Qiological Podcast

Part TwoThe body speaks with a visceral language —a hint of thirst, the ache of hunger, the sudden urge for something salty. These signals can be quiet, and easily dismissed when thinking about the “common knowledge” of modern medicine. However, they carry an ancient wisdom that, if we learn to listen, can guide us back toward balance.In this conversation with Peter Torssell, we wander through the landscapes of Chinese medicine, food traditions, and the yin–yang rhythms that shape health. Peter’s approach is simple yet layered—he looks for what unites different styles of practice, invites patients into small changes with big impact, and trusts the body’s own feedback as a compass.Listen into this discussion as we explore the subtlety of provoking thirst to build yang, the way salt cravings reveal more than taste, how harmony is born of difference, and the art of choosing foods in dialogue with the seasons and yourself.

Part OneThe body speaks with a visceral language —a hint of thirst, the ache of hunger, the sudden urge for something salty. These signals can be quiet, and easily dismissed when thinking about the “common knowledge” of modern medicine. However, they carry an ancient wisdom that, if we learn to listen, can guide us back toward balance.In this conversation with Peter Torssell, we wander through the landscapes of Chinese medicine, food traditions, and the yin–yang rhythms that shape health. Peter’s approach is simple yet layered—he looks for what unites different styles of practice, invites patients into small changes with big impact, and trusts the body’s own feedback as a compass.Listen into this discussion as we explore the subtlety of provoking thirst to build yang, the way salt cravings reveal more than taste, how harmony is born of difference, and the art of choosing foods in dialogue with the seasons and yourself.

History isn’t always something you study from a distance. Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of it—shaped by the events, people, and unexpected turns that unfold around you. Those moments influence destiny, and over time, they become the foundation for how you see and practice your work.In this conversation with Craig Mitchell, we trace those threads through his unexpected entry into Chinese medicine during the HIV/AIDS crisis, the formative years at ACTCM, and the serendipitous encounters that led him to Taiwan and the translation of the Shang Han Lun. His path weaves together scholarship, clinical practice, and the kinds of opportunities that appear when you’re willing to say yes.Listen into this discussion as we explore the realities of practicing during a public health crisis, surprising opportunities that arose when pursuing medicine in Taiwan, the challenges and losses inherent in the process of translation, and why flexibility in clinical thinking is essential for treating real people in the real world.

Words shape the world. But they also limit it. Especially when we mistake translation for clarity—when really, it’s an act of interpretation, adaptation, and sometimes… a kind of poetic guesswork.In this conversation with Sarah Rivkin—a clinician, scholar, and longtime student of language—we talk about what it means to translate not just texts, but meaning itself. Sarah brings a thoughtful lens to the edges where language meets medicine, where history presses against the present, and where the clinical meets the poetic.Listen into this discussion as we explore the unseen weight of choosing one word over another, the challenges of translating classical Chinese into modern context, how diagnosis itself is a kind of translation, and the subtle power of bias in everything we do—from clinic to scholarship.

Sometimes a few needles and a willingness to help—that’s enough to start a quiet revolution.In this conversation with Richard Mandell, we trace the roots of the Global Acupuncture Project, a training-based initiative that brings simple, effective acupuncture protocols to underserved communities around the world. What started as a gut feeling and an internet search has become a decades-long effort to empower local practitioners across Uganda, Mexico, and Guatemala.Listen into this conversation as we explore the early days of the AIDS Care Project in Boston, how addiction treatment shaped a community-style model, the decision to train midwives and laypeople instead of doctors, and what it means to offer acupuncture as a “people’s medicine.”Richard’s story is a reminder that healing doesn’t need to be complicated to be profound—and that with commitment, collaboration, and a bit of boldness, even a modest idea can ripple across the globe.

What if the first step in healing wasn’t a pill, a treatment, or a diagnosis—but dinner?In this deliciously nourishing conversation we sit down with Andrew Sterman, a practitioner of tai qi and nutritional arts, lifelong musician, and author of Diet is Medicine for Home Cooks and Other Healers. We discuss how our health is shaped not only by what we eat—but how we live, digest, feel, and listen.Andrew shares how a simple bowl of carrot-ginger soup can profoundly shift the nausea in early pregnancy, and how learning to say “no” to particular foods  might unlock better digestion. He takes us through the lived reality of dietary change—from resistance to revelation—and reminds us that health isn’t just delivered in the clinic; it’s built at home.From his intertwined career as a touring musician and Chinese medicine practitioner, Andrew weaves together insights on energy, food therapy, the role of emotions in healing, and how music and medicine are both about tuning what’s gone off-key.

Some treasures aren’t just hidden—they’re buried, wrapped in mystery and legend, and waiting for the right moment to surface and return to the world of human affairs. What’s astonishing isn’t just that these Dunhuang scrolls survived—but that they journeyed from caves to libraries, and fell into hands that knew enough to recognize them for what they are: threads of ancient medicine waiting to be rewoven into our present.In this conversation with Dr. Qiang Cao and Dr. Yun Xiao, we trace the surprising journey of the Wu Zang Lun—an early text attributed to Zhang Zhongjing that was unearthed in the Dunhuang caves and made their way to London and Paris. More surprising are the texts from Korea and Japan that contain the same material. This discussion is part detective story, part historical odyssey, and a glimpse into how older medical cosmologies continue to whisper through the written perspective of doctors of the past.Listen in as we follow the wandering path of this ancient manuscript, hear the emotional moment of seeing it in person, explore how it connects pulse and physiology, and consider its relevance for clinical practice today.

Long before “cold damage” became a checkbox on exams or a buzzword among classical enthusiasts, Dr. Liu Du-Zhou was quietly doing the work—teaching, treating, and writing from a mind steeped in both lineage and clinical experience. He wasn’t just preserving tradition; he was refining it. His approach to the Shang Han Lun was rigorous yet poetic, grounded in clinical realities and shaped by decades of upheaval in 20th-century China. There’s a humility to his voice—a self-proclaimed “still-learning” doctor in his seventies—and a precision that cuts through theory to show how fire and water, yin and yang, truly move through the human body.In this conversation with Eran Even, we explore Dr. Liu’s remarkable clarity and how it comes through in a slim but potent book that Eran has translated into English. Eran walks us through the experience of engaging deeply with Liu’s thinking, from the literary style of Zhang Zhong-Jing to the physiological relevance of Qi transformation.Listen into this discussion as we trace the importance of channel theory, the overlooked presence of water pathologies in the modern clinic, the inner workings of fire and fluid dynamics, and how Liu Du-Zhou’s reflections on the six confirmations can shift the way we understand both health and disease.

Wind isn’t just a breeze, it's also an agent of change. Not metaphorical change—but literal, seasonal, even cosmological change that moves through bodies, weather, and even geopolitics. The energies of nature are not only magnificent forces that sculpt landscapes. But also unfold within us as a kind of inner weather.In this conversation with Christine Cannon, we continue our exploration of the celestial influences that shape our lives—not just in theory, but how these influences manifest in the world around us, and in the clinic. Christine draws from the rhythms of the Five Movements and Six Qi to trace how this year’s inadequate metal has influenced the first part of the year, and what to expect as we move forward.Listen into this discussion as we explore the implications of excess fire and runaway wood, the potential “revenge” of water, and the subtle influence of seasonal delay. We’ll also investigate the partnership between Imperial and Ministerial fire in bringing ideas from the still void of inspiration into manifest reality. The Shaoyin and Shaoyang—there’s a reason for why they’re both considered to be pivots.

Ever wonder if the body tells its own version of your inner story? That maybe the channels don’t just carry qi—but also the shape of your longings, the tempo of your fears, and the echo of old emotional weather? What if meridians are a kind of cartography, not just for physiology, but for the inner landscape of the self?In this conversation with Andreas Brüch, we explore how Saam acupuncture offers a tri-dimensional system for working with emotion, physiology, and the mind. Andreas brings a background in psychology and decades of clinical practice to this discussion on the inseparability of mental and physical experience—and how Korean Saam theory makes that relationship clinically usable.Listen into this discussion as we explore the tri-axial framework of damp/dry, hot/cold, and inward/outward movement; how meridians can reflect patterns of hunger, power, and satisfaction; and why emotional imbalance might be best addressed through constitutional physiology.This one’s for anyone who’s ever sensed that symptoms are also signals—that the channel system is more than flow, it’s also the message.