Hello friend,
“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,
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!