Acupuncture and East Asian medicine was not developed in a laboratory. It does not advance through double-blind controlled studies, nor does it respond well to petri dish experimentation. Our medicine did not come from the statistical regression of randomized cohorts, but from the observation and treatment of individuals in their particular environment. It grows out of an embodied sense of understanding how life moves, unfolds, develops and declines. Medicine comes from continuous, thoughtful practice of what we do in clinic, and how we approach that work. The practice of medicine is more — much more — than simply treating illness. It is more...
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Sep 29, 2026 · 1:41:32
A tradition can feel like a single lineage, but some histories reveal a wider terrain — one that spans discernment, devotion, and the slow accumulation of who gets to call…
Sep 22, 2026 · 1:38:38
Liver pathology draws curiosity as both a clinical discipline and a lens for encountering the unknown. Its practice of looking without preconception speaks meaningfully to how we…
Sep 15, 2026 · 1:10:52
Confusion is often treated as a problem to solve on the way to a real answer. But in the clinic, it may be closer to the beginning of the process than an obstacle to it. In this…
Sep 8, 2026 · 1:29:17
Long before Chinese medicine took the form we recognize today, healers drilled holes in skulls to release demons. Philosophers debated what the universe was made of, while a…
Sep 1, 2026 · 1:15:40
Reading blood work well means resisting the urge to sort everything into simply normal or abnormal. But what happens when the real diagnosis lives in the relationships between…
Aug 25, 2026 · 2:29:29
In this episode Qiological celebrates its ninth anniversary. For nine years new conversations on East Asian medicine and methods have appeared in your podcast feed each Tuesday…
Aug 18, 2026 · 1:11:33
As astrology draws curiosity as both a spiritual practice and a lens for self-understanding. Its symbolic language of image can speak meaningfully to our modern linear life. In…
Aug 11, 2026 · 1:11:15
A diagnosis can feel like a single label, but some conditions reveal a wider terrain — one that spans immune response, cultural rhythm, and slow imbalance over time. In this…
Aug 4, 2026 · 1:08:11
Much of what happens in the treatment room never makes it onto an intake form, yet it often shapes the outcome as much as anything measurable does. In this conversation with…
Jul 28, 2026 · 1:15:52
Practicing acupuncture for over fifty years asks us to trust intuition and stay open even when the path ahead isn't clear. But what happens when a life's direction comes not from…
Jul 21, 2026 · 1:18:42
As chronic, hard-to-treat disorders become more common in clinic, many practitioners are returning to Wen Bing theory for answers. In this conversation with Kerri Westhauser, we…
Jul 14, 2026 · 1:21:59
Not every point sits in the textbook. Others only appear when the body decides to show them. In this episode we visit with Shaun Goodman, longtime practitioner of Dr. Tung's…
Jul 7, 2026 · 1:36:37
As acupuncture and Chinese medicine face regulatory pressure and institutional change on both sides of the Atlantic, many practitioners are asking what it takes to preserve the…
Jun 30, 2026 · 54:50
Part Two How does a profession begin? Not on paper. Not with licensing boards or schools. Often enough, it starts with a handful of curious people who become convinced there's…
Jun 30, 2026 · 1:40:44
Part One. How does a profession begin? Not on paper. Not with licensing boards or schools. Often enough, it starts with a handful of curious people who become convinced there's…
Jun 25, 2026 · 2:02:23
It’s not news that there are changes afoot in the world of education. You’re probably already well aware of the closure, over the past few years, of schools with a long history.…
Jun 23, 2026 · 1:30:37
Some teachings are preserved in books. Others are preserved in people. In this episode we visit with Johann Hausen, translator, publisher, practitioner, and long-time student of…
Jun 18, 2026 · 1:28:17
We tend to think of the acupuncture profession as something fixed and stable, but the reality is that it is always in motion. The practice of East Asian medicine in North America…
Jun 16, 2026 · 1:33:34
As the Fire Horse year reaches its peak, many practitioners are noticing shifts in both the environment and the clinic. In this conversation with Christine Cannon, we explore the…
Jun 11, 2026 · 1:01:37
What if the very things that seem to be pulling our profession apart are actually the forces that will finally condense it into something more resilient? We’re in a moment of…
Jun 9, 2026 · 1:38:35
Many of us experience life through schedules, deadlines, and calendars, yet beneath them are deeper patterns that shape how we grow, adapt, heal, and change. In this conversation…
Jun 4, 2026 · 1:19:36
We’re at a moment where the structure of loans and professional education is changing. Not just for the acupuncture profession, but across the entire educational landscape. While…
Jun 2, 2026 · 1:29:56
Clinical practice asks us to recognise patterns, trust experience, and make decisions under uncertainty. But what happens when discovery comes not from certainty, but from…
May 28, 2026 · 1:56:23
The acupuncture and East Asian profession is facing a number of critical challenges as long-established schools close, new federal guidelines on graduate education loans will…
May 26, 2026 · 1:25:44
Medicine is never only about treatment. It also carries culture, identity, and memory. Sometimes preserving a medicine is a way of preserving a people. In this episode we visit…
May 19, 2026 · 1:26:41
Often what brings someone into our office looks straightforward at first—a concussion, dizziness, headache, or a sense that something is not quite right. But what begins as the…
May 12, 2026 · 1:05:45
We often think of allergies as simple reactions, but some conditions reveal a far deeper conversation between the immune system, environment, and daily life—one that evolves with…
May 5, 2026 · 1:23:47
What makes a system feel trustworthy—results, lineage, or the way it brings you into the resonance of what’s happening? Philip Suger didn’t start with Saam acupuncture. He was in…
Apr 28, 2026 · 1:10:12
The path into acupuncture isn’t always clean or linear—sometimes it begins in the grit and confusion of working out just who you are in this world. From anthropology studies in…
Apr 21, 2026 · 1:11:48
Points don’t really have a number, they have a name. They are not just a function, they embody characteristics and relationships. In this episode I get to sit for a conversation…
Apr 14, 2026 · 1:13:46
In practice, healing often begins with seeking a solution to a problem that has us looking for help. What first looks like a search for relief becomes an encounter with something…
Apr 7, 2026 · 1:18:50
Some projects kick off with a business plan. Others begin as a response to an odd little ad in the back of a magazine, or sparked by following a hunch. When you think about it,…
Mar 31, 2026 · 1:09:15
We all find our own unique way into the practice of East Asian medicine. It’s part luck, part dogged curiosity and persistence, and sometimes a bit of fate. In this conversation…
Mar 24, 2026 · 1:21:51
Sports medicine acupuncture is one of those phrases that sounds neat and tidy. But, what does it actually mean?. In this conversation with Darren Maynard, dig into the complexity…
Mar 17, 2026 · 1:34:03
Some concepts in Chinese medicine don’t need more poetry. They need a hands-on palpable marker, and a willingness to admit, “I think I get it… and then the light changes and I…
Mar 10, 2026 · 1:25:37
We no longer pretend the gut and the mind are separate; we know the interconnections are vast and rich. Furthermore, their communication isn’t a hack—it’s a relationship that…
Mar 3, 2026 · 1:53:27
Sometimes the people who shape us most aren’t the ones who formally taught us anything. They’re the people in a potent moment who say something that we hear with something other…
Feb 24, 2026 · 1:33:18
Often enough, medicine evolves not through the accumulation of answers, but instead by posing annoying questions. The thing about learning, it usually carries an element of…
Feb 17, 2026 · 1:44:38
There’s a moment, in the slack tide between one flow and another, when a potent stillness arises, and the possibility of a new direction arrives with a feeling of invitation.…
Feb 10, 2026 · 1:22:20
In clinical work pattern and intuition inform each other, treatment decisions arise somewhere between what we can measure and what we can only sense. This episode investigates…
Feb 3, 2026 · 1:01:23
What if “failure” was just expectations being uncomfortably rewritten by reality? In this conversation with Neal Sivula we discuss the experience of failing forward—what it…
Jan 27, 2026 · 1:45:20
The path that connects can’t be seen when you’re looking forward, but there are values, hunches—and maybe even whispers from the future—that nudge us onto the path that matches…
Jan 20, 2026 · 1:33:20
There comes a time in midlife when the body’s signaling becomes a bit disordered. Energy dips without explanation. Sleep thins out. Recovery takes longer. It’s not that the…
Jan 13, 2026 · 1:27:43
In the clinic, communication happens before a word is spoken. It unfolds through attention, listening, and the tactile information the body offers when we slow down enough to…
Jan 6, 2026 · 1:31:00
The lines we draw define us. In the pursuit of "objectivity," modern medicine draws a sharp line between the observer and the observed—the doctor and the patient. But what…
Dec 30, 2025 · 1:43:40
Good medicine has less to do with having the “right system” and more to do with the human being holding the needles. With the way we listen. The way we wait. The way we’re…
Dec 23, 2025 · 1:38:59
There are seasons in a woman’s life that don’t arrive quietly. They come with a tremor, a shimmer, a sense that something deep in the architecture of who you are is being…
Dec 16, 2025 · 1:17:39
Medicine finds its way into our lives not through textbooks, but by getting sand in our shoes, salt in our hair, and noticing how our hands long to be in the dirt—or on people.…
Dec 9, 2025 · 1:10:39
We tend to think of eyesight as a technical problem—retinas, optics, refractive errors, clearer lenses. But eyes don’t just see—they interpret. They blur when the world feels too…
Dec 2, 2025 · 1:10:34
Some people find acupuncture after a twisted ankle, a twist of fate, or some stubborn health condition that finally surrenders to a few needles. But every now and then you meet…
Nov 25, 2025 · 2:00:48
Punk rock and Chinese medicine might seem worlds apart, but both pushed back on dominant systems. Punk challenged the mainstream music industry; Chinese medicine, the dominance…
Nov 18, 2025 · 1:15:56
Sometimes clarity doesn’t come from adding more—it comes from taking away. Simplifying helps to see more clearly what’s already there. In medicine, that often means noticing the…
Nov 11, 2025 · 1:45:21
The tools we use to shape our world, they in turn shape us. Whether it’s the brush in a painter’s hand or the software code that organizes the clinic day. The interface becomes…
Nov 4, 2025 · 1:43:37
Sometimes the most interesting things happen when we stop trying to confirm what we think we know. In clinic, certainty can close doors—but curiosity opens them. There’s a kind…
Oct 28, 2025 · 1:48:02
The 1970s were a turbulent time—streets alive with protest, classrooms charged with new ideas, and an entire generation questioning the stories they’d inherited. It was a decade…
Oct 21, 2025 · 1:34:02
Ever wonder if being human is less about mechanics and more about patterns? Not the kind of patterns you memorize in a textbook, but the ones that repeat like spirals in a…
Oct 14, 2025 · 1:28:06
Sometimes old books get treated like sacred relics. But what if the Nei Jing isn’t a mystery text at all? What if it’s closer to a well-worn how-to manual — a guide for the…
Oct 7, 2025 · 1:31:55
The face tells a story, etched in its lines, the color of our skin, and the expressions we carry. These are not mere physical features; they are a language—an ancient map that,…
Sep 30, 2025 · 1:57:20
Here in the West, acupuncture often feels like something foreign, something patients approach with curiosity but no context. “I don’t know anything about Chinese medicine,”…
Sep 23, 2025 · 1:30:13
Ever notice how our bodies have their own climate? The heat of fire and cold of water aren’t just metaphors, they are elemental forces that don’t just live in the weather—they’re…
Sep 16, 2025 · 1:21:37
Some things can’t be seen—only felt. The texture of presence, the quiet shifts in atmosphere, the way the body speaks before words arrive. In the clinic, it’s not always the…
Sep 9, 2025 · 1:18:22
Books are more than just words on a page. They carry texture, weight, and the kind of quiet intimacy that screens can never quite match. A book slows down time, unfolds the quiet…
Sep 2, 2025 · 1:06:14
Part Two The body speaks with a visceral language —a hint of thirst, the ache of hunger, the sudden urge for something salty. These signals can be quiet, and easily dismissed…
Sep 2, 2025 · 1:43:25
Part One The body speaks with a visceral language —a hint of thirst, the ache of hunger, the sudden urge for something salty. These signals can be quiet, and easily dismissed…
Aug 26, 2025 · 1:23:06
History isn’t always something you study from a distance. Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of it—shaped by the events, people, and unexpected turns that unfold around…
Aug 19, 2025 · 1:13:20
Words shape the world. But they also limit it. Especially when we mistake translation for clarity—when really, it’s an act of interpretation, adaptation, and sometimes… a kind of…
Aug 12, 2025 · 1:10:08
Sometimes a few needles and a willingness to help—that’s enough to start a quiet revolution. In this conversation with Richard Mandell, we trace the roots of the Global…
Aug 5, 2025 · 2:02:05
What if the first step in healing wasn’t a pill, a treatment, or a diagnosis—but dinner? In this deliciously nourishing conversation we sit down with Andrew Sterman, a…
Jul 29, 2025 · 1:18:47
Some treasures aren’t just hidden—they’re buried, wrapped in mystery and legend, and waiting for the right moment to surface and return to the world of human affairs. What’s…
Jul 22, 2025 · 1:14:52
Long before “cold damage” became a checkbox on exams or a buzzword among classical enthusiasts, Dr. Liu Du-Zhou was quietly doing the work—teaching, treating, and writing from a…
Jul 15, 2025 · 1:29:26
Wind isn’t just a breeze, it's also an agent of change. Not metaphorical change—but literal, seasonal, even cosmological change that moves through bodies, weather, and even…
Jul 8, 2025 · 1:33:06
Ever wonder if the body tells its own version of your inner story? That maybe the channels don’t just carry qi—but also the shape of your longings, the tempo of your fears, and…
Jul 1, 2025 · 1:08:59
Sometimes the tools that help us see clearly aren’t visible at all—like magnetism, sound, and light. We feel their effects more than we can explain them, but when you start to…
Jun 24, 2025 · 1:10:01
In the early 80’s as acupuncture was emerging into the mainstream culture in the West, it developed differently in response to the established medical and educational systems…
Jun 17, 2025 · 1:21:59
What does it take to truly learn something? To not just know it in theory, but to have it live in your hands? Discipline, repetition, and a touch of obsession might be part of…
Jun 10, 2025 · 1:19:55
Sometimes it’s not what we hear, but what emerges in the space just before—where meaning hasn’t formed yet—but something is already calling your attention. It’s that quiet edge…
Jun 3, 2025 · 1:02:33
Part Two What if the body wasn’t a fixed map, but a living, improvisational landscape? In this conversation with Lan Li, a historian, filmmaker, and rhythm-savvy thinker at the…
Jun 3, 2025 · 2:00:35
Part One What if the body wasn’t a fixed map, but a living, improvisational landscape? In this conversation with Lan Li, a historian, filmmaker, and rhythm-savvy thinker at the…
May 27, 2025 · 1:36:50
The roots of tradition sometimes take hold in unexpected soil. What happens when traditions from France, Korea, and China converge in one practitioner’s hands? There’s a kind of…
May 20, 2025 · 1:31:42
What do we do when the world feels like it’s unraveling? How to respond when our systems—political, economic, medical—feel brittle, even broken? It’s easy to fall into despair,…
May 13, 2025 · 1:20:04
Sometimes the best opportunities don’t look like opportunity—they look like risk. Like driving hours into the mountains. Like renting a stranger’s massage room and hoping someone…
May 6, 2025 · 1:24:12
Technology is evolving fast—and it’s starting to mirror us in ways that are both fascinating and a little unsettling. As AI becomes part of our daily lives, it raises an…
Apr 29, 2025 · 1:17:15
It’s a curious thing, sometimes you want to get away from something. Maybe it’s the town you grew up in, or a family business. You think you know it, and are not interested. But…
Apr 22, 2025 · 1:23:55
Sometimes what holds us back isn’t a lack of skill or knowledge, but an old story unknowingly agreed to. One that says it’s unseemly to want success, that business is at odds…
Apr 15, 2025 · 1:17:07
There’s a moment in every practitioner’s life when they start thinking less about where they’re going and more about what they’re leaving behind. What does it mean to practice…
Apr 8, 2025 · 1:29:31
Childhood is a surprising, messy, and unpredictable unfolding that follows an orderly pattern of stages through reliable spirals of development. In this conversation with Moshe…
Apr 1, 2025 · 1:09:29
There's magic in learning how to translate the mysterious into the practical—especially when it comes to bridging the world of acupuncture with the language of Western medicine.…
Mar 25, 2025 · 1:23:09
Some paths in life aren’t so much chosen as they are revealed—often through unexpected encounters, serendipitous moments, or a relentless tug of curiosity. The call to become a…
Mar 18, 2025 · 2:09:10
Thirty plus years ago, as an acupuncture patient, I found myself puzzling over the question of “Just how does acupuncture work?” That question has been a reliable traveling…
Mar 11, 2025 · 1:26:17
Change unfolds within the predictable cycles Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. But, what actually emerges into being, that is usually novel and surprising. In this…
Mar 4, 2025 · 40:18
Fascia—it's the connective web that holds us together, yet its role in acupuncture is often overlooked. What if understanding this intricate network could refine the way we think…
Feb 25, 2025 · 1:15:08
The history of medicine isn’t just about treatments and techniques—it’s about migration, adaptation, and how healing traditions take root in new landscapes. The movement of…
Feb 18, 2025 · 1:21:15
The body holds experience in layers—some are structural, some energetic, and others deeply emotional. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pelvis, a place of both power and…
Feb 11, 2025 · 1:28:34
Following a blueprint is fine for building structures, but when it comes to life choices, someone else’s recipe for success probably will be only marginally helpful. Plans are…
Feb 4, 2025 · 1:35:11
Transformation arises from the unknown. In a world that often craves certainty, the practice of staying with discomfort, observing its rhythm, and allowing clarity to emerge can…
Jan 28, 2025 · 1:24:50
It’s the subtler forces—those quietly felt but not perceived—that create the background that frames our days with a tone that is both transparent and influential. The shifting…
Jan 21, 2025 · 1:37:32
Moxa is often seen as acupuncture's quieter sibling, and yet it has a rich history of igniting healing, longevity, and vitality. Its warmth goes beyond the physical—it has a…
Jan 14, 2025 · 1:33:51
Sometimes the most profound truths are found in watching what happens when we move between guidance and control. Between letting things unfold and imposing our will. Evan Mahoney…
Jan 7, 2025 · 1:30:40
Change is usually a tangle of both challenges and opportunities. The landscape of acupuncture has been shifting, from the health of our schools to the growing acceptance of our…
Dec 31, 2024 · 1:40:07
For centuries books have been part of the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another. They have always been powerful tools for learning. Especially in the early…
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