November Alchemy
From my newsletter November. 2019.
After last newsletter talking about transformation, I wanted to write about the gathering, and ways to get centered and balanced with oneself.
In this culture, we are very good at separate things, we analyses parts of whole things and putting it in boxes. Labeling herbs, people and cultures. But to transform, and let go of things, one must know how to settle and gather - to re-unite oneself to become whole, again.
Like the Alchemy of Spagyrics, that means 'to draw out' and 'to gather'.
People tend to look at body, spirit and mind separately.
We go to different therapist to heal 'different parts'.
We put labels on foods and diets, and it seems like everything becomes different choices and things that are split and boxed to become ones health.
Health is body-mind-spirit in one.
Life is body-mind-spirit.
Like the earth would not exist without water, air and fire.
To understand this, one can look on the bigger picture of a human's life and nature.
After transformation (autumn), there will be the rest (winter) and then the re-born (spring).
When the cold, windy weather is knocking on our doors, and days we might wake up feeling that itchy throat, the first warning signals of a cold. It is a season of sneezing and flu's. But why is that? Because the air is filled with bacteria, or maybe because we do not live align with what the season out there tells us to do?
What we tend to do when starting to feel a bit sick is to jump on echinacea supplement and maximize dose to get rid of the flu. But, the symptom is telling you something. Sure you can kill a bacteria, and treat the symptom and go on again, but what this really is telling you is something about your lifestyle.
Of course echinacea is better than pharmaceutical chemical drugs.
"Running away from unhealthy situations, relationships and pain is not gonna last in the end. We need to learn how to live a daily life in tune with it. Look at the planet, why is the earth on fire? And what is it telling us? Can we just keep on shutting down the fires, make Instagram stories about plastic in the ocean, or is nothing of it gonna change until we actually take care of the core - our own living."
Think about this; outside is cold and windy, the whole nature is transforming itself into a winter. If Autumn is dying, the winter is death. Winter is also the season of Yin in TCM. Yin is slow, restorative and feminine in nature. As a human being, living in this climate and following the flow of nature - if we continue with a daily rhythm exactly the same as on a summer day; working hard, exercise outside in rainy windy weather, eating the same cold dairy yogurt for breakfast, sleeping the same six hours per night.. Our bodies may react in an exhaustion, and a cold.
Because as a cake that needs its ingredients, and as the earth needs its elements, a human being with an excess or defitiency of an energy/element or activity is not gonna turn out as a tasty balanced cake or with a healthy sustainable microcosm.
So with winter months to come, try to slow down, take a rest and sleep in when you can (mornings or siestas, and go to bed earlier). Do not get cold, with the cool, dry and windy air stay warm with scarfs, socks that covers your ankles, nice warm and comfortable clothing.
Bunker up on nice herbs like thyme, rosemary and oregano and your great soup basics like ognions, garlic ready for many nice warming soups..
So what I often think is that why this cold is coming to attack is because there is something telling you that you might have been working too much, not resting enough and maybe have been eating poorly. And maybe you are not listening to your body-mind-spirit, connected to the nature.
The great thing about this, is that you can live in tune with the season no matter where you are.
To look at the whole picture, and to learn how to reconnect to that inner voice telling you or showing you what to do.
It is all about what you do every day, how you wake up and your general lifestyle.
The magic pill, is you, my dear.
xx
Lina