The body has its own ability to heal. Classical Chinese medicine is built on that.
It's the same principle as learning to ride a bike.
We try to work ourselves out of a job, so that you don't have to come in all the time.
Free consult
Bring your questions. In about fifteen minutes you'll know whether this is the right place for you, and so will we.
It's not a sales pitch. If this isn't the right place for you, we'll say so and suggest where to go instead.
Your first visits
You're treated from the first visit, not just assessed. How you respond over the first two shows us whether we can help and what it will take. Often you'll see it as soon as we do.
The treatment is part of the assessment.
If what changes after the first two treatments doesn't last, the root is weaker, and it needs more care.
Expect a lot of questions, and not only about why you came. How you sleep, how you eat, how your digestion runs, what's going on at work and at home. If some of it doesn't come to mind on the first day, that's fine. It usually turns up later.
How we ask the question determines how we solve the problem.
You'll hear what's being checked while it's being checked, and why. When your hands and feet are checked, for instance, it's to see whether your body is making enough heat, and whether it can move that heat all the way out to the edges. There's an old shorthand for it: cold hands, cold digestion. The pulse at your wrist and your abdomen tell us what to do and where.
What treatment is like
Most of the needling rests on the skin rather than entering it. We stay in the room with you, and the time on the table is yours.
Where each needle goes, how it's used, and how long it stays are decided by how your body responds, not by a set protocol. The treatment ends when it's done, not when the clock says so. When the brownies are done, you take them out of the oven. More isn't better. It's possible to over-treat in a session, and to treat for more sessions than you need, and the method is built to avoid both. Between visits we look at two things: what changed in what brought you in, and whether the basics underneath it are improving: for instance digestion, bowels, sweating, temperature regulation.
Two of the nine needles described in the Lingshu, the oldest surviving acupuncture text, were made to work without entering the skin. Those are the tools we use most. Dr. Bear, David's teacher, taught him the needling techniques we now call the Dr. Bear Method.
You'll be given privacy to change, and you're draped throughout. We ask before we work anywhere new. Treat the time on the table as permission to unplug.
In most treatments, we'll ask you to try out what brought you in. Walk across the room, lift the arm, turn your head. What you notice tells us where to keep working.
In China and Japan, the word for this medicine means needle and moxa, two sides of one coin.
Moxa is dried mugwort. A small cone of it brings warmth to a point.
Mostly, the cone is lifted away as soon as you feel the heat. Sometimes it rests on a slice of ginger or a thin herbal cake instead of the skin.
Phase one: Weekly visits
Each treatment is a reset, and the schedule is training. Visits are weekly at first so the reset comes often enough for your body to learn it. As your body recovers on its own for longer, the visits spread out. Graduation is when it does that without us.
The work here is finding the root pattern rather than treating each complaint separately.
One of Dr. Bear's rules: regulate the bowels first. In classical Chinese medicine the digestive system builds everything else, so much of the early work comes back to it.
We start tracking from your first treatment. We track the things that matter to you, in ways you can count, like how many times you woke up last night. Between treatments, you keep the count too, so when something changes, you see it yourself, without being told. That count is how we decide together when you're ready for a test pause.
Your plan is set by how you respond, so we don't sell treatment packages. Too much treatment gets in the way of you becoming independent. Too little leaves you on your own before you're ready.
So we give as little treatment as possible. A schedule set in advance tends to treat too much, and then the body never relearns how to govern itself.
Tell us what's coming up in your life. A trip, a busy season at work, a family visit. The schedule bends to it, not the other way round.
When once a week isn't enough, the second treatment that week is often a shorter one.
The test pause
At some point, we skip a week on purpose. No treatment, no herbs.
This is the first real test. How your body does on its own between treatments tells us more than how you feel on the day of one. We affectionately call it a test pause.
Think of taking the training wheels off a bike. The less support you need, the less we give. If it gets wobbly, we put a hand back on, and that's useful information too.
Phase two: The visits spread out
The pause opens phase two, and this is the part that matters most.
The gap between visits widens a step at a time. Each time, we watch how your body recovers on its own before we widen it again.
Life will knock you off course along the way. A late night, a hard week. What we watch for is how your body recovers from it, and how quickly.
This is where we hand things over. Think of homework: you help your kids with it, you don't do it for them. You'll learn what your body is doing and why, so you can notice when it starts to drift. The count you started in phase one shows you how your body did over each longer gap.
Graduation
Graduation isn't a date. It comes when the goals we set together are met, and you've come back on your own from being knocked off course enough times to trust it. At that point we'll tell you you've graduated.
We succeed when you don't need us anymore. Some people find that an odd thing to hear from a clinic.
Length of care varies from person to person. Your practitioner will map out the expected phases of your care at your initial visit and review progress with you as you go.
Graduation marks the end of phase two, not the end of your time here. Finishing high school doesn't finish your education.
At graduation we ask you to fire us as your practitioner and hire us as someone who works with you, not on you.
Most visits after graduation are the ordinary follow-up. Some have more room to talk about the big picture, and the treatment follows from that. If something acute needs more care, that is what the shorter Focused Treatment is for. If your care calls for a different kind of visit, we will let you know and book it for you.
After graduation: You know where we are.
There is no maintenance schedule.
Graduates often choose to come in at the turn of a season, when something comes up, or because they find it worth their while. Coming back doesn't undo anything.
Our promises
You'll never be sold to: no packages, no plans you can't stop, and if Red Earth isn't the right fit, we'll say so and point you somewhere better.
We don't sell treatment packages. A prepaid block of treatment visits changes what the visits are for. If the month is already paid, nothing pushes anyone to make the next visit unnecessary. We'd rather you left with fewer reasons to come back.
We don't trade referrals. We refer out when it's right for you, and accept nothing for it. Where you go next should be decided on what's best for you and nothing else.
We don't set spending targets for our patients.
See care and pricing →About the herbs
Care here can be acupuncture, herbs, or both, and it moves between them as your pattern changes. Sometimes the herbs carry more of the work for a while and the visits spread out.
About the herbs →I've had acupuncture before. Will this be familiar?
Some of it will, and some of it won't. Here, most of the needling rests on the skin rather than entering it, herbs are chosen for the pattern we find, and the visits are planned to spread out from the start. Bring what you know, and leave room for something new. The free consult is the place to ask about anything that seems unfamiliar.
Still have questions?
Good. That's what the free consult is for.