Meet your acupuncturists
|
|
|
|
Nicole Lemire (she/her) is a licensed aEast Asian Medicine Practitioner (AEMP) and has long been a student of other cultures and philosophies.
|
Elisa “Moon” Yeen Weiss (they/she) is a licensed East Asian Medicine Practitioner and Acupuncturist certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture (NCCAOM.)
|
|
I first experienced acupuncture in the treatment of my neck and low back pain. I was hit behind in a car accident when I was a teenager and struggled with the pain for years. Acupuncture services were not covered by my insurance and out-of-pocket costs were simply not affordable. Fortunately, I found sliding scale community acupuncture.
I began receiving acupuncture and started to regaining my health. After some time, I was inspired to go to acupuncture school myself. I graduated with a Master's Degree in Oriental Medicine in 2013 from World Medicine Institute. I began providing detox and addiction treatments at Hale Na’au Pono on the Waianae coast of Oahu, ran a sliding scale clinic with Hawaii Integrative Health, and became an instructor and clinical supervisor for student interns. In 2017, I moved to Washington state and began providing acupuncture at Skagit Community Acupuncture in Burlington, Unity Care NW, and Didgwalic Wellness Center for Swinomish tribe. Bellingham Community Acupuncture was opened in 2019. I’m continually amazed at what acupuncture can do for patients. When patients can afford to come back as much as they need to get the results they want, then the ancient and enduring art of acupuncture gets a chance to shine. I look forward to working with you. |
Nicole's exploration of sociology, health, and ecology, through organic farming and permaculture, ultimately led to her study of acupuncture and East Asian medicine. Observation and study of the natural world and its cycles and systems continues to inform her practice and her approach to the cycles and systems of the human body. Her philosophy of health revolves around healing relationships — between various parts of the body, between the individual and their environment, and among all living things.
She has received training in hatha, yin, and therapeutic yoga, biodynamic cranial sacral therapy, vipassana meditation, and qi gong. She is also a student of internal martial arts through the North American Tang Shou Tao Association. She spends her free time learning in the garden, playing in the ocean, dancing, and exploring. |
I grew up with my Daoist Chinese grandmother who was a Jin Shin Do acupressure practitioner, environmentalist, and human rights advocate that lived close to the land in her forested cabin on the Salish Sea. I am deeply inspired by my grandmother, Meiling, and other ancestors to reclaim the indigenous healing traditions of my Chinese, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Irish ancestry through acupuncture and herbalism. I worked many years as a field ecologist, educator, and yoga teacher before finding my way back to East Asian Medicine. I developed a proclivity for the power of observation: the cycles of nature, both within and without our bodies, reflect how we are a part of the greater cosmos. As a naturalist, poet, medicine maker, dancer, and martial art practitioner, I find endless inspiration in the mystery of nature, the forces that create us, and the potential to come back into balance with the rhythms and cycles of our earth/body. I give continued thanks to the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) and Nooksack people on whose land I was born, and it is my aim to explore settler responsibility through indigenous solidarity, and by recognizing the oppressive structures that inequitably affect specific groups who all deserve the right to healthcare and holistic healing. With the liberation of all beings as a throughline in my work, I look forward to providing care through community acupuncture. I give gratitude to all my teachers, the more-than-human kin, my ancestors, and this medicine that moves through us.
|