{"podcast":{"title":"A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond","slug":"a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860","podcast_index_feed_id":6320860,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond/","website_url":"https://www.pebbleinthecosmicpond.com/","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/6965970a-2b97-406e-ac7a-03277b54c4cf/VbqJ8vh50gVW4WuvyuVGQlWi.jpg","author":"Sabine Wilms PhD","episode_count":52,"summary":"Tune in every New Moon for inspiring, joyful, and informative conversations with Sabine Wilms and Leo Lok on transforming ourselves, our communities, and the world, in the spirit of traditional Chinese medicine, spirituality, and philosophy. Separating fact from fiction, we aim to bring you medicine from China's distant past, translated here to meet YOUR needs today, in your personal practice, in your community, and in the clinic. Sabine Wilms, PhD, is a medical historian, recovering university professor, and author and translator of more than a dozen books on the Chinese healing arts, from gynecology and pediatrics to medical ethics and materia medica, published by Happy Goat Productions. In addition to writing, she runs the only advanced 2-year classical Chinese training program for practitioners of Chinese medicine and contributes insights from her checkered past as a biodynamic goat farmer and musician, all under the banner of her favorite phrase, “cosmic resonance,” a.k.a. the Chinese ideal of harmony between the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. Leo Lok, our \"purveyor of multiple perspectives,\" is a practitioner and independent scholar of Chinese Medicine. A nativ…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-15T16:19:46.400128+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860"},"episode":{"title":"New Year's Joy: Whales, Spring, and East-West Transmission in Pregnancy Care","slug":"new-year-s-joy-whales-spring-and-east-west-transmission-in-pregnancy-care","published_at":"2026-02-17T21:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860/new-year-s-joy-whales-spring-and-east-west-transmission-in-pregnancy-care","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860","url":"https://pebbleinthecosmicpond.com/episode/new-years-joy-whales-spring-and-east-west-transmission-in-pregnancy-care","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/f0099cbe-cac3-4cf6-a620-d69ccc1e5c5b.mp3","summary":"Happy new year of the Yang Fire horse to everybody! In this conversation, recorded on the eve of the Chinese New Year, Leo had set out to share his excitement about the work that we have been doing on our upcoming course on \"Nurturing Pregnancy.\" Sabine got distracted right at the beginning of our recording session by two grey whales passing by and then returning to feed outside her window, as the biggest (literally!) and most amazing sign that spring is truly arriving here on Whidbey Island. So this podcast meanders a bit, between Sabine's attempt to share the joy and love of a spring day, Leo's desire to share some insights on pregnancy care with Chinese medicine, and our serious contemplation of the challenges in this specialized field that Western practitioners of Chinese medicine encounter: We discuss the very unfortunate lack of access to the precious primary sources, historical and contemporary, that reflect the top quality of care that is common in East Asia. Then we explore the difficult clinical reality for practitioners in the West, surrounded as they are by a culture that considers both traditional Chinese medicinal treatments and acupuncture either as dangerous or as ineffective. We lament the unnecessary suffering resulting from the fact that patients in the West are reluctant to lean on their Chinese medicine providers during this tender period, when there is so much Chinese medicine can do! This stands in sharp contrast to China, where pregnant patients often turn to traditional Chinese medicine for addressing common pregnancy symptoms as a safer and more effective alternative to biomedical treatments. Inspired by our close collaboration these past few months in building our upcoming course on \"Nurturing Pregnancy,\" we truly want to help our listeners s…","meta_description":"Happy new year of the Yang Fire horse to everybody! In this conversation, recorded on the eve of the Chinese New Year, Leo had set out to share his excite…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2759,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860/episodes/new-year-s-joy-whales-spring-and-east-west-transmission-in-pregnancy-care/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860/new-year-s-joy-whales-spring-and-east-west-transmission-in-pregnancy-care.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}