Medicine for the People

The Risk of Rest

Winter is said to begin after the solstice and it is at this time that we celebrate the gradual return of the sun after six weeks of a less than eight hours of sunlight per day. During this dark time it may feel difficult to do much of anything other than the bare minimum while sleeping as much as possible. Darkness and cold combine creating an atmosphere of contraction both socially and physically.

Unfortunately, our economic system doesn’t accommodate quiet time in the schedule of commerce. Directly after Halloween we are thrust into a frantic countdown of shopping days until Christmas. We are pulled out of the quiet and into the clang of jingling bells to distract us from nature’s revitalization program known as winter. The darkness and quiet of winter is terrifying to humans. Perhaps somewhere in our limbic systems we remember starvation and death before we had more stable means of survival.

This year, at the tail end of this dark time I found myself with a chest cold. Unable to talk much without going into a coughing fit sent me to bed during the pre-holiday busy time. Instead, of rushing to put the finishing touches on holiday preparations, I found myself doing crossword puzzles, napping, and drinking tea.

My illness was not debilitating I could have cleaned the house or done errands. I could have busied myself filling out my holiday cards, wrapping presents, or baking. Instead, I took the advice that I have given to many clients when faced with this quandary: to rest, rest, rest.

It’s easy to forget what it is like to completely unplug. We live in a culture that worships productivity and if that wanes for any reason, self-esteem drops along with it. Allowing myself to go down into a deep rest turned out to be a more difficult task that I thought. With my partner off at work, I was left alone to rest quietly. However, as the silence moved in, many voices came to whisper their disapproval, resorting sometimes to insulting my character. The voices began by trying to undermine my rest by judging the lack severity of my illness. “Oh come on, you’re not that sick, you don’t even have a fever!” the fact that I was still coherent and even cheerful meant that I didn’t deserve to be idle. Suddenly a fear arose that I might be faking, even though I sounded like Janis Joplin on her second pack of cigarettes. With my immune system compromised, I felt myself being swayed by their arguments. I actually had a few moments where I started to believe their stories. I could feel myself being pulled down into a slope of self-pity rather than reveling in this precious rare quiet.
This is why I have come to the conclusion that taking the risk of rest is a courageous act.

Carving out time to rest this time of year is like swimming upstream against the collective current. It takes endurance and dedication to become quiet enough to allow our bodies to perceive its place in nature. Agreeing to this act can cause us to face some very uncomfortable feelings. The beauty of these uneasy times during the cold quiet is that if we can make it to the other side, we often discover valuable information about ourselves. Self-knowledge nourishes stronger roots so that when the winds of change blow we have the ability to weather what it brings.

Winter is the season for dreaming, for letting the soup of your imagination simmer as the flavors of your inspirations and ideas merge and mingle. This dreaming builds a strong foundation for the vitality required to pull off the monumental tasks of spring. During this season there are a few simple practices to nourish your foundation. For instance, keeping your hands, feet, head and kidneys warm, these areas can loose a lot of qi or life force if they are not protected. Also too many sweets depress your immune system making hard to fight off sickness.  Go to bed early, get as much sleep as you can and don’t over stimulate your nervous system with too many to dos. Assess what tasks can wait and allow yourself to put things off.

Take the risk of rest if you dare, and listen to what this season has to teach.

Gravity seems denser as the leaves shed their green garments and the cold settles. The days and nights have less contrast. The early morning stillness lasts longer and longer into the day and washes over everything the way warmth and sunlight once did during summer. Autumn is a slow-motion descent into the depths of winter’s dreamtime. This controlled flight downward can evoke the same satisfaction of finding the sweet spot when balancing on one foot, a surfer’s best moment, or that pause just before a diver plunges into waters below. This is the sunset of the year. On sunny days, sharp-angled, golden light creates a crescendo of color from the trees. It’s not the bright burning at summer’s peak but a time-lapse reflection of the year’s poignant moments.

In contrast, autumn is also a busy time for getting our affairs in order: wood is neatly stacked, accessible, and dry; an array of foods are frozen, canned, and fermented for sustenance; and we settle for a long winter’s slumber. What talismans can we gather to keep us protected on the dream journey of winter? The windows are buttoned and snow tires are mounted. For us in the far north there is hardly time to notice this fleeting moment before we descend. Yet when we do, the reverence of the moment can be overwhelming.

Those of us who live here year round know this veneration well. Many people are drawn here during foliage season to “peep” at this awesome spectacle. An entire tourist industry has formed around these fall pilgrims. Most residents, regardless of our work, receive a financial boost in some way from the influx of consumers who visit during this season. This year, however, an excess of rain dampened our spirits and subdued this leafy marvel. Many trees lost their leaves early due to hammering rains. In addition to the work of preparing our lives for the coming winter and participating in this economic boom time (as a patron or provider), there has also been the extra work of cleaning up after the raging floods.

New Englanders are hard workers. We do not cower in the face of tedious tasks, especially when it comes to helping out our neighbors. Beautifully built, seemingly endless stonewalls, culverts, and dry-laid wells exemplify this ethic. These are the artifacts of our heritage and our stalwart natures. With that said, everything and everyone has their limit. There has been a trend in the clinic during the last few months of intense fatigue. For some, this manifests and depression or a deep heaviness; others experience sleeplessness and anxiety; and still others an unnamable uneasiness. Regardless of whether you have been on the front lines of our recent disasters, there is in the collective a palpable feeling of all that we have endured since the late summer. That is why as we move through this year’s autumn it is helpful to remember the concrete ways in which our bodies are connected to the season al changes. Remembering this can support us during these particularly uncertain times.

These cold crisp mornings that fill our lungs with qi from the air, inspire our connection to life and one another through our breath. The breath is speech, it is song, it is prayer. In Chinese Medicine, the lungs and the colon are most affected by autumnal energy. The colon keeps us pure and clean. It is a regulator of moving out what no longer serves us, not only on the physical level, but the mental and spiritual levels as well. When the colon cannot eliminate waste properly, our thinking can become clouded and heavy. In our culture, holiday time calls for eating fatty, rich foods. Consuming these foods in moderation can help keep the colon from getting overwhelmed.

During this time of the year, nature gracefully instructs us by example in the process of surrender. Nature’s most overt gesture comes from the trees. First yielding their color and then the leaves all together, majestically exposing their most vulnerable selves to the coming cold. For us humans, letting go can sometimes be followed by grief. However, grief can be a very fruitful emotion when it is allowed to move through and out of the body. A good cry can cleanse the body and the soul much like a short rain from heavy hanging clouds. Sadness sometimes sets in when we are resistant to the changes that come from the loss of a thing, behavior, or situation. When we hold on tight to these emotions for fear of the pain associated with feeling them fully, energy builds in the body creating a block that can later manifest as illness. This intense resistance can be very exhausting resulting in something as simple as a cold or flu or maybe something as complex as chronic back pain. As the days get colder and the light wanes we have less energy for juggling many tasks. Perhaps by bringing our awareness to the natural world and its functions we can learn a lot about maintaining our own health. If we can be like the trees and allow ourselves to slough off what is not necessary, we have the opportunity for winter to bless us with a revitalizing rest.

There is a slight melancholy that creeps through at this time of year—what I like to call the falling of summer. Late summer can often feel incredibly overwhelming especially to Vermonters because it means winter is imminent. I see the plants beginning to break down as they give their last efforts towards their fruits. The invigorating early morning chattering of birds is replaced by the unshakable hum of insects and the rhythm is steadied by the rush of the brooks (at least this year anyway). I feel the quiet wanting to expand and take root.

Yet by mid morning the mad minutia of the material world pulls the consciousness away from this serene setting contradicting the instinct to retreat into quiet. Confusion breaks out and feelings of overwhelm can set in—survival verses sinking. Engulfed in this storm, a tumultuous sea of tasks vies for a space at the front. We begin to wonder how all the pre-winter chores will fit into the day.

This year life has upped the anti during our transition through late summer into autumn by brining both natural and unnatural disasters to our little pocket of the world. In a short time we have observed earthquakes, floods, and fatal violence; an unusually condensed string of crises. Yet so far our communities have responded with strength, leadership and generous service. Whether or not you believe in the prophecies of 2012, global warming or the rapture, something is definitely amiss with the weather.

The most common conversation in the rural parts of Southern Vermont is about the weather. An outsider might find it petty talk but for us it is important news. The way that the changing of the seasons affects us is often expressed by important community events. For example; hanging out at the sugar shack watching the maple syrup boil, enjoying a good mud bog, town meeting, eating the first snap peas, the opening of the farmer’s market, summer Shakespeare theatre, potluck picnics with friends, a jump in the culvert, Old Home Days, leaf peepers, harvest festivals, deer season, Forest of Mystery and sleigh rides with hot cocoa to name a few.  Our weather is our livelihood. It can prevent us from getting to our work, getting to our food and for some, important medical care. Weather doesn’t just affect our material needs it also affects our morale and our spirit.

With each season change, weather plays a vital role in moving us from the previous to the next. In between each of these seasons is a short but rather intense time of uneasy transition. These transitions are palpable and can be one of the most difficult things for the modern human to endure. We are creatures of habit, staying with what we deem comfortable because somehow we have told ourselves that consistency is harmony. Our behavior shows us that we have a lot of attachment to what the outcome might or might not be at the other side of change. Our propensity for hanging on to particular kinds of behavior even after its relevance is gone is one of the most frustrating habits to try and break. Ask any smoker or someone trying to loose weight. We all have habits that don’t work for us that still enslave us.

An intense change in the weather, in many cultural mythologies is used as a way to illustrate a severe need for humans to change their behavior. What can capture the attention away from our own version of business as usual more vividly than the shake up of an earthquake or the deep cleansing of a flood? In this paradigm the earth is a living creature that communicates with us all the time via the weather. It can be easy to forget that we are at the mercy of what might seem like the creator’s whimsy. However, viewed in another way, we could say that the weather is a close friend trying to tell us something difficult about ourselves. It might be hard to hear but it is coming to us out of love.

As far as I can tell Vermonters are listening to our friend the weather as best we can, given the constraints of the greater collective. This is an uneasy time, magnified by our passing betwixt and between this seasonal change. The anxiety that naturally comes during the passage of summer to fall may generally feel subtle, like a whisper of primal worry. An essential response embedded in our DNA by the apprehension of ancestors prior to the onset of the cold. However, with the failing economy, global warming, and rising costs (both monetary and ecological) of energy, that subtlety has moved into the primary.

Before we wax apocalyptic, let me pause here to say that the darkest hour is usually right before the proverbial dawn. I have noticed in our office, during this earth season, a common fatigue that is often characteristic of profound change. I see this fatigue showing up in the bodies and the spirits of the folks I’ve been treating. However, this exhaustion I believe, emanates from a loyal effort to advance bravely into new territory.  In holistic healthcare speak this darkening time is good news. It is an important part of healthy growth and change; it offers us the possibility of eradicating deeply ingrained habits that we’ve collectively been trying to overcome for possibly thousands of years. Many of us are at an unfamiliar threshold.  This can feel uncomfortable, mainly because what we are trying to create together has never been done. However, if we can maintain our courageous hearts, our sturdy roots, our ability to hold our own, by maintaining the integrity of our inner soil. An entirely new kind of abundance can be ours.

As mud season kicks in for another round, and sugaring slows, the bright sunny days feel wonderful albeit a bit harsh without the gentleness of the leaves on the trees to soften the intensity of the sun. It is my feeling that this particular intensity is a perfect metaphor for the contradictory nature of spring.

Spring can feel like walking from a dark cave into a blinding light. There is a deep desire to step fully into the sun’s light and also, the need for us to allow ourselves time to acclimate. After a long winter, the seeds deep in the earth need a powerful energy to help them find their way out of the darkness of their dreaming into manifestation. Now is the time when all of the energy we stored during winter must come forth to help us manifest the potential we realized during the dark cold months. Spring brings us exactly the kind of intensity we need to move but we must be careful to meter it out in a way that does not cause our circuits to blow. Some of you may notice that at this time of year tempers can be testy and things can feel more frustrating than usual. As the snow melts it reveals all the things we didn’t get to in the previous fall giving the yard a rather chaotic look. Our emotions can also feel messy during this time of awkward change.

Quintessential sign of spring in Vermont

In Chinese medicine this time of year is associated with the element of wood. In this system, wood energy is equated with the emotion of anger. When change needs to come, anger is a useful tool for helping us with growth (also an aspect of wood). The organ systems associated with the energy of wood are the liver and gall bladder and spring is a perfect time of year for cleansing these organs.
This process can be done using herbs, by changing your diet for a time or with daily exercises; such as yoga, qi gong, tai chi that are tailored to support these organs. A few local herbs that are very potent liver cleaners are: Celandine, Yellow Dock, and Milk Thistle. We carry these herbs in the form of teas and tinctures along with another great supplements for supporting health. One in particular is called Vitamineral. Vitamineral contains 100% organically grown and wildcrafted herbs, greens and algae along with enzymes for easy absorption.
If you are interested in any of these herbal supplements don’t hesitate to contact us at info.medicineforthepeople@gmail.com or call 387-3028.

Wishing you a productive and healthy spring.