From the Roots

Today I had an acupuncture appointment. It was long overdue, and I really needed it. It’s been a long winter, and the time around Christmas felt especially heavy. My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about two years ago. While this journey has taught me so much about presence and meeting each moment fully and wholeheartedly when I’m with her, it also takes a lot of emotional bandwidth. Grief like this isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s quiet, ongoing, and in my case, was carrie

A colleague asked me the other day if I do cosmetic acupuncture. It isn’t something I’ve ever been especially drawn to, but in answering her, it gave me pause. It made me reflect on beauty from a very different perspective. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, we speak of  Shen . It’s often translated as “Spirit,” but that word barely touches its depth. Shen lives in the Heart. It’s our consciousness, our emotional life, our capacity for presence and connection. It’s the light be