What “Refuge” Has To Do With Acupuncture

Feb. 23

Credit where credit is due, right? When I was dreaming into how to serve the good folks of Burlington and Bristol, VT, I kept getting this deeply cozy, rooted, radically honest, and unconditionally present feeling. I envisioned a place that grew people’s relationship with their whole somatic experience, the earth beneath their feet, their ancestors, and the gifts that all of these offer us. I envisioned warmth, connection, and a place where people could un-mask, cry, get angry, or express the things that feel too hard or too taboo to say in daily life. What I was feeling into and dreaming into being was what I have been deeply cultivating for years… what the Buddha called “Refuge.”

Refuge Isn’t A Place in Burlington
or Bristol, It’s A Practice

When I was in my mid-twenties, working in a social change organization, I was in the kitchen heating up my lunch. While waiting beside the microwave, a colleague leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Did you know that so-and-so goes to these retreats for two weeks and DOESN’T TALK TO ANYONE THE WHOLE TIME?” Their tone told me they thought this was a bizarre, unpleasant idea. Clearly this was something they thought warranted a gossipy whisper. My internal voice thought, “Holy smokes, I gotta talk to so-and-so.”

(Side note: I come from a very raucous, opinionated, first generation blended Jewish-Italian household and am far from what most people think of as your typical meditator. I’m chubby, extroverted (for the most part), and not particularly calm, quiet, or patient by nature.)

The microwave beeped. Snatching my lunch from the microwave, I ate in a hurry and ran over to so-and-so’s door. 

Knock-knock.

Hey, is so-and-so around? 

Sorry, Rebecca, she’s not. I’ll tell her to stop by when she gets back.

Ok, I said, thanks.

I waited what seemed like an eternity until so-and-so poked her head around the corner of my shared office space and said, “You were looking for me?”

What ensued was a conversation that led to a retreat that led to a daily practice that changed everything for me. It opened the doors to my own body, to learning Chinese medicine, and to embarking on the the lifelong adventure of becoming an acupuncturist and herbalist.

What Taking Refuge In My Body Has Looked Like Over The Years

Let me disavow you of the idea that I’ve “arrived.” Taking refuge (especially in your body) is not something that ever ends, it’s an everyday practice, a cultivation, a tending-to that sometimes feels great, a lot of the time feels bleh, and can be a source of pain and even trauma. That’s because growing up in dominant culture here in North America/Turtle Island, we are taught to live from the neck-up. Our bodies are meant to be conquered, controlled, and squashed into submission. Especially for girls, women, and those socialized-female, we are taught that in order to love ourselves and be lovable, we need to take up the least amount of possible space. Be smaller physically and otherwise.

I really internalized that messaging. And as a “big-boned girl”, as my mother always described me, I struggled deeply with accepting the shape and size of my body from a very young age. So when I got to my very first meditation retreat recommended by so-and-so, and was instructed to relax and breathe through my belly, I physically could not. Years and years of being trained to pull-in my belly had resulted in a deep alienation from my soft midsection and a longstanding mistrust and hatred for its real shape. I recall vividly on Day 2 of my retreat going to one of the retreat managers and telling her, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t breathe. There’s something wrong with me.” I was deeply distraught, frustrated, and disillusioned with myself and the practice. This retreat manager was gentle, wise, and patient and maintained an unshakeable belief that there was nothing wrong with me. She practiced breathing with me and took a trauma-informed approach to the meditation instructions that the teacher was not. It was her loving support that kept me on that first retreat and I am still deeply grateful for her wisdom.

Today, more than a decade later, taking refuge in my body is still a core practice, even as it’s changed over the years. It’s ebbs and it flows and it’s ultimately about contacting (visually, and through touch and imagination) the truth of what my body is. And it’s not just about what it looks like, though that is a part of it. It means maintaining a relationship with my body through movement that feels nourishing and it’s about caring for it (not changing its shape or size). It looks like only keeping clothes in my closet that actually fit my body the way it is right now. It means intentionally looking in the mirror and giving myself appreciation for this curve or wrinkle, or that ability to lift my child or have the capacity for smell. It’s about tuning into the actual sensations that arise from the foods I choose to eat, and offering my body nourishment that feels good, not that conforms to a certain idea of “healthy” or the latest fashionable diet. It’s about surrounding myself with friends and (chosen) family who affirm my beauty, who I can be real with.

So Why “Acupuncture Refuge”?

In my humble understanding of the Buddha’s teaching on refuge, there is a practice that involves “taking refuge.” This practice is about developing an embodied confidence in every being’s capacity to 1) be free or liberated, 2) to maintain a clear and unmuddied understanding of things as they are, and 3) to cultivate these understandings in community with people trying to do the same. This practice acknowledges and looks oppression squarely in the eye and is anything but a Polly-anna concept of perfection or spiritual bypass.

In my experience, acupuncture and herbal medicine hold the profound potential to not only drastically reduce pain, address mental and emotional health, chronic illness, digestive and sleep issues, but also to grow people’s sense of connection. It can tend to deep-seated wounds, increase people’s capacity to show-up for what matters most, and to clarify their very purpose. This medicine is meant to occur in-relationship, and is most effective when the practitioner-client relationship is tended, and when the medicine is offered in the context of one’s own healing and the benefit of all people, everywhere, without exception.

But perhaps the most profound thing about acupuncture is that all that I’m describing can unfold without you having to believe anything. If you come for better sleep or less pain and that’s all that matters, that’s enough! If you come for anxiety and digestive issues and are open to these other aspects of healing, beautiful! Neither is better than another and experiencing healing does not require you to talk about it or believe in it — you just need to show up.