神
Return to spirit
The source to which the practice returns. We inquire beyond the definitions we have learned to inhabit, loosening attachments and remembering who we are.
IMPOWER WISDOM
仁術The art of being.
You are your own best healer.
An ongoing practice of spirit, mind, and body.
Learning to listen within, recognize our patterns,
and return to wholeness.
定如山，流如水
Still like mountain. Flow like water.
The practice of being
A return to spirit.
In mastering the body, we learn to master the mind. In mastering the mind, we learn to tune in to spirit and return to wholeness.
Spirit is the source at the heart of our practice. We understand mind and body as its expressions, intimately connected within one whole.
Attention to the body can bring understanding of the mind. Spiritual inquiry can shift the mind and change how we experience and work with the body. Wherever we enter the practice, it is a return to spirit.
One whole. Many ways of remembering. A continual return.
心
Observe the mind
We recognize our reactions, the emotions we carry, and the stories we repeat. A shift in understanding can change how we meet both ourselves and our circumstances.
身
Listen to the body
Touch, points, breath, and movement make the inquiry tangible. The body offers a way to notice, practice, and bring our understanding into daily experience.
An ongoing practice of observation, adjustment, and refinement.
We notice. We forget. We return.
Turn toward nature. Tune inward.
A fine instrument.
A lifetime of tuning.
The body is a fine instrument, full of intricacies we can learn to notice and work with.
If we take a sledgehammer to a blinking sensor, we lose the signal—and disturb the tuning around it. Can we learn to listen before rushing to silence what we feel?
Through practice, we become familiar with the instrument: what we notice, how we react, and what helps us find our footing. Understanding continues to deepen.
Can we read, learn, and let go? ⟶Bringing light to what we have not yet seen
“And the light shineth in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not.”
For us, this passage speaks to the light we bring to what remains unseen within ourselves: the patterns, assumptions, and places we have not yet understood. In that illumination, we find a way of returning to spirit.
It also speaks to the search for truth. What comes to light may be uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or not yet understood. Can we remain open enough to see?
Practice together
Circles with Jen & Ben
A point, a breath, a movement, a moment of attention. In a circle, the inquiry becomes something you can experience.
We work with self-massage, points, breath, and gentle movement, building a collection of practices you can return to yourself.
Come to learn something useful for your day, or stay with the deeper work. Circles are offered through freewill contributions.
About the circles ⟶Jen & Ben · 真本
Two starting points.
One whole.
Jen · 真
Body & healing
An endless battle with dis-ease and a career that looked great on paper but left her soul dry brought Jen to Chinese medicine. Her work begins with the body: touch, points, breath, movement, and learning to listen within.
Ben · 本
Mind & spirit
A courageous soul with a relentless drive for the truth. His words are sharp; his heart is gold. Ben brings a searching curiosity to the mind and spiritual side of our work.
For almost five years, we have been reading together, uncovering truths, stories, and wisdom covered by the sands of time. We share what we are learning as we continue the work ourselves.
Meet Jen & Ben ⟶開心
Open heart. Open mind.
心 holds both heart and mind. Here, 開心 is an invitation to open both: to listen, to notice, and to meet what arises with sincerity.
Gather & practice
Circles with Jen & Ben
仁術 · The art of being, in practice.
You are your own best healer.
Jen brings the body and healing focus; Ben brings the mind and spiritual focus. These are complementary ways into a shared practice of attention and self-understanding.
Wellness is a practice of body, mind, and spirit. We may begin with the body: a point, a breath, a movement, a moment of attention. We can also begin with spiritual inquiry and observe how a shift within the mind changes our experience of the body.
We explore the body, its points, and our experience of energy. Through self-massage, point work, breath, gentle movement, and observation, we begin to build a collection of practices we can return to ourselves.
Jen’s years of touch and observation and Ben’s inquiry into mind and spirit bring different perspectives to our circles. We explore together, listening to what each person notices. Your experience is part of that discovery.
仁術 · The art of being
This is ongoing work: listening, observing, and refining how we respond. We approach ourselves and each other with an open heart and an open mind. The care we bring to the practice matters as much as the techniques.
What we explore
01
Self Massage
Learning to find acupuncture points—穴位—and work with them through self-massage. 穴 means cave: imagine a point as a small pool along a meridian. We learn to understand the sensations we encounter, attend to what feels blocked, and encourage movement where things feel still or stuck.
02
Breath & movement
Working with breath and gentle movement, exploring how they support one another and how sensation changes as we practice.
03
Patterns & possibility
Observing the thoughts, emotions, and habits that arise. Making room for a response that is less automatic.
Many ways in.
A return to spirit.
You can attend a circle to learn something useful for your day. You can also stay with the deeper inquiry: how we identify with our experiences, what we hold on to, and what it might mean to let go.
Come with an open heart and an open mind. There is no shared creed to adopt—only a willingness to listen, explore, and discover through your own experience.
為學日益，為道日損。In pursuing learning, increase daily.
In pursuing the Dao, diminish daily.
English rendering prepared for this site.
Feeling the points more deeply
Participants often tell Jen that the points feel different under her touch—more distinct, more deeply felt, and easier to locate accurately. Her touch brings years of practice and close observation to the experience.
That sensitivity is part of what she shares in a circle: learning to find the points, recognize their subtleties, and develop a more attentive touch of your own.
Freely offered
Circles are offered through freewill contributions. If you wish and are able, a contribution helps support the time, preparation, and continuation of this work. You are welcome whether or not you contribute.
Gather where we are
Invite a circle to your community.
Milwaukee & surrounding areas · November 19–December 7, 2026
Iowa City & surrounding areas · December 29, 2026–March 15, 2027
We welcome invitations from homes, studios, parks, and community spaces along the way.
Invite Jen & Ben ⟶1:1 with Jen
Deep Dives offer time to explore a pressing concern or deepen your practice. Together, we shape daily practices and exercises around what you are experiencing. Offered through freewill contributions.
Explore Deep Dives ⟶Longer study
Courses will create space to return to a subject over time, allowing practice and understanding to deepen. Details will be shared as these offerings take shape.
About supporting the work ⟶Read & return
The Wisdom Library
Collections to explore. Passages to return to.
Our inquiry is into the wholeness of human nature: our origins, our lives as men and women, and our relationship with spirit. We read across cultures, centuries, spiritual traditions, and philosophy, gathering passages and questions that illuminate the work of being.
A collection through the year
Seasons
The seasons and the twenty-four solar terms. Observations, classical teachings, and the rhythms of nature.
Explore Seasons ⟶A collection through numbers
TCM 123
Traditional Chinese medicine and classical thought, one number at a time. A vocabulary for understanding relationships.
Explore TCM 123 ⟶Alongside the collections
Many voices. A shared inquiry.
No readings match yet. Try another word or choose “All readings.”
Partners in the practice
Jen & Ben 真本
Body, mind, and spirit. A shared inquiry.
Jen · 真
Body & healing
An endless battle with dis-ease and a career that looked great on paper but left her soul dry brought Jen to Chinese medicine. Her search grew into emotional work and spiritual inquiry.
Her tangible way into this shared practice is through the body: touch, points, breath, movement, and observation. 真 resonates with Jen’s name: true, real, genuine.
Ben · 本
Mind & spirit
A courageous soul with a relentless drive for the truth. His words are sharp; his heart is gold.
Ben brings the mind and spiritual focus to our work. 本—the origin, the root—resonates with his name. Jen is 真; Ben is 本. Together, 真本.
How we began
“Do you read?”
When we first met, Ben asked Jen, “Do you read?”
“No,” Jen said. “I’ve done enough reading for my doctorate!”
So Ben began reading to Jen. For almost five years now, we have been uncovering truths, stories, and wisdom covered by the sands of time, together.
Reading became part of our shared inquiry. Our different ways into the work—through the body, mind, and spirit—continue to meet and inform each other. Impower Wisdom is a home for that ongoing practice, and an invitation to explore with us.
A note from Jen · 真
I went looking for answers
because I was sick.
I already had a career. I had helped build a successful family business in interior design. But I was always keeping up. Money never seemed enough, and stress, anxiety, and health problems were too plentiful.
I began a master’s in Traditional Chinese Medicine because I wanted to understand what was happening to me. I wanted answers, and I wanted to question what I had dismissed as superstition.
The questions changed as I studied. I became increasingly interested in the thoughts we hold, the emotions we carry, and the stories we tell ourselves. Medicine led me toward emotional work, and eventually toward spiritual inquiry.
Going back to the source
I continued to a doctorate. My dissertation was grounded entirely in the classical texts. I wanted to look closely at the distance between translation and understanding, and to question the assumptions behind the systems through which medicine is studied and practiced.
My formal studies include a Doctorate of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, a Master’s in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a Master’s in Holistic Nutrition. The inquiry has continued well beyond those qualifications.
My practice began in 2015. It has unfolded through periods of working with others, pausing, and rediscovering the work within myself. I take time to return to what I thought I understood, to deepen my observation, and to refine my practice. For me, its measure is the quality of attention and care I bring to each encounter.
You are your own best healer.
That conviction has long been at the heart of my work. I want to share ways for people to recognize and work with their own capacity for care, attention, and understanding. The body offers a tangible way into the practice. Mind and body inform one another, and the inquiry continually returns to spirit.
Letting the inquiry change my life
I eventually closed my practice. Charging for healing no longer felt consistent with how I understood the work. I began asking a different question: who am I to heal another person? What if we begin from wholeness, and the work is remembering?
That is a spiritual question I continue to live with. I still experience pain, fear, frustration, and uncertainty. I forget. I return to the practice.
I no longer live a conventional life. I travel, keep fewer things, and make less money. I grow things, make things, and connect with the communities I pass through. Meaning and value have changed for me.
Just Jen
At different times I called myself the Roaming Healer, the Sacred Observer, and the Undoctor. Each name held something I was discovering. Now, just Jen feels right.
I like the resonance between Jen and 真: true, real, genuine. I share what I have studied, experienced, and am still working through. There is more to discover.
Jen · 真
Spend some time in a circle ⟶1:1 with Jen
Deep Dives
Put our hearts together. Deepen the practice.
You are your own best healer.
Sometimes there is something pressing. A health challenge, anxiety, a change in the body, or a pattern you are ready to understand more deeply. Sometimes you simply want time and attention to explore your practice with someone alongside you.
A Deep Dive is time for us to listen together—to what you are experiencing, what you are noticing, and what you want to cultivate in daily life.
A practice that belongs to you.
We put our hearts together to shape a daily practice around your circumstances and capacity. Self-massage, acupuncture points, breath, gentle movement, and exercises in attention offer different ways to begin.
We explore what feels useful and make it tangible: practices you can return to at home, observations to carry into your day, and room to adjust as your understanding grows.
The intention is to deepen your relationship with your own body, mind, and spirit, and to support meaningful transformation through the work you bring into everyday life.
Attention. Observation. Refinement.
My practice began in 2015. It continues through working with others, pausing, rediscovering, and refining. I bring that experience and close attention to our time together.
We begin where you are. As you practice, we can return to what you notice, refine the exercises, and explore the next layer of understanding.
Freely offered.
Deep Dives are offered through freewill contributions. Give according to your circumstances and what feels right to you. The heart of our time together is the work itself.
A place to begin
What is asking for your attention?
Begin with what you are experiencing and what you would like to explore. You can come with a specific concern or a wish to deepen your practice.
An open invitation
Invite us into your community.
A home. A studio. A park. A place to gather.
We go where we are called.
We’re Jen and Ben. We live nomadically, caring for homes and animals as housesitters and becoming part of the communities we pass through. Along the way, we share the work of Impower Wisdom.
Our circles grow out of those connections. We often arrange in-person gatherings around the places we housesit, and we’re open to discovering new areas and communities through your invitation.
Perhaps you have a living room where friends could gather, a studio, a community space, or a favorite corner of a park. Perhaps you know a few people who would welcome this work. That is a place to begin.
An open invitation · Wisconsin
Milwaukee
& surrounding areas
November 19–December 7, 2026
We’ll be in the Milwaukee area and would love to connect with people who want to bring a circle to their home, studio, park, or community.
If you have a place to gather, or know a community that might welcome us, we’d love to hear your idea.
An open invitation · Iowa
Iowa City
& surrounding areas
December 29, 2026–March 15, 2027
We’ll be based in the Iowa City area through the winter, with time to meet, share the work, and let connections deepen.
Invite us for a circle, or explore the possibility of gathering regularly during our stay.
What we bring
A circle is a place to explore the art of being through self-massage, acupuncture points, breath, gentle movement, and inquiry into mind and spirit. Jen brings the body and healing focus; Ben brings the mind and spiritual focus. We shape the gathering with the people and place before us.
Circles are offered through freewill contributions. Sharing a space, bringing people together, and making an introduction are meaningful ways to support the work.
Explore the circles ⟶1:1 with Jen
During our visits, you can also explore a Deep Dive with Jen: time to attend to a pressing concern or deepen your practice. Together, we shape daily practices and exercises through self-massage, acupuncture points, breath, gentle movement, and attention.
Like our circles, Deep Dives are offered through freewill contributions.
Explore 1:1 with Jen ⟶Let’s begin a conversation
A place. A few people.
An open heart and mind.
Tell us where you are, what kind of space you have in mind, who might gather, and any dates that could work. A simple idea is enough to start.
Beyond these visits, we welcome invitations to new places. The next connection may help shape where we go.
Freewill offerings
Support the work
Offered with care. Sustained together.
You are welcome here whether or not you contribute.
Impower Wisdom is our shared work: reading, writing, study, and practice. Our circles are freely offered. If this work has been meaningful to you, and you wish and are able, a voluntary contribution helps it continue.
Contributions help us make time for research and writing, prepare and host gatherings, and care for this space.
Give according to your circumstances, if and when you wish.
Details for making a contribution will be shared here.
Through the year
Seasons 時
Attending to the changing rhythms of nature.
A season turns. What do we notice?
This collection follows the seasons and the twenty-four solar terms: changes in light, weather, growth, and rest. A place for classical teachings, personal observations, and learning to flow with the seasons—bringing their changing rhythms into our daily practice.
All Seasons writings on WordPress ↗Through numbers
TCM 123
A vocabulary of relationships.
One number. A way into a wider understanding.
A collection exploring traditional Chinese medicine and related classical ideas through numbers. Each number opens a different set of relationships to study, question, and recognize in practice.
This is the framework for our collection, with room for more than one teaching under a number.
- 1
無極
Wu Ji · The primordial source
A starting point for exploring the undifferentiated and what precedes the distinctions we name.
- 2
陰陽
Yin & Yang · Polarity
Complementary relationships, change, and the interplay of yin and yang.
- 3
三才 · 三寶
San Cai & the Three Treasures
天地人 · Heaven, Earth, and Human—the Three Powers.
精氣神 · Jing, Qi, and Shen—the Three Treasures.Two threefold frameworks to explore in their own contexts and in relation to one another.
- 4
四象
Si Xiang · The Four Images
The fourfold differentiation of yin and yang, and its relationships to cycles and change.
- 5
五行
Wu Xing · The Five Phases
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water: a language of movement, transformation, and relationship.
Longer writings are in preparation. This collection will grow as each essay is ready.
Visit TCM 123 on WordPress ↗