Hi! I’m Jiling, an acupuncturist and herbalist in coastal southern California bridging medicine and expression through my Ventura acupuncture clinic, Five Elements classes, and Elemental book-in-progress that interweaves nature, art, movement and ritual for thriving personal and ecological wild beauty. Learn more about me at JilingLin.com, join events here, and get acupuncture here. Enjoy this June 2025 letter. See you next month!

~

Lying on grass, we gaze at sun through our eyelids. Feel damp earth through our clothes. Hear lake lapping against shore. I slip my rattle from my backpack and start walking and rattling around the circle, beginning with Rumi, “You are in your body like a plant is solid in the ground, yet you are wind.”

We begin where we started, concluding a two-day Elemental intensive together at the Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference. We take three breaths together: for ourselves, each other, the Great Mystery. We rub our hands together to generate heat, then clap them together on three, two, one, CLAP! We conclude. We begin again.

Planning this class, I sat with an empty notebook gazing at the ocean, sipping tea, retracing beloved trails. So many ideas as always, but no impetus this time to write or gestate into a polished plan. Instead, “We are here to experiment and experience together,” I say in our first few minutes together, “and I am here with you.”

Planning without planning, I scaffolded a list of possibilities for each Element, theming around my Five Element Lifestyle Medicine framework. Before each session, I wondered, “How do I want people to feel?” and chose a few practices that I hoped to share. Then we flowed.

I approached the conference similarly, leaving a class early to wander with a new friend, bump into more new friends, and discover a hidden lake where sandhill cranes crooned and Canadian geese soared honking overhead. Marching towards yoga class the final morning, I change course to strain nearly forgotten turmeric dye, chat with friends, then continue alone to my favorite spot by the lake, “Hello water. Hello land.” I close the conference in my own way by conversing with this place, remembering similar lake-Ling conversations over the years, back to over a decade ago as a new herbal teacher quivering here for the first time. Here again now, I feel the comforting waters returning, flowing, onwards.

Teaching via 為無為 action-non-action, I hold the bones of my curriculum lightly, ask students what they want, and we saunter into the unknown together.

Studying, traveling, and verb-ing 為無為 action-non-action, I trust intuition, listen to what the moment calls for, and let the details reveal themselves, welcoming magic.

What arises when you soften into not knowing, allowing what is arising to to emerge organically on its own time and of its own nature?

🌻 節氣 Seasonal Nodes

The 24 seasonal nodes in the Chinese lunisolar calendar observe seasonal shifts. Each node has 3 pentads, poetic snapshots of natural phenomena to align us with EarthBody cycles. Here’s June’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

June 6: 芒種 Grain in Beard • 螳螂生 Praying mantises hatch • 腐草為螢 Rotten grass becomes fireflies • 梅子黄 Plums ripen yellow

June 21: 夏至 Summer Solstice • 乃東枯 Summer herbs wither • 菖蒲華 Irises bloom • 半夏生 Pinellia rises

🌻 Recommendations

Ventura Events: Come hangout with me and Lanny Kaufer, author of Medicinal Herbs of California, at Timbre Books on 6/12 for a fun conversation about his life, herb walks, and book! (free event)

Tea Talks: Listen to my interview with Thomas Elpel, author of Botany in a Day

Library: Checkout my top books from May! The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad (writing prompts) and California Against the Sea by Rosanna Xia (climate change)

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jiling.substack.com

Hi! I’m Jiling, an acupuncturist, herbalist, and artist in coastal southern California bridging medicine and expression through my Ventura acupuncture clinic, Five Elements classes, and Elemental book-in-progress that interweaves nature, art, movement and ritual for thriving personal and ecological wild beauty. Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. Enjoy this month's May 2025 newsletter! Get monthly letters at Jiling.Substack.com

~

“Lectio Divina,” he said. “Huh?” I asked. We were lying naked in a hot-spring in the middle of the wilderness, nakedly discussing things closest to our heart in the pre-dawn stillness, currently detangling morning rituals, meditation, and how we maintain mindfulness amidst the everyday chaos of teaching, partnering, being.

Lectio divina, or “divine reading,” is a contemplative practice of sitting with meaningful words over time. My old friend Joe drew wrinkly hot-spring hands through the air, describing how he’s been practicing lectio divina with a seasonal book of scriptures for over a year now. Returning over and over to these verses, they pattern their exquisite beauty into his one wild life. Reading them again and again, he digests their depths through the crucible of living. I am not religious, but I love the idea.

My simplified version of lectio divina:

Read something. Sit with it. Do it three times.

Here’s my expanded version:

* Read a passage.

* Sit with it.

* Read it a second time, noticing what jumps out at you.

* Sit with what caught your attention.

* Read it a third time, noticing what calls you now.

* Sit with it one last time, considering how you might apply this to your life.

I am lectio divina-ing with the Dao De Jing (道德經), a classical Chinese text written or compiled by Lao Zi (老子) around 2500 years ago, a text that I keep returning to over and over, a text that humans have returned to over and over for thousands of years.

I compiled my Dao notebook at my first Chinese medicine graduate school in Florida. Chinese medicine is based on classical roots like the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine (黃帝內經), Classic of Changes (易經)— and the Dao De Jing (道德經). My professors quoted the classics, but I wanted to read the real thing. At the end of long school days, I sat by the window typing up my favorite Dao translations. I printed out the 81 verses on our school printer. Cut them up, verse by verse. Bound a little 4x5 notebook with 81 pages. Glued them in.

Ten years later, my Dao notebook still travels with me through adventures everyday and exotic, urbane and wild. The edges are frayed and yellowing, the whole book covered in marks, notes, highlights, and pictures. I’ve collaged plants, landscapes, animals, and other inspiring imagery into my Dao notebook, and what started as a thin book of empty pages is now teeming with cut and paste beauty.

Returning anew to the Dao with the practice of lectio divina, I read a passage a day. I try to reel myself in, so I don’t spend hours poring over different translations and cobbling together my own translation, as I am wont to do. Each word has its depth of meaning. Partnered words undulate into fresh meanings. Pull together a whole passage, and it’s a glittering skyscape of worlds upon worlds.

I like to journal for the final sitting. The Dao comes alive when I list three ways I can apply 道法自然 “The Way of Dao is the Way of nature” (passage 25), or freewrite about personal applications for 上善若水 “The greatest Virtue is that of Water” (passage 8).

May heralds the beginning of summer (立夏) in the lunisolar Chinese calendar. As the fresh buds of spring and Wood Element burst into the great flowering party of summer and Fire Element, grounding practices like reading and writing, returning to beloved tomes and nourishing words, can help us maintain rootedness amidst great flowering. The potential chaos of socioeconomic upheavals and political unrest might rattle us less, when our feet are firm, our minds clear.

What books, poetry, quotes, or classical texts do you return to over and over? How have others sat with these words over time? How might you sit with these words now, and apply this wisdom to your life?

RECOMMENDATIONS

* 5/21-22: Seasonal Rituals for Wild Embodiment in Almond, WI

* Listen to my interview with Rosemary Gladstar, where we chat about her newest book, The Generosity of Plants, a beautiful collection of quotes from beloved herbalists

* My favorite books from April: The Body is a Doorway, by Sophie Strand. On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder. All Fours, by Miranda July. The Man Who Could Move Clouds, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras.

* My mentor 7song has released his Herbal Database project, a comprehensive resource of herbal info from a lifetime of clinical herbalism, wildcrafting, and teaching— generously for free. Visit 7song.com and click on “Herbal Database” at the top to check it out!

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jiling.substack.com

Hi! I’m Jiling, an acupuncturist, herbalist, and artist in coastal southern California bridging medicine and expression through my Ventura acupuncture clinic, Five Elements classes, and Elemental book-in-progress that interweaves nature, art, movement and ritual for thriving personal and ecological wild beauty. Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. Enjoy this January 2025 newsletter! Get monthly letters at Jiling.Substack.com

~

Happy New Year!

Chinese legends say that on the night of the Lunar New Year, the great monster 年 nian traipses through town wreaking havoc. So villagers make some noise: firecrackers, drums, gongs! Everyone wears red. They hang red paper on front doors with lucky words to dispel harm and welcome beauty. Nian flees to his cave. The villagers are saved for another year. Legends and traditions continue.

Lunar New Year is the biggest holiday of the year in my ancestral lands of Taiwan and China. People still light fireworks, honor ancestral rituals, and hang 春聯 chun lian— or lucky words— for this intact ancient tradition of clanging out the old and banging in the new. We still wear red. Clean our homes. Light incense. Families gather to eat circular foods around circular tables, symbolic of 團圓 tuan yuan, unity and harmony. The circle comes together again. The disparate threads of our scattered communities and experiences reunite. We start fresh. Alone and together. Circling.

年 Nian means year. The monster represents the year ahead, full of unknown beauty and terror. We stand at the edge, gazing down the abyss. What lies ahead?

In protecting ourselves from the nian-monster, we adorn ourselves and our homes to welcome delight, abundance, ease— all that we wish to call in. We clean and shine to make space for loveliness to reenter. We hang the word 春 chun, or spring, upside down. The word for “upside down,” 倒 Dao, sounds like 到 dao, or to arrive. Painting “spring” on red paper and sticking it on the door upside down, we welcome spring’s arrival.

Lunar New Year honors the first new moon of the new year, the first full darkness. We begin again. Soon, the birds return. The first buds of spring pop open. But we must first survive the dark. Court the monster. January and February can be dark, cold, and destructive. We survive together, shoulder to shoulder, clanging drums and chimes, grinding ink, writing lucky words that remind us of who we are and what we hold dear. We uplift our collective light to the sky, come clouds, storms, darkness. We stand together.

The next year— and next four years— will be ______________.

We fill in the blanks. We choose our words. We choose our destiny.

What new year stories and traditions surrounded your childhood— and the lives of your ancestors? What still feels pertinent or poignant today? How are you adapting and honoring ancient ways for modern days? Which powerful words and phrases guide your way?

May this new year of the Wood Snake slither luscious loveliness into your life. Call out your intentions and deepest heart’s desires, paint them on your door, and may those flowers bloom, bloom, bloom.

Tea & Ink: An Invitation

Come make 春聯 chun lian and sip tea with me, Madeleine Colvin, and other beautiful humans in Koreatown at Madeleine’s new Tile Cat Teahouse! We’re both first generation Asian-American women, offspring of flowing ink and tea, experimental bridge-walkers and culture-weavers extraordinaire. Come join us!

We’ll grind ink the way my 爺爺 yeye grandpa taught me with traditional Chinese art tools from Madeleine’s artist grandmother. Play with mark-making skills that translate across any fluid artistic medium to reignite creativity for the new year. Experiment with auspicious Chinese words and phrases for traditional chun lian or write in English, and bring home your own chun lian for the year ahead!

Wood Snake Astrology

I love these two annual Chinese astrology forecasts. They’ll usually publish new forecasts for the new year sometime soon.

* Artist Yu Hua Meng (missTANGQ)

* Gregory David Done, LAc

Auspicious Dates

* Lunar New Year is January 29. Light incense, sip tea, play music, write lucky words— do something to mark this transition, or intentionally do nothing and rest into the darkness of the first new moon of 2025.

* My birthday— the final year of my 30s— falls near the lunar new year. I’m wearing red, painting rainbows, and opening to wonder.

* Schedule your acupuncture or creative coaching for the fresh year— and I’ll see you on the Harmon Canyon trails for Ventura plant walks next month!

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. • Acupuncturist, herbalist, artist • JilingLin.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jiling.substack.com

Hi! I’m Jiling, an acupuncturist, herbalist, and artist in coastal southern California bridging medicine and expression through my Ventura acupuncture clinic, Five Elements classes, and Elemental book-in-progress that interweaves nature, art, movement and ritual for thriving personal and ecological wild beauty. Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. Enjoy this month's May 2025 newsletter! Get monthly letters at Jiling.Substack.com

~

Hello friend,

Short days, long nights— it’s the darkest time of year. Embrace your bearish hibernatory need to slow down. Savor the in-between spaces, the mysteries therein.

How do you celebrate the longest night of the year? Winter Solstice arrives on December 21. Welcome the darkest darkness, the slow return of light. Here are seven Winter season practices to light up your life.

Winter Lifestyle Medicine Ideas

* Play with your dreams. Write them down, draw them out, speak them aloud. See what messages your Dream Self has for you, what patterns light up when you pay attention.

* Light candles. Let the dark— be dark. Use soft lighting, like candles, to illuminate smaller pools of light than harsh overhead lighting. Bask in Fire’s warm flickering glow.

* Practice yin or restorative yoga before bed. Gentle movement wiggles out accumulated tensions from the day. Try Legs-Up-The-Wall (viparita karini) or Reclined-Butterfly (supta badha konasana) fully supported with pillows and blankets.

* Meditate for five minutes a day, first thing in the morning. Set a timer if you want. Sit with your steaming mug of coffee, tea, or whatnot. Gentle into your breath, body, and mind.

* Make millet congee with turkey tail and other medicinal mushrooms, adaptogens like astragalus and goji, and warming spices like cinnamon and ginger.

* Stay warm. Soak your feet in hot ginger tea before bed. Drink warm soups. Sip chai tea. Wrap yourself in the warmth of beloved kin and nourishing activities.

* Scribble. Winter season is Water Element season. Tap into Water’s depth and flow with watercolor paints, breath-integrated art, and freeform imaginative creative play.

Annual Reflections

What lit you up this year? What’s coming in the new year? Here’s some sweetness from my year!

Clinic Highlights

* Seeing athletes do their sports again after long breaks from injury or pain— especially getting surfers surfing again after extended periods away from Mama Pacifica.

* Midwifing folks through pregnancy— and continuing support through postpartum and beyond!

* Meeting multiple generations of patients’ immediate and extended families.

* Seeing herbs work! I’ve seen some profound shifts with formulas for hot flashes, dysmenorrhea, stress, and more.

* When small lifestyle changes make big impact! Walking, relaxing teas, removing food triggers…

* Seeing pet photos, hearing love life updates, and living vicariously through patients’ Big Adventures. So much gratitude!

Personal Delights

* Surfing in southern Taiwan and feasting our way through northern Taiwan

* Spring desert teaching and travels

* Summer staycation: local surfing, hiking, biking and backpacking

* Hot springs backpacking trip along the California coast

* Backpacking to alpine lakes in the Sierra Nevada

* Ohio writer’s residency— and completing (mostly) draft 1 of my book-in-progress (2026 publication? In the works!)

What’s Coming in 2025

* CREATIVE COACHING: I am now offering virtual coaching calls!

* FEBRUARY: Bimonthly Plant Walks with Ventura Land Trust begins— check my Events page for updates!

* MAY: Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference Elemental immersion in Wisconsin

* ADVENTURES: Surfing C-street and beyond, backpacking, bike-packing, Insight meditation retreat, Writing Residency #2 somewhere lovely!

How ‘bout you? I would love to hear some of your 2024 delights and upcoming 2025 adventures!

Here’s one of my favorite poems for seasonal transitions:

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,

a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,

this is the best season of your life.

— Wumen Huikai (1183 - 1260 CE), translated by Stephen Mitchell

春有百花秋有月，

夏有涼風冬有雪，

若無閒事掛心頭，

便是人間好時節。

— 無門慧開，《無門關》第十九則

May this Winter Solstice darkness be a fertile resting ground for the swirling waters of your life to settle. No mud, no lotus. I look forward to celebrating and supporting your flowering and blooming— and our collective Wild Beauty— into 2025 and beyond! Thank you for being part of my life.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. • Acupuncturist, herbalist, artist • JilingLin.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jiling.substack.com

Hi! I’m Jiling, an acupuncturist, herbalist, and artist in coastal southern California bridging medicine and expression through my Ventura acupuncture clinic, Five Elements classes, and Elemental book-in-progress that interweaves nature, art, movement and ritual for thriving personal and ecological wild beauty. Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. Enjoy this newsletter from October 2024! Get monthly letters at Jiling.Substack.com

~

Hello friend,

Rain drip drops. I’m warm in the UpS yurt at what’s become my writing desk. My right thumb is sore— injured, really— from scribbling over 300 meandering eventual-book pages in three weeks. Copper ink ran out today. Black ink barely remains. Pens and papers surround me. Watercolors and nuts from the forest floor. Slabs of bark. Detritus of a writing life.

The rain pounds heavier. I wonder where yesterday’s busy squirrel is now, the wiggling snake in the pond, the slow turtles on the Medicine and Oak Trails. One more week. I’m ready to hug hubby Ben, surf my beloved C-street home break, and walk the paths closest to my heart. And, I’m not ready to leave this Heart Pond I’ve swam in daily, this long desk smooth from love and art, these paths and plants that have grown close to my heart.

I wrote the below for future artists-in-residence here— and for anyone living a creative life— that’s you!

~

It’s okay to stop. There are seasons of action, and seasons of rest. The seasons are cyclical, not linear. Their chapters and patterns shift.

When you came here, you committed to stopping, and sensing. You are making, yes— a dreaming and creating process that is generative, imaginative, and rooted in natural rhythms. But you are not pushing. You are making just to make, and not to produce. Process over product.

Your steps pile over each other, pressing a path into the leaves, an old path, walked by many before you, but obscured by leaves that keep falling.

You carve long lines of movement across the pond, lines that ripple out to the carp, frogs, minnows, turtles, and snakes, then get reingested by the body of water that keeps flowing.

You step out into the night to watch the sky, your hair tangled in leaves and cobwebs, naked and unafraid.

This is your life now. Nothing came before, nothing comes after. Everything came before, everything comes after.

You nestle into trees, wiggle into grasses, slide into leaves. Your words, drawings, meanderings step on each other, stomping out a new path on an old path covered in leaves, more clear as the sun rises, and you begin again.

Recommendations

* 🌕 Get acupuncture. See you soon, Ventura folks! Please remember to cancel or reschedule at least 48 hours before your appointment to avoid charges. The holiday season will be here soon so inquire for acupuncture gift cards, or share personalized poetry with someone you love!

* 🌿 Tea Blending & Ceremony Mountain Rose Herbs blog & video

* 🐝 Sierra Club Elections Endorsements. Vote for the Earth!

* 🌊 Sierra Club CA Legislature Endorsements. Thanks for voting!

* 🌺 The Art of the Herbal Interview, HerbRally x Mountain Rose Herbs (me, Mason Hutchinson, Rosalee de la Foret, Thomas Dick… and Rosemary Gladstar!)

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. 林基玲

JilingLin.com • Substack • Instagram • Facebook • Insight Timer

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jiling.substack.com

Hi! I’m Jiling, an acupuncturist, herbalist, and artist in coastal southern California bridging medicine and expression through my Ventura acupuncture clinic, Five Elements classes, and Elemental book-in-progress that interweaves nature, art, movement and ritual for thriving personal and ecological wild beauty. Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. Enjoy this newsletter from September 2024! Get monthly letters at Jiling.Substack.com

~

ARTIST RESIDENCY

Dedicated time to explore Earth, Heart-Mind, and Spirit— and make art.  

THE ARTIST’S ROLE

Experience deeply. Translate ineffable experiences into tangible words and images. Midwife internal depths out into the world. Share: help humanity feel what’s hidden, deepen understanding, articulate complexities, widen possibilities, and ignite transformative action. 

MY INTENTIONS

* REST and RENEW. 

* EXPLORE the land. OPEN to her wisdom. WELCOME eco-insights into my body, life, writings, and art— for the benefit of all beings. 

* Open to WONDER. Allow fresh surprises to EMERGE. 

* EXPERIMENT with multimedia and fresh modes of expression. 

* Make FRIENDS: plants, humans, place, more-than-human kin.

* WRITE BOOK

* Handwrite draft 1: walk & write

* Edit draft 2: evening rest, typing? 

* Gain a clearer sense of how BOOK wishes to EMERGE and be written. 

* Welcome UpS into the current chapter— and wherever else ki belongs. 

PROJECTS

* BOOK!

* A gift for UpS (maybe photo-essay, poetry, plant-prints)

* Meditate, walk, dance, swim, botanize, do “nothing”— write 

STRUCTURE: a loose outline 

* Dawn: Tea, journal, WRITE BOOK → yoga asana → breakfast 

* Morning: WALK & WRITE 1

* Afternoon: lunch, nest/ art, WALK & WRITE 2

* Evening: Dinner, WALK & WRITE 3 or nest (art, type/ edit), restorative movement 

SUPPLIES

* Writing tools

* Typewriter

* Laptop 

* Stamps & envelopes for Heart Copy and other love-letters 

* Fountain pens (Lamy Safari, Pilot Kakuno)

* Extra ink

* Notebooks galore 

* 3 A6 (little) 64-page notebooks 

* 2 A5 (medium) 60-page notebooks 

* 1 A5 150-page notebook

* 1 4 x 6 unlined 100-page scratch-pad (typewriter & sketches) 

* 1 4 x 6 lined scratch-pad

* Miscellaneous tools

* Art Toolkit demi palette watercolor set & large waterbrush

* Pentel brush sign pens (medium markers) 

* Glue stick

* Trodat date stamp 

* Mini tank drum 

* Art-Toys (undecided)

* Staedtler fineliner colored pens

* 磨盤，岩石 Sumi ink stone & stick

* 印章 My name-seal stamp & red ink

* Mini photo-printer

* Washi tape

* Supplies On Site

* Food: weekly grocery run 

* Printer

* Scissors

* SPACE.

SUPPORT

For folks who are asking, yes. I’ve saved up for a month of no income, but your generous support is certainly welcome! Contributions will go towards food, travels, and small delights. You can buy me a tea or PayPal larger amounts if you wish. Ten thousand thank-yous

Recommendations

* 🌶️ Mama Lin's Hot Sauce Recipe. This one's special. Let me know if you try the recipe⎯ and please send photos!

* 🥑 The Art of the Herbal Podcast was such a fun conversation with some of my herbal heroes! Special guest at the end. Listen here, or watch on YouTube.

* 🌕 Moon Festival 9/17! My favorite festival. Make mooncakes with journalist Clarissa Wei on Goldthread and New York Times (sweet & savory).

* 🖐️ Register to vote. Your voice matters. For Californians, register by 10/21!

* 💖 Substack: I might write artist residency updates. Join me!

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. 林基玲

JILINGLIN.COM / SUBSTACK / INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK

Ongoing offerings: ACUPUNCTURE / EVENTS / YOGA

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jiling.substack.com