Acupunktrix: Acupuncture, Apothecary, Birth and Death Guide

11/12/2025

reached out to me to ask if I’d do another trans acupuncture night for their Trans Corps and, of course, I was thrilled to do so.

What a gorgeous group of folks not only trying acupuncture for the first time, but coming together in community for mutual support and JOY.

Trans Joy trumps MAGA hate every time.

Last week the Supreme Court passed anti trans legislation undoing the right to use the gender marker that reflects your gender identity…even if you’ve already legally had your name and ID and birth certificate changed. It’s cruel and it singles out trans people for discrimination.

But in my parlour last night, there were smiles, laughter, meditation, tea and cookies, sharing, trust, hope, and beauty so profound it brought tears to my eyes.

Trans health matters. Trans safety matters. Trans hope matters. And Trans JOY is the root of resistance.

May this lovely, kind, intelligent, gorgeous group of humans be safe, blessed, and able to fulfill every dream they hold in their heart.

I love my job. I love our community. I love Buffalo. We are the city of good neighbors, and I am so happy to have met and served more of mine.

Reach out to Buffalo Friendship Club to find out more about their awesome programming that fosters connection for all folks in the greater Buffalo area.

11/08/2025

Rest in the gentleness of this creek, in the flow of water and time and the memory of every adventure and transformation this water has been on from raindrop to spring.

Breathe deep. Relax your jaw. You are held and loved.

11/08/2025

November has been brisk and brooding, with whipping winds and deep drenching rains, but today the sun shone gently through the rapidly shrinking tree cover, 🍁 like a peace offering before the first snow arrives this week.

The ground is thick with softly crunching leaves dressed in their finest crimson, nutmeg, vermilion, and gold. Ringless honey mushrooms crop up in clusters, rosettes of turkey tail mushrooms decorate dying logs, blue oysters cling to the trees, and conocybes sprout impishly from the forest floor.

The creek sounds like it has been hand tuned, charming, dreamy notes. It sings songs of the coming freeze and tells tall tales about its wild adventures and transformations, from rain drop to underwater spring.

The woods are still mossy in places, with fearless ferns looking as fresh as they did in May. It’s a striking contrast between the last gasps of the oaks, hickory, birch, and cottonwood and the shocking green of life.

I collect pockets full of acorns. For cakes. Or just to scatter on the table when I realize I haven’t got the energy to process acorn flour right now.

Chipmunks 🐿️ peek up from underground burrows and fat grey squirrels leap playfully through the leaves, burying nuts for the barren days ahead.

Here, scanning the ground for signs of chanterelles, I do not check my phone, I do not think about the latest gut wrenching disaster. For one hour, I am comforted by oaks said to be around four hundred years old. What these trees have seen…and still they stand, so proud, so wise, so completely unbothered by human drama.

Here is where I breathe. Where I nourish my spirit with intention so I can continue to watch for ICE, advocate for the dignity and safety of trans folks and immigrants, tell people about their rights, feed my neighbors, care for my family and patients, and otherwise rise up and fight these fu***ng fascists.

For one hour, I tend to my body, my health, my mind, my heart. This is fuel for the fight. Care for yourself in beautiful ways so that you have the energy and resources to contribute to your community. Care for yourself in beautiful ways because, you too, are precious and worthy of rest and joy.

11/07/2025

One of my favorite parts about my job is going on the journey alongside my amazing patients from fertility treatments to conception and beyond.

I helped this mama conceive and now it’s time to help her little one arrive earthside.

Acupuncture, moxibustion, massage, exercises, and herbs can help you prepare for an easier birth, manage stress and end of pregnancy discomfort, and even kick labor into gear when you’re past your “due date” and doctors are threatening you with an induction.

I’m a mother of four adult kids, and I’ve been working with pregnant women for almost 30 years as a doula, volunteer ambulance medic in Palestine working primarily with labor and birth, a midwife assistant, childbirth educator, and former La Leche League leader so I bring a lot of experience to my treatments that can be hard to find in routine acupuncture.

I also do a lot of work specifically with supporting LGBTQ+ families to become parents.

Acupuncture isn’t just great for conception and birth, but throughout pregnancy for nausea, aches and pains, and general wellness and calm. I’m even called upon to do acupuncture during labor for pain relief and relaxation, or to enhance a slow labor.

Acupuncture can also be deeply helpful to give space and care to the grieving process for those struggling with fertility or experiencing pregnancy loss.

Wherever you are in your fertility cycle, even if you’re in menopause or not planning to have babies, but want to regulate your cycles or treat PMS or menstrual pain, I’ve got you!

Acupuncture works. It’s a little bit science, a little bit magic, and a whole lot of love.

Wishing this mama, who came to see me yesterday, a wonderful birth and health for all.

11/06/2025

Stop pretending your racism is patriotism. Listen to this young man. If his plea doesn’t move you, you are a N**i sympathizer and need to have a deep look at your heart.

11/06/2025

Yesterday, ICE said that they are going to begin to specifically target CHILDREN.

This is outrageous. The hunting of hard working humans is vile. And ICE has detained over 150 U.S. Citizens!

In order to protect the safety of others and those most vulnerable, I haven’t posted about it here before, but I’ve been honored to be helping out with BIRD for a little while, mostly as an observer with medic gear.

If you’re interested in helping out, contact BIRD for training opportunities.

At the Nuremberg trails, N**i soldiers used the defense that they were “just following orders”. ICE agents say the same thing. Well, that defense didn’t fly at the trial and it doesn’t now. We have a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. Slavery was legal, the Holocaust was legal, sending 5 year olds into coal mines for 10 hours a day was legal. Legal does not equal moral or just. We must stand up for what is RIGHT.

Help if you can. Learn what to do if you see ICE trying to detain someone. Learn your rights as an observer. Learn your rights if you are undocumented or detained.n lpst

11/04/2025

Today is the day! VOTE while it’s still legal!

I voted Sean Ryan for Buffalo! A good man for the City of Good Neighbors.

11/03/2025

I am still barely able to get out of bed, but I managed to sit on my bedroom floor and pull together an ofrenda from objects I had mostly within arms reach. It actually ended up deeply symbolic and personal to me, with representations to me of my all four of my grandparents. There is a candle for each of them and the dead in their lineages, be they parents or children or grandchildren. The center candle was for all of my friends who have crossed over. So very many of them.

I spent some time in prayer and gratitude and asked for blessings for my family.

Connecting with the memories of our ancestors is not grim, it is sacred, instructive, and humble. We honor the past and pray for the future.

For Poppy and Gammy, Grandma Esther, Little Gammy, Uncle Sonny and Aunt Marie, Aunt Susan, cousin Nicky and all my other relatives on that side.

For Poppy Lew and Moo Moo, Aunt Mia, Uncle Bruce, Daniel and all my relations on that side.

For Jessica, Casey, Nicole, Heather, Max, Autumn, Judith, Blayne, Miles, Matthew, and Amy.
The men I once loved:
Aaron/Aryn, Michael Provine, and Michael Perrick.

For everyone I am stupidly leaving out due to post stroke brain.

Presente.

I love you. Always.

Forgive my singing.

Feliz die de Los mu***os.

Ps The card I pulled from this round vintage sisters of the moon deck I was gifted on buy nothing was The Hora! ( Jewish traditional dance) ***os ***os

11/02/2025

Dia de Los Mu***os has been a sacred time for me for almost as long as I can remember.

Being from Southern California and having a great number of Mexican friends, I grew up steeped in Mexican culture.

Sometimes I would pop into the local panaderia for pan de mu**to and sugar skulls, but often made them myself. I’d use them as offerings for the spirits of my beloveds, and decorate an ofrenda with their photos, flowers, and images of life and death.

We used to meet with companeros in East LA to walk the candle lit processional to Self Help Graphics which hosted a stunning display of ofrendas (ancestor altars and offerings), as well as music, art making, food, and steaming cups of thick sweet champorado.

Eventually, larger celebrations happened in downtown or Hollywood Forever Cemetery, but we kept going to East LA, until we moved to Buffalo.

Two years ago, right before my brain hemorrhage, I went to Mixquic and Mexico City for Day of the Dead.

There is nothing quite like being in Mexico during this holy and liminal time. Italians also celebrate, making ossi di muerti (bones of the dead) and I’d love to go experience how my own people do death, but it wouldn’t feel familiar to me as Mexico and East Los Angeles does. That feels like home.

There have been a lot of concerns around cultural appropriation of the imagery and practices surrounding Dia de Los Mu***os. I understand the desire and importance not to have something so precious be made light of. Americans are hungry for a return to sacred ways of honoring the dead and the ability to see the beauty in the transitions and cycles of life. Maybe there are lessons available for those willing to do the work respectfully and dig into the meaning behind traditions, and also look into how their own ancestors honored the dead.

There is wisdom in holding space for death and to remember and continue to cherish and learn from those who have gone before.

I’m unable to make a big ofrenda this year, but I will light candles. 🕯️ Because I remember and I love so many people who have gone before. Someday, I will be an ancestor, too.

First pics from Mixquic, then Mexico City, then Boyle Heights, LA and Santa Ana in the past.

11/01/2025

Emerging from the nightmare haze of acute viral illness feels like that moment when you see a fleck of green on a barren winter branch.

I became an acupuncturist because acupuncture and herbal medicine was so transformative for me personally, as a person with a mitochondrial disease and a host of genetic predispositions and serious preexisting conditions who has devastating reactions to viruses. But some acute viruses can bring ANYONE to your knees, and, often, the only thing you can do is get through the next moment.

I couldn’t swallow herbs, I could barely take a sip of broth or coconut water.

So I focused on rest, warmth, and hydration to the best of my ability. With norovirus, you want to let it move through without slowing it down so it doesn’t linger. (Of course, if you have bloody stool or signs of dehydration, prolonged illness or unrelenting fever, urgent medical care is mandatory. )

Once I could handle a little bit of herbs, I sent my partner out to our yard to pick Japanese barberries for me. The yellow inside indicates berberine (also in the root), in Chinese medicine this is seen in the several Huang (yellow) herbs often used as robust herbal antivirals and antibiotics. Berberine rich herbs often have an affinity for the GI tract, regulate glucose and metabolism, and nourish a healthy gut. Isolated extracts of “active ingredients” fail to account for synergetic activity in the WHOLE plant, so having some fresh berries felt right to me (I decided against eating the seeds inside for a variety of reasons).

I can finally eat some solid food, so using a gorgeous ginger, mushroom, kombu broth gifted by , I’ll rebuild my microbiome with soup with prebiotic scallion, a glutamine rich jammy egg, and some red miso and a tiny bit of raw kimchi at the end (you don’t want them to cook) for probiotics.

Norovirus decimates the microbiome, so rebuilding is what is going to be foundational for strength and immunity.

I’m grateful to finally be turning a corner and for community and a partner who helped support my healing.

What are your favorite ways to rebuild the microbiome after a bad GI illness?

11/01/2025

Free rides to medical appointments, social services, and food banks.

https://www.unitedway.org/ride-united/ride-united-transportation-access?fbclid=IwdGRjcANzJG9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHiE6RZc-I1aj2RvuQO-oseBUwaQHQ5dvhuh1EhNuxSITtg_HVzVaYw0y3T_K_aem_ETl-1M2s4OR5ZIFM87k2MA

Ride United leverages the strength of United Ways, the 211 network, and our partners to address the unmet transportation needs of individuals and families across the country. Transportation Access reduces travel barriers to essential jobs, services, and more.

10/29/2025

So sick with norovirus I can’t eat, can’t even manage more than a sip of Gatorade every couple hours. Everything hurts, can barely even look at the screen. Can’t stomach herbs.
But it occurred to me that I have a bed and blankets and a heating pad in warm dry house.

Many get sick like this on the street or crammed into ICE detention centers on floor mats with rats and thin rags to shiver beneath, where many are sharing a bucket or metal toilet to hold diarrhea and vomit. Children, mothers, asylum seekers, and citizens alike.

I am so grateful even in this moment for what I have, it is a luxury, and I am deeply aware how much we need to stop the cruelty of this government. It felt important enough to come on here and say that even though it’s really hard to even move or think right now.