By Keith Condliffe, ND
Thank you to Eastern Currents!
In March 2009, Eastern Currents made a generous donation of ASP needles and Auricular Medicine supplies to the Vancouver Friends for Life Society, a complementary care centre in the West End of Vancouver for people confronting life-threatening illness. Friends for Life offers services and programs to over 900 members, hosted by over 400 volunteers and coordinated by five dedicated staff! You can learn more at www.friendsforlife.ca
With this donation, Eastern Currents enabled me, as a Naturopathic Doctor, to raise the level of care I provide at Friends for Life. The members I see face various health challenges - from HIV to different cancers. I use Nogier-style auricular acupuncture to help encourage organ detoxification, modulate immune responses, break down scar tissue (when appropriate), and access addiction centres in the brain. The clients are responding extremely favourably to this treatment, in combination with herbal, homeopathic and nutritional support.
I studied Auricular Medicine with Mikhael Adams, N.D. for one year in Milton, Ontario, before relocating to Vancouver in the fall of 2008. In Vancouver, I founded the Awen Health Centre at Granville and 6th. The clinic offers Naturopathic and Auricular Medicine programs for children and adults who wish to sustain healing within their bodies. You can see more at www.awenhealth.ca
Auricular Medicine is an autonomic reflex technique that relies upon the client's pulse (the vascular autonomic signal) to guide assessment and treatment. Auricular Medicine sessions lead people through the different levels of disharmony within their bodies - and most importantly - help them restore a self-healing state. Physical and emotional scars, immune system dysfunctions, deficiencies, and organ blockages are all addressed in a supportive manner, which increases healing velocity without inducing ‘crisis’.
The way I explain the vascular autonomic signal is this: we blink when surprised by an object close to our eyes. So does our pulse. The pulse blinks when the body senses dense matter coming toward it. Based on the blink in the pulse (which I think of as loosely correlating to the wei-qi) and various tissue filters, a clinically accurate, reproducible assessment can be made. The pattern of disharmony can then be treated using auricular needles as well as various homeopathic, nutritional and herbal medicines, with diet and lifestyle guidance serving as the backbone for the sustained healing response. The practice is to give the body what it needs, and nothing more, to continue healing on its own.
I am most appreciative of the incredible support for volunteerism demonstrated by Eastern Currents, as well as for their ongoing commitment to Auricular Medicine.
May Eastern Currents continue to thrive!
