Yang encounters yin
Next year’s seeds promise to sprout
Welcome Grain in Ear!

Hello Friends of Flying Needle!

Happy Grain in Ear!

– third summer solar node –

Hope this finds you well during these challenging times!

Seasonal Musings & Reflections

Here in Chapel Hill we have been having cool nights and mornings coupled with warm days. It is 56°F as I write this morning. Last year at this time, we were experiencing almost daily rain. This year we are in the midst of an extreme drought. Change truly is the only constant.

The delightfully raucous blooming of wildflowers, butterfly and cudweed, daisy fleabane, gardenia, hydrangea, rose sweetbriar, magnolia and mimosa trees, passionflower, and many more of our flowering cousins is tempered this year by the aforementioned drought. Box turtles bask in the sun, and lay their eggs in just the right spot. Nesting birds are into their second broods. The vibrancy that I associate with this time of year is present, yet feels muted by the intensity of the dryness. Fire Horse continues to gallop with abandon.

How is the season where you are?

Summer’s flowering forth minds me of the observation that life is movement. When we observe the living world, we can see and feel that it is constantly in motion. Even the aspects of the world that we consider inanimate move. We simply might be too brief to observe their steps in the dance.

An invitation that is always on offer, as a living being on this beautiful Earth, is to open ourselves to the inherent movements of nature – to be breathed by day and night, the turn of the seasons, and yin and yang. We always have the opportunity to pause, drop into the watery tidal movements within our bodies, and feel our connection to all of life on this living planet.

The sensations within our bodies are a literal connection to our ancestors, and other than human kin. We are all embodied moving beings. While our senses may be tuned differently, we are all sensing, feeling, and acting within the myriad relations of the Earth’s biosphere. We have grown here together from a common ancestor. We are family.

Chinese medicine sees the human as the expression of the dynamic interplay between heaven (that which is above, sky, cosmos) and earth. The breathing of yin and yang, expansion and consolidation, give rise to all the other movements that we can observe and experience. Harmonizing ourselves with these movements, resonating with their rhythms, is the core of cultivation and self-care practices. Supporting the capacity to harmonize and resonate is at the root of what we do in the clinic – helping the body to remember how to move coherently internally, and in generative relationship with the external environment.

When times are challenging leaning into these larger rhythms – being breathed by the bellows of heaven and earth – becomes even more important to our individual and collective well being. If there is anything that I can to do support your capacity to lean into this breath cycle, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

May your Summer days be filled with beauty, mystery, and friendship! 

May you and your kin feel both rooted and free!

May we walk in gratitude with our Ancestors!

May all being and becoming receive nourishment!

Yang stretches towards its
Limit as the solstice nears.
Yin will soon return

It is my sincere hope that you have found something of use in these words.

If you know folks who you feel would enjoy this newsletter, please forward it their way! Thank you!

Wishing you and all your relations wellbeing and good medicine!

With gratitude,

Taran