In the context of the year, the Ox symbolizes the effort needed to pull ourselves out of winter’s darkness and into the promise of spring. After facing the year’s darkest aspects and our own shadows, the Ox embodies the commitment to self-improvement and gradual growth.

Today, we’re talking about a different topic, one that is so close to our hearts (literally). This is the notion of Yangsheng, or “nourishing life” and that is our essential mandate as practitioners of Classical Chinese medicine…

Some people naturally have a "damp" constitution, meaning their bodies are more prone to retaining moisture, especially if they have weak digestion or tend to eat cold, raw foods. Others may be more prone to heat as well, where stress, spicy foods, or alcohol…

When we think of grief, most often there is an aversion to the emotion, as it is (correctly) associated with periods of mourning: death, dispossession, loneliness and sudden, difficult changes. It is important to remember, however, that grief is the body's way of letting the waves of pain these moments bring up wash over and through us, so that we can come to terms with the world as it is, in spite of how we would like it to be.

Pigs represent the start of Winter in the lunar calendar, and at the same time they are also the final animal in the Zodiac cycle. Pigs are therefore symbols of both beginnings and endings, and this duality is meaningful: the energy of the Pig relates to…

This is a way to conceive of polarities not as oppositional– like light and darkness in a battle for supremacy–but rather as complementary. Light and dark complete one another and co-exist within each other. In the world at large, we see how...

I was speaking to one of my oldest patients today in the clinic while performing a sinew channel treatment. She had come in for relief from her inguinal pain that began as a result of the impact of her seatbelt on her pelvis during a car accident...

So what is moxibustion, how does it work, and why has it historically been given equal importance to needling, while remaining mostly unknown to the general public in the West? At the heart of east Asian medicine and philosophy is the theory of "Yin-Yang", signifying that all things which appear opposite are in fact working together in dynamic relationship…