Nature expands in circles and cycles. Seeds aren’t square; they’re oval, round or starburst pentagons. Roots, branches and rivers wander and bifurcate, and everything living is always in motion. We imagine straight lines, but those exist only in our minds. There is no such thing in the wild.

Healing is a reflective expression of nature. It’s round, cyclic, meanders and winds back on itself. It comes out of the same principles and processes that turn the spiral edges of galaxies, the growth of embryos, the shape of storms and the Golden Ratio dimensions of trees, parakeets, river deltas and tortoise shells.

The straight-line story of health and healing, the take “A” to treat “B” simple arithmetic of medicated relief, when examined closely, does not work in the long term. It’s a modern misconception that life progresses in a straight line. Our vitality does not emerge and unfold in such a linear fashion. Reawakening the parts of us that have gone dormant from trauma, conditioning or beliefs that know how to heal us are more complex than slipping a particular molecule into a specific receptor site.

If only healing and the treatment of illness were that simple!

It’s not. Just ask anyone with a hormone imbalance or someone who has endured procedure after procedure, only to find they are constantly sailing a parallel course to their goals, or anyone who has experienced one step forward and then three steps sideways. Talk to people that have experienced a huge leap of relief — but then had to slog through a stutter-step of incremental change. They all know: Healing follows its own watercourse way.

In that space between what we expect and what actually unfolds is where our suffering sprouts and flourishes. We come around to an experience that triggers a familiar feeling, and then instantly snap to grid with the past. In doing so, we fail to recognize how this moment is not a circle, but a spiral. We come around to something similar, very similar, to an experience from the past, but gloss over how we are different. We fail to recognize the distance traveled, and instead of focusing on what’s different, we imagine everything still is the same.

That’s how we miss out on the neuroplastic opportunity to a build a few new neural pathways that create the bioelectrical/chemical basis for inhabiting a new experience.

Ours is a world of corners, straight lines and the curious sense that time is linear. In believing this to be the way our lives unfold, it’s easy to miss all the small divergences that call us to look with new eyes on territory frequently traveled.

In retrospect, it is possible to draw a line from where we started to where we are now. But in the process of unfolding in our healing, expect the unexpected and look forward to a deliciously circuitous experience.

I’m often asked if acupuncture treats a particular condition. Here in the West we tend to think of acupuncture as being effective for pain. This is partly because acupuncture is quite effective at pain management, and partly because so much Western research has focused on this one aspect of acupuncture.

But in the East, people know that acupuncture is helpful for everything from anxiety to vertigo. What’s more, acupuncture doesn’t just “treat the illness” — it “treats the person.” This means acupuncture can directly work to treat the disease, but more importantly, it also can mobilize your own natural healing resources to help naturally resolve your health concern.

Recently I’ve been reading some research and doing my own study of a particular micro-system of acupuncture used to slow, and in many cases restore, vision loss from macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. The system uses specific acupuncture points in the hands and feet.

This is very exciting work that demonstrates not just how helpful acupuncture is, but how amazing it is that with the right kind of focused input, our bodies have the ability to turn around chronic disease.

For more information on healing your eyes with Chinese medicine, I recommend these books and websites:

Walk by the “allergy” section in any drugstore, expose yourself to less than an hour of primetime TV or flip casually through any magazine and you are bound to encounter a rush of advertisements touting relief for the itchy, drippy, sneezy, foggy-headed clog caused by pollens, dust and other allergens.

The litany of suffering and promises of relief are everywhere, but a curious silence prevails when it comes to dealing with the core issue from which these symptoms arise. Do you like the idea of building your body’s resiliency instead of taking daily medication that offers only symptomatic relief?

Download and read the Yong Kang Clinic’s Guide to Taming Your Allergies with Chinese Medicine!

The guide is full of DIY wisdom based on centuries of clinical experience. Or call us to make an appointment and get a jump-start on beating allergies this year.