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Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago.
Check out her author page on Amazon.
For We Who love Our Critters
Uh-oh. One morning, Grace is walking crooked, head tilted, although the smile upon seeing you is always genuine. Then, there’s the staggering, that is laboriously righted because you are watching. When you sneak a peek, you see a furrowed brow and a distant look that might be pain.
Now, you are in a veterinary clinic. Grace cowers behind your knee—no excitement at new friends. There’s a waiting room and it’s filled with beings: humans and their nonverbal family members. The staff seems harassed, impatient and the wait to be seen has you shifting and looking, vigilant. It is not a quiet place. By the time you both take some moments with the doctor, there’s lots of talk, a blood draw, a prescription; but Grace is still walking sideways, head titled. You are in an agony of helplessness.
But, what if when you went to seek help, the clinic is quiet; there’s a collection of pottery in a subtle and elegant display in a nook next to a large window. There are multiple examination rooms, doors closed discretely. This clinic is decorated in art, carefully collected pieces of furniture, of sculpture inside and out. A dog comes in, creamy locks wafting with a stiffly perky stride, and despite the taut leash, comes to greet you—you look into a worried face, slightly aged, with eyes that are beseeching. The humans tugs taut the tether, making boisterous sounds to the human receptionist.
This is the Chi University Small Animal Clinic in Reddick, Florida—although there are locations in Australia, Germany, Japan, on six continents, with the AI search note of “making TCVM [Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine] accessible worldwide”. This quiet place with sculptures and paddocks is a school where western-educated veterinarians get a Master’s Certification in Chinese medicine for our nonhuman compatriots. Located on a lovely, still-rural county road, the facility is run almost exclusively on solar power. There are 90 acres preserved as green space with minimally intrusive, but decidedly no-skimping building construction. There’s a separate building for horses, and plenty of room to swing a truck and trailer behind the covered arena and basketball hoop, and rarely is there not some gorgeous equine arriving or departing with a slight glow.
The Chi is, in undeniable fact, a world-class facility. Phone calls are handled off-site to maintain quiet and to “minimize stress in pets, owners and staff” according to the receptionist. It is intentionally a place of peace. Treatment utilizes the luxury of time.
While Traditional Chinese Medicine might be utterly foreign in concept to many, it is a classical art, and as such has history, lineages, and complexities. All this is irrelevant to your unwell, nonverbal and potentially furry family member. For you, who loves and must pay the bill, TCM has many explanations. As a human who too has been schooled thoroughly in western thought , but who has found the seed of health by allowing acupuncture upon me, it is a remarkable experience in both personal body awareness and that too-rare sensation we have now of just taking some time being in our bodies and aware of it; the reality for all of our nonhuman companions.
Grace had continued to stagger sideways with a tilted head and what looked to be increasing nausea and vertigo after the chaos of the standard clinic experience. Despair haunted us. Then, fortune smiled in the form of Dr Xie, the founder of the Chi, who put gentle and deft hands upon her, began a single treatment of acupuncture while Grace seemed to be both watchful and dozing. Afterwords, she seemed very introspective, but her steps were steady—a respite of the crooked stagger and tilted head. The next morning, she looked at me square on, and gave me a smile that glowed—glows in mind still—the glow of pure love.
