Seasonal Alignment Discussion: Lesser Cold to Greater Cold

This is the time of year when Yin is exhausted and so are we!

It is time to experience the stillness before the rise of yang. In this discussion we will discuss our experience of this seasonal node, and discuss ways to stay warm and imagine new life emerging. These will include tea, diet, and daoyin and qigong exercises specific to the seasonal node transition.

Leading the Discussion

Claudia is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on Acupuncture treatment for women during Labor and Delivery as well as patients recovering from Stroke. As one of a small number of US acupuncturists with a research PhD, she works actively to improve acupuncture research methodology and practice-informed research, as well as evidence-informed practice.

Claudia Citkovitz began her Chinese Medicine studies in 1997, assisting in the practice of Tom Bisio while attending Pacific and Tri-State Colleges. She also studied at the Beijing Language and Cultural Institute in China. She is currently in private practice at the White Pine Clinic in Amherst, Massachusetts.

For 17 years, Claudia was Preceptor and Director of the Acupuncture Program at Lutheran Medical Center (now NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn), a 466-bed community hospital in Brooklyn, NY. Through the program, she treated inpatients in the Neurological/Orthopedic Rehabilitation and Labor and Delivery units as well as pain and cancer patients throughout the hospital, training over 300 acupuncture students and practitioners in the provision of evidence-informed inpatient acupuncture care.

Claudia has been s a lecturer or clinical instructor at numerous Master’s and Doctoral level acupuncture programs throughout the US as well as Europe and the UK. She has published research in acupuncture during Labor and Delivery and acupuncture research methods, and completed her PhD on acupuncture during stroke rehabilitation under Volker Scheid at the University of Westminster in London. She is a peer reviewer and Editorial Board member of multiple journals, a Board Member of the Society for Acupuncture Research, and a Commissioner on the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine.

In my studies of EAM and Daoist traditions, I am reminded that after 2Oyrs in practice, it is humbling to know nothing. What fascinates me most these days is the coalescence of pre and post heaven qi, where cosmology meets embryology; and the numerology of three and eight. I seek being in relationship with heartSpirit, which provides deeper knowing-how.

Much like the rings of a spiral, reflection and awareness remind me that each stage of learning (and life) feels familiar, yet is realized from a completely different perspective. And, perhaps, all we need to know we learn in cycle one, though the richness and discovery expands with each go around.

In 2018, during my fourth pregnancy, I began a more intentional relationship with time, space and life cycles. Combining my obsession with the seasons, numerology, patterns and symbols; I began creating visual representations of the information I was absorbing and sharing to guide me. As my understanding of the Neijing deepens, my receptivity as a conduit for its wisdom supports me to be a better human, mother, partner and practitioner.