This month we’ve explored themes related to writing about and with nature, which brought to light a cadre of questions including: what birds can teach us about writing; transforming our relationship to land through language; how to nourish our writing lives; and storytelling as a mode of connection. Starting next month, we’ll delve more into nature writing by BIPOC authors. Here is a gentle reminder of September’s reading list:
Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, by Camille T. Dungy; A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, by Erin Sharkey; “Ancestral Structures on the Trailing Edge”, by Lauret E. Savoy.
Thank you for being here, and engaging in conversation with me. I always look forward to reading your thoughts in the comments. Now, on to this month’s essay!
A patient came to the clinic last week and told me after her last session, the night sweats she had experienced were gone, and I was (again) reminded of how cool my job really is. She touched her inner arm, gesturing towards a particular channel, and said, “Whatever points you did really helped.” She was referring to the Pericardium channel, which is often utilized for the protection of the heart, and is similar to a Biomedical understanding in its efficacy for influencing cardiovascular disorders. The specific point on her arm is called Pericardium 6, or PC6 (Neiguan), and studies have shown a correlation between PC6, central nervous system activity, and heart function.
East Asian Medicine offers a different way to think about the body, which is why I appreciate it. Full of nuance, history, cultural context, and ecological references, the framework it provides contains the kind of language that we need for this precarious time. It can contribute something to the collective effort of addressing climate change through a process of re-embodiment, starting with the way we talk about issues relating to health.
In the summer of 2021, I had an opportunity to take a writing course with Alexis Pauline Gumbs. The workshop happened during a time of big change, on a personal level. I had just moved into my new office and was trying to navigate my role as a health professional in the midst of a pandemic—a position that I still navigate as COVID cases continue to rise. It was one of the first nature writing workshops I attended and the experience thoroughly solidified my passion for the literary genre. When I read Gumbs’ recent article, "Heat Is Not a Metaphor", in Harper’s Bazaar, a familiar feeling returned. Her insight and perceptive sensibility as a writer, independent scholar, poet, activist, and educator is welcoming and refreshing. In the essay, Gumbs touches on a particular theory that is aligned with the work of Brendan Kelly, a fellow practitioner of Chinese Medicine, whom I mentioned in an essay last month on the sacredness of grief.
Utilizing menopause as an example, Gumbs connects the experience of hot flashes in both humans and the planet, particularly drawing attention to the high temperature of ocean surface water. This pattern, referred to as a marine heatwave, is the result of the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, and data show that our oceans absorb upwards of 90% of the excess heat.
This rapid environmental change leads not only to rising sea levels, but also signifies the loss of connection to Water, and all that it holds, including ancestral memory.
Indigenous cultures and healing ways regard naturally occurring elements—commonly Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water—as sacred phenomena. According to Chinese Medicine, Water is generated from Metal, just as minerals contain the building blocks of a water molecule: two hydrogen atoms bonded by one atom of oxygen. Water is also connected to seeds, ancestors, memory, and fear. Gumbs’ essay helps to elucidate this principle. She draws out the symptoms of menopause or The Change, as it is commonly referred to among elder matriarchs in Black communities, as examples that are becoming more extreme which is the result of perpetual extractive practices encouraged by capitalism.
In Chinese Medicine, menopause is a phase of life that should be held in high regard. As we age, changes in hormonal balance are associated with the Metal element, a period that requires compassion, ritual, and release. Yet, humans—primarily those who are interested in continuing the colonial project—have rapidly leveraged the Earth’s reserves for our own needs, forcing the planet to extremes: heat waves (i.e. hot flashes) and melting ice (i.e. bouts of sweating). A constant desire for growth and accumulation is the cause of the crisis, and it’s on our hands. It is also our responsibility to make space for ceremonies that will aid us in processing the associated grief that comes with letting go of too much, too quickly.
The heat we see manifesting from global crises is relative, and how we treat the planet is a reflection of how we treat ourselves.
What we now experience is far more severe than what our matriarchs felt. It is great, not in quality, but in scale. What is truly concerning is the lack of urgency we seem to have for the dissolution happening before our eyes. We are disappearing ourselves, and our marine relatives are leaving their aquatic homes to organize. Sometimes they strand themselves on the shore in large groups. Sometimes the work looks more like conspiring to turn over a yacht. Are these actions a form of protest, a means of communicating, or an expression of unbearable grief? These are just a few of the essential questions that Gumbs asks. I think, perhaps, all of them are true.
We are the descendants of a planet undergoing a significant change, and maybe menopause is the catalyst that will help us find the language we need to mobilize a wide-reaching shift in perspective. What words will draw us closer together, into the devastation, or what Bayo Akolomalafe refers to as leaning into the cracks? What phrases do we need that will bring justice to the gravity of the moment? As Gumb inquires, “How can we stop dissociating from what is happening to our largest body, the planet?”
What if writing were medicinal in times of devastation?
We need language that is poetic and pointed, and we also need language that is lost; words on the edge of extinction, obscure words. We need the original place names that are layered with meaning. We need to consider the world as kindred, because “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another,” as Grace Lee Boggs said. I share the same curiosity as Gumbs, and wonder what if none of this were a metaphor, but more like a mirror?
Practice Opportunity
Below you will find the connection details for the upcoming Seasonal Embodiment Workshop. I will also send out a gentle reminder about a week out from the date of the gathering. I sincerely appreciate your support and encouragement of my work as a paid subscriber. Thank you!
Connection Details:
Topic: Inner Ecology: A Seasonal Embodiment Workshop Time: Sep 16, 2023, 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87390605319?pwd=aTRlOFo4N0M1NWpxVGYzd1VrK0ZKdz09
Meeting ID: 873 9060 5319
Passcode: 102506
Listening | Reading | Creating
For most of the summer I’ve been feeling somewhat distracted, and combined with a bit of decision fatigue, it’s been challenging to prioritize tasks and stay focused. Whenever I feel like this one of my go-to remedies is a Focus Flow playlist, which features uptempo instrumental beats. My brain is instantly soothed, and I feel like I have the capacity to sort things out every time I listen.
At the moment, most of the reading I am doing is in preparation for September’s letters and essays. My son and I have also been enjoying Katie Woo and Pedro Mysteries, by Fran Manushkin, a chapter book series for young readers. We read it at bedtime, and it’s a fun way to wind down.
I haven’t been creating much this season, and I’m okay with that. I have been brainstorming ideas of things I’d like to make, specifically a few printmaking techniques that I’d like to try.