We are so so pleased to introduce Rebecca Parker. She is a delight, as a person and a practitioner. (I actually just got a treatment from her, and am feeling like a million bucks.) She has already been seeing patients for two weeks, working every Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Ellen and I dreamed about Rebecca working with us when she finished her studies. And, it happened!
Rebecca wrote the following to introduce herself.
Working at the Firehouse is like coming home for me. Before my life as an acupuncturist, I was a bicycle mechanic. I worked toward the health of my community as a wrench at Firehouse bikes, and facilitator at the Bike Church bike coop. I started hanging out on Baltimore Avenue over a decade ago, and came back to visit periodically while away at acupuncture school. This neighborhood is a unique place where passion, creativity and community sensibility mix, and I’m thrilled to serve as a neighborhood acupuncturist here. As a practitioner, I think of myself as a facilitator who guides the acupuncture recipient through the process of rediscovering their own resources. As my teacher used to say, we just direct traffic, it’s the patient who is driving the car.
One of the things I love about PCA is that it’s a place that encourages people to take responsibility for their own health, empowering the patient as much as possible. People are given types of agency over their care that they don’t get in places where they are told exactly how much to pay, taken to exactly the treatment bed that the practitioner designates for them, and told how long their treatment will last. Here the patient is encouraged to pay attention to their body, because through this relationship comes the information needed to be healthy. I love acupuncture because it reminds my body of what it could feel like. It moves my stuckness, and sticks my moveness. I love it because it’s a simple, safe, cheap, effective medicine. With Big Pharma and Big Insurance making healthcare less and less accessible, it’s really important that we have ways of reducing our reliance on these sometimes unavoidable monstrosities.
So big thanks and gratitude are due to the amazing Korben and Ellen who turned this space, that was once a dumping ground for old bike frames and a tangle of wheels, forks, and banana seats, into a peaceful sanctuary for group nap-time. Much gratitude to my current and future patients, who teach me so much about human resiliency, and to all my teachers who shared their wisdom with me. And finally, much gratitude to West Philadelphia.
