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

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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!

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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

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