In case you missed it or need a refresher, Cultivating a Healthy Mind Pt. 1 and Cultivating a Healthy Mind Pt 2. It’s not easy to have a healthy mind without having at least some imagination. Yes, the processing aspect of the mind, the mulling and pondering and digesting aspect, has to do with the Earth element….
In case you missed it or need a refresher, Cultivating a Healthy Mind Pt. 1. In East Asian medicine, the Spleen is the organ of the YI or the intention. The character shows a musical note being sounded over the character for the heart. The intention is what the heart is humming, because Xin, the character…
Earth is the element of digestion, and digestion is not just a physical activity. It’s also a mental activity. Thought is a digestive process. It’s how we digest life. We have an experience, we bring it into us, and we ponder, “Well, what am I to think about what just happened?” It is necessary to…
Autumn and the Metal element do not exist independently of the other elements and seasons. In the Five Element tradition, each element is said to be the “child” of the preceding element, and the “parent” of the next element. This parent-child flow from season to season is referred to as the sheng (nourishing) cycle. This…
Earth is the element of the center. It is the web of ecology, because it is responsible for the integration of all elements. Thus, it is our capacity for integrity. Without integrity, who are we, and what are we capable of? Eh, not much. And yet integrity is developed as a result of a process…
There is a very big difference between seeking comfort and seeking healing. There’s nothing wrong with comfort; I want to be very clear about that. There is some level of comfort and feeling held that is very helpful for healing. Many times, feeling more comfortable can be a prelude to healing. It’s just that not…
Hey, welcome home. Now, what on earth do we mean by that? Welcome home. It’s a huge subject. Sometimes the moment we say the word ‘home,’ what greets us is a kind of wrenching pain, because there are a lot of healthy places inside of us that actually know exactly what we mean by ‘home.’…
On a national and planetary level, there’s a whole lot coming home to us—and it’s been coming for a long time. We are living right now in the midst of so much upheaval that it is both an opportunity and a necessity for us to do the kind of pondering that Earth is best at: consideration of whether we are tending our garden well.
