The Transformation Begins

Posted: August 17, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Student Life | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

With current students, faculty, and staff on hand, AFEA welcomed the Class of 2015 yesterday. The last nine months have been dedicated to this moment of bringing together the newest group of Five Element acupuncture initiates. They were a classroom of strangers when they arrived in the morning, and they will leave their first intensive at the end of August as fast friends and colleagues (they’re already planning outings for their first day off together). For me, the best part of the day is when they hear each other’s journey up to this point. There’s a common thread through each journey that creates a moment of recognition among the new students. It’s the moment they recognize that these people are not strangers, but actually kin, and that they have all been brought together for the same purpose. It’s pretty awesome to behold.

As always, each  Opening Circle develops its own theme. A specific commonality- anything from similarity in location, to similar backgrounds-  finds its way into the introductions. This year, the commonality came from the advice that current students and interns gave, as well as in the stories that the new students told of how they came to be here. This year’s theme was two-fold: nourishment and being able to change the direction of your life in an instant.  Or, in abbreviated terms, get a crock pot and a bike.

The advice that the upperclassmen give to new students always intrigues me in how simple and obvious it is (and therefore easy to overlook). Advice on finding ways to nourish one’s self while in school was the over-arching theme yesterday.  The basics of getting enough sleep and finding time for activity were covered, but several students also talked about being able to find your place in your class and not worrying if you don’t seem to fit the acupuncturist mold. To paraphrase one intern, “I’m a biker chick, not a hippie, and I don’t like granola.  I’ve still found my place here.” As she said it, amidst the laughter, several other biker chicks spoke up and voiced their solidarity. Staying true to who you are and finding comfort in that place is just as important as getting enough sleep!

Other advice included remembering to get regular Five Element acupuncture treatments to stay healthy and supported throughout the program; to take advantage of all of the offered resources from the faculty and staff; to embrace each moment because it goes too fast; to get a bike when you’re in town.  I think the overall favorite piece of advice was to get a crock pot. That way you can continue to make nourishing food even when intensives and clinic get hectic. So simple, so straight-forward, and yet, we all forget to eat well when we’re stressed. It’s something you’d probably never think about without someone else’s suggestion.

On a deeper level, several current and new students spoke about their first day of class as a new direction in their lives. How easy it was to apply and go to school. One day you’re at home, the next you’re in Florida embarking on a fantastic journey of nature and healing. It was easier to do than they thought, and exhilarating in the beginning.  But what the upperclassmen stressed was that while it was easy  to change directions, it wasn’t always easy to continue in that direction.  You’ve shifted your life, and other things have to shift as well in order to keep up. Staying on point tests your commitment. It’s important to be aware of the fact that the real change comes from within, and it comes later. It helps you prepare. But this is where another succinct piece of advice comes into play: show up. Show up every day, even when you’re tired, because you’ll be amazed at what you find at the end of it.

So many of the prospective students that I talk to voice this need to change the direction of their lives. They know where they want to go, but it can be hard to figure out the steps to get there. And it’s scary to change your life.  Looking out at the new students, it’s goose-bump inducing to see them all in the same place, excited and ready to go. They’ve made that commitment to themselves and to this beautiful medicine. I can’t wait to see them, and how they transformed in two years when they start clinic, just as Class 28 is doing right now. And then to see them at the end of clinic, where Class 27 will be in just three, short weeks. I hope that wherever you are, you’re in the middle of your own transformation.

Expectations of Summer

Posted: May 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Five Element Acupuncture, Student Life | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

After two months of pleasant warmth in North Florida, someone seems to have finally flipped the switch to turn on the summer heat. The hot season has begun! As we move into the ‘unofficial’ start of summer, many of us at Academy for Five Element Acupuncture are taking the cue and either heading to the beach or spending the long weekend working in our gardens.

The repose is a welcome one for all of us, especially our acupuncture and herbal interns who have been working steadily in class and with their patients. Class 28 just finished their 6th and final intensive last week and have headed home to begin preparations for the next phase of their training. When they return in August, they return as the new intern class.

And so, in the honor of the approaching summer, I invite you to spend a little time out in nature to see how the spring is rapidly transitioning into the glory of summer. I leave you with the words and images of Paul Laurence Dunbar:

Summer in the South

The oriole sings in the greening grove

As if he were half-way waiting,

The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green,

Timid and hesitating.

The rain comes down in a torrent sweep

And the nights smell warm and piney,

The garden thrives, but the tender shoots

Are yellow-green and tiny.

Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill,

Streams laugh that erst were quiet,

The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue

And the woods run mad with riot.


The Fall High Season at Academy for Five Element Acupuncture

Posted: September 26, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Five Element Acupuncture, Student Life | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Daylight is growing shorter, nights are getting cooler (even here in Florida), and the summer haze has lifted. It’s finally fall- last week’s Autumnal Equinox made it official. And AFEA’s busy season is in full swing. For Gainesville, fall means football games and art festivals. And for us this year, it means exams, first needles, and a brand new clinic class.

You’ve already read about Class 28’s first year exams, but in addition to that excitement, they also received their first needles. The Needling Ceremony is a very important part of the acupuncture training here at the Academy in which they receive their first needle from a senior practitioner. Students spend the first year of their studies establishing a theoretic framework on which Year Two is based. In Year Two, the curriculum transitions its focus away from what five element theory is and moves towards how an acupuncture practitioner uses the five elements in practice. And to signify that shift and to recognize their readiness, students are given their first needle. The ceremony reflects on the significance of that first needle and what it means for the beginning practitioner.  Class 28 is safely on its way home now- if not already there- and I wish them several, well-deserved, rest-filled days. It’s been an intense session (pun completely intended), and an intense year of study.

So, while Class 28 is practicing their needling technique on fruit, Class 27 is looking forward to their first human patients. They arrived last Monday for the first day of their Clinical Residency. After two years of intensive sessions, they are now settling in as Gainesville residents, working their way through Internship Prep II, and starting to recruit their first patients. To celebrate- and commemorate- the occasion, the class and their clinic supervisors took a trip on the Suwannee River. In between guided nature hikes, kayaking down the river, and singing along to the official AFEA song-book, they established their intentions for the clinical year experience. I hope to have pictures for the next posting. They have appropriately named their class, “Abundant Splendor,” and I know I speak for the faculty and the staff here at AFEA when I say we couldn’t be more proud of the transformations they have gone through in the last two years, and couldn’t be more excited to see what the next 12 months bring.

Looking at the last week, I find us at another moment of heavy transition, just like last June around graduation. Beginnings have a tendency to feel caught up in the “middle” of the process these days. There’s always a new something, and yet, that new something is part of a much larger picture that one can always just make out on the periphery. Time works in a  very circular pattern here. And so, in an effort to celebrate this part of the circle, I am inviting all of  Class 27 to share their feelings on the “start” of clinic. I am inviting all of Class 28 to reflect on the “end” of year one. And I am inviting Class 29 to reflect on their first intensive and share how they’re feeling about their second intensive, which is in the not-so-distant future.  I’d love to hear where everyone is in this moment.