Category Archives: families

My briefcase is like acupuncture

by Mary Beth Huwe

For a recording of me reading this post to you, click here.

I hate to brag. I really do. It makes me uncomfortable and hot around the collar… and various other regions. So it’s not braggadocio – but just good, old-fashioned, unbiased reporting –  when I tell you that my briefcase unites people, and is a metaphor for life and healing.

Ready?

#1: She’s A Family Heirloom

Here she is. What a specimen!

The briefcase was originally my dad’s. Dad believes objects are made to be used up. There’s a lot of wisdom and carpe diem-ing in that philosophy. It also means that we are judicious when purchasing gifts for him.

This briefcase, miraculously, escaped the Dad Treatment. It came to me in fabulous, mint condition. Dad describes it as “burgundy.” To my eyes, it is purple with pink stitching. It’s as though she was, lo these many years, purchased just for me.

She was not. She was purchased for Dad, who doesn’t conceive of her as a “she.” He quite merrily used this briefcase indifferent to its having a gender. And I love that.

I love that we can both use the same item, 30 years apart from each other – but at the same point in our lives (our 30s) – and that we can see that item differently.

It’s not unlike what we, as people, can do with our inherited health and characteristics. We can have endlessly different orientations to the similarities we share.

#2: She’s Wildly Relevant in Modernity

Pockets! Flaps! Not too many, not too few!
Pockets! Flaps! Not too many, not too few!

This lady is vintage with wicked-useful applications, even in today’s world. Her pockets are the perfect size for files, my phone, my business cards, my travel size tissues. Her flaps hold an appropriate number of files, and she will not permit me to nonsensically pack her with more work than I need or can achieve. My Mac fits in there perfectly, and has the added benefit of being padded and protected.

Her “oldness” doesn’t make her irrelevant. It makes her practical. And savvy. She is tried-and-true. In all of these ways, she is like acupuncture.

#3. She’s a Head-Turner and a Heart-Cheerer

People comment upon my briefcase nearly everyday. There’s a certain neighborhood coffee shop I frequent, where strangers look up from the phones or conversations to say, “Wow. I love your briefcase.”

Friends know me by it. Contained in this baby is a world of possibility – a system of organization that can support unbridled creativity. Just like . . . acupuncture.

…

These writings are an exploration of what it means to be human – to be sick, to be well, and to heal – viewed through the lens of acupuncture and, occasionally, herbal medicine. These writings aren’t medical advice. And they aren’t meant to be the final word on… well, anything. Rather, I hope they are a beginning of a conversation you have with someone in your life. Thanks for reading! ~MBH

Off spring! (Acupuncture and parenting)

by Mary Beth Ladenheim

The starting gun has been fired, and they are off! The birds and bees and trees and flowers are all flinging themselves toward their biological finish line of procreation. The world outside is pretty much singing “Wheeeeee!” as it bursts forth and multiplies. Trees are erupting into flower, bees are going about their business like they don’t know they’re in peril, and the birds are getting wickedly territorial.

We are springing, folks, and that means babies.

My own offspring materialized in the spring of 2011, and since then I – like all parents – have undergone a series of transformations such that sometimes I barely recognize myself. I can say with certainty and sincerity that I don’t know how people do it without acupuncture and herbs. Especially the mamas.

Not because I think mamas are the weaker sex. But because it is the greatest physical (etc) task to fetch a living, conscious being from the ether, grow it, change with it, hold it inside, and deliver it. Regardless of the method of delivery – they all have their healing times and requirements. And very, very rarely do mamas get that time and those requirements met. The body just has to carry on, because now there’s a person whose very existence depends upon you.

There are lots of ideas about what it means to be a modern parent, and a modern mama especially. Should I work? How much? Can I afford to stay home? What are the costs of being away? How long do I breast feed? Is co-sleeping weird? Will I be able to do this?

In acupuncture there is a channel that runs up the middle of the front body that is all about bonding and nurturing. (Pregnant and post-partum ladies, as well as some newborns, often have this channel highlighted in the form of the linea negra.)  There are many beautiful things to say about the significance of this channel translated as the “Conception Vessel;” it forms how we take care of ourselves, how we connect to others, how we understand what love is.

But the bottom line is that for the first few years of a child’s life, nourishment – in all senses of the word –  is the central tenet of effective parenting in terms of acupuncture channels. In acupuncture theory the mother and the child are literally part of the same whole, even after delivery. What is good for the mama is good for the baby, and vice versa. So regardless of how you answer the above questions, if the answer encourages appropriate connection, bonding, and feeding, it’s the right answer.