Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 16/01) - The lights dim, a New Age trance hums from a small CD player, a patient lies, eyes closed, face up on a deep cushioned bed.

Jane Greenfield softly presses needles into the patient's body -- the arms, ankles, stomach and forehead.

Jane Greenfield, owner and operator of Wellspring Healing, stands beside a human dummy marked out with all the meridians of energy. - Jorge Barrera/NNSL photo

Greenfield moves around the patient, adjusting a needle here or there. Slowly the patient slips into a liquid universe, unsure which way to the surface.

"With acupuncture, I'm working with the body's energy," says Greenfield in a separate interview. "The early Chinese believed that all of life's processes were driven by an energetic force called Qi (pronounced chee)."

Greenfield is an acupuncture therapist. She recently set up shop on 49th Street beside Le Frolic Bistro and Bar. It's called Wellspring Therapies. Greenfield says acupuncture really works. She's witnessed it.

"I saw a friend giving treatment to a woman who had been in a car accident a few days before," says Greenfield. "The woman was in really bad shape, she had whiplash and could barely move. My friend selected points relating to the injury and the woman left laughing."

Greenfield also offers message therapy and other Chinese traditional therapies.

The former Victoria resident recently moved to Yellowknife to start her business.

"I liked the idea of the Northern community. I wanted to offer a service that wasn't there for people," said Greenfield, a recent graduate of the four-year program at the Canadian College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and a member of the International Organization of Nutritional Consultants. Greenfield says acupuncture affects the body by increasing the circulation of the blood to affected tissues, regulating brain chemistry, hormone levels and the nervous system and enhancing the body's ability to cope with stress and toxicity.

Back on the table, the patient slowly floats back to reality. Suddenly it is cold again, like breaking through the surface of the water in a hot tub.