Acupuncture does not heal like biomedicine. It is not a magic bullet synthesized to kill the source of suffering. It’s more like how the sun coming out after a week of cold drizzle will elevate your mood in a way that no pharmaceutical could come close to matching.
Acupuncture calls on the resonance of moonlight, the tides, the way that tree branches are reflected in leaf structures and how those mimic the structure of your lungs. The way rivers match the winding course of your veins. The way that an unfettered emotion, like waves rolling onto the shore, bring their own resolution.
Acupuncture slips into the entangled, interconnected spaces, in the same way that roots of a forest intertwine and share nutrient. It nourishes like a cool veil of sunrise mist that rises out out of a meadow valley at the beginning of an early August day.
Acupuncture may or may not take away your pain, but it can help you live into a more friendly relationship with it.
When practiced well, acupuncture does not take the batteries out of your internal smoke alarm, but rather allows you more acute ears to the early warning signals that can help you to avoid the troubles that otherwise take you to a lifetime prescription for medication.
It does not put you to sleep, but rather eases the heart and mind so you can enter into your body’s natural rhythm of rest and rejuvenation. And helps you to find resources in places that you previously did not suspect, or thought were off-limits.
It can be confusing to have symptoms suddenly evaporate, or to get a lightning bolt insight into causes and conditions of your suffering. Sometimes our deepest healing has nothing to do with cure.