Remember this day. An invitation to “beginning”

I’ve been wanting to share this story for a while now. We opened our clinic just a few weeks before the inauguration of Barack Obama. We had our opening party and first free day the weekend before the big Tuesday. I drove around all weekend preparing for our opening and listening to MLK speeches about not just racial but also economic equality and justice—so grateful at the synchronicity. We closed the clinic that morning to watch. I was already sobbing just watching the motorcade on the way to the capital. There’s something surreal and wonderful about being witness to such a profound event, one that signals a paradigm shift, a culmination of so much struggle, so many dreams, an evolution of consciousness.
Later that week, my ex-husband Lenny (who is still a very dear friend) came back through Santa Fe on his return from DC, his hometown. We met for lunch and he told me about his experiences there. He was amazed at the feelings of excitement and fellowship. So much joy, he said, so few boundaries, people hugging everywhere. It was an echo of how we had felt after our first weekend treating in our CA clinic. It’s all about the people, we agreed. Then he told me a story that brought me to my knees and has been resonating with me since. Years ago, he had told me about Miss Manor, his babysitter as a child. I should tell you that Lenny is an African American man, recently turned 50. He said that one day she had gathered up the neighborhood children and brought them all to a lawn on a corner and told them to wait. He remembered more and more people gathering but didn’t know why they were all there. At some point, Miss Manor picked each child up and held them in the air and said, “Look now and see that man! Remember this day!” It was only years later that he realized it had been

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. During this recent visit to the capital for the inauguration, Lenny was there on the Monday before, wandering around on the Mall, and various sites, soaking it all in on the eve of the big day. He said he didn’t really pay attention and eventually found himself walking slowly up a flight of steps, mostly looking out at the crowds. As he reached the top, he said it finally just hit him; here I am on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. On this day. At the top of this journey. During my lifetime. Remember this day.
Now, I realize it is in no way a direct comparison to compare the heroic struggle and unbelievable sacrifice that has gone into the movement for equality and Civil rights in this country—one that continues despite the glorious wonder of the election of our first African American president—to the CA movement of fighting for access to healthcare. But lately, as I see how CA is growing, how people are beginning to feel the rumblings in the establishment with the attendant resistance, the fabulous successes of your clinics around the country, the influx of newbies such as myself, or the looky-lous tuning in and toying with the idea or the fence-sitters just wanting to play with it as a form of charity while maintaining their boutique practices, it occurs to me that it is important for all of us to understand our roots, to truly connect with the beginnings in order to really appreciate the richness of things as they continue to grow.
CA started because of relationships—the one between Lisa and Chico Senn, the ones between Lisa and her friends and neighbors. It started because of a person who was unwilling to have another person suffering needlessly. Because of a person who was unwilling to accept a system that denied people the basic human right to healthcare. A small group of people who called on others to join and step up to the challenge, embrace the freedom. It has evolved because of all the people who share these ideas so passionately that they can’t do anything else. It’s not a flashy new practice management idea to make a lot of money or a new marketing gimmick to use to survive a down economy, until you can get a “real” practice off the ground–it’s a deep belief and a lifestyle (and a truly joyous, irreverent and fun one, by the way…) And so it really may not be for everyone. (If you are new to this network or even thinking about setting up a CA, please don’t go any further until you have read the Remedy, CAN 101, the early Acupuncture Today, and First Professional Doctorate threads and have some understanding of the background.)
It’s about the people, plain and simple. Their unbelievable bravery and our huge respect for them. That probably seems obvious, but as I talk to people, especially students and practitioners who might be interested in CA, I feel more and more that they have been conditioned to think that setting up a practice is about them—the mountain of debt, the ego, the what’s best for them, the what we need, what we deserve, blah, blah blah…”and CA seems like a good idea, I’d kind of like to try it.” And since I’m one of those rabid “can’t do anything else” kinds of folks, I just need them to understand that CA got started because of those first relationships. And it’s about each one of us and the countless relationships we have formed in our clinics. The daily joy of living the life you’ve dreamed of truly practicing medicine. If people aren’t able to access it, then it’s not medicine; it’s theory and a piece of paper on the wall. And if less than three percent of Americans can access it, then we are doing something wrong as a profession which calls itself medicine. The rest is determination, speaking out, “marching,” the movement. Economic equality, the battle against classism, social justice, right livelihood, the ethical practice of medicine, community, health, joy, our supportive sanity-affirming CAN family, these things are building and building through each of us. But without understanding the root, it’s form without substance.
And I agree with Ann Mongeau, if you didn’t get into this at some level to be of service, then you should have done something else. She said it best here: search “Out of Patience” in the forums.
Kelly and I remark more and more as people ask us about our clinic and our feelings, how fiercely defensive we are of our patients—we’ve already mentioned how instantly we fall in love with each of them. Once your first patients fall asleep in recliners and hug you on the way out the door, telling you that without the sliding scale they could never otherwise come for care, you are gone—you can never turn back. We can’t imagine not being available for them; we can’t believe how deeply they are already sharing their lives with us, feeling part of a supportive community. (Thank you, Andy Wegman for the most amazing recent blog) When they walk in and see it busy, they smile and cheer–they know it’s about them as much as it is about us–we all win!
We get so irritated by the idea of hybrids, much more than boutique style practices (we have several wonderful colleagues with private practices who are truly skilled and loving with their patients…) and we’re still trying to articulate why. I think it just feels to me like the same old, patronizing tone: don’t rock the boat, the separate but equal crap. Lately, Kelly has sometimes felt like ripping heads off with her teeth but her phrase has struck me: you might as well have a separate entrance for your “lesser” paying patients.
I had a great teaching from a qigong teacher some years ago. He stressed the idea of embracing “beginning.” There is always that period of incredible awkwardness as you learn to move your body in a new form: finding the right balance, stumbling through, feeling unsure, fighting the status quo of your body, and wanting to push through more quickly to the stage of just knowing it, having it flow without thinking, getting past this beginning crap. But there is also a grace and richness here, a time to become acutely aware, to notice in a new way, to let ourselves look silly, to share in it and support others, to trust in a form or a lineage, to ask for help, to revel in the incremental progress, and eventually find ourselves flowing without thought, but grateful for the first steps, and the process, and the breakthroughs (hooray Honora Lee Wolfe and Bob Flaws!)
So anyway, just some ramblings as we move through our first months, trying to learn the new form, reveling in the small triumphs and laughter of our patients, feeling silly, and staying in touch with beginning. See you all on the top of the steps one day!

Author: melissa tiernan

Found community acupuncture in my last year of acupuncture school and it was like cool water on the dry desert of aculand. It addressed all those nagging questions of how to make acupuncture accessible and inviting to people like me, in my own communities as well as actually make a living and I knew I would practice this way for the rest of my life. I have learned more (about acupuncture, about people and community, about myself) in the past few years of running a CA clinic and being an acupunk at another BDC clinic than ever before. It's one of my all-time favorite places to be. I am eternally grateful to this community for its welcoming support, its passionate determination and its irreverence for useless sacred cows. I look forward to our continued work in supporting community acupuncture clinics worldwide!