Easing Pain for Social Change
A community course to empower us to take care of ourselves and each other when the healthcare system doesn’t.
July 14 - August 15, 2026
Tuesdays 4 - 5pm Pacific, Saturdays 11:30am-12:30pm Pacific
Cohort capped at 30 people
Enrollment closes July 19, 2026 11:59pm Pacific
Start for $5 and get a full refund after week 1 if it’s not a fit.
The problem: healthcare is inaccessibly expensive and bureaucratically difficult to navigate. But the crises of our time have tangible, physical effects on our bodies and minds.
We need care now more than ever, but it's really hard to get it.
The solution: we learn how to care for ourselves. We're not waiting on anyone to save us. This course draws on millennia of Chinese traditional healing knowledge… framed and presented jargon-free, in a trauma-informed, project-based, Global Majority-centered way.
I come to the healing arts through social justice community organizing.
I started organizing for Environmental Justice with the Coalition to End Environmental Racism as a teenager and engaged in peaceful civil disobedience with Rev. Dr. William Barber II and the North Carolina NAACP at 19 years old.
I majored in Africana Studies at Brown University because my mother raised me to connect the dots between my experience as a biracial person and the structural racism in our society.
My courses and teachers showed me that systemic violence harms the body… Over generations, shaping social determinants of health that mean oppressed people consistently have shorter lives with more pain.
I braid my maternal legacy of racial justice organizing with my paternal lineage of Taiwanese doctors who delivered babies and treated patients through multiple occupations of our ancestral homelands. I realized that I could practice epigenetic alchemy by reclaiming the traditional folkways that our colonizers taught my family to be ashamed of… and use those modalities in service of collective liberation.
After seven years of doctoral Chinese medical training, I’m now a mother entering a profession that’s falling apart. With the Dept of Ed predicting that 98.1% of alternative medicine schools will fail the Do No Harm earnings test next year, the pipeline for acupuncturists is collapsing… As healthcare premiums and copays rise and the structural violence continues.
For three years, I’ve been sharing the modalities and information I took on six-figure debt to reclaim for my people and my ancestors…
Because we take care of us.
Our ancestral folkways have always kept our people going.
Healing is inaccessible to many of us who need it the most. I went without a PCP for a month of postpartum because of glacially-slow bureaucracy. It took months for my baby to get coverage. I had to use what I know from 7 years of acupuncture school to care for our family.
I have over $109,000 of acupuncture school debt. I won’t pass this price-gouging on to my people. Healing that’s unaffordable is inaccessible.
Through sliding-scale, payment plans, and skill-trade, our Dandelion Healers program has trained 35 Healing Justice practitioners of whom 94% are Black, Indigenous or People of Color, and 100% women and/or members of the LGBT community
Through donation-based workshops with partner organization SOVERN, I’ve trained dozens of people in ear acupressure that folks have taken to encampments, Altadena fire relief, and events for loved ones of incarcerated people.
I distributed over 350 zines bilingual zines teaching community acupressure at LA Pride, to Octavia’s Bookshop, at the Survival Wealth Summit, to farmworker communities and organizations supporting neighbors targeted for racial profiling.
I’m also a professional educator who’s designed and facilitated curriculum at the state (Massachusetts), municipal (Detroit Public Schools Community District), and district (Pendergast Elementary School District) level.
So I bring a background in the science of adult learning, project-based pedagogy, and culturally-responsive teaching that I have developed through academic study at Brown University and professional work as a consultant for AdaptiveX, an award-winning, GSA Schedule contract holder and IACET-accredited professional services and software company.
Learn how to support people in pain, safely research herbal supplements, and de-escalate overwhelm and panic for yourself and your loved ones.
This draws on training that cost me over $100,000 and seven years of my life.
You get the most useful parts for $5 down.
I sorted through thousands of hours of classes full of jargon (both Western and Chinese medical) and priced out of reach of ordinary people… to focus on what is the most useful, easy to do, and important for health and safety.
What you have on the other side of this course
Hands-on healing skills + knowledge
Acupressure protocols for the entire body and multiple conditions based on what you and your classmates want to learn about…
So that you can give your loved ones some relief when there’s no appointment open for weeks but the pain doesn’t stop.
Have aging parents with arthritis? We’ll go over acupressure points for that.
Herbal awareness
Herb-drug interactions to be aware of based on what substances you and your classmates want to study… because 60.2% of US adults use dietary supplements and 46.8% take one or more prescription drugs.
So you can talk to your loved ones about their medications rather than taking the health food store rep’s word for it.
Those aging parents are on a bunch of meds and you want to check on the supplements they’re taking to see about herb-drug interactions? We’ll focus on those specific cases.
Embodied de-escalation tools
How to use your breath + body to get out of fight-or-flight through qigong and taijichuan movements…
Because living in polycrisis means we’re going to get dysregulated, and we need tools to get ourselves and our loved ones through the barrage of shock and awe.
Struggling with anxiety, perimenopause, or vicarious trauma and exhaustion from community care work? We’ll focus on acupressure points and embodiment practices specific to those issues.
July 12 - August 15
Tuesdays 4 - 5:00pm and Saturdays 11:30am - 12:30pm Pacific*
We will meet on Sunday, July 19th instead of July 18
Week 1: Head, Neck, Sensory, Neurological
Week 2: Chest, Upper Back, Lymphatic, Cardiovascular, Respiratory
Week 3: Abdomen, Mid-Thoracic, Gastrointestinal, Liver, Kidneys, Gallbladder
Week 4: Lower abdomen, Lumbar, Reproductive, Urological
Week 5: Shoulders, Hips, Extremities, Bones, Joints, Fascia
Live on Zoom with recordings available for 3 months after the end of the course
The mission
Our communities are empowered to help ourselves and each other reduce the harm of systemic violence. Regardless of what broligarchs do, we remember and pass on the medicine traditions that kept ancestars of the Global Majority alive in the face of vicious oppression for centuries. We carry on their legacy of care work, meeting brutality with sweetness, refusing to abandon each other. We take our power back by cherishing the folkways of our ancestors and using them to nurture, nourish, and tend to the people that dominant society discards. We heal our neighborhoods from margins to center (hooks). We practice the radical love of Healing Justice. In studio apartments and on tattered couches, at bus stops and after direct action, we give our bodies gentleness and answer the harm with healing.
FAQs
Email hello@epigeneticalchemy.com if this doesn’t answer your question, and we’ll get back to you within 1 business day during open enrollment (through July 19).
-
Anyone who has a body and loves people with bodies. Seriously, it’s designed to uplevel our collective skills in community care because we are clearly all we’ve got. It’s also great professional development/review for Healing Justice practitioners. One graduate of Epigenetic Alchemy’s Dandelion Healers Cohort now works full-time at an abolitionist healing organization!
-
If online learning doesn’t work for your learning style and access needs, this isn’t the offering for you. We use Zoom and Google Drive. Come join us in West Adams at SOVERN for donation-based, in-person learning 7/18 and 7/25 <3
If you don’t see a connection between social justice and healing, don’t have equity as a core value, think that we create 100% of our own reality and must take personal responsibility for macroeconomic and geopolitical realities… Then there is a worldview misalignment that probably wouldn’t satisfy any of us. You would probably be happier at a mainstream Chinese healing institution.
However, I’m serious about the field being in upheaval. The Dept of Ed. is predicting 98.1% of alternative medicine graduate institutions will fail the “Do No Harm“ earnings test. Even if you have a cool $250k in the bank to pay for a Master’s or Doctorate in Acupuncture + Chinese Herbal Medicine, there is no degree program shorter than 3 years… but the earnings test will cut off federal funding for schools within 2. If schools have half their revenue from people indebting themselves (all but 2 of the remaining 44 schools), they might not survive long enough for you to complete the course of study and get licensed. And if 98.1% of schools close, then the accreditor might fold under loss of revenue, so those schools that don’t rely on loans are facing challenges as well. It’s not a good time to enter this field: wait at least 4 years, please.
-
No. You are learning acupoint locations for massage, including contraindications, but not how to needle. Acupuncture is a “highly-regulated, cash-poor profession” (Lisa Rohleder) that is going through what’s being called the acupocalypse because of untenable debt-to-earnings ratios. Instead of getting stuck in this field, you get the points and information about how to use your own hands to activate their healing power… which is great because lots of people are scared of needles, anyway.
-
You and your classmates tell me exactly what conditions, medications, and situations you’re dealing with. I built the curriculum around our course participants’ specific concerns. This is tailored to what is most relevant to you and your loved ones, equipping you with specific information relevant to your exact needs.
By joining, you will shape what we learn. Instead of talking at you, we are listening and co-creating curriculum around your priorities.
-
Great question, keep scrolling through this page and check out even more testimonials here. You can also email directly for a recorded class; not putting it directly on the internet to protect participant privacy.
You can also try the first week for less than $40 and get a full refund, no questions asked, if it’s not a fit.
-
There is a sliding-scale based on the honor system, and even the highest tiers are less than 1% of market rate for what this cost to create. There are payment plans so you can start for less than $40 and you can get a full refund through the end of the first week, no questions asked.
Prices go up after the first class. If there is a different payment plan that would work for you, let’s chat about it.
Skill-trade options are available only to past clients and those Camellia knows personally because people have taken advantage of that in the past.
-
Free refund, no questions asked, through July 19th (the first week of the course.) Let us earn your trust. After that, our policies apply.
-
I’m doing a donation-based training series at SOVERN in July where no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Details HERE.
Also, email hello@epigeneticalchemy.com If you feel like this is a YES in your heart but price is a barrier. I need to make sure I do pay myself for at least some of the labor, time + study I'm pouring into this, I am hoping to be able to afford ASL or multilingual translation if possible, and I truly get it and will try my very best to work with you.
-
We will turn on closed captioning and the space is trauma-informed, with a focus on the Global Majority and multiply-marginalized communities. In order to be able to afford ASL or translation into other languages, we will need people to pay on higher tiers of the sliding-scale to compensate translators for their labor.
-
Not this year and possibly not ever. One reason I’m doing this is to break through my super-senioritis in acupuncture school and remember why I started this: to serve my people. Another reason is that I will be pivoting Epigenetic Alchemy soon based on spiritual guidance and the state of the profession. With a little baby and big student loans, I have to make changes so I can pay bills that don’t accept barter. The dream of offering affordable traditional healing is lifelong, but in this season, I will have to pause the low-earning work until I can reduce this six-figure debt. This is kind of a bittersweet last hurrah for now, as the community clinic of my dreams isn’t doable with my current financial reality.
-
Absolutely not. This is an effort to up-level our collective baseline knowledge of layperson community care tools.
Camellia is not teaching this course towards any level of licensure or certification. Attendance does not create a patient-practitioner relationship and Camellia is not treating any health conditions. Completion of the course is not sufficient to legally practice medicine in any state, and that is not our goal.
The vision is for this information to be part of your toolbox like a chicken soup recipe and Vick’s vapor rub, knowing how to do a límpia with leaves and an egg, etc. It is not a substitute for medical care with a licensed provider and is actually inspired by Camellia wanting Western medical treatment but not being able to access it, and having to do their best in the interim.
-
No. You are accessing informational wellness content as a layperson.
-
Yes. Here’s an itemized breakdown:
* This course covers/draws upon information learned during the following classes, which cost $320-$350/unit: Herb-Drug Interactions ($350), Acupuncture Point Therapeutics I and II ($1920), Integrative Pharmacology ($960), Intro to Meridian Therapy ($640), Acupuncture I, II, III ($2880), Tuina & Acupressure ($960), Scalp & Auricular Acupuncture ($640), Chinese Medical Terminology ($640), Principles & Theories I, II, III ($2880), Diagnosis I & II ($1920), Intro to Chinese Herbal Medicine ($320), Herbal Lab I & II ($150), TCM Herbal Materia Media I, II, III ($2880), TCM Herbal Formulas I, II, III ($2880), TCM Nutrition ($1920), Herbal Formula Construction ($1920), TCM Herbal Patent & External Medicines ($1920), Taoism I, II, III ($960), Self-Healing Qigong ($320), Eight Treasures Qigong ($320), Dao-In Qigong Level I ($320), Harmony Taiqiquan ($320), InfiniChi Qigong I, II, III, IV ($1280) Healthcare Law & Ethics ($320), Western Medical Terminology ($640), Anatomy & Physiology I, II, III ($2880), Pathophysiology I & II ($1920), Western Clinical Medicine I & II ($1920), Biomedical Acupuncture ($320), History of Medicine ($640), Principles of Public Health ($640), Intro to Patient Care ($640), Clinical Theater & Observation ($495), Clinic Residency ($9900), Mental Wellness & Patient Care Psychology ($640), Qigong & Meditation for Cancer patients ($320), Crane Style Qigong ($320), Qigong for Weight Management ($320), Chen Style Taichiquan Sword ($320), Harmony Taichiquan Level 2 ($320), Eight Treasures Qigong 2 ($320), Dao-In Qigong Level 2 ($320), Intro to I-Ching Acupuncture (320), residency in Taiwan at Taipei City Hospital and Tzu Chi Hospital ($1750 not including round-trip airfare from LA). Camellia is paid minimum $125/hour for curriculum development and facilitation. For 2 hours facilitation and 2 hours prep for 5 weeks, that’s $3125 of labor, not counting billable hours for sales, marketing, admin and customer support.
We take care of of us.
We take care of of us.
800+ people served
3 cohorts of 92% BIPOC healers trained
230+ hours of free acupuncture in 2025
50% average reduction in pain after 1 session
Ian
“To anyone considering working and/or collaborating with Camellia, there isn't a shred of doubt in my mind to recommend and encourage you to follow your intuition and gut in reaching out and setting something up with them. I reached out to Camellia, after getting to see and know them for almost a year through a donation and spiritual social justice based organization called Moon Crew as well as their content on Instagram, because, as someone who additionally has had the opportunity to attain an education in Sociology and has had practical experience in community organizing and activism, lately I have been feeling out of balance with Empath Burnout and in my capacity to be an effective member for the collective and within my positionality for which I was given at birth, with my Natal Chart, to help in the movement towards spiritual and material liberation and transformative justice. I am so thankful for the soul's work I have been doing up until this point, towards my generational and ancestral trauma, that it felt like a natural fit for me to inquire about Camellia's services - as the beautiful human being she is - and the work they've done thus far to help with the Collective.
I can say, after only having one session thus far and looking to continue our work together, that it is completely worth it. Camellia's ability to have this innate sense of compassion, spirit, and understanding of the material and spiritual realms allows for them to have an array of options available to people so that you have the power and choice to commit to doing the work of healing generational and ancestral trauma, in addition to your lineage, so that you can show up more equipped, prepared, and with a better sense of awareness to serve and balance yourself and the role you play within the Collective. Camellia is utterly meticulous, a benefit and highlight of her Virgo Rising, which resonates heavily with myself, that I feel we need to have a session just to go over the information they provided during the first session! It makes me feel elated, safe, and seen to know that I have someone on my team who is as invested in the work and wants me to succeed and be the best version of whom my soul knows I already am and will be becoming; simply put, it's transcendental yet rooted and grounded in balanced personal and collective realties.
I look forward to the opportunities of our work ahead and to sink my teeth into the delicious and decadent material they offer and provide as a guide, teacher, healer, amongst a host of other defining titles and characteristics about Camellia. If you're asking yourself, "Should I take the leap? Is this work right for me? Is it something I can truly invest in?" the answer is - simply - yes. Do it and you will not regret it.”
Rev. Brendan Curran
Dear friends,
It is with great enthusiasm that I share the story of support and healing that I experienced having had the privilege of receiving Infinichi treatment from the wonderful and brilliant Iyalorisa Camellia... Camellia offered this opportunity to me during a time in my life when I was processing the grief of a traumatic loss. I was so consumed by grief that I didn't even notice the extent to which I had become alienated from my own body. I was not eating well. I lost 50 pounds in just a few months. I had fallen back into a former smoking addiction and I was chain-smoking like it was my job.
Infinichi treatment offered me the re-set I needed to establish myself on a path of self-care and recovery. Camellia demonstrates intuitive understanding and exudes great compassion and calm. During the treatment, with her warm and gentle voice, she welcomed me into a realm of inner vision and light and helped me associate the soothing energy felt in that space with my sense of embodiment. This gentle yet powerful treatment welcomed my awareness back to a state of balanced union between mind and body from the inner chaos and distress I was feeling. During the treatment, I felt warmth and calm throughout my whole body in a way that made me feel safe and secure in my whole being.
In the days following the treatment, I noticed my desire to smoke was replaced with an appreciation and mindfulness of my breathing. I noticed myself feeling hungry when I was actually hungry. Since the treatment many months ago, I have not picked up a cigarette and have no desire to smoke. I began appropriately nourishing my body and caring for my heartbreak in self-loving rather than self-destructive ways. I remain incredibly grateful for this treatment and feel privileged to have met Camellia. I hope that all those seeking healing in mind and/or body have the opportunity to benefit from the profound skills and services offered by this very special human being who is a truly gifted healer.
E.
I have chills all over my body and tears in my eyes. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I am so humbled by your light and open arms... Your work, the very little I have seen, exudes so much care, comfort and light. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us all.
“I feel so much better and lighter and present right now.”
Natalie
“[Y]ou are amazing. a star candle & a comet, a whole meteor shower!”
Rachel
“I’m continually feeling healed by the wisdom I learned from [Camellia]… Mistakes are medicine. This gets me out of the shame and guilt cycle every time.”
Jordyn
-
![]()
This in-person workshop at Sovern LA was truly exciting and recentering for me. I appreciated the grounding of this lineage of acupuncture within liberation and social justice movements. I knew I was in the right place, with the right teacher! The pace of learning and on-hands practice was helpful to integrate the teachings more quickly.
kjw
-
![]()
Camellia is a thoughtful, gentle and intentional healer. They bring their full selves to sessions and are supportive in any way they are able to be. I first went to them for treatment on a rash that no dermotologst could heal. The rash is 100% healed and i feel much better in my own skin.
Natalie Marrero
-
![]()
"It increased my feeling of bodily safety."
Equinox Ancestral Embodiment participant
-
![]()
Highest praise and gratitude to Camellia for their acupuncture treatments this past winter during a visit to LA. Through acupuncture and topical herbal medicine gave me great relief, addressing both persistent knee pain I had been experiencing and pain in my left arm from a recent fall. They listened to me, and provided detailed insights and comfort throughout my sessions. I look forward to my next visit so that I can receive Camellia’s expert compassionate care again.
Nancie McDermott
-
![]()
Camellia, is absolutely amazing at what she does. Camellia, listens to what you say and makes suggestions. I feel so much better after my treatment. I can't wait to go back. Camellia, has helped me in so many ways. She has encouraged me to take care of myself and listen to my body. Camellia explained in a simple manner how Acupuncture can help the brain and body. Personally, for me, I am happy with my treatment and I am so grateful for all the help I am receiving.
Cathy Doyle
-
![]()
“[J]ust wanted to thank you for the workshop yesterday. I went for a walk after the workshop and was practicing the visualizations and movements and breathwork and felt really connected to everything around me and my ancestors too… I would practice scanning my body and breathing and shaking my hands and felt fear leaving my body… You’re a great facilitator and your visualizations and explanations really resonated with me. Looking forward to more of these offerings from you!”
J.
-
![]()
"Camelia’s work starts immediately with their greeting. It sets the environment and tone. They welcome you and save space for you to feel comfortable with the experience. I feel so valued and seen which helps me embrace healing opportunity."
M.S.
-
![]()
“I can [definitely]… feel an energetic shift today! Feeling more joyous and excited about life… the stress I felt is gone… You are so amazing at [I]nfinichi!”
S.Y.
-
![]()
“The InfiniChi healing i received from Camellia was a wonderful(ly) healing experience. I appreciated her insightful explanation prior to the session of how InfiniChi works. During the healing [I] felt my electrical wiring receive an energyboost; subtle, focused and powerful. The healing also felt as a process of repair, letting go and harmonization. I highly recommend her work.”
Emma
-
![]()
“[O]ur conversation - this sounds melodramatic, but it felt like you parted the clouds. I feel so relieved, seen. So much calmer. A bit more ready to remember how to listen to myself. Thank you so much!”
P.
-
![]()
"Thank you so much. I teared up during that visualization. I feel so seen and held in this moment."
Equinox Ancestral Embodiment participant
-
![]()
Camellia has an amazing sensitivity with patients! Particularly in listening to and holding space for what you're going through, and also in energy work. In one appointment with Camellia, I felt like a lot of detritus was expelled by my body. I got a lot of relief from the acupuncture and I will be back for follow-up care!
Sanyu Estelle
-
![]()
Camellia Lee is a superb wellness healer. I have received acupuncture treatments by her that have greatly improved pain I often feel in my sacral iliac, tension in my shoulders and also am able to increase and realign mu energy. She not only listens but is highly intuitive in how she feels my energy. She is deep thinker which has resulted in her loving manner and desire to heal her clients. I feel like I am being heard, and I am being healed with her calm technique and energetic hands and acupuncture needles. I leave her healing room with tools and love of self inside and out! Make an appt NOW. And purchase her book, Elemental Healing - - a must in my search of who I am and... aspire to be. Her care of community to raise the vibration of our world is highly appreciated!
Linda Yudin
-
![]()
Camellia gives incredible, kind, care and shares a wealth of knowledge with sweetness. They are incredibly thoughtful, skilled, and gentle, and always teach me so much! This is true loving community care & mutual aid!
Isabelle Lee
-
![]()
Camellia performed [Acupunture] on me and it was so relaxing for my entire body. I highly recommend seeing her!
Charlese Antoinette
-
![]()
I was fortunate to receive a deeply healing acupuncture treatment from Camellia of Epigenetic Alchemy. The care, integrity, and gentle strength they practice with is truly touching. I am grateful for the work they do for the communities they serve and how it impacts the larger collective.
Felicia Richards
-
![]()
Camellia is a unique medicine practitioner with an incredible wealth of knowledge. They not only draw from their deep understanding of Doaist medicine, but also bring in other modalities and foundational principles about what it is to be human. They are both rooted in science and exceptionally intuitive. I highly recommend seeing Camellia for acupuncture and overall human support!
Robyn Nisbet
-
![]()
I had a nurturing acupuncture session with Camellia Lee. Camellia is a very caring and thoughtful healer. I felt rejuvenated after the acupuncture treatment.
Will Lee
-
![]()
Camellia is a knowledgeable, caring and respectful holistic medicine practitioner, with an emphasis on eastern medicine. I highly recommend her for any of your holistic/alternative care needs.
Avila Santo
-
![]()
Camellia was so informative and amazing at the survivor wealth summit! I received ear acupressure and she even educated me on the history of its use by the Black Panthers for healing justice!
Rachel Z.
-
![]()
Camellia took the time to explain the history of acupressure and how it's been co-opted by white people who made it inaccessible to the very indigenous folks who started it. I didn't know about the young lords. I didn't know about the 5 acupressure points. I learned a lot. They also took the time to provide me more resources to keep learning about it after our appointment.
B.G. (They/them)
-
![]()
"Every time I expect [the acupuncture pin] to hurt, it doesn't... I feel wonderful."
S.A.
