dreams and in my random thoughts. it came in deja-vus and in strange intuitive type moments. i couldn't get away from it.

For the past few weeks I have been meeting with my potential new clinic partners and figuring out our vision for our collective CAP. It has been an amazing gift that so far we basically agree on all the really important stuff. It is a wonderful process to go through with fellow practitioners – a rich experience I recommend. I am learning so much and I feel very grateful to these two fabulous women for putting their energy, wisdom and hearts into this journey. Mostly I feel that no matter where we arrive in the end, each one of us will have reaped tremendous growth from the process.

Well, a discussion we had at our last meeting (yesterday) reminded me about something I have been considering writing on this blog.

I just picked up the most recent copy of the Utne Reader and found an article about “Pay What you Can” Restaurants. It seems the idea of the sliding scale is emerging elsewhere.

One such restaurant called One World Café in Salt Lake City, focuses on locally grown, fair trade, and organic fare, healthfully prepared and offered to customers at a rate they choose. Payment is on the honor system and the food is served cafeteria style so that people can ask for portions that they think they will eat, thus reducing waste.

What struck me the most, aside from the obvious parallels with the CAN movement (low cost, participatory, health oriented, social entrepreneurship, etc) was that the woman featured in this article was (is?) AN ACUPUNCTURIST!

Apparently she had a thriving practice but “felt a nudge—I guess you could say it was spiritual, from the universe—to close the business and open the café.”

I am now a student intern at my school clinic. I can now actively practice what I have been studying for the last couple years. And, yes, it is good. And, I like it. But, after reflecting on how I 'pictured' myself in clinic and how I actually AM in clinic, I have discovered some differences between my 'dream clinic self' and my 'clinic self' in reality.

First off, my hair doesn't always look as good as my dream self.

And in seriousness.....for some reason, I imagined myself being very charismatic with my patients. I said the right words, I provided the exact amount of support they needed, I made witty jokes, and I saved them from serious health conditions. I needled the points exactly right and I got the Qi with each and every needle. I was the perfect intern.

But, in actuality, I am not. Of course, I am learning, I shouldn't be hard on myself, I should be more humble, and all that but....