Jiling Lin, L.Ac. • Acupuncturist, Herbalist, Artist

7.01.2023

🌞Mindfulness reflections & resources ⎸ July newsletter

I stop. Canyons of light and shadow dance across the rectangular patterning of the oak bark. I trace the canyons, red and black ants crawling over my fingers. Turkeys laugh. Deer trot by. The full moon sets, sun rises, and I track time with breath. Now, walking. Lift, move, place. Heel to toe, toe to heel, edges, center. Now, sitting. Just this. Gentle gaze. I see everything and nothing all at once. Soft belly. Spine elongated yet natural. Light and shadow. Ancestors everywhere. “What allures you?” Just this.

Three days ago, I did nothing but eat, meditate, and sleep for a week of silent nature meditation at Spirit Rock. I type this now from an airport window, watching the pink sunset kiss Phoenix, AZ mountains, bleary-eyed on a red-eye layover en route to one of the largest herbal conferences in the world, the International Herbal Symposium (IHS). Walking, driving, and flying from my first multi-day silent Buddhist meditation retreat to my first time teaching at the IHS, I feel grateful (what an honor to teach alongside so many of my heroes). I toe the edge of overwhelm (from silent sacred everynothingness, to flying through the air in a big metal box, to celebrating with hundreds of excited herbalists-- this is a lot). I’m here.

Slowly walking from one side of the terminal to the other at the Phoenix International Airport, I soften and expand my gaze, see everything and nothing, and track my breath, feet, and body. Just this moment. Body, breath, sounds. Seeing, hearing, sensing. Just this.

Movement within stillness. Stillness within movement. Still waters flowing.

What mindfulness practices ground you in everyday life?

What small rituals anchor your attention in this present moment, in what truly matters?

Sassafras & Rosa multiflora near Boston, MA

🌻RETREATS🌻

Come join us for...

Nourishing Life at the Omega Institute in upstate NY, a Five Elements immersion in a gorgeous location. All participants get a copy of my Embodying Elements workbook. Sept. 11 - 15, 2023

OMEGA

Elemental Creativity at Green Gulch Farm, just north of San Francisco-- with Zen Monk Fu Schroeder and Art Monk Abbess Suiko McCall! Art, movement, and meditation with three stellar teachers. Nov. 29 - Dec. 3, 2023

GREEN GULCH

🌻MORE RESOURCES🌻

Find mindfulness resources at jilinglin.com/links#meditate

Ventura mindfulness organizations:

Insight Ventura
Friendship Sangha of the Heart (at the UU church)

Take a retreat! Here’s some retreat center ideas and my upcoming retreats

Herbs to support travel-- here’s two articles I love, from

New Podcast Episode: Herbal Action Project, with Shaman Jesus

PS: The International Herbal Symposium was a blast. I reconnected with old friends, made new friends, taught about things I love, learned more about other things I love like clinical skills for better midwifing people-plant-place relationships-- and am inspired to integrate these skills into my local Ventura clinic & teaching home-scape.

❤️ Enjoy the rest of your summer,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. 林基玲

acupuncture . herbs . yoga

JILINGLIN.COM

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6.01.2023

🌻 Happy Summer Solstice ⎸ June newsletter

Happy Summer Solstice on June 21! As we approach the middle of 2023 and the start of summer, take a moment to reflect on how your year has been thus far, where you are now, and where you are going. Journal, draw, or put on a piece of music and dance it out.

SUMMER is associated with the Fire Element in East Asian Medicine. Stay cool through the rising heat (between June gloom, for my Ventura folx). Sip on herbal iced teas, or make a refreshing herbal highball. Make cucumber salads with fresh garden herbs. Create sun teas with mint family plants like tulsi, peppermint, lemon balm, and lavender. Make and freeze fresh pesto with basils, chives, and mustards. Revel in the abundance of this time of year. As you travel into your bold summer adventures, remember to rest, relax, and create pockets of spaciousness for freeform play– and simply doing nothing. (Acupuncture can help!)

VENTURA YOGA | Two beloved yoga studios in town-- the Pharm and Aum Vibe-- have closed their doors. 🙏 Teachers from both studios are rippling back out into the rich waters of our local Ventura yoga-scape at various other studios:

✨Ecstatic Dance continues at Bodhi Salt every month with rotating community DJs!✨ Bodhi Salt also has gentle infrared heat, all levels yoga, and rad teachers. Email me to sign up for dance updates, or write me to DJ! Come dance!
Love climbing? Lauren Snyder teaches yin-flow on Tuesdays, and I teach Hatha-vinyasa on Thursdays at Boulderdash climbing gym @7:45 PM
Klaudia Paletta & Rafaela Garcia of Primas Colectivas teach "Yoga en Espanol" in Oxnard & beyond.
Portside Yoga now houses Accessible Yoga with Lisa Feeney, River Flow Yoga with the one and only River Shima, and Pilates/ Barre with Carrie Sablan... on the beautiful Ventura Marina!
Going to Ojai? Visit Breathe Ojai and take classes with River, Lisa, Lauren, Sarah Aspell, and more!

🌻UPCOMING🌻

ECSTATIC DANCE | It bears repeating that Ecstatic Dance is now at Bodhi Salt! This location was one of the first locations that I taught yoga in Ventura. I've spent many an ecstatic dawn welcoming the sunrise through the majestic studio windows. It's a gorgeous space. Dances are FREE for Bodhi Salt members/ staff, and sliding scale for others. We're still rotating DJs and creating this community together, so please reach out if you would like to DJ!

EVENTS | Clinic nourishes my Yin, whereas teaching stokes my Yang. When I'm home in Ventura, not only do I get to rest and surf, but I also get to nourish my patients by anchoring all my teaching material with hands-on clinical experience, tending to one human at a time. This is quiet, focused, loving, attentive work that I am grateful for. The fanfare of teaching and travel is also deeply satisfying. This is my expressive move-around, share-everything-everywhere part of my life where I channel the Gods, embody poetry, and radiate sunshine. "You're a force," gushed a recent participant. *Blush* Well, I nourish my Yin in clinic/ ocean at home, and shine my Yang teaching all over once a month. Follow all event updates here! And come join us!

International Herbal Symposium 6/9 - 6/11. Norton, MA
Nourishing Life retreat @Omega 9/11 - 9/15. Rhinebeck, NY
Elemental Creativity retreat @Green Gulch 11/29 - 12/3. Sausalito, CA

Trillium and fern in Eugene, OR

🌻HIGHLIGHTS🌻

New Podcast Episode: Food as Medicine Tea Talks Roundtable
Upcoming Events: Five Elements Omega Immersion (September, in gorgeous upstate New York!)... all events here!

❤️ Happy summer adventuring!

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. 林基玲

acupuncture . herbs . yoga

JILINGLIN.COM

INSTAGRAM

FACEBOOK

Book your acupuncture appointment here

BOOK NOW

If someone forwarded you this email & you loved it, then subscribe here!

5.01.2023

🌻 Collaborations galore! | May newsletter

Practice. Settling in. Spring. We are almost halfway through the year, and approaching the middle/ end of spring season. What practices and rituals nourish you? What seeds have you planted this spring? What transitions are you observing and supporting, as we flower into the upcoming summer heat?

Remember: practice. Practice self-love and nourishment, even as the excitement of spring and upcoming fiery blaze of summer rouse the fires of our body-mind-Spirits into a a leaping, dancing— and sometimes exhausting— frenzy. Eat breakfast. Keep protein-rich snacks at hand. Keep a grounding morning ritual, and perhaps also a small evening ritual, such as a gratitude journal, foam-rolling practice, or reading one lovely poem before bed.

AROMATHERAPY | Scent-based rituals have been used for centuries to promote relaxation and emotional balance. By stimulating the olfactory system of the brain, aromatherapy can help activate the ventral vagus nerve, which is responsible for the "rest and digest" response. Travel-sized aromatherapy rollers are now available in my Ventura clinic: 2 oz lavandin + clary sage, or a customized 4 oz blend. Comes with a list of acupressure points (AcuAromatherapy) to help ground and soothe throughout your day, or during travels— and makes for a lovely Mama’s day gift.

COLLABORATIONS | Having danced between teaching solo and teaching collaboratively for the past decade, I am now leaning into more collaborations. I am exploring how divergent colors and edges can mix into new and brilliant colors and textures. Have you played with watercolors much? I have been painting an observational “nature-spot” every morning since January— thus, mixing colors. Making new colors. Seeing where edges meet. How they dance. Experiencing exhilaration with new colors, and also the tedium and rhythm of a daily practice. This colors into my teaching practices, too. “Nature-spot” might be fun also for you to try— let me know how it goes!

🌻UPCOMING🌻

ECSTATIC DANCE | I miss living in places with weekly opportunities for improvisational movement (like Taipei, Portland, Boulder, Northampton). So, I am now co-creating a monthly Ecstatic Dance with The Pharm, and rotating community nonprofessional DJs (like myself) each month, with a sliding scale rate— and it is so much FUN! I hope you come join us. Next dance is 5/19 with DJ Nohemi Ramos! (For reference… Ecstatic dance: music plays + everyone dances. Contact improv: rolling thread of collaborative contact. Contemplative movement practice: improvisational movement meets seated meditation practice. I dream of having all of the above and more eventually, here in Ventura! I welcome your ideas🥰)

TEA TALKS ROUNDTABLE | For the past two years, I’ve been sharing monthly Tea Talks podcasts in collaboration with Mountain Rose Herbs’ Herbal Radio. What a blast. I love chatting with diverse herbalists! The newest iteration of this project is Tea Talks Roundtable: chatting with a group of esteemed herbalists around a unifying theme. Thus far, I’ve chatted with Ventura herbalists, “Food as Medicine” herbalists— and more to come! 🤙Let me know if you have ideas or recommendations. It’s challenging (and time-consuming) to organize groups of busy herbalists, so I hope you savor the Roundtables, as they will likely be more infrequent than my regular interviews.

ELEMENTAL CREATIVITY | Have you ever dreamed of practicing zazen at an American Zen monastery with a venerable Zen monk, Taiwanese-American acupuncturist-herbalist-yogini, and Big Island Art Monastery Abbess in the middle of a forest for five days with delicious food, great company, and ample time for both solo contemplative practices, large group intentional dance parties, and meditative art practices— themed by Five Element theory from East Asian medicine?! Dream come true. I’m excited to join Suiko McCall and Fu Schroeder at Green Gulch Farm, 11/29 - 12/3. I hope you can join us. Sign up here.

EVENTS & EPHEMERA | Between now and November, there’s plenty more opportunities to come dance literally and figuratively. Come join us!