The Raft

En route from our holiday visit in Wisconsin back to our home in Maryland, we stopped at a hotel in Ohio which boasted an indoor water park. There was a pirate’s ship with water sprinklers, buckets of water overhead pouring down on screaming children, a water-basketball hoop, child and adult-sized hot tubs, water depths from 4 inches to 5 feet, and a baby gate reigning-in the littlest ones. My boys ran screaming into the water, with all the pent-up energy of 6 and 8 year-olds who have been confined to the back seat of a cramped Volkswagen for the past eleven hours, aware that they have seven more hours of driving the next day. My youngest son enjoyed the huge water slide and spent all afternoon circling it: climb up the stairs, wait in line, shoot into the water like a small slick torpedo, then sprint to the ladder and do it again. My oldest son, Josh, coursed the slide a few times, but he had his eye on the water raft.

The raft measured about 4 feet by 4 feet. A dozen boys scrambled up its slippery edges and tried to gain dominance on top. The boys were a couple years older and outweighed my sprite by 30 to 50 pounds. They were tearing at one another, pushing and shouting and fighting for their moment of glory as King of the Raft.

Josh was transfixed.

He slipped into the water and circled the raft. Nimbly, he reached out to touch the edges, but one of the boys roughly grabbed his arm and threw him back into the water. Josh glanced over towards me, saw that I was keeping a watchful eye, and feeling the safety of his mother’s gaze, returned to the frenzy for another attempt.

Over and over again, I watched him get pushed, pulled, dragged, and dunked into the water. He smiled through it all, laughing with joy at the adventure. Not once did he raise his voice in objection to the force being used against him by children twice his size; not once did he try to push or pull another child off the raft as they were all doing to him. I watched him sputter and choke as he rose to the surface, eyes bright, moving in for another attempt.

His passive resistance was inspiring: like Gandhi leading countless waves of peaceful opposition to British Imperialism, refusing to raise a finger against the “opponents”, refusing to utter a negative word against the attackers. And just like Gandhi, with enough time and patience and love in his little heart, he eventually secured his place atop the raft.

The big boys swam off, bored with this game of dominance and onto another, leaving Josh to heave himself at last to the top of the raft. He turned to younger children who had been hovering at the edges of the pool, and motioned for them to join him. He helped them up, showed them how to balance so no one fell overboard, and smiled upon his newly founded community.

This scene reminds me of the environment that we, as community acupuncturists, find ourselves amidst. We face a competitive medical industry of individuals scrambling for power atop their respective rafts. Some veteran acupuncturists seek to throw us back into the water, insisting that their $75 to $250 boutique treatments remain the industry standard. Some physicians seek to “Westernize” acupuncture, deeming those with training in TCM or 5-Element or other non-biomedical styles inferior to “medical acupuncturists”. And still other practitioners fight within our own little communities for the most patients or the most recognition.

I believe we can all find our own peaceful place without succumbing to the negative energy inherent in competitive dominance. I believe that process has already started with the founding of this network. Working Class Acupuncture created their own little raft, and they’ve helped us all on-board, taught us how to balance without falling overboard, showered us with love and support.

It is my hope that we can continue our work with peaceful resistance: without participating in slanderous attacks on other acupuncturists, clashing horns with the medical associations, or engaging in self-limiting community competitiveness. I believe that with enough time, and patience, and love in our hearts, we will all find ourselves resting atop our own rafts. And when we remember to turn and help those that hover at the edges, too afraid to take the plunge themselves, we will find ourselves surrounded with new friends, bobbing through these waters together.

Jessica Feltz
www.TheTurningPointAcupuncture.com