Last week I was revisiting notes from acupuncture school and re-read these treatment principles:
What I always tell everyone, whether a patient or a friend, is that everyone needs acupuncture! No matter what is going on, everyone needs it.
Chinese Medicine is all about preventative care. In a perfect world, everyone would be taking care of their bodies before things “fall apart.” In today’s world, especially here in the US, people are finding acupuncture because western medicine has left them with no other answers to their ills and worries. Usually when someone is experiencing pain and then it resolves, they stop doing all the things that helped them feel better. In Chinese Medicine and in my clinic I tell patients the opposite, that is when we keep treating and keep doing the things that help the patient feel better to hopefully keep the pain away.
The beauty of Chinese Medicine is that it is always here to help, whether you are taking care of your body before something happens or maintaining injuries, or managing living with chronic illness it can be there to help.
A while back my friend and mentor Russell and I were talking about acupuncture and consistency and he said ‘you never stop taking your car in for maintenance work’. Our bodies need constant care and attention, and one of my forever favorite Gilda Radner lines is “its always something”- literally.
Money and time are usually what stops us from accessing care before we need it. If you haven’t noticed America seems to be running on Go-Fund-Me’s for medical care. As a healthcare practitioner I see how prioritizing health over luxuries like traveling can feel like a sacrifice. The time my patients take out of their week to come and sit on a table might be their only time in the entire week not glued to their phones and away from the demands of work deadlines, families and obligations. It pains me as a practitioner, and as someone who supports my mother financially, to know that our care is entirely in our own hands.
Our government doesn’t care about us and is choosing to fund a genocide instead of providing care for its citizens. Our government sends billions of dollars every year to Israel to fund their military. I will continue to say and imagine the ways I envision how that money could be used to actually provide care for people.
In acupuncture school when treating in our school clinic our supervisors would tell us our patients should hopefully be coming in twice a week for treatment (every case is different, but that at the beginning this would be ideal). I have some patients that are able to see me weekly and I see how that affects their lives and how fast things can change with consistent sessions. This is very different to the patients I am able to see monthly, where it takes a little longer for the relationship to build and to see change. Things take time, I tell all my patients that and that we need to have empathy and patience with our bodies and that things ebb and flow, nothing is linear with “feeling better.”
“Who is healed? Who is housed? Who is silent? Who speaks?
“Whose hopes? Who’s fears? Whose values? Whose justice?
Last week on Tuesday night I went to the first Palestine Literature Fest (Pal Fest) here in LA at 2220 Arts + Archives. The evening consisted of a few different panels, and writers reading poems from Palestinian poets.
The first panel was about the film industry and the McCarthyism going on in regards to speaking about Palestine in Hollywood. The panel felt like talking with some of my closest friends.
The second main panel was with Randa Jarrar (whose essay “Imagining Myself in Palestine” from Letters to Gaza I have mentioned here in Ways to take care), Angela Flournoy, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Yahya Ahsour a poet from Gaza. Yahya was here studying prior to October and has been unable to go back to Gaza. They spoke about being able to do little to nothing besides experience heavy brain fog, sleeping a lot, and either write or speak at panels. They said they can’t watch movies or go to concerts or events because it would feel like betraying everyone back in Gaza.
Yahya said to us, “Don’t look for hope in my words, give me hope with your actions”
Last week my friend Misa Chhan’s show opened up with Ooga Booga at ICA LA, the show is up until July 28th. Misa is an incredible artist; they grow many of the plants they use to naturally dye the pieces.
Angela Davis: Standing with Palestinians in the Spring 2024 issue of Hammer & Hope
A new beautiful photo book from Other Books.
Also a beautiful photo book snagged online from Andy Beach
Leonard Sanders ( The Supreme Jubilees) performs “It’ll All Be Over”
Brother Theotis Taylor- Somebody’s Gone ( one of my favorite songs)
Something Within Me which came out in 2018 and is on his bandcamp.
Foragers a film by Jumana Manna made in 2022 is available to stream again online. If you have not seen it, you must watch. It is about foraging practices in Palestine and the criminalization of foraging Akkoub for only Palestinians.
an article from November 2020 from the filmmaker: Where Nature Ends and Settlements Begin by Jumana Manna
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Border Kindness provides asylum-seekers, refugees & the displaced with food, shelter, clothing and transportation and medical & legal services.
Today on line Border Kindness shared: “Summer is officially here in the desert, with this weekend’s temperatures expected to exceed 113F in the remote desert border region where we hike in supplies of water, food, and protective clothing. Accessing asylum safely has been extremely restricted, which leads to more and more people, including families with infants and toddlers, taking to the desert as a last resort to try and survive. Migrant families are effectively being funneled into the exact terrain that has already killed thousands and thousands of people, the US-Mexico border is already the worlds most dangerous land crossing, and we truly dread how that danger will worsen this summer.”
To help purchase desperately needed supplies you can donate via
Venmo at @Border-Kindness, Zelle or Paypal via “info@borderkindess.org, also Cash App is $borderkindesscash
Graffiti via Radical Graffiti seen in Ramallah, Palestine that reads “Queers passed through here”
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In 1978, Gilbert Baker made a rainbow flag at that years Pride parade.
The San Francisco Gay Freedom Day decoration committee allocated $1,000 to create two rainbow flags for the event.
“Baker recalled that the funds were spent as follows: “Five hundred dollars for 1,000 yards of muslin, 58 inches wide. Three hundred dollars for 10 pounds of natural dye in eight colors, and 100 pounds of salt and ash. And the rest for art supplies.”