By Marta Hernandez

Until recently, Newtonian laws of physics and nature from a few hundred years ago have been our model for our mechanical view of the world.  As this view has emphasized the world as solid and unchanging, so have we responded in our daily lives with a linear and structured way of being.  The deeper human experience and what it really means to be alive has been lost.

This mechanical view of the world has also set the stage for how we interact with our own bodies.  Feelings of isolation, inhibition and depression seem to block or dull the innate life force and intelligence within.  But with the evolving times and the increasing popularity of new fitness regimes such as yoga and pilates, we see people turning away from the repetitive style exercise systems in search of having a deeper connection with their own bodies.

Breath and movement are fundamental to all human beings.  Besides anchoring us in the moment, our breath helps us to sense ourselves more completely and impartially.  By connecting the breath and the movement, we are more able to tap into a deeper authenticity within, thus helping us to find new dynamic ways to promote health and vitality in our lives.  Breath is the impetus for all movement and by connecting to it, we find a place where the body and movement have no boundaries.

Unique to all of us is the ability to move.  Dance is our creative expression of this. Moving through restrictive patterns, acknowledging and feeling emotions or sensations stored in the body help us to not only heal but to feel the essence of who we truly are.  Feeling our body is good, but feeling good in the body is even better.

By Emilie Salomons

October 2008

As we approached the Kisoro hospital on our fourth day in town, we could see a lineup of patients winding through the courtyard and reaching around the building right up to the exit. It was 8:30 in the morning and already about two hundred people had lined up for acupuncture; the group at the front of the line had even slept overnight to ensure they received treatment. It was clear that it would be a busy day.

Kisoro is located on the southern tip of Uganda, bordering Congo and Rwanda. The cultural influence of its neighbours is very apparent in the area, who for over two decades have been escaping their turbulent homes in favor of the stability of Uganda. What is also apparent in the region is the toll that the mental and physical trauma of war, genocide, displacement, poverty and a general struggle for survival has taken upon its inhabitants.

The Pan African Acupuncture Project (PAAP) has now trained 162 healthcare workers throughout nine districts around Uganda. The healthcare workers have then introduced acupuncture as a new treatment tool into their small, rural health centres, clinics and hospitals. Kisoro Hospital was one of the largest and most advanced centres we had trained in to date, although it’s lack of functioning equipment demonstrated the great need for new, affordable and sustainable treatment tools such as acupuncture. The hundreds of patients who traveled from all around the district to receive treatment only emphasized this void in the current healthcare system.

The hospital superintendent was ecstatic about our training week in his hospital. He mentioned that although he had initially been unsure about what acupuncture actually was, the fact that our acupuncture clinic had managed to clear all of his hospital wards of patients certainly cemented his support for our work.

Pain was a very common complaint among patients, including chest pain, abdominal pain, headaches and musculoskeletal pain. Because of the strenuous way of life and limited healthcare in rural areas, many injuries had been left untreated for years. We also encountered many patients suffering from cysts, STDs, fungal infections and malaria whose health issues had long been without medical attention. In fact, we were often the first medical professionals to address the complaint.

As the word on the efficacy of the treatments spread throughout the community, so did the growth of our line of patients. The word was out, the acupuncture clinic was here, and its doors were open to everyone!

Upon our departure, as we had done the week prior in Mukono, a town just north of the capital, we informed our patients on the location of the clinics where the newly graduated ‘acupuncture protocol specialists’ were working. This way, patients could continue their treatments once we left. So, with smiling trainees, a very pleased hospital staff and the head of district health services bidding us farewell, the PAAP team headed off on our mountainous 14-hour, 300km journey back to the capital.

Two more districts, another 52 acupuncture trained healthcare workers later, my second trip with the Pan African Acupuncture Project in Uganda was a fabulous success.

Emilie Salomons is a licensed Practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Vancouver, BC.

Yoga is the process of becoming whole. It starts with the physical process of opening up tight muscles and strengthening and encouraging movement through the body and then goes much deeper. It connects not only the physical parts of ourselves, making the body more unified and graceful, but also brings us greater awareness of our minds and our emotions and how these influence, and are influenced by, the functioning of our bodies.

Yoga begins right where you are sitting now. Beginning students often feel that they are somehow disconnected from the practice because they are stiff or inflexible and that the postures as they imagine them to be are not possible. Yet this is exactly where we must be if we wish to pursue this goal, that of wholeness and self-knowledge. Simply being in the postures, for a few moments, a few deep breaths, initiates a deep process in the body. Tensions our minds wish not to recognize are brought to the surface, a humbling experience for all of us, yet simultaneously our body begins to let go. This takes time and patience and so the real challenge of yoga is to quiet the restless mind and simply let the process happen. Almost immediately we begin to receive some assistance: as the muscles relax we begin to feel the mind and the emotions relax and so the whole cycle supports itself. Yoga becomes easy.

It is appropriately ironic that the stiffest, most inflexible people are often the ones who benefit most from a regular yoga practice. Likewise, people experiencing a high degree of mental stress in their day-to-day life find tremendous calm and serenity by giving themselves permission to slow down for an hour or so each day. Time spent in active relaxation is rewarded by increased mental clarity and efficacy, and by a deeper, more satisfying sleep. The practice of physical yoga seeds a return to wholeness that spirals out into the rest of one’s life, encouraging harmony, balance, and insight. It is to consciously choose the highest path in one’s life.

Written by Chris Tucker -A Vancouver Yoga teacher… one of our teachers at the Space.