The desire of my practice is to honor the ancient traditions of the people I have been so fortunate as to learn from.  I am deeply grateful and indebted to East Asian medicine, and I desire to honor their peoples, lands, cultures, histories, knowledge, and skills.  When I ere in these efforts, may I quickly realize, acknowledge, and pursue greater understanding to prevent such ere from occurring again.

I acknowledge that acupuncture and Chinese medicine, sometimes referred to as East Asian medicine, is the medicine of the various tribes and people of China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other lands and people of Asia.  I acknowledge that Chinese medicine is several thousand years old, and is likely a branch of the over 5,000 year old medicine of India, Ayurvedic medicine.  We must always acknowledge and honor the original people and practitioners of this medicine.  We must consider how native practitioners of the medicine are helped or hindered by the advancement of acupuncture in the U.S.  How do we honor their degrees in Chinese medicine, earned in China?  How do our efforts for responsible regulations support or hinder their businesses?  When are we harming their lineage through cultural appropriation rather than doing our part to continue and respect their native medicine?

My particular style of acupuncture and approach is heavily based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, with many influences by Japanese acupuncture, moxibustion, and massage lineages.  My foundation is in TCM, but is heavily influenced by Shiatsu massage, and the gentle techniques of Japanese acupuncture and moxibustion styles.  I hope to continue my study of Shonihari to better honor the medicine and improve my practice.

The standardized version of Chinese medicine, called TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), was set by Mao Zedong in his attempt to make medicine available to all people in China.  Western medicines were too expensive to make available to all at that time, and he realized they had access to an incredible medicine of their own.  Prior to this standardized version, Chinese medicine was practiced and taught by scholar families.  The knowledge was esoteric and mostly reserved for the wealthy.  The variety of styles, and the specific use and application of various herbal formulas, were often proprietary secrets of particular families, passed down from Master to apprentice for generations.  Many of these families were wiped out, their knowledge lost, during the Cultural Revolution.  The standardized form of medicine that was created remains the main version of Chinese medicine to be taught in mainland China, though much progress and research has continued in the field. 

Today's researchers are recognizing the importance of looking to the history of Chinese medicine use in the wide variety of cultures, regions, and peoples of China, much of which has been lost or forgotten with the standardization of medicine in China.  Today, China is home to over 300 different living languages, and approximately 276 of those are indigenous.  There are about 55 ethnic groups in China in addition to the Han, who comprise about 91% of the population.  Some areas are highly diverse, such as Yunnan in SW China, which is home to 25 ethnic groups.  In Yunnan, villages within a mile of each other can have completely different customs, and their languages can be completely unintelligible to one another!  Mandarin may be the official language to the entirety of China, but it is the language of the Han people, originating from the area around Beijing.  For instance, Shanghai has it's own native language, known as the Hu language.

Here is an interesting application of seeking native Chinese herbs for modern problems, and is a recent discovery to help with coronaviruses:  towardsdatascience.com/the-forgotten-legacy-of-traditional-medicine-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-56fc6235b2f5 .  The Yu people in Yunnan have been dealing with coronaviruses for ages, the hunt for this information took a huge amount of research!  This article is a fascinating read.

I acknowledge that I live and work on the traditional lands of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Tumwater, Tualatin Kalapuya, Wasco, Molalla, Cowlitz and Watlala bands of the Chinook and many other tribes of the Columbia River basin.  These original people of the land were displaced and massacred by genocide and colonization.

​For more information, please visit ljist.com/featured/acknowledging-indigenous-people/

This acknowledgment is only an infant step in recognizing the unaddressed harm, and does not encompass any actionable step of moving forward.  It is my desire to open myself to this conversation and find what the remaining descendants of the native tribes would like for us to do.

It is my belief as an herbalist and healer that we can seek the solutions to so many of our modern problems through the ancient wisdom of native people.  The original tribes were brilliant and resourceful stewards of the land.  As life continues to careen so out-of-balance, I hope we can restore the tribes' stewardship.  So many issues we see today were prevented for thousands of years with their careful planning, wisdom and work.  We can reign in the destructive wildfires, restore fish populations, and bring healthy diversity back to the forests we took.  We can find solutions to common health ailments, according to regional issues and the solutions used by the native tribes in those areas.

We must be absolutely meticulous in our approach to such progress, however.  We must always acknowledge the tribes, and not take their wisdom and claim it under our own names in the white supremacist act of declaring "discovery".  May we restore balance, and always show great respect to these native tribes.

Sallie McKibben, LAc
​Owner of Belmont Acupuncture

What a year 2020 has been!  But we're not out of the woods yet.

Please continue practicing social distancing, wearing a mask, and washing your hands to protect others and yourself.  Once you are able to get both doses of the vaccine, it is not yet known whether it will still be possible to pass the virus on to others.  Please still wear a mask even once you are immunized.

To find where you stand in line for the vaccine:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/03/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-timeline.html

It is looking like life might begin getting back to safely reopening in the Spring.  As for Belmont Acupuncture, I still have not fully reopened.  I have a very limited schedule of availability due to caring for my son and undergoing extensive cleaning for the days I am able to see a handful of high-risk patients.  This year has been very challenging, and I greatly miss my patients!  Working with you and helping you meet your goals is one of the greatest joys in life.  It is a relief to know that we can get back to work soon.

This has been a year of coming home, and addressing what prevents so many of us from being able to do so.  This has been a year of facing unaddressed trauma, prejudice, and systemic issues of racism and monetized suffering (U.S. healthcare system and longterm care facilities, privatized prisons combined with school-to-prison pipeline, housing bubble that leaves so many homeless to increase the wealth of the wealthy, insanely inflated pharmaceutical costs including long used life-saving Epi pens and insulin, insanely inflated CEO salaries and bonuses while the majority of their full-time workers  cannot afford to feed their families).  The average American is barely scraping by.  Families are flooding food banks as a final lifeline.  Rent moratoriums are about to end, and we know that a flood of evictions are waiting like a tsunami to hit our cities.

We're not out of the woods yet.  We have so much work to do.  As the wealthiest country on Earth, it is unacceptable for us to not take better care of our citizens.  We cannot discard compassion from the idea of American entrepreneurship.  Entrepreneurship must include responsibility towards others!  There has to be balance in life, and that includes personal self-reliance with civic duty. In other words, we must take good enough care of ourselves to help care for one another.

May our next year, 2021, bring lasting solutions and positive change for all.  May I play my role in society to best of my ability with care, consideration, tact, humility, and actionable steps.
​