Heart & Hands Health Collective
We are a Community Acupuncture & Holistic Health Collective in Lekwungen Territories (Quadra Village) sharing our nest with our sister business, Green Muse Herbs.
Opportunities for Holistic Practitioners
Heart & Hands Health Collective, partnered with our sister business, Green Muse Herbs are looking for individuals who are social justice oriented, and interested in working with populations that may not have extended health benefits and/or those who are typically under-served by many holistic health services in Victoria.
Serving the community since 2010, Heart & Hands provides hundreds of streamlined acupuncture sessions each month, in a supportive group setting, all at an accessible sliding scale (currently $30-60/session). Community Acupuncture’s affordability, accessibility and inclusiveness makes it a profound tool for positive social change. Community Acupuncture reaches the segment of our community that is often priced-out of accessing higher-cost private practice acupuncture.
We look forward to co-creating a welcoming, inclusive, accessible and culturally grounded wellness hub in the heart of Quadra Village!
Em Postl, Community Herbalist!
Em (they/them) is a white, queer, non-binary community herbalist, gender-affirming voice teacher, farmer, singer, and medicine maker. They grew up in Qualicum Beach on unceded Qualicum, Snaw-naw-as and K’ómoks First Nations territory and their ancestry is French, Irish and German. Em grew up spending lots of time in the garden and forest, but only started building deeper relationships with plants when chronic illness came knocking, and they realized they wouldn’t be receiving the support they needed from the medical system.
Em approaches herbalism through the lens of their lived experience living with fatigue, chronic pain, frequent illness and lowered immunity. As a community herbalist, Em is here is to offer support, validation, resources, knowledge, and care. They are here to offer herbal and holistic invitations, while also reminding people of ways in which they are already taking care of themselves. As a white settler on stolen land, Em actively works to unpack their privilege and learn about how they can further decolonize their approach to medicine and their plant kin. They believe no one is free until we are all free, and their politics and values very much inform their herbal practice.
And now we begin: the relationship between the Transporters & the practice of Aikido, by Christina Chan, R.Ac.
This last week of June 2026 has been, albeit it beyond full, stressful and hectic, was also extremely special. During this time frame, I achieved not just one, but two important goals this summer related to my two passions:
(1) Completing a 2 year acupuncture mentorship in the 8 Extraordinary Vessels (8EV) in the treatment of psycho-emotional disorders;
(2) Achieving my 3rd Kyu rank at Aikido.
I embarked on this important, transformative journey over 2 years ago starting the 8 Extraordinary Vessels mentorship October 2024. Additionally, I finally decided to step back on the mats at Victoria Aikikai, December 2024. Its fitting that the “beginning” and “end” of both of these journeys have been so impactful for me, so it was unsurprising that this mentorship and my early days of Aikido ran in parallel to one another.
A Deeper Dive: Reintroducing Jade Kulhawy-Bartlett, R.Ac.
Coming out of the early-Summer lull in bookings, we wanted to dig a little deeper and provide an opportunity for me to pull back some of the curtains on how we practice here at Heart & Hands Health Collective and what I’m all about!
Explain in your own words the approach to the ‘balance’ in Balance System Acupuncture:
The acupuncture we primarily practice here at Heart & Hands – Balance System Acupuncture (BSA) – is based on a set of classical Chinese medicine principles that are different than those taught at Traditional Chinese medicine schools. We use the term classical to distinguish it from the system of TCM, and also point to the basis of our system in the classical texts of Chinese Medicine.
