Local talk: nourishment for all

Two members had prepared detailed presentations – and they succeeded in catalysing rich, wide-ranging and educationally-rewarding discussions. Thank you so much Patti and Nini.

We even had a case sent in to ‘The Panel’ by someone who couldn’t attend – and after talking it over together we were able to feed back some ideas to him.

These free-roaming conversations between practitioners are nourishing for everyone, no matter how long they’ve been in practice. The energy in the room spirals upwards as the evening draws on.

We covered legacies from childhood, shao yang conditions, terror, and management of complex cases: how deep do we as acupuncturists, wish to probe sometimes, when there is clearly plenty more that the patient hasn’t articulated? Most of us on occasions have drawn a line so that we can focus on what is already a formidable amount on the table. Thank you to everyone who contributed that evening.

At the start our March meeting, we were joined by Ahid, Matteo and Paul from DongBang AcuPrime, our Exeter-based needle supplier. All three listened carefully as we asked about availability of everything from Bee Brand oil – Minyak Gosok it says on my bottle – and moxa balm, to lighters and replacement TDP lamp heads.

Apparently there has been disruption to the supply chains in Asia over the past few years – but DongBang will look at restocking popular balms if they can persuade the manufacturers to produce them once again. They left us each with a generous bag of, amongst other things, needle samples, moxa and silicone cups.

Next up was south Devon acupuncturist Rachel Geary, who introduced her environmental fieldwork with volunteers, and the dissertation she is writing up for her masters at the Centre for Alternative Technology. We talked through 11 psychometric scales and from the descriptions of their scoring criteria, managed to come to a consensus on their correspondence to one or more of the five elements. I hope our input was useful, Rachel.

Finally, over tea, we talked about menopause. Instead of treatment strategies, we focused on menopause in our particular culture, as opposed to how it seems to be experienced by women elsewhere in the world. A book which was particularly recommended was The Hormone Repair Manual by Lara Briden.

Thank you to all those who attended for another evening of rewarding discussion. These rich veins of practitioner experience, knowledge and intuition are available to all of you to tap into. Just show up at your local regional group.