we are not the center of the universe

medicinal eating, Amazonian wisdom, and weaving into the pivot

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dear you,

It has been such a long time - I miss you and hope you are thriving into autumn. After a love-laced hurricane of family this summer in the high desert and Atlantic coast, I returned home and immediately launched into clinic. I am grateful for you all of you who fill Abalone with your sweetness. I also appreciate your patience, as it is now taking about 2 weeks to fill herbal prescriptions, and treatments are now best booked 1-2 weeks in advance. Changes will be coming soon to accommodate longer sessions and more in-depth work together. And you will be seeing more of a new herbal assistant named Henny in the apothecary, helping to make the medicinal magic happen. Welcome, Henny!

*note- I often go back and edit after publishing, one of my writer’s quirks…
click to go to Substack and read the cleanest version !

🌾

Thursday Yoga on the Green → Friday Yoga at Dance Palace

Starting October 11th, Thursday morning yoga class will be moving indoors for the winter, to Fridays in the Church space at Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station. You are invited to drop in every Friday morning from 10-11am for a gentle Hatha yoga class. All levels welcome, focus is on establishing the breath and marrying it with our movement, and sharing a small simple practice you can use at home between treatments. Cost is $20 per class. Bring a blanket or mat, and bolster if you need one to sit comfortably cross-legged. See you there!

🌾

coming up: Food as Medicine 🌿 series

based on Chinese Medicinal nutrition & the work of Dr Natasha Campbell McBride
My delicate and compromised guts were my lead-in to medicine, as told in my first Substack post detailing my 20 day water fast. Another post will be coming soon about my latest adventures in digestion, because I’m hot on the tail of something I’ve been aware of for years, but haven’t immersed in deeply, until now.

A teaser… since August I have been steeped in the science and philosophy of the “GAPS” diet. My son and I have adopted this approach to eating medicinally since then - so far it is powerful in its results, and shockingly do-able, even for my 14 year old, who, to be fair, is blowing my mind with his dedication. You may have heard of “Gut and Psychology Diet”or “Gut and Physiology Diet” or you may have eaten the delicious, nutrient-dense meals from Three Stone Hearth, the folks who made GAPS locally famous in the Bay Area.

But what most people do not realize is that this approach to medicinal eating is not just a “Yes” or “No” food list that eliminates starch and focuses on ferments and good fat. It is an entire philosophy, traditionally and medically informed, which details a customized, step-by-step approach to using food to heal our bodies through repairing the lining of the gut and reestablishing healthy flora. And now that I’ve dived in, I’m seeing affirmation wherever I turn, like finding a copy of Grain Brain this summer at my favorite used bookstore, Herridge Books.

There are hacks to ease in and get used to this new way of cooking and eating - we started while on vacation with our extended family, and found a way to weave the approach into the many snack-sessions and communal feasts. There are lots of variations, from “liquid fasting GAPS”, “no-plant GAPS”, “ketogenic GAPS” and “mostly-plant gaps” - each different ways to adopt this nutritional medicine, based on constitution, genetic heritage, and what needs curing. It dovetails beautifully with the yogic and Chinese medical way of eating in the way that is healing for you, personally.

The full commitment does make family dinners a challenge - but there is a way to do it and preserve sanity, moderation and satisfaction. As my son’s holistic pediatrician said on the outset of the journey - “don’t skimp on flavor” and “buy an ice cream maker”. Add ‘programmable crock-pot’ to the list and you’re there.

What we eat is at the absolute core of our physical health, and I believe a more consciously healing and deliciously enjoyable approach to food will help us all get the most out of our investment in all those spiritual retreats, exercise regiments, and sessions with your acupuncturist 😊, chiropractor or massage therapist.

It is a modern U.S. cultural phenomenon that is storming the world - to eat toxic chemical laden food, or organic “high vibe” products made in factories with a suspiciously long shelf life. Dr Natasha Campbell McBride, the creator of GAPS, is a neuroscientist who healed her son’s autism with her approach (I’m not claiming all autism is curable but it is among the many psychologically-expressed imbalances - like ADHD, depression, anxiety - that can be supported with GAPS). The approach is based on science and a philosophy of medicine that is aligned with my beliefs about our body as living terrain. I have been immersed in her clinical manual, a 512 page single-spaced gold mine called Gut and Physiology Syndrome. (Dr. Thomas Cowan, Sally Fallon and Dr Stephanie Seneff are among the endorsements behind the front cover.) I’ve also been living it. I’ll be launching a series of Zoom lectures soon to share what I’m learning.

So far my favorite takeaway from the book is, “Get used to the idea that food does not come from the grocery store” which leads me to shout out my favorite CSA, our local-as-f** Little Wing Farm, brought to us by farmer Molly Meyerson, who said it best - “If your food does not sparkle, what is it even doing?”

Ask me more about this approach to food as medicine when I see you in clinic, or stay tuned for more detailed writings and an online class series coming this fall.

🌾

the Equinox.

To honor the pivot between light and dark, my partner and I spent an evening with Manari Ushigua, a Sápara elder from the Ecuadorian Amazon, in a group meditation. I always marvel that there is not a line out the door and headlines on the front pages when such an Amazonian elder comes to town. This Equinox ceremony was a gathering of about 40 beautiful souls - intimate and perfect.

Like many of you, I imagine, for the past year I have been witnessing and self-educating about a currently horrific episode of humanity. I ingest as much as I can hold, I get saturated, and then I pivot, like the earth on its axis, seeking a new life-supporting angle, a vaster, broader perspective, so I don’t crumble uselessly under the weight of all the suffering. I find medicine in the perspectives of ancient, earth-based cultures, to help me understand and metabolize the darkness, offer my grief and clear sight, and shine brightly again.

When I have been in the presence of spiritual elders and Earth guardians from the jungle, their deep connection to the root wisdom of nature leaves me with new clarity and a lighter heart. A loving and radically sane wisdom that pulls no punches about the violations happening upon the earth, but offers a path forward of joy and humor - not doom and bitterness. This is the juicy core of what I’m seeking - the superpower to hold the raw truth of our realm, uncompromisingly and without bypass, with love and playfulness. So I’ll share a bit of what we received from Manari, in case you need a dose of this medicine, too…

The gathering was a potent way to honor this turning towards the darkness. We meditated with tobacco tea and fermented cacao while Manari sung his icaros and his friend sang her songs; then we shared our visions out loud and listened to Manari’s guidance on each. Afterwards we got to chat with him more informally, to share more visions, ask questions, and hear about his perspective on our current moment on Earth. My own “vision” was an experience of my heart as a place of darkness - but not in a bad way - rather, a velvety vastness like the depths of the forest, a quiet, bottomless source of life and nourishment drawn directly from the roots and soil at the heart of the Earth.

Such, perhaps, is also the offering of the coming long nights of winter…

The vast dark yin of my heart stretched all the way from the Amazon jungle to the wilderness of Northern New York state, where I first fell in love with the forest, where my recent ancestors have been tending medicine and tapping maples and growing food for generations… displaced long ago as serfs or refugees, perhaps, from Europe, and surely displacing others in their wake.

Just a year ago I discovered my great-grandfather, Thomas, was an herbalist, as well a cultivator of medicine - he sold live plants via post across the US.

My inner forest expanded until my body took on the form of a bird and I felt the absolute freedom and bliss that comes from having, and unfolding, my wings. I saw that to love well, I have to create my own happiness in my life.

Manari said my vision was “muy lindo” and then responded to me, as he did to everyone who shared what we experienced in our meditation. I’m not sure why he made this connection, but the first thing he said was, what we eat is very important, because it becomes our words, and our words are a powerful way to communicate with the Earth and offer our medicine. I loved the affirmation of my recent care towards the food that goes into my body… and made the connection between medicinal food and the cultivation of words to transmit good energy and beauty. This is not always easy - especially in the throes of parenting teenagers (maybe a healed gut will help, or an extra prayer at meals). Yogic scripture also describes how our food, in its purest form, becomes our speech.

Then, Manari went to the core and talked about self love - that universal message that can circle for decades as an abstract idea before it lands within as a practice - the truth that we cannot love others well until we love ourselves. May we offer understanding and tenderness towards ourselves as we pivot into longer nights.

And then he panned out and began speaking to our collective moment, and our small group huddled around him, every now and again someone translating a bit.

Manari said that the greatest mistake of our time is to believe that humans are the center of the earth, that everything is here for us, that we are the most ‘advanced’ life form.

This error is everywhere, from the old or new testaments of the bible and its creation myths, to the scientific mythology of Darwin’s evolutionary hierarchy, to the Eastern concept that humans are the apex and pinnacle of the wheel of reincarnation, to this modern fallacy that with every new epoch of technology there is only sum-total advancement that is unquestionably worth the cost of whatever is lost and harmed in the process. Everywhere you turn, humans express the idea that we are the ultimate life form and the world was made for us.

And everywhere are the problems this causes - domination, extraction, depletion, spiritual separation from our source of life… bodiless heads calculating monetized “solutions” to cause the next layer of problems… and most hauntingly, a profound blindness to the great intelligence that is just beyond the reach of our logical mind - a blindness to the vast power of our hearts and spiritual senses.

Manari explained that we are going to have problems as long as we fail to recognize that all of the threads of life connect to one another and we are just a part in the weave of nature - not the center of it all.

According to Manari and the cosmology of his people, the earth is spinning faster and faster right now. Thus, everything is extreme and heightened, with so much intensity, division, the wars, the fires and floods. There is a greater force at play than human folly in isolation… it is that same error again, to think we are the sole architects of a chaotic global quickening, after all…

I’m sure there is more depth to this cosmology than what I could catch from a short conversation through my patchwork understanding of Spanish, but this is what I took away. The earth’s acceleration - whether it be philosophical, spiritual, physical, or mythological - is on its own natural course, encompassing our human timescales and influences. Investing financial resources to heal the unfolding chaos is futile. Said Manari, laughing, “who do we give this money to? The sky?”

So then, I asked, what are we to do? Just hold on tight, and go fast, like the Earth? Learn to ride the waves? Manari laughed. No! Do not move fast to keep up with the Earth!

The way through, he said, is to learn to listen to the Earth, to understand what our mother Earth is saying. And then respond.

For anyone who thinks this is “airy-fairy stuff”, check out the two-part series “Animism is Normative Consciousness” on the Emerald podcast, which starts,

“for 90 percent of human history, 99.9% of our ancestors lived, breathed and interacted with a world that they saw and felt to be animate, imbued with life force, inhabited by and permeated with forces with which we exist in ongoing relation. This animate vision was the water in which we swam, it was consciousness in its natural dwelling place, the normative way of seeing the world and our place in it. It wasn’t a theory, a philosophy, or an idea. It wasn’t, actually, an -ism. It was felt experience. It was, simply, how things were.”

We are completely and utterly interwoven with Earth and its nature, all its mysterious and known energetic and spiritual patterns, all of its physicality. Our bodies are literally the earth - as you already have heard me go on about in my posts. Other creatures know how to attune to the Earth’s messaging- muskrats sense a powerful winter is coming and build dens with thicker walls; birds somehow know when to migrate. Humans have this ability, as well, to read the messages of the Earth - if only we are taught to do so. We can remember.

In answer to my question Manari said, we need to learn the language of the earth, how to listen to the messages in the winds, the trees, the weather, everything the Earth expresses. And then, when the flood levels are rising in the town, five people have to get together and urinate in the water to ask the Earth to slow down and withdraw her flood. We were laughing - this was not a doom and gloom conversation. And I was reminded of a past teacher, Wohpe, who shared how women can feed their menstrual blood to their garden, and all the infinite information of our blood, the chemicals, the hormones… all logged in our vessels from the past lunar cycle, is conveyed to our medicine, who attunes itself exactly to our community’s particular needs.

From a practical perspective Manari said one of the best ways to do this is to use our dreams to communicate with the Earth (he has a program to teach this) - a rich vault for another time…

For now, I am intrigued, mulling over these teachings and wanting more. I find myself facing the sun in a quickie morning prayer before I dive into phone or parenting; opening up to the songs of the plants and elements and wildlife in the cracks throughout the day; sensing the tone of the juvenile bobcat walking just ahead in our driveway as we return home in the afternoon; putting my skin under moonlight at night, just for a moment. Open up and listen and see how my feelings resonate, without thinking. Just as we can sense and feel and hear the messages of our own bodies to divine what is needed for our healing and thriving. Just as with all divination across all the lands and throughout time.

In Chinese medicine the pivot of this season is a quivering fade-out from the yang of late summer’s harvest, the time of ochre and gold, the time of the digestion, the transformation of food into ourselves, animate… turning towards yin, the autumn time of letting go - the time of the slaughter, the time of grief, the time of metal, the time of the lungs. A hot morning, a cold morning. Cool in the shade, scorching in the mid-day sun. As the winds kick up and the pivot hovers, ready to turn… the blades of leaves dying and dropping from the trees; the knife-edge separating the hide from the flesh, the refinement of the air we breathe at the microscopic boundary waters of the marshes between our great blood-rivers within. Our bodies starting to express a whole different suite of emotions, urges, symptoms and sensations, with the coming of the dark.

I hope this meander of still-digesting experience offers some soul-food to help you weave your summer harmoniously into your autumn… that you find playful ways to respond to your world’s chaos… and I hope to see or hear from you soon.

love,
Alison