Peregrine
Meet
Photo by Asja Dawn
About Me
I am a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist from Berkeley, CA, the ancestral land of the Chochenyo Ohlone. I completed my Master’s in Asian Medicine at the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College (AIMC) in 2020.
Since 2021, I have gratefully lived in and served the community of Nevada County, the ancestral territory of the Nisenan people and Tsi Akim Maidu nations. My early love of plants and natural medicine was inspired by time spent in my grandfather’s prolific garden and through childhood exposure to acupuncture and integrative healing practices. I worked as an outdoor educator and classroom teacher with young children for many years, thus it is a great honor to continue to support children now through pediatric acutherapy. I became a wife and mother in 2020 and now am mother of 2 wonderful children. It has been a source of great joy to raise my children with the support of this medicine.
I have completed training in permaculture and grow more than a dozen varieties of Asian herbs, regeneratively. I was one of the founding members of Lilium Initiative helping to get more organic Asian herbs grown in the US. I was fortunate to experience meditation at age 16 on a trip to Thailand and have been a meditator ever since. I have also been studying yoga for 25 years. I had eye-opening experiences in Guatemala when I was 18 that began my great respect for and curiosity about indigenous healing ways. I have been a student of ancient ways of healing around the world ever since.
I have been drawn to indigenous and traditional medicine ways as well as TCM, because they have preserved precious knowledge of how the body functions and heals naturally. I am aware that these ancient medicines awaken a certain health and vitality in us that is not always measurable by modern medicine, but is undeniable in our experience.
"The depth and breadth in Chinese philosophy is so vast as to include everything and exclude nothing."
My own heritage is Ashkenazi Jewish from Belarus and Poland as well as Celtic from Wales, Ireland and England. I love to share Chinese medicine with people of all backgrounds, ages, genders, and abilities. I feel honored to practice this form of medicine, that taps into the indigenous roots of healing that all of our ancestors once knew, and thus can support our bodies to return to the balance they innately know.
Gratitude
I would never have gotten here today without the help, support and wisdom of countless teachers and kind people along the way. I, of course, start with my parents and ancestors. I come from doctors and gardeners, great cooks, and academics. My parents gave me different gifts: a great love of nature, of integrative health and of continuous learning and study. I owe much gratitude to John Kokko, LAc, whose office I worked in throughout acupuncture school and who was my acupuncturist and teacher for many years. I also celebrate all the amazing teachers I had at AIMC: Dr. Emmie Zhu who first ignited my enthusiasm for studying the classics, Dr. Nishanga Bliss, Hideko Pelzer, LAc., Dr. Lana Farson, Dr, Joyce Kwok, Koki Kawana who helped me first to sense Qi in the channels, David Wei for insisting on us building our Qi before touching anyone, Dr. Ken Morris, Dr. Amy Chang and many others.
I had the great fortune and pleasure to do Peg Schafer’s apprenticeship at the Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm in Petaluma while studying at AIMC. I was also taking care of our school garden at the time. The group of students there including Dave Melly, LAc. were instrumental in starting a nonprofit called Lilium Initiative together. We worked tirelessly to create an educational container and support system for US ecological farmers to learn to effectively farm Asian herbs. I am so grateful to all of the people who worked so hard to create that organization together and the amazing farmers, academics and others that continue to carry the vision forward.
I am grateful to Dave Melly for his support for me to learn farming technique but also to deepen into my knowledge of TCM dermatology. I am grateful to Mazin Al-Khafaji for his incredible work in the field of TCM dermatology for nearly 50 years that has greatly influenced my practice. I am incredibly grateful to Anna Weirditch for her wonderful mentorship in Jing Fang in the Hu Shi Xu lineage of Classical Chinese Herbalism which has been a foundational part of my practice.
I am grateful to Elizabeth Davis who ignited my passion for birthwork, to Atava Garcia-Sweciki who helped to awaken the healer in me, to Cheo Torres and all the curanderos at CEDEHC, to all the incredible healers of the south who preserve their indigenous healing ways through so many obstacles. And of course to the plants themselves who are the most powerful healers and helpers.
I am eternally grateful to all the masters and sages of Chinese herbs and acupuncture who preserved these ancient healing techniques, whose fruit has no less power in today’s modern world that they did thousands of years ago. I am forever grateful that we can study, learn and practice this truly precious medicine. I commit to always using these gifts with integrity and honor for the people and cultures that have so generously shared them with us. May this medicine continue to flourish and help alleviate suffering around the world.
The gentlest thing in the world
overcomes the hardest thing in the world.
That which has no substance
enters where there is no space.
This shows the value of non-action.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Zsu, Translated by Stephen Mitchell