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...

Here at Dragon Rises, we do not utilize a gold needle for a particular acupuncture point per se, but rather for an entire class of acupuncture channels. This class of channels is called the Eight Extraordinary Channels. They assist us in working on aspects of our body’s physiology that came to be during our early childhood — or the first cycle of 7-8 years of life.

For those of you that haven’t experienced a remote acupuncture treatment firsthand, we hope you enjoy learning a bit more about it today! In order to describe how remote acupuncture works, let’s first talk about how in-person acupuncture works.

Dr. Hammer’s teachings and axioms have been and remain the cornerstone of my understanding of Chinese medicine. And in my years of studying with other teachers, I’ve never encountered another teaching that doesn’t align with these core tenets.

I say these words often during this time of year; there is so much that comes up for me during winter time. Everything in nature goes dormant around us, the days are short…and here in the Pacific Northwest it is colder than many of us would like. I find myself missing the people I wish were still here to celebrate the end of another year with me — people who have passed away, or people who I am no longer in regular contact with.

We’re all in this, and we so want you to know it is okay to feel impacted by all that is happening around you, by what you are seeing on TV or hearing on the radio, by the videos you are seeing on your social media feeds. It is merely human to be impacted by all of this…

As healthcare practitioners, we’ve felt the need to censor ourselves and our beliefs in the name of fostering a safe environment for all people that come through our doors. In alignment with the intention of “maintaining good boundaries” between our “professional” selves and “personal” lives, we’ve been a bit in-the-closet around how we identify and what we feel our Work (i.e. that bigger work than can only be written with a capital “w”) is in the world. We’ve uncovered that staying hidden in silence would be tantamount to complicity with the systemic oppression that exists within our society as well as our own conditioned minds. And we simply aren’t interested in using power—against others or ourselves—in this way. So it’s high time we came out of the closet!

We chose to be called “Dragon Rises Center for Wholeness” for three main reasons: the name honors our Chinese medicine roots, it reminds us how fierce each person’s healing potential truly is, and it keeps us grounded in the belief that every individual--whether in need of a little support or a complete lifestyle overhaul--is inherently whole.