It’s been about 6 years since my first acupuncture treatment, which in the scheme of things, isn’t actually all that long. I got acupuncture at first for Bell’s Palsy, paralysis of the half of my face, a purely aesthetic issue, but we all like to put our best face forward and so it felt important. Acupuncture changed my life – it actually brought me closer to myself, it helped me strengthen my connection to who I am and my life’s purpose and, well, landed me here today. Ironically, I never resolved the original symptoms and I stand here today with a somewhat asymmetrical smile.

Every one of us has a story about how we arrived here. Some of us came to Chinese Medicine through martial arts, I know that many of us were disappointed in some way or another by Western medicine, maybe we saw our sister get pregnant and have a child with the help of acupuncture, or a parent get relief from back pain, or a sibling recover from a car accident – we all recognized that this is some special medicine, and we all knew that we wanted to help others, to play a supportive role in people’s journey back to health.

And some of chose SWAC because we were already living in Boulder, or because we toured across  the country looking at all the schools and liked it the most, or because we knew someone who went here. I transferred from New York when the city became to much, we’ve got transfers from Florida, and Denver, and Albuquerque and Hawaii . I remember walking in on the first day of class, and thinking to myself, “Oh, everybody already knows each other, I’m the awkward new kid” (I’m still awkard I’m just not new anymore) but then Koji came over and welcomed me in, and slowly but surely the collection of awesome people that make up our class befriended and welcomed me, just as the would any other person, because that’s who we are, and that’s how we roll.

And I sat through my first class with Michael Young, blown away by his insights on dysbiosis and leaky gut, and so my education continued. Tristan would diligently go over each any every acupuncture point, and give us meticulous tests (which I was grateful for when it was time to talk the board exams), and Jia Yu would pound into our brains “don’t treat the symptom! Treat the etiology!” And we poked each other in class and we poked patients in the clinic, and most people got better, but some didn’t, and we learned a LOT. I mean come, on, over 350 points, and over 30 herbs a few hundred herbal formulas,  pattern differentiation, 3600 hours of study… lets give ourselves a little round of applause here.

And now, we move on to the unknown.

First, we must take a pause. To rest, to recollect, to replenish and reflect.

And then no do doubt, we will stand up tall, connect to our will power, acknowledge our fears, recognize the wisdom we’ve gained, and move forward. With guile and gall we’ll muster the courage to start a practice, to treat our first patient with a supervisor, and then the second, and the third. And it’s gonna feel awesome!

And there’s a couple of things I hope we can all remember as we head out on our own.

This Medicine is Incredible! It’s so powerful and so diverse in application, and we happen to be in the midst of a changing of conscious which is going to create endless possibilities. We live in a time when our medicine can be Magic AND Science, not either or. Our medicine can speak so many languages, and WE can speak many languages. We can talk in Biomed about hormonal pathways and neurons firing, and we can talk the words of Shaman penetrating through matter and into the world of spiritual vibrations. We can talk about IBS or “leaky gut syndome” or SP Qi Xu or hungry ghosts. We can say that an herb is a diaphoretic or that it releases the exterior – and that’s good, because it’s both! We can hold one perspective in each hand and work with each patient accordingly.

We’ll be able to get rid of a patients back pain so she can go back to teaching at school and treat the children with more kindness and compassion because she’s not constantly taxed by her pain – but maybe we’ll never talk to her about fear or spirit.

And maybe another patient will still have trouble sleeping through the night, but he’s living a brighter and happier and more grounded life than ever before, because for the first time in a long time, he’s had the opportunity to open up a bit and share and discover and process some of his emotional blockages.

We are the makers of our medicine, engaging in an ancient tradition, with our own new modern flare, dancing whichever dance our patients need – sometimes it’s the samba, and sometimes its the waltz – but it’s always a dance towards health and wholeness.

This medicine is also mysterious. We’ve been studying in for four years and only barely brushed the surface. And some patients, respond immediately and dramatically and boom! they’re better. And some patients don’t see any change at all, for weeks, and eventually stop trying – and we don’t always know why. But it’s not just this medicine that’s mysterious, it’s healing, and it’s life – sometimes, we just have to learn how to sit with the mystery.

This medicine came from people who watched nature and the earth – and we still have lots to learn from the natural world. For instance, our recent understandings of ecosystems teach us that diversity is the key to resilience. If we look at the world around us, we will notice (if we pay attention), that there are many many different plants and animals living together in any given environment. They all have different roles to play, different functions in keeping the balance of resources flowing and growing within a system.

I like to go hiking in the mountains, and every time I go I’m blown away about how many songbirds, singing different songs and different insects, pollinating different flowers And it’s important that we don’t forget how similar to the songbirds and the insects we are – and what I’m trying to get at, is that as we all step out into the world we should remember to feel free to be ourselves, different from others, filling a unique niche that will be bring it’s own balance to the ecosystem of humanity.

Some of us may be like honeybees, buzzing around with a communal mentality, “pollinating” many flowers of all shapes and sizes, producing a great sweetness in our community. Others may may, like a particular moth only work with a particular orchid as their one-and-only specialty, which will also bring great beauty to world as well. Without honeybees the world would not be complete, and without moths and orchids the world not be complete and without each and everyone of us the world is not complete. 

Friends, or should I now say Colleagues, how about Fellow Acupuncturists!

I think I speak for all of us when I express a great gratitude to be living on this great planet full of an abundance of life, to be living in an era with an incredible abundance of information, to have an abundance access to the resources to acquire a unique and very powerful set of tools that will allow us to transform individual lives and entire communities for the better.

And I really have to say thank you to our teacher, staff, and all those that paved the way for us.

We all dedicated our lives for the past few years to developing a strong foundation to be pivotal members of our communities. Our hard-work and devotion in school and the fact that were all here together today are proof of our ability to persevere and achieve what we have committed to.

Now lets get out there and heal the world!