I have just returned from my fifth trip to Lesvos to give acupuncture to refugees living on the island, hosted by the wonderful local organisation Earth Medicine. I spent three weeks there, the first two giving treatments at Earth Medicine’s container inside the refugee camp, the last one giving a few treatments and helping my hosting organisation with other tasks that needed doing. This included receiving and supporting the work of two acupuncturists from Switzerland sent by the organisations ASF and MDC to help out for two weeks. I arrived in Mytilene on Monday 19th June, late at nigh ..read more

Yesterday's sunset I watched the sunset yesterday, it was glorious: the huge orange sun slowly sinking into the pink horizon. I happened to notice it just at that time in the evening when the world falls silent for a moment. The birds were waiting for the right moment to sing again and we were all suspended in the eternal few seconds of stillness. I felt so comforted by this as I felt that we, for once, are becoming part, even if an unwilling one, of this “giving space” to the universe to perform its wonders.  I haven’t really been sitting around reflecting on what the current ..read more

I have just come back from a two week visit to Lesvos, where I was giving acupuncture to refugees living in the island hosted by the wonderful Earth Medicine project. I arrived in the capital Mytilene early on Sunday 13th of November after travelling all night and had the whole day to rest and prepare for the week to come. I was given an update on the changes that had happened since my last visit in July this year. The most important change was that Earth Medicine obtained permission to work from within the camp so I was to spend my two weeks working from their container located inside the ref ..read more

I cannot believe it has been 15 years since I started practising acupuncture!! It is such a privilege to be able to say this and to have met all the people I have met, each of whom has taught me something and helped me become a better practitioner in one way or another. I am often asked how I ended up doing what I do, and I always give the short answer. This is the full story of the personal journey that took me to discover all the wonderful things that Chinese medicine has taught me This journey started many years ago while I was living in London. I was in my mid-twenties experiencing chron ..read more

  I have just come back from my third trip to Lesvos to offer acupuncture to refugees at the wonderful Earth Medicine project. As times are difficult everywhere and we are all feeling it, this time I didn’t manage to raise the amount of money I aimed for but I was fortunate to collect just enough to make the trip happen thanks to the generosity of friends and family. Another example of how without help from others we can go nowhere!! I arrived in Lesvos on Sunday July 3rd, wondering if I was up to the task as I had contracted covid two weeks before I was due to fly. I wasn’t feeling 100 ..read more

  After my first trip to Lesvos in August this year, when I saw the huge need for treatment and human care amongst the refugees living on the island, I decided to go back to offer my skills and to use the needles and moxa I had left from the donations made by Balance UK and Phoenix Medical UK. Through a fundraising page, I collected enough money for my flights and my stay, which came from contributions made by friends, colleagues, and even people I have never met, to whom I am very grateful. I arrived on the island on November 20th to a surprisingly cold and windy morning. I immedi ..read more

This December just  gone, I spent two busy weeks in Chaparda, a tiny rural place in the Indian Western province of Gujarat, with a team of volunteer acupuncturists from the UK. We went as part of a project run by UK-based charity World Medicine which organises projects such as this in different parts of the world. Our aim was to offer free acupuncture to the nearby villagers, mostly poor farmers unable to access healthcare,  and also to give basic ear acupuncture training to members of the local charitable hospital set up to serve the community. Our team of UK acupuncturist ..read more

  I have just spent over 3 weeks in the Greek island of Lesvos, offering acupuncture treatments to refugees. I wanted to do this for a long time and had planned to go in the Spring 2020. The pandemic changed my plans, and when the Moria refugee camp got destroyed in a fire last September, I donated most of the funds I had collected for my trip to help refugees who had to sleep rough and had no access to food or medicines during this time. I started fundraising for my trip again this year and finally managed to get enough money to cover my flight and my stay for a few weeks. Me and t ..read more

Undoubtedly, this has been the toughest year many of us have experienced. Suffering, fear, anxiety, sickness, and death have been more present in our lives than ever before. We realised we are not as powerful and infallible as we thought, that we are vulnerable beings. I have felt much sadness for all those who have suffered so much, those who have lost loved ones, who have become sick and have been unable to recover, for those who have lost their livelihood and their ability to fend for themselves and look after their families, for those who have been besieged by so much anxiety and fear for ..read more

Everyone wants to be in good health. At least we tend to assume so as it would be crazy to wish sickness and unhappiness upon ourselves, wouldn’t it?  Yet, although most of us have some idea of what we need to do in order to be healthy, many of us fail to give ourselves even the minimal care. Worst of all, we seem to wait for sickness to strike before we even start thinking about staying healthy. How come we say we want to be healthy but actively make ourselves sick? This may be due to a combination of different factors: the ever growing list of activities and responsibilities populatin ..read more