Bushy chaparral reach for the sky, radiating across the rocky trailhead. As we climb, I see stout barrel cacti with long curved spines guarding cliff edges, low-growing beavertail cacti raising their flat shriveled pads, and silvery-brown cacti with fur-like spines hiding under shady rocks. Birdsong crescendos as the sky lightens. Mason, Rosalee, Emily, and I shoot video for their new project as we meander into the sunrise overlooking Palm Springs. They turn around at a trail junction and I continue uphill, picking up my pace to beat the rapidly rising heat. (The “balmy” 85°F pre-dawn temperature hits 95°F by 8 am, then surges to 110°F by midday.)

Ahead, the dark maw of a box canyon reveals a jagged green sanctuary of sycamores, desert palms, desert willows, and desert lavender. Hummingbirds and bees flit about, a cacophony of birds. Here, as everywhere, water is life.

Descending back to town, the heat rises like a wave. I skirt the canyon edge to stay in the remaining shade, and notice bighorn sheep silhouetting a ridge between wilderness above and city below. Here we are, wild together. It’s time to hydrate.

I’m in Palm Springs for the grand opening of a new Mountain Rose Herbs Mercantile. Reaching the store in time to say hello, I settle onto an old green stool by the entry with my friend Steven. As we compare the Pacific Northwest and desert terrains, I mention my parched throat and skin. Naturally, our conversation shifts to demulcents. I scour the store and return triumphant with marshmallow and licorice root. We brew a marshmallow cool infusion, which I offer to customers alongside little nibbles of licorice. Such sweetness. The cool mucilage soothes our skin and senses.

Demulcents, or mucilaginous plants, are squishy and cooling. They coat mucous membranes with a protective layer of polysaccharides, perfect for dry or raw skin, whether from the environment, a recovering sore throat, or talking too much. Teaching back-to-back in Wisconsin, Ojai, and now Palm Springs, I’ve been relying on marshmallow cool infusions to keep my hardworking vocals juicy. (Demulcents extract better in cool water, which keeps those delicate polysaccharides fat and happy.)

As we heat up in July, chill out with a…

Marshmallow Cool Infusion

1. Add 1 oz (about a handful) of organic marshmallow root to a 1-liter glass jar.

2. Pour room temperature water over the roots, filling the jar.

3. Steep overnight at room temperature.

4. Strain in the morning, then enjoy throughout your day.

Other options: Refrigerate for extra coolness. Infuse with other demulcents like cucumbers, linden, or hibiscus. Steep with a pinch of fresh mints, lemon balm, tulsi, or other cooling nervines. Top with fresh citrus, muddled fruit, a splash of coconut water, or a pinch of salt for extra pizzazz.

Have fun, and enjoy a juicy, cool rest of your summer!

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. Here are July’s seasonal nodes and pentads:

• July 7: 小暑 Lesser Heat • 溫風至 Warm breezes begin • 蓮始開 Lotus flowers open • 鷹乃學習 Young hawks learn to fly

• July 23: 大暑 Greater Heat • 桐始結花 Paulownia trees flower • 土潤溽暑 Moist earth, damp heat • 大雨時行 Heavy rains fall

Recommendations

• Herbal Radio: Enjoy this month’s conversation on how to run a farm-based herb school with herbalist, artist, and mama extraordinaire Crystal Moore-Stevens.

• Herbalist Answers: This new Herbal Radio series brings together awesome herbalists to answer one botanical question each month. Watch on YouTube, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This month we explore, “What does being an herbalist mean to you?” (Find me on a mountain and in a river.) Two months ago, “What herb do you wish people knew more about?” (I love this new series!)

• Summer Reads: 🌿 Part 1 of Herbalism is Activism: 5 Plants for 5 Seasons. 🍓 Memoirs: Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood. The High Sierra: A Love Story by Kim Stanley Robinson. 🌻 Nature: How Flowers Made Our World by David George Haskell. The Enduring Wild by Josh Jackson. 🌈 Creativity: Don’t Call it Art by Austin Kleon. Good Writing by Neil Allen & Anne Lamott.

• Book Updates: Round 1 of edits! Just turned in draft 2 of the intro and Chapter 1. Now editing the Earth Element chapter, and awaiting Water. It’s what my friend Maria calls the “hot potato” period of passing a book back and forth. Very. Exciting. And a whole lotta work love. (Anticipated publication Jan. 2028)

❤️ Happy mid-summering! May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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“Hello, hello?” I gaze into eight hundred eyes from the old wooden podium, as the sound sputters. “Hello?” Nope. Step off. Change mics. Another last-minute shift, one of many. All good. I’d paced outside, felt the sun, sniffed the pines, got the forest nestled into my skin. Women detach me from tangled black mic cords, and jam a fresh mic into my hand. I step back up, “Hello, beautiful!” Full sound. Applause. Now, we begin.

Plancestors and ancestors. Elements. Plant and human family patterns. The more-than-human world. Resting with conifers. Embodying Humans as planetary gardeners between Earth and Sky. Opening the Heart Atop the Mountain of our lives. Rubbing our bellies and humming, mmmmm, appreciating all that nourishes us. Hand-dancing to live music, in dedication to the plants and all that we love. Beauty medicine.

I just keynoted for the Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference in Wisconsin. Got home, surfed, unpacked, repacked, camped for one delicious night in the Sespe wilderness (a needed respite), unpacked and repacked again, taught Creative Rituals four times in a row for the Ojai Herbal Retreat, and am gearing up for more teaching, more hiking, and more out-of-state adventuring by month’s end. Summer’s an especially juicy-exhausting-delightful time of year. Conferences, retreats, adventures galore, everything everywhere all at once.

What changes? What remains?

Some Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference highlights:

• Teaching. A joyful, easy flow, sharing my 3-hour EarthBody intensive, 1.25 hour Creative Rituals playshop, and my magnum opus of the moment, Herbalism is Activism: Simple Medicines for Complex Times. (Look for the modified version in an upcoming Mountain Rose Herbs blog and podcast!)

• Walking. Sauntering with Robin through pines, awestruck at hawks and sandhill cranes. Crunching down a darkening path with Meghann, discovering symphonic frogs echoing through a misty, magical marsh. Padding through trees and fields on long solo strolls practicing my speech with the water, birds, and trees, feeling the soft piney Earth and glittery-damp sky, welcoming the land to speak through me.

• Dancing in the dark, shimmering under disco balls and pounding drums. Making big moves, throwing big shadows, laughing and laughing with my old mentor Lisa (bedazzling, all in red!). Body electric, surging and pulsing in the glittering, thrumming darkness with a roomful of celebratory wild women.

• The land. The people. Conversations. Faces. Plants. The whole shebang.

What changed? What remains?

Summer Solstice arrives on June 21. Summer-Fire is a time of transformation. Peak heat, passion, focus, intensity. Time for experimentation, play, and celebration. Gather the radiance of this season into regenerative, sustainable warmth that feeds you through the coming winter, and all the seasons of your life. Notice who or what delights you, and how you might carry that feeling, and those life-giving actions, into everyday rituals that sustain you through the days, weeks, months, seasons, years ahead. Feed the seeds of ritual beauty in your everyday (simple, profound) life.

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. Here are this month’s 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

• Podcast: Enjoy this month’s conversation on Integrating Energetic & Scientific Herbalism with herbalist Richard Mandelbaum.

• Palm Springs: Celebrate the grand opening of a new Mountain Rose Herbs Mercantile in Palm Springs with tea and community, from June 12 - 14. I’ll be there on June 13, alongside Mason Hutchinson, Rosalee de la Forêt, and other herbal rockstars!

• Herbs: Thank you to Mountain Rose Herbs for sponsoring the Midwest Women’s Herb Conference, Ojai Herbal Retreat, and most herbal gatherings around the USA. Committed to organic agriculture, fair trade, and sustainable business since 1987, Mountain Rose Herbs prioritizes people, plants, and planet over profit. Check out their top-notch organic herbs and botanical goods at www.mountainroseherbs.com

• Ephemera: 🍊 Listen to conversations on Opening to Wonder with Ada Limón and How to Invite Creativity into your Life with Rose B. Simpson. 🌻 Protect public access to the new Ventura Hills Nature Preserve. 🏔️ Lighten backpacking gear with the Durston X-Mid 1 ultralight tent. 📚 Read Sitting the Month for postpartum recipes from Clarissa Wei, and Fire in the Belly for provocative inspiration from aboriginal scholar Tyson Yunkaporta.

• Book Updates: Manuscript submitted! Edits pending. A breather, and as many adventures as possible, before the next big push! (Anticipated publication Jan. 2028)

❤️ Happy summering! May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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On May 6, it’s the beginning of summer in the Chinese lunisolar calendar (立夏). It’s that traveling time of year. What rituals accompany you on your adventures?

I usually travel with an art-kit and tea. I begin most mornings sipping tea, and like to have pen and notebook handy to make art anywhere. These essentials expand and contract to meet the needs of each journey.

• For daily hiking or biking, I slide a pocket-size notebook and pen into my hip-pouch. (These are my primary tools.) If I’m bringing tea, a thermos is the easiest solution, although I love gaiwan-ing (蓋碗) out and about, too, like at the beach, or while hiking.

• For overnight backpacking, where weight matters and diverse weather conditions are likely, I travel light. The pen and notebook go into a ziplock, sometimes with a mini watercolor set and waterbrush, if inspired. I bring a few teabags for convenience, sometimes loose-leaf, or travel tea-free if I know there’s tasty plants to forage en route.

• For flights, I bring my full daily art-kit, featuring two fountain pens (thick and thin nibs), rotating colors, and little papers for painting gifts and writing notes. Tea-bags travel in a drawstring pouch, looseleaf in a tin, and my gaiwan gets tucked into clothes in my carry-on day-pack. I’ll usually keep 1-2 tea-bags and a thermos with me for in-flight sipping, especially for longer flights, and try to get hot water before boarding for a longer steep.

What are your traveling rituals? What items cultivate that intentional habit?

Practicing the nourishing daily ritual is more important than the things to make the ritual happen. Even without the materials, my body remembers the feeling of silent morning contemplation. Even in distant unknown places, my body knows what to do. I hope these insights spur ideas for how you might fold your own ritual essentials into your travels and everyday beauty.

Upcoming Events

Come practice creative rituals! Reconnect with your innate creativity and Mama Earth’s generative brilliance through nature journaling and abstract art. Through freeform writing and simple drawing experiments, you’ll learn contemplative techniques that nurture intuition, spark new ideas, and sustain ongoing inspiration. We’ll also discuss herbs that support creativity, and explore adaptable rituals for inspiration wherever you are. This month, join me for Creative Rituals in California or Wisconsin:

• Ojai Herbal Retreat: Come take a day-retreat in beautiful Ojai with likeminded community on May 30. Take a plant walk with Lanny Kaufer, make massage oils with Emily Watson, design sleep pillows with Carol Wade, and make nature-art with me. (Watch us chat about the retreat here.)

Retreat in California

• Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference: Celebrate botanical traditions May 22-24 with rad herbalists like Lisa Ganora, Robin Rose Bennett, Meghann Rose Wilkinson, Crystal Dawn Silas, Judith Laxer, Margi Flint, and so many more special people. I’m keynoting about Herbalism as Activism: Simple Medicines for Complex Times, and sharing Creative Rituals for Everyday Beauty and a pre-conference intensive on EarthBody: Five Elements Lifestyle Medicine for Seasonal Living.

Celebrate in Wisconsin

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. Here are this month’s seasonal nodes and pentads:

• May 6: 立夏 Beginning of Summer • 蛙始鳴 Frogs start singing • 蚯蚓出 Earthworms emerge • 竹筍生 Bamboo shoots rise

• May 21: 小滿 Small Ripening • 蠶起食桑 Silkworms start eating mulberry leaves • 紅花栄 Safflowers bloom • 麥秋至 Wheat ripens for harvest

Recommendations

• Podcast: Enjoy this month’s interview with Mountain Rose Herbs CEO Cameron Stearns and Dr. Bronner’s CEO David Bronner about the Purpose Pledge, and south Appalachian medicinal plants with Patricia Kyritsi Howell.

• HerbRally: A special shoutout to Ojai Herbal Retreat sponsor, HerbRally, a grassroots platform connecting people with herbal education, events, and community. Through its newsletter, podcast, and online listings, HerbRally helps thousands of plant lovers discover classes, teachers, and opportunities to deepen their practice. Learn more at HerbRally.com

• Book Updates: Final push! Wrapping up the final Water Element section, glancing back over Fire and Metal, then handing over the manuscript before flying off to WI with art-kit and tea! (Anticipated book publication Jan. 2028)

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

PS- Tell me about your travel-kits and traveling rituals!

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Did you trace your hands as a kid? Maybe you made them into turkeys for Thanksgiving, or animated them in other ways. Well, adults need to have fun too. Often in the humdrum mundanity of “important” work and life, we lose our childlike sense of wonder. Pick up a crayon or marker. Make art with your hands. Draw a Home Paw.

Trace the outline of your paw, and fill it with whatever evokes a sense of home.

Yes, it’s as simple and silly as it sounds— and satisfying. When we connect with our hands, we deepen into the home of our bodies, communities, and world. The Home Paw is a practice that didn’t make the cut for the creativity section of the Earth Element chapter in my upcoming book. I still love it; you might dig it, too. Play with your paws:

1. Trace your hand onto a sheet of paper. Begin and end at the edge of the page, so your outline creates a closed space– your paw!

2. Fill in your paw however you wish. For this exercise, fill it with whatever feels like home. This might include people, places, or activities. You can write, draw, or both. Remember to have fun! Let your drawings be comic, abstract, realistic, or however the image arises. Use cozy colors. Try writing single words, whole phrases, or longform stream-of-conscious meanderings.

Spice up your Home Paw. Explore:

• Fill: Use colors, patterns, and textures to completely fill in your Paw.

• Local flavor: Pack your Paw with local flora and fauna. Abstract is great!

• Play with inner space: Place what feels more homey towards the center of your Paw, and what feels more distant towards the edges.

• Play with outer space: Explore the space around the Paw with words, colors, textures, whatever’s joyous.

• Paw-print: Smear paint onto your hand, and press it onto the page. Overlay with collage, paint-markers, gel-pens, or other layerable media.

• Freewrite first. You might explore, “What feels like home?” or “Where is my home?”

• Alternate paws: Draw or write into your Paw with your non-dominant hand.

• Hindpaws: Trace around your feet.

• Music: Listen to cozy music as you make your Paw. Or make an acoustically-inspired Paw. There’s infinite Paw potential…

• Child’s play: Do this with kids! Cut out all of your Home Paws and paste them onto the same sheet of paper or string them up next to each other like a paw prayer flag.

• Ritualize: Make a Home Paw (or another fun project) every year on the same date. Watch how “home” shifts. Try making an annual Paw on your birthday, special holidays, or other seasonal celebrations such as Solstices or Equinoxes. Have fun, keep it light, and remember: process over product!

How do you engage in creative play?

Creative Rituals for Everyday Beauty

Come make more art! Reconnect with your innate creativity and Mama Earth’s generative brilliance through nature journaling and abstract art. Through freeform writing and simple drawing experiments, you’ll learn contemplative techniques that nurture intuition, spark new ideas, and sustain ongoing inspiration. We’ll also discuss herbs that support creativity, and explore adaptable rituals for inspiration wherever you are. Next month, join me for Creative Rituals in California or Wisconsin:

• Ojai Herbal Retreat: Rest and reflect during this glorious time of year with a day-retreat in beautiful Ojai. Take a plant walk with Lanny Kaufer, make massage oils with Emily Watson, design sleep pillows with Carol Wade, and make nature-art with me on May 30. (Get early bird tickets by 4/30— or come volunteer!)

Retreat in California

• Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference: Midwesterners, come join us from May 22-24 to celebrate botanical traditions! Herbal conferences are like big plant-people parties. So. Much. Fun. For this one, I’m keynoting about Herbalism as Activism: Simple Medicines for Complex Times, and sharing Creative Rituals for Everyday Beauty and a pre-conference intensive on EarthBody: Five Elements Lifestyle Medicine for Seasonal Living.

Celebrate in Wisconsin

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. Here are this month’s seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Apr. 5 清明 Pure Brightness • 玄鳥至 Swallows arrive • 鴻雁北 Geese fly north • 虹始見 Rainbows appear

• Apr. 20 穀雨 Grain Rain • 葭始生 Reeds sprout • 霜止出苗 Frost ends, sprouts emerge • 牡丹華 Peonies bloom

Recommendations

• Ventura today: Join me and hubby Ben for Harmon Nature Meditation today (Wednesday, 4/1 at 5:30 pm).

• Podcast: Enjoy this month’s interview with Alex Williams about bioregional herbalism. Stay tuned for a chat with Mountain Rose Herbs CEO Cameron Stearns and Dr. Bronner’s CEO David Bronner about the Purpose Pledge.

• Ephemera: 🌻 Tune into the Wildflower Hotline for weekly So-Cal updates. 🌿 Enjoy your flowers responsibly. 🐝 Identify plants with Calflora. 🌵 Crowd-source plant identification with iNaturalist. 🍊 Learn Medicinal Herbs of California. 🌈 Botanize with Ventura Land Trust events and California Native Plant Society field trips. 🌳 Get plants at Ventura nurseries, and seeds at Strictly Medicinals. 🌺 Sip organic teas from Mountain Rose Herbs (affiliate link).

• Book Updates: Home stretch. Finishing up Wood Element (2 more sections) then circling back to Water (1 more section). Hope to finish my manuscript before May adventures, but we’ll see what the muses and travel gods bring! (Anticipated publication Jan. 2028)

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Spring has a ripping-apart sensation. Buds tear off their winter coats to explode neon-green leaves, bulbs press through cold dirt to send brave flowers skyward, and the whole world pushes and pulses, lifting leaves and flowers, baby hummingbirds and bunnies to the sun, “Look! Here I am! I am alive.”

Flowers are creeping over our hills and through our streets. Neighborhoods are lighting up with waving yellow clouds of invasive mustards, elderflowers’ big white umbels, and golden poppies blooming sheer joy. Flowers everywhere, flanking city hall, crowding the tops of Arroyo Verde’s back hills, seething near Ventura Botanical Garden’s footpaths, shouting from roadsides and hilltops.

Wood Element: Ride the Wave

This is the season of Wood Element, Liver and Gallbladder systems, the Wind, anger. Everything moves upward and outward: Sprout! Rise! Grow! To the sky, and beyond!

Anger is our inner spring, the upward-outward inner momentum to act where needed, create the change we wish to see in the world, flourish our authentic selves for the benefit of all beings. Ride that powerful rising wave of Qi with steady grounding rituals and stabilizing plant allies:

• Nibble: Taste trailside edibles, like Mustard. Look for 4 petals, 4 stamens, 4 pistils, spicy scent. Taste baby leaves, flowers, young seed-pods. It’s that little yellow flower that’s all over our hills, and probably in your backyard… just beware/ avoid pesticides by roads and tended areas, and low plants that dogs pee on. If you love ‘em, garnish salads, or turn into pestos or vinegar-infusions.

• Sniff: OMG Ceanothus! Heavenly blue or white petals that sprinkle down like romance-scene flowers and smell like sweet peace. Instant meditation. Elderflower, too. Bushy big white composite flowers that look like white parasols and smell like vanilla-y bliss, thick compound leaves that smell like funky peanut butter and can get as big as your hand, often surrounded by drunk bees.

• Rub: Nibble Sage leaves and flowers, or just rub your hands over their aromatic leaves. Sage smells like California, like home: black sage’s purple flowers are starting, white sage’s bluish-white flowers will likely pop within the next few weeks, purple sage’s buds are fattening daily, hummingbird sage’s exquisite hot pink blooms are already going through their bloom-fade cycle.

• Write: My Mama put pen and paper in my hands when I was young and had big feelings, and said, “Write it down.” I did, it helped, and I’m still writing. You might find it helpful too. Set a timer for 5-10 minutes and free-write, or just set your pen free for a paragraph or page, and see what emerges.

• Doodle: Do blind contour drawings of plants, places, people you love— or find interesting. Color-blocks of different shades of green. A flower palette. Add play to your notebook, palette, life!

• Move: It’s the best way to help Qi flow. Walk, roll, dance, swim. A body in motion stays in motion.

Go outside. The Qi of spring can get overwhelming, so walk it out. See and taste the flowers. Dig in the dirt. Plant something beautiful: poppies, lettuces, sunflowers, pollinator-loving plants, plants that make you smile and want to dance. Then get up and dance! Dance your joy out into the world, the abundant life-filled joy of plants, pollinators, sunshine, wind, anger (vivacious Qi), life. Be the change you wish to see by planting the plants you love to eat and sniff for the pollinators, creatures, and entire biome to jump up and dance together. Everything is changing. Here we are still, together.1

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 with EarthBody cycles. Here’s this month’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Mar. 6 驚蟄 Insects Awaken • 蟄蟲啟戶 Hibernating insects emerge • 桃始笑 Peach blossoms smile • 菜蟲化蝶 Caterpillars become butterflies

• Mar. 21 春分 Spring Equinox • 雀始巢 Sparrows start nesting • 櫻始開 Cherry blossoms open • 雷乃發聲 Resonant thunder

Events

• Ojai Herbal Retreat: Rest and renew with a day-retreat in beautiful Ojai. Take a plant walk with Lanny Kaufer, make herbal oils for self-massage with Emily Watson, design sleep pillows with Carol Wade, and sip tea and make nature-art with me on May 30. Early bird tickets on sale now!

• Ventura: Join me and hubby Ben for Harmon Nature Meditation on Wednesday, Mar. 4 for community walking and sitting meditation.

• Spring Equinox greets us with a wink and smile on March 20. A wink, because Equinox marks the middle of spring in the Chinese lunisolar calendar, whereas the western calendar usually views it as the beginning of spring. A smile, because— it’s spring! What a time to be alive.

• Book Updates: I am wrapping up Water Element, and hopefully editing Wood Element soon— on a self-guided writing residency in Yosemite! (Anticipated publication Jan. 2028)

Recommendations

• Podcast: Enjoy this month’s important conversation with Minneapolis-based herbalists Linda and Luke Black Elk about herbalism as activism, and stay tuned for a chat with Patricia Kyritsi Howell about medicinal plants of southern Appalachia, and Chicago-based Alex Williams about bioregional herbalism.

• Ephemera: 🌻 Tune into the Wildflower Hotline for weekly updates on So-Cal wildflower sightings. 🌿 Enjoy your flowers responsibly. 🐝 Identify plants with the Calflora app. 🌵 Crowd-source plant identification with the iNaturalist app. 🍊 Learn edible-medicinals with Lanny’s book Medicinal Herbs of California. 🌺 Get plants at Ventura nurseries, and seeds at Strictly Medicinals. 🥑 Listen to an inspiring chat with Nat-Geo photographer Paul Nicklen, Sam Roberts on Pantry Staples for the Home Herbalist, and Devin Berry on Bread for the Journey. 🍄 Watch Bad Bunny’s historical halftime show, and remember: The only thing more powerful than hate is love.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Lunar New Year arrives on February 17, marking the first new moon of this fresh lunisolar cycle. As an important holiday across much of East Asia and a cornerstone of my family traditions, this is the time to celebrate new beginnings.

You might light candles or incense, or build an Earth altar from sticks and stones to honor what you love. Perhaps you take a clarifying walk, gather beloveds for tea, or write or draw your reflections. Whatever your ritual, find your own way to welcome this new cycle with intentional beauty.

In the Chinese lunisolar calendar, an Element and zodiac animal guides the energy of each year:

• Each Element governs two years, first in its active Yang expression, then in its receptive Yin form, cycling through Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal.

• Each year, the next animal in the cycle steps forward: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.

The macrocosm of the Earth and Sky reflects the microcosm of our Bodies. The Elements and animals reflect the energetic patterns of the environment (Earth) and seasons (Sky), and mirror the twelve primary Organ systems and Channels of Chinese Medicine, alongside myriad other associations. 2025 was the year of the Yin Wood Snake, a time of quieter subterranean shifts, gathering force. Now we welcome the Yang Fire Horse, where we gallop into collective flame.

Whoa, steady! Yang Fire ignites passionate action, but an uncontained flame consumes its fuel. The Horse gallops with great strength, but needs a steady rhythm. Build a hearth of grounding rituals to tend your inner flames, and burn bright through the powerful year ahead. May your year— our year— be beautiful, loving, and kind. Let’s harness our communal Fire for the well-being of all beings.

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 with EarthBody cycles. Here’s this month’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Feb. 4: 立春 Beginning of Spring • 東風解凍 East wind thaws ice • 黄鶯睍睆 Orioles sing in mountains • 魚上冰 Fish emerge from ice

• Feb. 19: 雨水 Rainwater • 土脉潤起 Rain moistens soil • 霞始靆 Mist lingers • 草木萌動 Plants sprout

Recommendations

• Book Updates: Wrapped up Metal Element, onwards to Water— beginning with the lifestyle principle of rest. (Anticipated publication Jan. 2028)

• Ventura: Join me and hubby Ben for Harmon Nature Meditation on Wednesday, Feb. 4 for community walking and sitting meditation.

• Podcast: Enjoy this month’s inspiring conversation with Keya Kai Guimarães about Hawaiian flora, and stay tuned for a chat with Linda and Luke Black Elk about herbs to melt ICE, and Patricia Kyritsi Howell about medicinal plants of the southern Appalachians.

• Ephemera: 🌻 Support local Ventura initiatives like 805UndocuFund, Ventura Land Trust, and Surfrider— and stand with Minnesota. 🌙 Read Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas, the new Mountain Rose Herbs Journal, and upcoming lunar forecasts from Tiger Eye Astrology and Tiger’s Play Astrology. 🍓 Learn with Spirit Rock’s free course Inner Resilience for Environmental Changemakers and Herbal Academy’s Virtual Herbal Conference. 🌿 Make herbal chocolates from scratch, or as bark or truffles. 🌊 Listen to this ambient Five Elements album, herbalist Karyn Sanders on grounding & boundaries, and Tara Brach on the three refuges of awareness, truth, and love.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month for spring equinox!

JilingLin.com

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Surfing the beach-break of rippling blue warm waters, I hear howler monkeys echoing over the horizon, see toucans and macaws soaring over the coconut-palm canopy, and appreciate these rolling green hills of southern coastal Costa Rica bursting with lushness. What a place for a self-guided writer’s retreat. We dip in a cold waterfall after surfing, gorge on fresh empanadas from the corner panaderia, then trek uphill back to what feels like a mansion overlooking the trees and ocean, but is actually an old house tucked into the hillside, getting reclaimed by the jungle. This is home.

Howler monkeys at dawn:

I write on the porch, moving the long low bench around. I write on the kitchen counter, dining room table, in bed, on the yoga deck. Transfer ideas and words between notebooks and laptop, writing and editing from dawn until dusk between eating, surfing, and watching monkeys and toucans (my favs) frolic through the canopy, wondering at the endless vigor of cutter ants shredding nearby foliage, the intoxicating scent of plumeria, ginger, and turmeric, endless new friends and dangers to meet in all directions.

Monkey business (video courtesy of hubby Ben):

Writing and resting here, I feel replenished— but eventually miss my familiar Ventura waves, friends and patients, the plants on our balcony and little piano in our living room, the small comforts and humdrum magnificence that make up a life. Time to come home.

Happy new year to wherever you are. May your small and large homecomings— to body, breath, and land— welcome you back into this moment, into a sense of belonging in this place, at this time. May you always feel the beauty of this world, radiating from the inside out. May you always feel at home.

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 with EarthBody cycles. Here’s this month’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Jan. 5: 小寒 Minor Cold • 芹乃榮 Parsley flourishes • 水泉動 Springs thaw • 雉始雊 Pheasants start calling

• Jan. 22: 大寒 Major Cold • 款冬華 Coltsfoot buds • 水澤腹堅 Ice firms on ponds • 鶏始乳 Hens start laying eggs

Recommendations

• Book Updates: I’m finishing up the first typed draft of the Metal Element chapter, and flowing into Water Element soon. Still having fun (most days), and aiming for January 2028 publication!

• Ventura: Join my husband Ben and I for Harmon Nature Meditation on Jan. 14, in collaboration with Ventura Land Trust, for walking and sitting meditation— in community— at beautiful Harmon Canyon.

• Podcast: Enjoy this month’s conversation with Renée Camila and Sam Roberts about Planting Medicine, and stay tuned for a sweet chat with Hawaiian herbalist Keya Kai Guimarães about Hawaiian flora.

• Ephemera: 🎵 Enjoy my oft-updated writing playlist— and please share your top word-free joyous beats to help dance this book into form! 🌈 Make something creative for 100 days. 📚 Read Things I’ve Learned About Creativity by The Oatmeal, Lynda Barry’s book on Making Comics, and Tara Brach on Trusting the Gold.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month for Lunar New Year!

JilingLin.com

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I’ve been stepping out into the cold darkness first thing in the morning to say, “Thank you,” to the sky, land, waters. To life.

Small rituals ground our lives in great beauty. Little actions add up into a big life, which passes too soon. Another year, moment, breath.

I’m grateful. When struggling through the inevitable slings and arrows of a full life amidst sociopolitical upheaval and ecological heartbreak, I remember these quiet mornings when I lift my arms to the sky’s changing stars, clouds, moon. Dolphins leaping out of the waves while surfing. Sunrise through the fog. Big Dipper over downtown Ventura. And, such bounty. Fresh pears and persimmons from M, avocados and oranges from L, tea and calendula salve from S, our own tomatoes, basil, and more growing and giving, abundance overflowing. Births and deaths too, celebration and loss, stories galore. So heartbroken. So grateful.

What are the little rituals that ground you in great beauty?

Thank you for being part of my year, and life. May your winter be restful, your coming year sweet.

2026: What’s Coming

• Tea Talks podcasts: I’ve already interviewed my first four herbalists for 2026, with a new closing question, “We are living in complex times. How can plants help us meet this moment?” Keep listening to Herbal Radio to hear their answers, and let me know what helps you through these times!

• EarthBody book: My manuscript is currently due in early February, anticipated publication late 2027 or 2028. Wish me luck during the final manuscript push!

• Harmon Nature Meditations will continue on the first Wednesdays of each month, in January. Visit the Ventura Land Trust calendar to sign-up.

• 2026 Events: Amidst book-writing and acupuncture clinic, I’m cocreating a few special botanical events through spring 2026. Visit my events page for more info!

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 with EarthBody cycles. Here’s this month’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Dec. 7: 大雪 Heavy Snow • 閉塞成冬 Closing into winter • 熊蟄穴 Bears hibernate • 鱖魚群 Salmon swim upstream

• Dec. 21: 冬至 Winter Solstice • 乃東生 Self-heal sprouts • 麋角解 Deer shed antlers • 雪下出麦 Wheat sprouts under snow

Recommendations

• 2025 Podcast Highlights: Some of my most beloved conversations this year included The Generosity of Plants with Rosemary Gladstar, Art that Breathes with , and Fermentation School with .

• 2025 Reading Highlights: Of the thirty books I finishing reading this year, some of my favorites include the braided narrative On Muscle by Bonnie Tsui, the memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Renegade Grief by Carla Fernandez, the juicy All Fours by Miranda July, a book of creative writing prompts The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad, and indigenous ecological perspectives in Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta.

• Podcast: Enjoy this month’s interview with about Mirrors in the Earth, and stay tuned for a sweet conversation with Renée Camila and Sam Roberts about Planting Medicine.

• Ephemera: 🌙 Reflect on 2025 and manifest 2026 with my annual Reflect & Manifest Template and Guide. 🌿 Make adaptogenic chai tea and tonic mushroom soup, and stay warm. 📚 Read Maria Noel Grove’s new book Herbal Gut Health, pre-order devon and nico hase’s new book This Messy, Gorgeous Love, keep enjoying Wumen Huikai’s classic poem about the best season of your life— and happy holydays, beautiful human! Thank you again for your presence in my life. Winter well.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea to fuel the book-writing magic. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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I breathe into the watercolor crayons in my hands, gazing at the pines silhouetted through the window, the thinning moon and darkening stars. It’s pre-dawn on the third day of another silent retreat, now in the mountains, with fresh snow on the nearest peaks.

Light blue. Following the impulse, I pick up the color and smear it across the empty page.

Orange. I dash sharp marks across the bottom. Reds. Pinks. Greens. Yellows. Smooth marks. Rough marks. Eventually, the whole page fills with color, some jarring and contradictory, others harmonious and pleasant. I lean back and breathe, awaiting the next impulse. Here it is.

Water. I press and drag my loaded waterbrush across the color fields, smoothing and delineating what feels right in the moment. Not how it looks. How it feels, belly to heart to shoulder out through hand, colors cohesing as something never-before-seen, in its own odd beautiful way, comes to form below my dancing hand.

This hand. This breath. This page.

These colors.

Sometimes, words are too much, or not appropriate. There is movement still, the swoop and sweep of a hand through space, a foot across Earth. There is color too, what is seen, and what can be imagined. And formless form too yes, that which is indefinable and emerging, tectonic. Trust the process. Pick up your colors and sit at your empty page in the dark. Let the form reveal itself. Welcome emergence.

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 with EarthBody cycles. Here’s this month’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Nov. 7: 立冬 Beginning of Winter • 山茶始開 Camellias bloom • 地始凍 Earth starts freezing • 金盞香 Daffodils aroma

• Nov. 22: 小雪 Light Snow • 虹藏不見 Rainbows disappear • 朔風払葉 North wind gathers leaves • 橘始黄 Citrus leaves yellow

Recommendations

• Ventura: Join us for Harmon Nature Meditation on Nov. 5, in collaboration with Ventura Land Trust, for walking and sitting meditation— in community— at beautiful Harmon Canyon.

• Podcast: Enjoy my interview with about Fermentation School and stay tuned for an upcoming interview with about Mirrors in the Earth.

• Ephemera: 🌙 Reflect on 2025 and manifest 2026 with my annual Reflect & Manifest Template and Guide. 🌈 Play with watercolor crayons. 🌊 Gather a travel watercolor set with waterbrush, mini-palette, and color. 🌿 Make Nourishing Soups. 📚 Read and listen to the 2nd issue of e-mag on Borderlessness, Rilke’s Widening Circles poem, and Wumen Huikai’s poem about the best season of your life.

❤️ I appreciate you!

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea if you wish to support the book-writing process. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Leaping from one wiggly rock to another descending from the mountain pass into a valley, I look up and smile. Oceanic mountains ripple beyond the horizon. Breathe, step. Mind wanders forwards to lunch, backwards to last week. Noticing, I return to breath, body, environment. Breathe, step. Here I am. Peaks rippling, swallows soaring, this season’s final crickets whir their celebratory songs to the ever-changing yet steady sky, “Here we are!” and “Love! Love! Love!”

We live in complexity. Nerves and muscles, ideas and worries, everything is always swirling— including the ecological and sociopolitical compost heap of our times.

Anchor back into your body with simple meditations. Mindfulness is knowing what you’re doing when you’re doing it. Walking, know you are walking. Sitting, know you are sitting. Regardless of the howling forces of external circumstances, here you are.

Take a breath. In, out. Ah, here we are. Congratulations! You just did a simple meditation. You’ve arrived. Welcome.

Now, continue. Different moments, many options:

• Three breaths. Follow in, release out. Ah, yes. Then, five conscious breaths. Ten.

• Set the timer for one minute. Then, five. Ten.

• Take a walk. Notice your breath, body, this place. Open your eyes, ears, senses. How beautiful, just this.

• Alternate sitting and walking, stillness and movement. That’s it.

You can always add flourishes:

• Turn it into Qigong: Raise your hands with the inhale, press down with the exhale— that’s “pushing palms for peaceful Qi” form (按掌平氣). Repeat.

• Add imagery: As you inhale, visualize golden light rolling from the bottom of your feet (Kidney-1 湧泉) cleansing up-up-up through your body. As you exhale, feel and imagine golden light flowing back down to nourish the Earth.

• Bounce awareness: Pulse between seeing, hearing, and sensing. Get big, go slow. See with an open relaxed gaze. Hear with soft expansive ears. Sense your familiar breath, body, being. Welcome home.

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 with EarthBody cycles. Here’s this month’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Oct 8: 寒露 Cold Dew • 鴻雁來 Geese return • 菊花開 Chrysanthemums bloom • 蟋蟀在戶 Crickets chirp near doors

• Oct 23: 霜降 Frost Falls • 霜始降 First frost • 霎時施 Sporadic light rains • 楓蔦黄 Maple and ivy turn yellow

Recommendations

• ⭐️ Ventura: Monthly Harmon Nature Meditations begin Oct. 1 (today!), in collaboration with Ventura Land Trust. Join us for walking and sitting meditation— in community— at beautiful Harmon Canyon.

• Podcast: Enjoy my interview with Pam Montgomery about cocreating with nature, and stay tuned for an upcoming interview with about fermentation!

• Ephemera: 🌿 Make free-and-easy-wanderer incense. 🍓 Learn about the Dharma of poetry and spiritual roots for resistance. 🌊 Practice cutting yourself some slack and holding fast and staying true. 📚 Read The Herbal Fertility Handbook and The Smell of Rain on Dust. 🌕 Celebrate the Moon Festival on 10/6 with people you love.

Autumn’s my favorite season— and, every season is magnificent. Here and now, golding aspen leaves shimmer over smooth lakes and cool breezes bring wet weather, a palpable shift from summer to autumn. More dark cool quietude. This is the best season of your life. May you enjoy your simple everyday meditations.

❤️ In wild Beauty,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea if you wish to support the book-writing process. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Autumn Equinox arrives on September 22. We’ve transitioned from Earth into Metal Element. Earth centers us by harmonizing transitions. With Metal, we inhale this great gift of life (Lungs), and exhale into the Great Mystery, this falling-away time of releasing leaves, fruits, and what no longer serves (Large Intestine). Here and now, you are in your body like a plant is solid in the ground, yet you are wind.

Put on some slow flow music you love, and try the InterPlay movement form of Shape and Stillness. Make shapes. Hold stillness. Flow. Pulse between shapes, transitions, and the still spaces between. Notice what and how you hold, try on new forms, and find stillness within movement.

Shape & Stillness

Warm-up by shaking out, walking around, or exploring delicious movement however you choose. When you’re ready, pause. Find a shape. Hold it. Feel what’s here. When you’re ready, slowly glide into another shape. Then quickly transition into another shape.

Trying making three fast shapes. Three slow shapes. Shape into a mountain. Into the feeling of steady Earth. Embody the shape of this moment. The shape of a place you love. The shape of something challenging or distasteful. The shape of love.

Move between shape and stillness. Let your transitions be fast or slow. Try alternating both. Let your body and this place guide your dance, or put on a piece of music and flow.

How does it feel to travel between movement and stillness? How does it feel to take one shape, hold still, and fully experience that state of being? Experiment with your ratios of shaping to stillness, your transitions too. Perhaps elongate your holds into an 80% stillness and 20% movement dance. What’s here? Play with it. Savor the pauses, soften into presence, and fully embody your shapes and the spaciousness therein.

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 with EarthBody cycles. Here’s this month’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Sept 8: 白鷺 White Dew • 草露白 Dew glistens white on grass • 鶺鴒鳴 Wagtails sing • 玄鳥去 Swallows leave

• Sept 22: 秋分 Autumn Equinox • 雷乃収聲 Thunder ceases • 蟄蟲壞戶 Insects hole up • 水始涸 Fields begins drying

Recommendations

• ⭐️ Ventura: Monthly Harmon Nature Meditations begin Oct. 1, in collaboration with Ventura Land Trust. Practice walking and sitting meditation in beautiful Harmon Canyon. Join us the first Wednesday evening of each month (-ish) for these free community gatherings.

• Podcast: Enjoy my interview with about herbal fertility— and stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Pam Montgomery about cocreating with nature!

• Ephemera: 🌶️ Make Ma’s Hot Sauce and Fire Cider. 🌙 Practice Embodied Presence with Tara Brach. 🌊 Sing along to This is a Wave by Sarina Partridge. 🌿 Learn about Herbs for Fire Season with me and Herbs for Grief with Elisha Storey. 📚 Read Renegade Grief by Carla Fernandez, On Muscle by Bonnie Tsui, and Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea if you wish to support the book-writing process. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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We just returned from what’s turning into an annual summer silent nature meditation retreat. This year, we camped along the wild northern California coastline for eight days with thirty-ish other dharma bums, alongside dolphins, whales, seals, otters, starfish, and other marine kin. We gazed at foggy morning skies and maintained equanimity through the midday heat as turkey vultures and barn swallows soared overhead, stars came and went, and the moon fattened then waned. Glorious. Challenging too to sit in silence and meditate all day camping out for eight day— and glorious. All of my clothes smell like damp sea breeze, my hair is slick with salt, and my heart is in my feet and whole body, calm and centered, even when striding back into the maelstrom of our world.

We came home to rollicking swell, the 200-person Camarillo farm raid, full inboxes, and more. I am maintaining spaciousness with a dedicated morning practice, news fast, and phone deburdening. Every night and on non-work days, I slip my phone into a pretty black bag covered in flowers, and place it out of sight. The world can wait. I will not get trapped in the hell-loop of fearful pontification. I have agency in what information I intake, and what small everyday actions of great beauty I can take, one mindful breath at a time. All this will shift. Ease and steadiness is cultivated, never a given. Life is transient, precious. This silence is ever-present, even amidst the noise.

What practices ground you?

How might you honor silence, your personal space, in your own way?

Perhaps your phone goes into a special box after dinner, or you uphold a “no tech” policy in the bedroom, or take an afternoon of silence. Maybe bring no phone or distractions on a mindful walk, it’s just you and nature, or a beloved friend with a mutual “no news” agreement, or even a few days of silence: two, four— eight?

As we transition from the Fire Element summer season into the late summer Earth Element season in August, nourish your foundations. Embrace peace. Cultivate silence. You are steady as a mountain, Earth walking on Earth, a small EarthBody on our big EarthBody. Here and always, you belong. Welcome home to Earth, to body, to stillness, ground, rest.

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 August’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• Aug 8: 立秋 Autumn Begins • 涼風至 Cool breezes • 寒蝉鳴 Cicadas sing • 蒙霧升降 Thick fog descends

• Aug 23: 處暑 Heat Ends • 綿柎開 Cotton flowers bloom • 天地始肅 Heat finally subsides • 禾乃登 Rice ripens

Recommendations

• Ventura: I’m taking a teaching break to focus on book-writing— but get involved with 805UndocuFund, enjoy the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, and stay tuned for upcoming nature meditations!

• Podcast: Listen to my interview with Tony(a) Lemos, creator of Art That Breathes ()— and stay tuned for an upcoming interview with !

• Ephemera: Listen to RAIN meditation for radical compassion with Tara Brach, Earth Element meditation with Susie Harrington, Ocean of Beauty by Earthtones. Make Elderberry Syrup and Mallow Cold Infusion. Read Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg, Awake in the Wild by Mark Coleman, How Not to Be a Hot Mess with devon & nico hase. Practice Qigong with Mimi Kuo-Deemer.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea if you wish to support the book-writing process. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Bring your favorite herbs with you on your summer adventures— and make new botanical buddies in new locations too! Herbs can help mitigate the stresses and strains of travel, new foods, and unfamiliar pathogens. When traveling, bring formulas and herbs that serve multiple functions and feel familiar. Multifunctional botanical allies reduce weight and bulk. Cozy botanical friends make perfect travel companions.

Teas: The ritual of sipping tea nourishes resilience in shifting locales. Tea bags are more compact and convenient than loose leaf teas. I usually keep a few tea bags in my carry-on backpack for in-flight luxury, and have a thermos of something tasty for road trips. Travel teas can include chai, ginger, chamomile, or whatever teas most delight you. Include delicious teas, relaxing teas, and warming or cooling teas depending on the weather and your temperament. I’ll cold-brew mint, lemon balm, or tulsi for hot days— and decaf chai is a mainstay for cold days. For mornings, my little 蓋碗 gaiwan tea pot comes with me everywhere along with a tin or two of my current favorite Camellia sinensis (茶 cha) tea blend.

Tinctures: Tinctures act more quickly than teas, and are convenient to carry and administer. Tinctures shine for acute care and while in transit. Bring a few 1 to 2 oz tinctures if you like choices– or just bring one generalized compound Travelers’ Tincture for immune, digestive, and nervous system wellness.

In building your botanical travel kit, consider:

• What do you need when you travel? What body systems tend to work the hardest, or are most challenged, during travels? Special focus areas might include sleep, stress, emotions, respiration, digestion, or immunity.

• Which botanicals– and lifestyle strategies– best support you in your daily life?

• Which of those botanicals overlap, or serve multiple functions?

I used to travel with too many bottles of single herb tinctures, or simples, one for every possible purpose. Simples for traveling could include:

• Echinacea root (Echinacea spp.) to stimulate innate and adaptive immunity before and during a trip.

• Skullcap aerial parts (Scutellaria spp.) for restful sleep, taken before bedtime and as needed if waking through the night.

• Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) or tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) aerial parts for nervous system regulation during travel and in new environments.

• Kava kava root (Piper methysticum) to mitigate acute stress, such as teaching or certain family gatherings.

• Digestive bitters blend or just Artemisia (Artemisia spp.) tincture, taken 20 minutes before meals to help digest unfamiliar foods.

I now mostly travel with only one tincture, a 1 to 2 oz bottle of Traveler’s Tincture that combines immune, digestive, and psychoemotional support into one bottle. If teaching or otherwise expecting acute stress, I might bring an additional 1 oz bottle of acute stress tincture, or prepare a grounding aromatic blend in a roller-bottle.

RECIPE: Traveler’s Tincture

Here’s a general traveler’s tincture that combines immune, digestive, and psycho-emotional support in one bottle. Modify for your needs, and adapt over time!

Ingredients, in equal parts:

• Echinacea root (Echinacea spp.)

• Reishi mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum)

• Ashwagandha root (Withania somnifera)

• Tulsi aerial parts (Ocimum tenuiflorum)

• Citrus peel (Citrus spp.)

• Ginger rhizome (Zingiber officinale)

Combine tinctures in a jar. Label. Pour into a 1 to 2 oz bottle for transit. Take 1 to 2 mL three to four times a day the week before travels, and throughout travels. After traveling, return to everyday life with grounding foods and nourishing activities.

• Echinacea and reishi are immunomodulators that support innate and adaptive immunity.

• Reishi, ashwagandha, and tulsi are adaptogens, helping the body adapt to stress.

• Tulsi, citrus peel, and ginger are digestive aromatics.

Making Compound Tinctures

Here are some options for making compound tinctures, or tinctures with more than one herb:

• Combine single purchases: Purchase tinctures separately, just what you need for your formula. Combine desired proportions in another jar. This is the easiest method, if you don’t want to build a large apothecary.

• Build a simples apothecary: Make or purchase larger quantities of individual tinctures, or simples. Combine to make a compound formula. This builds your herbal apothecary and is the most economical option for making and modifying various formulas over time.

• Compound maceration: Combine dried herbs in desired proportions in a jar. Cover with alcoholic menstrua to macerate together. This makes a compound tincture directly in the jar– recommended for beloved formulas that you know, love, and use consistently.

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 July’s upcoming seasonal nodes and pentads:

• July 7: 小暑 Lesser Heat • 溫風至 Warm breezes • 蓮始開 Lotus flowers open • 鷹乃學習 Young hawks learn to fly

• July 23: 大暑 Greater Heat • 桐始結花 Paulownia trees flower into seed • 7土潤溽暑 Damp soil, humid air • 大雨時行 Heavy rains sometimes fall

Recommendations

• ✨ Ventura: Community Acupuncture & Sound Bath at Bodhi Salt, 7/13

• Podcast: Enjoy my interview with Bevin Clare, author of Spice Apothecary— and stay tuned for an upcoming chat with fellow herbalist and artist !

• In Memoriam: Celebrating the life of herbalist John Gallagher, who will be dearly missed. Learn more about John in an inspiring interview on the HerbRally podcast, and enjoy my conversation with John and Tara Ruth last summer on the LearningHerbs podcast.

• Ephemera: Rooted & Rising podcast episode by Planting Medicine, Herbal Resilience blog by Dr. Ingrid Bauer, Living in an Age of Fear article by Phillipp Moffitt, Holistic Health for Transgender & Gender Variant Folks paper by Dori Midnight, The Sensual Art of Writing 1972 talk by Anaïs Nin, Fire in the Belly article by Tyson Yunkaporta, Skywoman Falling article by Robin Wall Kimmerer

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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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 at the Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference. We take three breaths together: for ourselves, each other, the Great Mystery. We rub our hands to generate heat, then clap 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 trails. So many ideas as always, but no impetus this time to gestate into a polished plan. Instead, “We are here to experiment and experience together,” I say in our first few minutes of class, “and I am here with you.”

Planning without planning, I scaffolded 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 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 friends, and discover a hidden lake where sandhill cranes crooned and Canadian geese honked 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: 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!

• Podcast: Listen to my interview with Thomas Elpel, author of Botany in a Day— and stay tuned for an interview with (one of my fav herbalists!)

• Library: My top books from May (in progress) include The Book of Alchemy by (writing prompts) and California Against the Sea by Rosanna Xia (climate change)

• Substack: (alternative music from China), (East Asian medicine meets folklore), (creative lyric essays), and a Stealth-Care piece from (interview drops next month on Herbal Radio)

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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 here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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“Lectio Divina,” he said. “Huh?” I asked. We were lying in a hot-spring in the middle of the wilderness 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 life.

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 book of seasonal scriptures for over a year now. Returning over and over to these verses, they pattern their exquisite beauty into his one wild life. Reading and rereading, he digests their depths through the crucible of living. I am not religious, but I love the idea.

My simplified version of lectio divina:

Here’s my expanded version:

1. Read a passage.

2. Sit with it.

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

4. Sit with what caught your attention.

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

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

7. Tomorrow, keep going.

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 translations1 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.

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. Enjoy this new newsletter section! Each month, I will include upcoming seasonal nodes and their pentads.

• May 6: 立夏 Beginning of Summer • 蛙始鳴 frogs start singing • 蚯蚓出 earthworms emerge • 竹笋生 bamboo shoots rise

• May 21: 小滿 Minor Ripening • 蚕起食桑 silkworms start eating mulberry leaves • 紅花栄 safflowers bloom • 麦秋至 wheat ripens for harvest

Recommendations

• EarthBody podcast: These monthly letters are now available on audio. Listen in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify— more access coming soon!

• Tea Talks: Listen to my interview with Rosemary Gladstar, where we chat about her newest book, The Generosity of Plants.

• Library: My top books from April include 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.

• Herbal Database: My mentor 7song just released his Herbal Database project, a comprehensive resource from a lifetime of clinical herbalism, wildcrafting, and teaching. 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

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 here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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“Tea” includes herbal teas or tisanes, and tea from the plant Camellia sinensis. I love both. In celebrating monthly tea-related collaborations since January, I reflect on snippets of my sipping journey.

In my early 30s, I followed Camellia to a tea village in the Yunnan province of western China, where babies and elders alike sipped tea around open-air gathering areas with children and chickens running amok over hills terraced in multigenerational tea plants.

Mid-20s, I sipped kungfu style Camellia brews around my Mountain Mama Aji’s long wooden table overlooking the Yangmingshan 陽明山 mountains on handmade cups with a metal cauldron simmering on live coals pouring into handmade teapots in her cold concrete handmade home warmed by music and laughter.

Early 20s, perching on the tight edge of the couch wedged in Guisepi’s teeming Free Tea Party bus in New Mexico at one of my first herbal gatherings, I watched Camellia steam swirl with herbal steams, illuminating smiles, wrinkles, and care.

Now, here.

January. Camellia in Madeleine’s living room— aka. the Tile Cat Teahouse— sipping and painting in our first “Tea & Calligraphy” collaboration, sharing 毛筆 calligraphy brushes and 磨石 ink stones from our grandparents with students.

February. I gather under a sprawling oak in Ojai sipping five tisanes for five Elements with Lanny Kaufer and students as we move, write, and chat about some of my most beloved plants and topics. Then, Camellia in a tiny cabin in ritzy Montecito at Dryshtea Teahouse, five humans gather around a low wooden slab, everything brown and gold, more oak leaves waving outside, as we close our eyes to puerh perfection, traveling with steam, aroma, silence.

March. Camellia, tisane, and a tea-tisane blend bubble in three glass pots on a warmer at Shiloh Teahouse, vibey music tinkling through the Earth-toned space that transports me back to Marina’s tea-scented living room in the middle of Taipei, and back to this little tea community in the middle of Los Angeles.

Around and around we go. The plants have spoken, and keep speaking. I’m here for it.

As spring sprouts and blossoms to life, what plants are speaking to— and moving through— you? How do botanical narratives interweave through your life adventures? What teas guide your way?

Events

• 🌟 4/13: Writing the Elements at Shiloh in Los Angeles, CA

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

• I’m honored to be part of Rosemary Gladstar’s newest book, The Generosity of Plants, a beautiful collection of quotes from beloved herbalists— releasing on Earth Day, 4/22!

Recommendations

• United Plant Savers is one of many nonprofits who will not be reimbursed with grant money previously pledged to them by the government. Support them by becoming a member, which is quite affordable ($45) and comes with tons of benefits and discounts like nationwide access to 360+ botanical gardens, including our local Ventura and Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens.

• Tea ceremonies around Ventura, CA

• Love tomatoes? Get fresh heirloom tomatoes and expert support at Tomatomania— upcoming events in Ojai and Ventura!

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. • Acupuncturist, herbalist, artist • JilingLin.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. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Birds bounce in the bushes, squirrels dash from rock to rock, and fresh plants pop out everyday. Spring has sprung! Equinox is March 20, the peak of spring in the Chinese lunisolar calendar. We went through a cold rainy patch mid-February, and now there’s swell, blue skies, cleaner waters— and a changing surf break. Promenade reconstruction and storms are reshaping Surfer’s Point waves here in southern California. The shoreline and waves are always shifting, but alongside the current climate, sociopolitical, and other ongoing and acute changes of all sizes that rock our personal and collective lives— it can feel like a lot.

What steadies you, amidst all this change? How can you ride the energy of spring without getting swept up?

Responding to seasonal cues— responding to life— is a dance. We feel the push-pulls of yes, no, and maybe dragging us in all directions. Contact what’s clear under the noise. Breathe into it. Practice moments of micro-presence before and amidst the bustle. Stretching. Journaling. Five minutes of meditation first thing in the morning, maybe even in bed. What nourishes you?

Try this breath practice. Count a 4-4-4-4 inhale-hold-exhale-hold box-breath to steady your breath. Or, count a 3-3-6-6 inhale-hold-exhale-hold to lengthen the exhale, extending the pause before the next breath, next leaping monkey-mind impulsive action. Find moments to pause, stop, and savor. There is so much beauty right now, as ever.

Spring Herbal Ideas

🌿 Make herbal vinegars. Stuff a clean glass jar with chopped up fresh herbs and veggies from your early garden. Cover with apple cider vinegar or another organic vinegar that you love. Include aromatic spices like sages, mints, and chives. Weedy mineral-rich plant pals like nettle leaves, dandelion leaves and roots, and chickweed leaves and flowers. Shake daily for two weeks then strain, keep refrigerated, and enjoy on salads, in cooking, and as sipping vinegar!

🌿 Make finishing salts. Windstorms knocked black and white sage branches off plants we planted at my parents’ home. So Ma is making black and white sage finishing salts. You too can make your own salts! Either we clean our garden beds in the spring or branches get knocked down by weather. Finishing salts are a fun and easy way to preserve the fallen bounty. Simply wash and chop your aromatic herbs. Let herbs air dry until lightly wilted, then toss into your favorite coarse grain salt, about a handful of herbs per cup of salt. Dry in a dehydrator if you live in damper environments, or out in the sun if you live in drier places. The back window of a car parked in a sunny spot makes a nice DIY dehydrator here in so-Cal. Just lay your herb and salt mix on a large flat metal tray in the back window, let sit all day or for a few sunny days, and toss daily until dry. Sages, basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, and other aromatics all make lovely finishing salts.

🌿 Plant your plant pals. Many culinary herbs are easy to grow and delicious and healthy to consume. Grow rosemary and lavender hedges. Let peppermint and thyme crawl around below. Basils and tulsi take up more space; partner with tomatoes! Visit your local nursery or farmer’s market or explore your favorite online seed catalogs, ask questions, and add more herbal friends into your life!

Recommendations

• Equinox Acupuncture & Sound Bath at Bodhi Salt Yoga, 3/16

• Herbs for Fire & Smoke Support podcast on Herbal Radio

• The California Wildflower Hotline Fridays from March through May!

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling

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

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Hi! I’m Jiling, a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac) and herbalist in Ventura, CA (USA). I provide integrative medicine and experiential education for thriving personal and ecological wellness with gentle acupuncture and herbs, accessible lifestyle medicine solutions, and empowering classes and retreats integrating nature, art, movement, and ritual. I’m writing my first book about these topics! Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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Much love to our Los Angeles brethren. Amidst the fragility of life in fire-prone regions and our collective grief, we still celebrate daily beauties. The simple pleasures that keep us going. I wrote this letter a week before Los Angeles caught fire, sipping tea a quiet morning before dawn. Can I still publish this? I now wonder. In the wake of such devastation, can we still enjoy our lives? Yes. We must. We can feel the deep dark feelings. Stretch out. Lie fallow. And, we must proceed. The seed coats that have melted from this fire will reveal shining seeds that one day sprout into something beautiful. But first, ashes. Take your time.

The Cottonwood (Populus spp.) buds are fat with hard resin, persisting through winter until spring’s solar radiance thaws them into dripping sacred resinous medicine. Baby Artemisia californica’s trident-tipped leafy fingers curl towards the sun. Elders (Sambucus spp.) are flowering and berrying, bees swooning, swarming, singing love-love-nectar-love to the azure infinite sky.

Spring comes early here in southern California1. Flowers, fruits, and the cutest baby leaves are out already. I’ve been documenting “Daily Beauty” through the darker colder months of December and January. Moodier weather makes me a moodier creature. My Daily Beauty lists and doodles have helped anchor me to the small miracles and micro-wonders of everyday’s profound mundane magnificence.

Make your own Daily Beauties list!

1. Open your journal to an empty 2-page spread. Draw a horizontal line across the center of the two pages. Then, draw a vertical line down the middle of each page. You now have 8 rectangles for 8 doodles— a grid for 8 days of Daily Beauty2.

2. Write on a different page than your grid. Each morning or night, write a stream-of-conscious list of Daily Beauties. For mornings, record yesterday’s beauties. For evenings, reflect on today’s beauties. These may be visual beauties (my current focus), or other sensory or experiential beauties.

3. What most struck you— in the moment, or while writing? If nothing leaps to mind, then read what you just wrote. Underline what moves you. Choose one beauty.

4. Doodle your top Beauty into one of the eight rectangles! Set a timer for ten minutes— draw for 10 minutes only. Keep it simple. Abstract shapes, colors, comics, and stick figures are all lovely. This is not gallery art; this is just for you to track, play— and turn recording beauty into a practice. In tracking beauty, we notice more beauty. The more we notice, the more we experience.

5. Keep going!

Ventura Events

Come join us for two Ventura offerings this month!

• Harmon Canyon Plant Walk with Ventura Land Trust, 2/9— Learn about the edible and medicinal properties, lore, and magic of plants as food, medicine, and kin. Hone sensory perception, learn plant family characteristics, and hangout with your human, botanical, and ecological local community! Free. Come hangout.

  Harmon Plant Walk

• Seasonal Rhythms: Five Elements Lifestyle Medicine workshop with Lanny Kaufer, 2/23— Meet local medicinal plants on a plant walk with Lanny Kaufer, then explore the Five Elements of Chinese medicine with me via tea meditations, gentle movements, reflective journaling, and group discussion. Learn practices to rest, move, connect, nourish, and create in harmony with the seasons. 7 CEU for LAc

  Seasonal Rhythms workshop

Fire Resources

Smoke, Fire & Stress Support Articles

• Herbs for Fire Season Support, an old article (from me) that still holds true

• Keeping our Bodies Healthy and our Spirits Strong in the Face of Fire, by Rosemary Gladstar

• Smoke Inhalation and Herbal Medicine, by 7song

• Herbs for Wildfire Smoke, by Rosalee de la Foret

• Herbal Resilience: Nervines for the Apocalypse and Beyond, by Ingrid Bauer, MD

Podcast & Video Resources

• Fire Care: Herbs for Lungs and Trauma video with jim mcdonald and Laura Ash

• Herbs for Smoky Skies with Rosalee de la Foret on the HerbRally podcast, Part 1 and Part 2

• Herbalism & Climate Change: Fires, on the Holistic Herbalism Podcast

• How Herbalists Can Support Community Affected by Tragedy with Lupo Passero, on the HerbRally podcast

Ways to Support Communities Affected by LA Fires

• LA Disaster Support Masterlist has abundant ideas

• Mutual Aid list from Living Earth offers a more curated selection

• Yo San University offers free clinics for affected folks, and ways for acupuncturists to get involved

• Dream Center hosts emergency shelter for evacuees

• CA Community Fund has a recovery fund for wildfire victims

• Direct Relief provides medical resources to impacted communities

• CA Fire Foundation provides resources to firefighters

• Ema’s Herbs is offering free mini herb-kits for affected local folks, and I am also gathering herbal supplies for displaced folks in Ventura county. Please let me know other ways to serve! I am here to help.

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling

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

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Hi! I’m Jiling, a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac) and herbalist in Ventura, CA (USA). I provide integrative medicine and experiential education for thriving personal and ecological wellness with gentle acupuncture and herbs, accessible lifestyle medicine solutions, and empowering classes and retreats integrating nature, art, movement, and ritual. I’m writing my first book about these topics! Learn more about me here, join events here, get acupuncture here— and buy me a tea here if you wish (it’s my birthday). See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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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.1

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!

Make Lucky Words

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

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

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Hi! I’m Jiling, a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac) and herbalist in Ventura, CA (USA). I provide integrative medicine and experiential education for thriving personal and ecological wellness with gentle acupuncture and herbs, accessible lifestyle medicine solutions, and empowering classes and retreats integrating nature, art, movement, and ritual. I’m writing my first book about these topics! Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

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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:

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

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, then please

Share

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Hi! I’m Jiling, a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac) and herbalist in Ventura, CA (USA). I provide integrative medicine and experiential education for thriving personal and ecological wellness with gentle acupuncture and herbs, accessible lifestyle medicine solutions, and empowering classes and retreats integrating nature, art, movement, and ritual. I’m writing my first book about these topics! Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. See you next month!

JilingLin.com

Acupuncture

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