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[post_content] => Winter solstice is coming. For me it always brings a mix of feelings. I don’t like the early sunsets, but I do like the cozy feeling of candles and music indoors while it’s dark and blustery outside. There’s something about the contrast that makes me appreciate the light more in the winter than the summer.
Our family’s main winter holiday is solstice, when we celebrate the light and remember our ability to kindle it in the darkest of times. I’ve written about this repeatedly over the years – finding the light, honoring the light, and even being the light.
But light and dark are two sides of the same coin, and there’s an important opening in winter to also make peace with the darkness and learn from it.
If we look out onto a wintry landscape, we see mostly dead or dormant plants and not a lot of signs of life. Much of the life that remains has retreated into underground roots or it’s hibernating in caves. Similarly, winter brings a natural inclination – and an invitation – to go inward and down to our depths.
By going “down to our depths” I don’t mean wallowing in depression. I mean willingly visiting the parts of ourselves that are kept hidden, far from the surface.
For instance, many of us want to be always energetic, bright, happy, and productive. We may suppress other facets of ourselves that seem to contrast with this ideal, though they may be equally virtuous and might also help us to be more balanced, well-rounded beings. Even if you’ve come to terms with being an introvert and you don’t want to be boisterous or outgoing, there are still likely to be aspects of yourself that you’re less acquainted with or don’t approve of.
The same goes for how we regard the world. There are parts we accept and parts we resist or even deny. For everything we’re averse to in the outside world, there’s a corresponding aspect in our inner depths that awaits reckoning.
To the degree that we haven’t accepted and integrated aspects of the whole enchilada – our inner and outer worlds – there’s an opportunity to experience life in a way that feels that much more free and complete.
When we consider a visit to our depths a feeling of fear may arise (or, especially if it’s suppressed, numbness, heaviness, or depression). In Chinese five element philosophy winter is ruled by the water element and fear is the negative emotion associated with water. Most fear stems from our survival mechanisms and winter is a time when lots of things die.
This darkness can remind us of our mortality. We might imagine it would be terrifying to let ourselves go along with the descending trajectory of the season. What will we discover about ourselves in the darkness? What if we never find our way back?
But if we approach it with willingness and curiosity – bringing our light into it – the feeling changes and the relationship changes. We’re not going kicking and screaming and resisting with everything we’ve got. We bring Love with us. We soften into it, we feel what arises, we accept what we find, and we remember that the fact that we’re able to perceive what’s in the darkness is evidence that our inner light hasn’t departed.
Our darkness is like a well, or the inky fathoms of a vast sea. We may not prefer to express everything it contains, but if we can say, “Yes, this is part of me and I accept it,” we move a step closer to complete peace. Much of what we discover we’ve relegated to the shadows is wrapped up in old beliefs and misunderstandings. And though it seems to be put away, it infringes on our freedom simply by being a place where we won’t go. By bravely dropping in we can clear up these stories – much the way a light reveals a monster in the dark to be just a pile of clothes.
Inevitably, though, the darkness isn’t just harboring the parts we fear and dislike. It also contains untapped potential. There are aspects of our depths that are just waiting to be invited to the table. Powers that would fill in our gaps.
I hope you’ll join me in meeting the darkness this year with openness, and I’d love to hear what you discover.
Be well,
Peter
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[post_content] => In summer I like to explore and teach about the Fire Element. Summers are dominated by that big fireball in the sky, which has recently been bringing us some extreme temperatures and, sadly, droughts and major wildfires.
I recently wrote an article on the summer solstice – the day of maximum sun – and it occurred to me that I tend to celebrate the light (fire) on both the winter and summer solstices. On the darkest day of the year our family focuses on honoring the light and remembering that even during dark times it never completely disappears. Then on summer solstice we revel in the light’s fullest return.
Less often do we stop to appreciate what’s healthy and balancing about darkness. And if there’s anything worth calling forth in summer (especially in the western part of the country) it’s not more fire but water.
Perhaps our fixation on the fire of life is symptomatic of a broader cultural imbalance – to value yang qualities over yin ones. If you’re not familiar with yin-yang theory, the nutshell explanation is that these terms are adjectives describing two opposing and complementary sets of qualities. Some yin characteristics are: soft, receptive, dark, cool, passive, internal, solid, still, hidden, moist, grounded, shadowy, supple, yielding, and tending to descend. Some yang characteristics are: hot, assertive, bright, active, sharp, rising, expanding, transforming, external, hard.
We need both yin and yang in ourselves and our lives, but if we’re wired to regard survival, hoarding, and conquering as most important, it’s difficult to see the virtue in yin qualities. A yang-orientation seems preferable. Thus, we like to be active all the time. We feel we should always be doing something, always productive in some way. We believe it’s best to be extroverted and we esteem people who are driven, even dominating.
We’re attracted to parties and passion, and our movies tend to portray love as intense, fervent, and insatiable – like an out of control fire. We treat the planet in a similar way – consuming, controlling, ravaging, and desiccating it. We often live “up high” – in our heads – rather than in the depths of our feeling and intuition. The many illuminated things that now fill our world – electric lights and screens especially – have taken the place of the fires we used to gaze into. And the perpetual data stream these electronics connect us to – news, tweets, texts, emails, videos – ensure that there’s rarely any total darkness or stillness (i.e., yin) in our waking lives.
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with these yang qualities, of course. It’s only when they aren’t balanced by yin ones that we run into trouble. Climate change, media overload, unsustainable growth and consumption are symptoms of this imbalance. While there are plenty of material changes that are worth making – reducing our carbon footprint, buying less virgin plastic, limiting screen time, and supporting sustainable agriculture to name a few – a cultural change will be instrumental in turning the tide, and that change is about honoring the yin.
It’s a tall order, I know. We tend to think we’ve done this work already, but the fire has grown more quickly than our measures to balance it. For instance, many people believe that women have had equality with men for decades. It’s true that things get better over the years, but much of this “equality” has looked like men (and women) accepting female empowerment only to the extent that women flex their yang qualities. More revolutionary is the idea of cherishing women (and men) who embody the yin, and recognizing that all that is yang in the world needs an equally monumental anchor of yin in order to be in balance.
This means (to give just a few examples) accepting and cultivating stillness, appreciating healthy darkness, saving water, listening, being receptive, being humble, being moderate, living simply, being self-reflective, and being truly adaptable.
It amounts to reverence for what sets humans apart from other animals. It’s the biggest work our species will ever face.
Love,
Peter
[post_title] => The Biggest Change in the World
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[post_content] => In the early years of my practice, I studied with an expert in Chinese pulse diagnosis. He had studied under a Chinese doctor named John H. F. Shen who was something of a legend. Dr. Shen was known to treat 200 people in a day. He was a master of reading pulses and faces, and he had an uncanny ability to diagnose the cause of people’s illness – right down to the year it started. Of the countless impressive stories, my teacher recounted the time Shen was feeling an old man’s pulse and told him his problems stemmed from the guilt he felt about killing someone around 1940. The man admitted that during World War II he was part of the French Resistance and had shot a good friend upon discovering that the friend was a Nazi spy.
While I was learning useful pulse diagnosis techniques, I was eager to hear more about Dr. Shen (who had died a few years earlier). I asked my teacher if he’d ever been treated by him. “Yes,” he replied, “and it changed my life forever.” I was expecting to hear a story like the one above, so it was a little disappointing when my teacher said, “He felt my pulses and told me, ‘I won’t treat you. You need to rest. You are working too much.’ That was it.”
What? That was it? “Well, a year later,” he continued, “I tried again. I asked him to feel my pulses and write me an herbal formula. And he told me the same thing. ‘Go home and rest,’ he said. ‘I can’t do anything for you. You need to take a year off.’”
“To take a year off – it seemed unthinkable. But my health had been declining for a long time, so I decided to do it. I made plans to turn my practice over to someone else, I saved money, and I took a year off to rest. It had a more profound impact on me than anything else I’ve ever done. I think I wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t listened to him. From then on I have approached life differently.”
Even though it was nothing like the almost-magic readings Dr. Shen was famous for, this story hit me hard. I had spent years studying texts of Chinese medicine that explain the process a healer must understand – the earliest roots of imbalance, how this imbalance progresses into illness, discerning the patterns involved in the illness, and finally, treating the illness and attempting to restore balance. Like almost all my fellow students and practitioners, I had gradually come to focus almost entirely on the last steps – diagnosing and treating the consequences of longstanding imbalance. Meanwhile the early stages had become almost irrelevant. Who cares how it started 50 years ago when the person in front of you needs help now?
Then I remembered, as these ancient books state: “the superior physician” cares – and focuses on correcting imbalance before it becomes disease. Though it’s often impossible to cure advanced disease, in a way it’s a greater challenge to address oneself to the origins, because few people take seriously the early imbalances that aren’t yet causing much suffering.
These early forms of imbalance, by the way, are pretty simple and exceedingly common. They include the unhealthy expression of emotion (suppressing or resisting the experience of an emotion and/or harboring it for a prolonged time), improper eating (too much, too fast, while stressed, low quality food, etc.), and overwork. It was this last issue – overwork – that Dr. Shen was pointing to.
It’s often difficult for people to make the connection between overwork and degradation of health, especially because we’ve all known of a few remarkable and robust individuals who seem able to work tirelessly, sleep minimally, and live for a century. But they are the outliers.
Most of us can’t do this. There is simply no substitute for rest. You can eat well, do yoga, take vitamins, and drink wheatgrass juice, but none of these will allow you to deprive yourself of rest without paying for it.
The simplest advice I could give on rest is this: every day, use less than your total daily allotment of energy. Each day we have a certain amount of energy to work with. This is replenished through good sleep, high quality food digested well, ample clean water, fresh air, our nourishing connections with the world (love and affection, inspiring and affirming conversation, etc.). When we go to bed without having used it all up, we’re investing in ourselves and prolonging our lives. When we use it all up each day, we’re neither serving ourselves nor particularly harming ourselves (as long as our replenishing factors are in good shape). When we use it all up and keep going, we draw on our reserve energy – a reservoir we should rarely need to tap.
This reservoir can be thought of as our store of “life force.” It is what Ayurvedic medicine calls ojas, what Chinese medicine calls jing (“essence”), and what biomedicine understands largely as a function of the endocrine system (especially the adrenal glands). When we deplete our reserve energy, we speed up the aging process and reduce our resistance to disease. Lack of rest also makes us more prone to weight gain. Physiologically this toll may involve depletion of our adrenal glands (a first responder to stress), low thyroid function (a decline in metabolism), low stomach acid and digestive enzyme production, diminished sex hormone production, low immune function, and chronic inflammation.
Everyone can learn to feel when they are running on “good” energy versus tapping into their reserves. When using our “good” energy (the daily allotment discussed above) we have enough fuel to get through our tasks for the day without the need of stimulants, and we feel grounded and solid. When tapping our reserves, we tend to feel a bit jittery, edgy, ungrounded, foggy, weak, or faint. We may feel like we could fall asleep in an instant if we put our head down. If you habitually rely on stimulants (coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate, media, etc.) to get through the day, chances are, you’re tapping into reserve energy on the daily.
If you’ve been out of whack for a while, first stop exceeding your limits. You may also need a period of dedicated rehabilitation like my teacher. This rehabilitation period should include: plenty of clean, fresh air, time in nature, an optimal amount of pure water, a diet of fresh, healthy foods appropriate for your condition, all the sleep you need, a peaceful and positive atmosphere, a personalized health care plan, and you must never use more than your daily allotment of energy. During this period (and always) it’s beneficial to abstain from engaging your energy on anything that doesn’t serve some higher purpose. For instance, if watching vampire movies activates your stress responses (you can tell if you’re on the edge of your seat or feeling tense), this is an energy sink that yields no positive return.
Winter is naturally the ideal time for rest. Just look at how many plants and animals out there have gone dormant for the season. If your mind protests, “But I need to be productive” remind it that this is productive – it’s just a long game. As difficult as it may be to go to bed early, to leave an exercise class before it’s over, or to decline a night out with friends, listening to and honoring your system is a form of growing up. Notice what happens to your mental clarity, mood, self-trust, and quality of life when you prioritize yourself and get the rest you need.
Be well,
Peter
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[post_content] => Winter solstice is coming. For me it always brings a mix of feelings. I don’t like the early sunsets, but I do like the cozy feeling of candles and music indoors while it’s dark and blustery outside. There’s something about the contrast that makes me appreciate the light more in the winter than the summer.
Our family’s main winter holiday is solstice, when we celebrate the light and remember our ability to kindle it in the darkest of times. I’ve written about this repeatedly over the years – finding the light, honoring the light, and even being the light.
But light and dark are two sides of the same coin, and there’s an important opening in winter to also make peace with the darkness and learn from it.
If we look out onto a wintry landscape, we see mostly dead or dormant plants and not a lot of signs of life. Much of the life that remains has retreated into underground roots or it’s hibernating in caves. Similarly, winter brings a natural inclination – and an invitation – to go inward and down to our depths.
By going “down to our depths” I don’t mean wallowing in depression. I mean willingly visiting the parts of ourselves that are kept hidden, far from the surface.
For instance, many of us want to be always energetic, bright, happy, and productive. We may suppress other facets of ourselves that seem to contrast with this ideal, though they may be equally virtuous and might also help us to be more balanced, well-rounded beings. Even if you’ve come to terms with being an introvert and you don’t want to be boisterous or outgoing, there are still likely to be aspects of yourself that you’re less acquainted with or don’t approve of.
The same goes for how we regard the world. There are parts we accept and parts we resist or even deny. For everything we’re averse to in the outside world, there’s a corresponding aspect in our inner depths that awaits reckoning.
To the degree that we haven’t accepted and integrated aspects of the whole enchilada – our inner and outer worlds – there’s an opportunity to experience life in a way that feels that much more free and complete.
When we consider a visit to our depths a feeling of fear may arise (or, especially if it’s suppressed, numbness, heaviness, or depression). In Chinese five element philosophy winter is ruled by the water element and fear is the negative emotion associated with water. Most fear stems from our survival mechanisms and winter is a time when lots of things die.
This darkness can remind us of our mortality. We might imagine it would be terrifying to let ourselves go along with the descending trajectory of the season. What will we discover about ourselves in the darkness? What if we never find our way back?
But if we approach it with willingness and curiosity – bringing our light into it – the feeling changes and the relationship changes. We’re not going kicking and screaming and resisting with everything we’ve got. We bring Love with us. We soften into it, we feel what arises, we accept what we find, and we remember that the fact that we’re able to perceive what’s in the darkness is evidence that our inner light hasn’t departed.
Our darkness is like a well, or the inky fathoms of a vast sea. We may not prefer to express everything it contains, but if we can say, “Yes, this is part of me and I accept it,” we move a step closer to complete peace. Much of what we discover we’ve relegated to the shadows is wrapped up in old beliefs and misunderstandings. And though it seems to be put away, it infringes on our freedom simply by being a place where we won’t go. By bravely dropping in we can clear up these stories – much the way a light reveals a monster in the dark to be just a pile of clothes.
Inevitably, though, the darkness isn’t just harboring the parts we fear and dislike. It also contains untapped potential. There are aspects of our depths that are just waiting to be invited to the table. Powers that would fill in our gaps.
I hope you’ll join me in meeting the darkness this year with openness, and I’d love to hear what you discover.
Be well,
Peter
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