Grace's Story
Grace's entry into the practice of Chinese medicine was an eclectic one. Raised in Madison, WI, her upbringing was steeped in East Asian philosophies. Thanks to her parents, Tibetan Buddhism, Ayurvedic medicine, yoga and Taoism, were part of foundational life teachings. This nurtured an early exploration of the “nature of reality”, a focus on internal attention, the inevitability of suffering and lessons beheld in recognizing oneself as not separate from Nature. She could only know retrospectively, that these early awarenesses became corner stones for what she would chose to pursue later in life.
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As a child, she was sensitive to others feelings and an instinctual care taker. As she aged these sensitivities started maturing into pointed considerations. She began contemplating the origins of social infrastructures (education and economic systems), questions of morality, human emotions, interrelatedness between ecological and human health, cultural diversity and what creates “disease”; not only individually but as a species. Fueled by all that collective verve, she began her undergraduate studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. This college allowed Grace to customize her own interdisciplinary program, which she built out to include research in philosophy, clinical, transpersonal & ecological psychology, holistic health models, design theory, evolutionary biology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, chemistry, anatomy & physiology and quantum physics. A portfolio of work that led her to graduate with a BA that focused on integrative systems of healing which simultaneously generate remedial effects on both social and individual issues. She didn’t call it a study of medicine then, but that’s what it was.
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In 2012, after being highly enveloped in theoretical and academic work, Grace decided she wanted to leave Washington, put her studies aside and move to Ellison Bay, WI, a place she had come to love throughout having spent a lot of childhood time there. Here she found reprieve in the wisdom of the people she befriended and worked with in local family businesses. After a couple of years living on the peninsula Grace moved to the wilderness of the Grand Staircase Monument in Utah. While there, living immersed in a spectacular unyielding environment, her reverence for the pure biological intelligence around her strengthened and this combined with the need to offer a practical skillset to her isolated desert community guided her back to a place where all that she loved converged; Natural Medicine. So she picked up where she had left off in her early 20's and reconnected with the lineage of natural medicine that stood out among the rest and began to seriously study and read translations of classical and modern texts of Chinese medicine. In this deeper engagement, it became clear that she was not going to be able to stay in the middle of the desert and also become a licensable Chinese Medicine physician. So she decided to move back to Olympia in 2018 and enroll in her first formal TCM education with National University of Natural Medicine, Professor Charles Lev, who just so happened to be teaching a four month long Foundational Chinese Medicine Theory and Qi Gong program within weeks of her return.
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By the end of this time, her personal and educational experiences with Chinese medicine had convinced her she had focused in on a good thing. But, understanding that acupuncture and Eastern Medicine faced challenges in the West, and having a practical Midwestern streak, she approached the idea of making a career of it with a hint of skepticism. To gain a bit more confidence before committing to the lengthy graduate medical program, she opted to acquire clinical experience. Under the mentorship of Dr. Jacintha Roemer, a fellow Wisconsin native, she worked as an acupuncture assistant at San Diego Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Clinic, as well as at their Pao Zhi (herbal processing) pharmacy. This time vividly demonstrated that the effectiveness of acupuncture and herbal medicine could not be denied. In 2020 she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and began a Masters degree program in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine at the Southwest Acupuncture College which she completed in 2023. Throughout the last several years she has given a large range of herbal consultations in the Herb’s Etc, Santa Fe based community health center, prepared herbal formulas at a Boulder, CO based Chinese herbal apothecary and treated many patients in the clinic. Now in her 30's, she is a NCCAOM nationally board certified acupuncturist and Chinese herbal medicine specialist.
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Grace's organically crafted and cross-disciplinary background has shaped her into an original practitioner. People who get the chance to work with her appreciate her mellow, down to earth presence and unassuming brilliance. Her creativity and dynamism as a practitioner are complemented by her intricate fusion of medical expertise, technical accuracy, thorough listening and wide-ranging insightfulness. She uses great discernment in targeting both the obvious and subtle pieces of what each person needs in their health profile, and in doing so catalyzes meaningful and transformative healing experiences.