Hello friends,
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 Kirsten K. Shockey about Fermentation School and stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Asia Suler 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 Wild Voices Collective e-mag on Borderlessness, Rilke’s Widening Circles poem, and Wumen Huikai’s poem about the best season of your life.
❤️ I appreciate you!
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!
🎨 ⚫️💙 💥 🙌