The Body Remembers the Way: Fascia, Telos, and the Medicine of Orientation

For over two thousand years, Chinese medicine has described an intricate system of meridians—channels through which Qi, or vital energy, flows to sustain health and vitality. Though these channels have long guided acupuncture treatment, they remained invisible to anatomical dissection, and thus, to modern science. Now, advances in fascial research, embryology, and bioelectricity are beginning to illuminate what ancient physicians perceived through palpation, intuition, and clinical observation: that the meridians may always have been present, not as metaphor, but as anatomical truth.

As the Huangdi Neijing states:

“The twelve channels are where diseases are born and where they die.” (Suwen, Chapter 17)

The integrity of these channels—now increasingly seen as fascial structures—is central to life’s organization. They are more than lines; they are living trajectories of form and function, woven into the body’s deepest architecture.

Fascia: The Tangible Web Beneath the Surface

Fascia is the continuous, three-dimensional connective tissue network that encases and interpenetrates every organ, muscle, bone, and nerve. Once considered inert, fascia is now understood as a dynamic, intelligent matrix—capable of conducting mechanical force, electrical signaling, and intercellular communication. Within this matrix, hyaluronic acid (HA), a viscous, gel-like substance, plays a key role in lubricating fascial layers and facilitating their gliding motion. Often described as a “slippery pink slime,” this fluid environment supports the smooth transmission of information across the tissue web. When hydrated and healthy, HA enables fascia to remain pliable and responsive, acting as a conductive medium for biochemical signals and mechanical tension. When stagnant or densified, it can thicken, impede movement, and disrupt signaling. Thus, fascia not only links disparate structures into an integrated whole—it serves as a conduit of dynamic responsiveness. It may represent the biological foundation of what Chinese medicine has long called the meridian system.

As the Neijing notes:

“The channels link the interior with the exterior, join the upper with the lower, and integrate the left with the right.” (Lingshu, Chapter 10)

Dr. Daniel Keown, a Western physician trained in emergency medicine and Chinese acupuncture, makes this connection explicit in The Spark in the Machine. With his background in embryology, Keown observes that during development, the human body forms along fascial lines of tension and signaling. He argues that Qi is not an abstract substance but the bioelectrical impulse that organizes life, from a single fertilized cell to a breathing, walking human being.

In his view, the meridians are the fascial planes through which this organizing intelligence flows. Acupuncture is not mysterious manipulation but targeted intervention within a living anatomical guidance system.

Embryology and the Geometry of Becoming

Embryological development offers a striking parallel to meridian theory. In the earliest days of life, form emerges not through imposed design but through self-organizing principles—lines of force, fields of tension, and morphogenetic signaling that guide the body’s unfolding from a single cell into a complex, spatially ordered organism. Neural crest cells migrate along invisible corridors of electrical charge and chemical gradient, tracing what appear to be prefigured routes—routes that often mirror the trajectories of classical meridians. The primitive streak forms the body’s midline; somites segment and organize musculature; organs spiral and fold into their precise anatomical homes. This complex choreography occurs in silence, without conscious control, guided by an inner directive—a telos—that shapes structure, function, intention, and directionality.

At this level, Dr. Daniel Keown’s observations in The Spark in the Machine become profound. As an embryologist and physician, he points out that the same fascial planes and tensions that guide the developing embryo do not vanish after birth—they persist. These planes become the anatomical substrate of the meridian system. The fascial continuities that once oriented the embryo’s growth now support the adult body’s coherence. The bioelectrical cues, mechanical stress lines, and fluid dynamics that shaped the embryo’s form now function as communication, regulation, and repair pathways. From this view, the meridians are not abstract lines imposed by tradition, but residual architectures of becoming—tissue-based records of how the body is formed and maintains its integrity.

In this light, the meridians are not simply energy highways or symptom maps—they are the afterimage of our embryological story, still active and still organizing. They reflect the body’s original instructions: to connect, coordinate, and orient toward health. In stimulating a point, the acupuncturist is not introducing something new but reawakening a memory—an echo of the body’s first movement toward order.

Extraordinary Meridians: The Deep Web

Beyond the twelve primary meridians lies another dimension of the body’s internal connectivity: the eight extraordinary vessels. These channels, first described in the Huangdi Neijing, function outside the regular flow of daily Qi and blood. Rather than circulate in bilateral, rhythmic patterns, they serve as deeper reservoirs and regulators, absorbing excesses, stabilizing imbalances, and storing the latent forces that underlie growth, adaptation, and transformation. 

As the Neijing states:

“The eight extraordinary vessels are like reservoirs. They absorb overflow from the regular channels and irrigate the body when needed.”

(Suwen, Chapter 62)

These vessels trace nonlinear, often midline trajectories that reflect the core architecture of the body—pathways that correlate closely with embryonic development and the anatomical scaffolding of deep fascia. Unlike the superficial meridians corresponding to muscle groups and sensory patterns, the extraordinary vessels align with the deepest fascial planes, connecting the spine, pelvis, cranium, and viscera through subtle, continuous force lines. These planes interface with the autonomic nervous system, vascular structures, endocrine glands, and reproductive tissues—systems responsible for regulation, identity, and resilience.

Fascial anatomy offers a compelling mirror to this classical view. The extraordinary vessels are not discrete tubes but patterns of tension and receptivity within the connective tissue matrix—fields of influence rather than fixed pathways. They regulate developmental timing, trauma processing, reproductive cycles, postural alignment, and the integration of life experience into form. Their functions suggest a system not just of flow, but of deep regulation—a constitutional architecture more than a circulatory route.

Lonny Jarrett, a contemporary scholar of Chinese medicine, interprets the extraordinary vessels as carriers of archetypal momentum—forces that precede individuality yet shape its unfolding. He writes:

“The extraordinary vessels are the record of our original instructions—the archetypal forces that shape the narrative arc of a life.”

In this view, these vessels are both anatomical and existential. They contain the imprint of ancestral inheritance, gestational formation, and future potential. They hold the latent shape of a life’s direction—its ming, or destined unfolding—not as a fixed fate, but as a capacity awaiting expression. When trauma, stagnation, or disconnection obscures this shape, the extraordinary vessels offer a pathway for reintegration. To work with them is not only to regulate hormones or posture—it is to touch the deep rhythms of becoming, and to reawaken the blueprint of a coherent life.

Zheng Qi, Telos, and the Path of Alignment

“When upright Qi is secure within, pathogenic factors cannot invade.” —Zheng Qi cun nei, xie bu ke gan – Suwen, Chapter 33

In Chinese medicine, Zheng Qi—or “upright Qi”—is understood as the body’s core organizing force. It supports structural integrity, physiological balance, and the ability to adapt and repair. When Zheng Qi is functioning well, the body maintains alignment, repels illness, and restores order after disruption. It also supports a person's capacity to stay connected to their inner direction—what Chinese medicine calls the Dao, or natural way.

In Western philosophy, a related idea appears in the concept of telos—the inherent end or purpose toward which a person naturally moves. A seed’s telos is to become a tree. A human being’s telos is to grow into the full expression of their nature. Telos is not a fixed outcome, but a directional process, shaped by internal design and responsive to life’s unfolding. It reflects not just what a person becomes, but how they remain oriented—physiologically, emotionally, and developmentally—toward that becoming.

As Aristotle wrote:

“The good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, in a complete life.” (Nicomachean Ethics, I.7)

This “good” refers to eudaimonia—a state of flourishing that arises when a person lives in alignment with their nature. In this way, Aristotle’s vision parallels Daoist thought: the Dao represents the universal order that underlies life, while telos is the individual's unique expression of that order. To live one’s telos is to walk the Dao in one’s own form. And Zheng Qi is the physiological current that supports this movement. When it is weak or blocked, systems lose coordination. When it flows, the body, mind, and deeper sense of direction can move together.

Health, from this perspective, is not just the absence of symptoms. It is the presence of orientation: the body and mind working in concert toward what is both structurally coherent and personally meaningful.

This is where the fascial system becomes clinically relevant. Fascia is the continuous network that conducts and supports the movement of Zheng Qi. It holds the patterns of growth and adaptation shaped over time. Through acupuncture, we can engage this matrix directly—using specific points to stimulate the body’s capacity to reorganize around its own internal directive. In doing so, we are not imposing a new pattern, but helping the system return to the one it already carries.

The Role of the Acupuncturist: Restoring Inner Order

The acupuncturist observes where Zheng Qi—the body's organizing vitality—has become disrupted or constrained. Through careful palpation, observation, and clinical reasoning, they identify patterns of stagnation or disconnection. The needle is used to engage specific points in the fascial and sensory network where movement can be restored. These interventions are subtle, but they can influence broader systems—helping the body re-establish rhythm, responsiveness, and structural coherence.

“If the Qi of the twelve channels is in harmony, the essence and spirit are preserved and there is no illness.” — Suwen, Chapter 5

Work at this level draws on both anatomical understanding and trust in the body’s capacity to respond. The acupuncturist does not direct this response, but supports it. In some cases, change is immediate; in others, it unfolds gradually as the system reorients.

As Lonny Jarrett writes in Nourishing Destiny:

“Each of us begins life with a unique destiny, granted by heaven (or nature or the Dao—take your pick) and it is up to each of us, with the help of our fellows, to fulfill that destiny otherwise known as our life’s purpose.”

This perspective frames health as more than the absence of illness—it is the ability to live in alignment with one’s inherent direction. From this view, the meridians, fascia, and extraordinary vessels are not merely anatomical systems but structures that support the unfolding of a life. They reflect how meaning, memory, and physiology are carried through the body.

The acupuncturist supports this unfolding by creating conditions where the body’s coherence can be restored or sustained. This does not require control, but attentiveness to where things have stagnated, where connection has been lost, and where something is already trying to return to order.

Jarrett describes health as the full expression of purpose through the body’s structural and energetic coherence. This reframes the channels and connective tissues not as mechanisms to be fixed, but as maps to be read and respected. In this light, acupuncture becomes an act of stewardship—guided by presence, humility, and trust in the body’s capacity to move toward wholeness.

Conclusion: The Body as a Pattern Remembering Itself

The ideas of Chinese medicine and contemporary anatomy are converging. What classical texts described as Qi and meridians now find anatomical parallels in the body’s bioelectric signaling and fascial architecture. What was mapped through experience is now observed through imaging and microscopy. This is not about proving one system with another but recognizing that both have been describing the same body from different angles.

“The channels cannot be seen with the eyes, but their function can be felt and their influence observed.”

— Paraphrased from Lingshu, Chapter 10

Meridians are not imaginary lines. They are functional patterns—communication routes, coordination, and structural continuity. They reflect how the body organizes, maintains coherence, and responds to disruption.

Acupuncture works by engaging these patterns. It identifies where integrity has been lost—through tension, trauma, stagnation—and reintroduces movement, signaling, and alignment. The needle does not force change; it creates a condition for the body to do what it is already built to do: adapt, repair, and reorganize.

In this way, acupuncture is not mystical. It is practical, precise, and deeply biological. It is a method of working with the body’s inherent order—what Chinese medicine calls Zheng Qi, and what Western philosophy might call telos. Both describe the same thing: a living system oriented toward health.

This medicine is not about imposing correction. It is about clearing what interferes and supporting what is already trying to move in the right direction.

References

• Huangdi Neijing Suwen, Chapter 5, 33, 62.

• Huangdi Neijing Lingshu, Chapter 10.

• Laozi. Dao De Jing, Chapter 42.

• (Paraphrased) Lingshu, Chapter 10: “The channels cannot be seen with the eyes, but their function can be felt and their influence observed.”

• Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book I. Trans. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1985.

• Jarrett, Lonny. Nourishing Destiny: The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine. Spirit Path Press, 2000.

• Keown, Daniel. The Spark in the Machine: How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine. Singing Dragon, 2014.