Origin of Acupuncture, Confucius & Me
Approximately 1.7 million years ago, early traces of human activity were recorded in what is now China. Over sprawling stretches of time, human beings developed systems for survival, including healing. Between roughly 100,000 and 4,000 years ago, during what is often referred to as the Clan Commune period, some of the earliest recorded medical practices began to take shape—among them, acupuncture and moxibustion.
One of the most important historical texts in Chinese civilization, the Spring and Autumn Annals (compiled around 550 BCE), offers significant references to these early practices. Acupuncture instruments were described as “stones,” pointing to a time before metal needles, when sharpened stones—known as bian stone—were used therapeutically.
These bian stones were not unrefined tools, but carefully shaped instruments with multiple edges and surfaces designed for specific purposes: draining boils, treating infections, promoting circulation, and performing early forms of bloodletting. In the context of primitive society, they represented a sophisticated and evolving understanding of the body. As experience accumulated, so did the range of conditions treated. Acupuncture continues to grow in use and popularity around the world to this day!
Later interpretations of the Annals, including the Gongyang Commentary, expand on these origins, stating that bian stone therapy developed along the eastern coast of China, where communities relied heavily on fishing and frequently contended with infections. In contrast, moxibustion—a heat-based therapy using the burning of mugwort—emerged in the colder northern regions, where people lived in windy, harsh climates, subsisting on meat and dairy. Abdominal pain and digestive discomfort were common, and the therapeutic use of heat evolved into a formalized medical practice. Over time, these heat therapies became refined into what we now recognize as moxibustion. Today we use moxibustion not only for gastric discomfort but also menstrual pain, turning breech babies, arthritis, sprains and strains, raynauds, fatigue and fertility!
Confucius was born In 551 BCE in the state of Lu, during a time of political instability and moral decline. Witnessing corruption and social fragmentation, he sought to restore ethical governance and personal responsibility. His teachings emphasized reciprocity—five hundred years before Jesus, it was Confucius who believed and taught “Do unto others as you would have done unto you”—and the idea that leadership should be earned through moral integrity, not inherited through wealth or lineage. Though he never achieved the political influence he sought during his lifetime, his philosophical legacy shaped Chinese (and global) thought for centuries, influencing the ethical frameworks within which Chinese medicine developed.
Confucius had a few schools of thought which focused on social harmony, ethics, and virtuous governance rather than religion. Some of his key ideologies were to cultivate moral virtues based on benevolence, fulfilling social roles within hierarchical relationships, meaning: hierarchies can not be one-way streets, superiors have a moral obligation to be kind, fair, and protective. In return, subordinates owe them respect, obedience, and loyalty . Confucius emphasized the need to maintain a deep respect and care for the elderly, to distinguish human beings from beasts, cultivating moral character, dignity, and building a just society, starting with leadership.
A Practitioner’s Origin
As a child, I was enraptured by the concept of relaxation.
When I was ten years old, I found a deck of cards in a book store titled “52 Relaxing Rituals.” It was clearly designed for adult women—images of someone massaging her neck in traffic, lighting candles, placing cucumbers over her eyes in the bath—but I was captivated. At that age, I didn’t fully register the level of stress in my home, but I felt it. More importantly, I felt the possibility that something could shift within, and I could control that through a ritualistic act. An intentional act that could change how I felt inside and transform the circumstances, through a quiet inner power that I could control and cultivate.
Growing up with emotionally immature parents, both struggling with significant mental health challenges, I had to navigate the world alone. When I encountered these small acts of self-care, in cartoon format on a deck of cards, I was drawn to them instinctively. They felt like an achievable way to connect with what is true, and were showing me a path to a way of life that was surely out there for me. A choice, an uncomplicated, peaceful existence.
At twenty six I found acupuncture. First I received it, then I knew I wanted to live and breathe it as a forever job and way of life. I found a medicine that turns first to the spiritual state of one’s heart to identify disease and paths to healing. I found a medicine that encourages quality of life, relationships, abundance, and fulfilling one’s destiny through the therapeutic ritual of observation, laying on that table, receiving the needles, and then transforming trauma cellularly, getting back on the path of one’s heart's calling.