“Your body isn’t in nature; your body is nature.”
— Dr. Anne Shelton Crute, Bold Journey, October 2026
On Health, Generosity, and Having More Life Available: My Bold Journey Interview
I was recently interviewed by Bold Journey magazine about my work as a doctor of Chinese medicine, the ideas that have shaped my practice, and some of the qualities I continue to cultivate in my own life.
The conversation began with an interesting question: Where does generosity come from?
My answer began this way:
“I don’t think generosity begins with being a good person. I think it begins with an experience of enough.”
In classical Chinese medicine, our physical condition is inseparable from our experience of the world. When pain, exhaustion, fear, or chronic stress consume much of our attention, we may have fewer resources available to engage with the people and circumstances around us. When those conditions begin to change, something beyond the relief of symptoms can sometimes emerge.
This is one of the things that continues to fascinate me about acupuncture and traditional medicine. As people become more comfortable in their bodies, they may also experience more spaciousness, clarity, and a greater sense of participation in their own lives.
If this approach to medicine resonates with you, we welcome new patients at Ritual Health Acupuncture & Herbalism in Berkeley, El Cerrito, and Albany, California. Our work begins with understanding you as a whole person, not simply a collection of symptoms.
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The interview moves from this question into several other subjects close to my heart: the relationship between the human body and the natural world, the importance of timing, the cultivation of embodied knowledge, and why I believe a physician's education should extend well beyond specialized technical expertise.
The interview also gave me an opportunity to reflect on three qualities I consider especially important to cultivate:
Radical relaxation — Learning to release our resistance to reality so we can perceive more clearly what is actually happening.
Timing — Recognizing that knowing what to do is only useful when we also understand when to do it.
Embodied knowledge — Allowing understanding to develop through sustained study, practice, and direct experience, until it becomes part of how we move through the world.
These aren't qualities I claim to have mastered, but practices I continue to return to, both personally and professionally.
Running through the conversation is a question that has become increasingly central to my work: What might medicine offer us beyond the correction of pathology?
As I shared in the interview:
“For me, that is one of the deepest purposes of medicine: not to perfect us, but to help make more of our life available to us—and, through us, to the world around us.”
I'm grateful to Bold Journey for the opportunity to explore these ideas and to share a little more about the person and philosophy behind my work at Ritual Health Acupuncture & Herbalism.
Dr. Anne Shelton Crute is an acupuncturist and educator based in Berkeley, California. In addition to her clinical practice, she teaches online classes in classical Chinese medicine, Chinese metaphysics, Chinese Polestar Astrology (Zi Wei Dou Shu), and traditional health cultivation (Yangsheng).
About Dr. Anne Shelton Crute
Dr. Anne Shelton Crute, DAOM, LAc, is the founder and co-owner of Ritual Health Acupuncture & Herbalism, serving Berkeley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Her clinical practice draws on decades of study in classical Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and Tibetan medicine, with an emphasis on understanding the whole person within the circumstances of their life. Alongside her clinical work, she teaches classical Chinese medical philosophy, seasonal medicine, Chinese cosmology, and Chinese Polestar Astrology (Zi Wei Dou Shu). Her work is grounded in a lifelong interest in the relationship between health, nature, time, and what it means to live well.