open water
Abalone Medicine Field Notes 02: Seasick & Inner Frontier, 04.09.24
I can work with you in person or via telehealth. I blend and ship custom herbs.
Book using this link or email me directly at alisonRwood@protonmail.com
Learn more about my offerings here on my website .
deep sea
Last Tuesday, as the eclipse was unwinding, my family found ourselves on a deep-sea fishing trip by accident. My 13 year old son and I were on a spring break trip in the Monterey, CA area with my parents who were visiting from the northeast. My dad offered to take us fishing, so a boat trip was booked and we arrived at the launch area at dawn to find we were the only people without our own tackle and buckets. My mom and I were the only women; my boy was the only youth. Someone said under their breath, “oh shit, a family.” We were not going to be coddled- not by the skipper, and not by the sea. We got on the boat and headed on a two hour ride 20+ miles south, far out of the bay, in the open water swells, to their rockfish spot. There was no turning back.
The fog, the seals clustered on the red buoy, the impossibility of sensing scale, the all-consuming energy of the sea from within her endless body… as I balanced on the pitching deck, my entire being shuddered and opened into the relaxed state of bliss I always enter when I get out on the water.
I am an ocean person. Water is my element, the stuff of my childhood dreams, as a kid I always swam out past the other swimmers at the beach, or freedived through the rocks like a seal, following fish. In my 20s I was on an Irish ferry in a massive storm and every person was emptying their stomachs into bags or over the rail - the whole cabin smelled of sick, while I was out on deck, riding the swells like surfing, rain-drenched, freezing, beaming, elated. And so I told my family when we boarded the Checkmate in Monterey.
Serves me right for bragging. It wasn’t long before we got far offshore and hit swells, and I started feeling that queasy motion-sick feeling in my belly. The feeling grew and grew, and all of my energy became consumed with keeping my morning chai down. I tried breathing deeply, infusing my limbs with circulation like I do on land…I tried the microcosmic orbit... I say ‘tried’ because it simply wouldn’t work - my body didn’t respond. My tiny qi trying to move my breath, was swallowed whole by the massive power and heave of the open ocean.
I drank some water, which felt better… when you’re at sea, water is grounding. I applied acupressure to the motion sickness point, “Inner Frontier Gate”, Pericardium 6 on the inside of the wrist… a point for opening and protecting our heart and most inner depths - it helped. The nausea went back to intolerable when I got rigid and closed off to the sea; when I tried to hold the same posture and energetics as I do on land; when I was ‘doing’ (rifling through my backpack to find water) or leading with my mind (thinking or talking).
My son was lying down inside with my mom, he was also seasick and overwhelmed by the swells. I tried to get him to come out on deck in the open air. Eyes closed, he said no, he was busy ‘working with’ the seasick feeling and didn’t want to come out. He said if he “imagined hills with his body” that matched the sea’s motion, he was able to deal with it. We are all so different in how our vessels navigate the elements. But we were doing the same thing at the core. Submitting to the sea’s demands.
It reminded me of giving birth and I now realize “Contraction” is the wrong word - really it is more of a deep-sea swell. When the swells arrive and every part of awareness gets swallowed up in this massive surge of energy that consumes the entire body.
and to think a thought, or speak or hear a word, is excruciating because it demands attention be drawn from that total presence of body and jammed back into the mind which is completely useless and inept as a path to open and merge with the force of the sea of birth. full-body surrender is the only way through.
The realm of ocean, womb, Kidney sea of Jing.
The realm of complete and profound embodied presence.
The sea holds the same energy as our birth. In utero, floating in salty amniotic sea, flowing and crashing with our mother’s movements, until some primordial force of intense power, something beyond our control completely, pitches us, swell by swell, into the light. There must be something ancient in us that remembers how to be in the open ocean. Our bodies know.
I opened up, surrendered, let myself be animated by the sea. If I stopped resisting the discomfort of the seasick feeling, stopped making it bad… it faded, or at least, it took me, made me part of the sea, was no longer upsetting. Knees bent, feet braced against the side of the boat, kidneys pressed against the outside wall of the cabin, so my body’s frame merged with the boat’s frame and we rocked together. I deeply relaxed my viscera until they were liquified to move with the surges. My breath moved of its own accord, in lateral swells, weaving through each other, through my channels and bones, like standing waves. Became more of a vibration than a physical flow. I was able to ride the waves, my chai stayed down, I even landed a few fish. The feeling of the sea stayed with me like a psychadelic afterglow for days.
There is no other power like this. It is the source of everything, the root of life, beyond Yin, it is Jing, our deepest vital essence. Euphoric and ruthless. Like life.
This practice of feeling, tracking, following, trusting the body, is the core message of what I share in my practice. I lead a nine-week series, in-person, in Point Reyes Station CA, called Embodied Chinese Medicine Circles to develop these skills.
We do this in an intimate group setting, through drinking herbal brews and using our bodies to tell us what their medicine is about; through yoga and breathing practices; and through sharing about our health and then learning what our body’s symptoms signs and messages might mean based on Chinese elements & organ systems, Qi, Blood, Yin, Yang.
My next Embody Chinese Medicine group starts May 8th -
Registration is open now! Weds 4-6pm, for 8 weeks.
We’re back to meeting in the garden :)… Early bird rates until April 24! Book a free mini-consult and exploration call if you feel like this is for you.
Or if you know you’re in, write to me directly in order to save your place.
Coming in May to Point Reyes Station: Drop-in Hatha Yoga classes on the green, 10am Thursdays, designed to cultivate a daily home practice. See you there 🌸
Sweet dreams ♾️ to your oceanic souls
please send this publication along to anyone who might love it 💫