Dissolving separation involves invoking oneness. The greenway has turned all shades of yellow and brown, and there are clearings in the forest that weren’t there before. The naked trees give way to mansions that stretch three stories tall and flaunt a grandeur that challenges me. It challenges me to believe that I am not worthy, that I am separate. I walk and walk with my eyes peeled to the immaculate houses that attempt to cut me out with their wooden fences and drawn curtains. 

You can try to cut me out but you can’t stop me from finding the oneness of it all. I walk and walk through the gravel path as I sense my awareness move from my physical body to merge with everything that surrounds me. I am the mansion just as I am the dead leaf that crunches and cracks beneath my dirty sneaker. I am a strange, foreign woman walking through her childhood neighborhood just as I am the cherry red Tesla that turns the corner. How much can you hold at once? Instead of believing that you have to be this or that, maybe we can have it all, and just enjoy the walk that it takes to get there. 

November = now. No past or future. I am just here, relishing in all the imaginations, anxieties, torturous thoughts, sunken and blissful states that I have the pleasure of moving through. After spending most of my 20’s swinging between deep depression or being under the influence of drugs, I am more and more existing in deep gratitude for the ability to hold all of my emotions with reverence. Somewhere in the midst of all the inner work over the past 5 years, I got to a place where I reconnected to so many lost parts of myself. It’s not necessary to run away from them or to abuse them anymore. Now we just sit with them and try to understand. What do you want to say to me?

Here were the main themes of my November: 

Yin incoming: The world of the northern hemisphere grows more yin with each passing day. The light dims and the darkness asks to be our guide. Waking up between the hours of 5:40-6:30am while it is dark out. Driving into a foggy sunrise. Feeling the chilled air turn my cheeks red. Walking through the darkened evening with a flashlight. If I’m not careful, I fall into the trap of a society that asks us to push, to be yang every day, every month and every season. I can feel my body slowing down and requiring more rest and more introversion and I hope to honor it. 

I will share a passage from 黃帝內經 (a classic text in Chinese Medicine) about how to align with the energies of autumn:

“The heavenly energy cools, as does the weather. The wind begins to stir. This is the changing or pivoting point when the yang, or active, phase turns into its opposite, the yin, or passive, phase. One should retire with the sunset and arise with the dawn. Just as the weather in autumn turns harsh, so does the emotional climate. It is therefore important to remain calm and peaceful, refraining from depression so that one can make the transition to winter smoothly. This is the time to gather one’s spirit and energy, be more focused, and not allow desires to run wild.” 

Fire: Perhaps Fire seems like the opposite of the aforementioned yin. But within every moment, within every body, we hold all 5 elements of the universe - Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth. It is a matter of balance and the interplay of all that lives within us. 

Many of us are born with certain elements more dominant than others. I have never liked the cold and the desolate spaces of winter. I crave the warmth of the sun and the comforting flames of a roaring fire. I found out this month that my particular constitution is lacking the Fire element. I need to increase my Fire score by wearing red, by going to Southern cities, by changing my name from 雯 to 瑩. I wonder if what we find ourselves attracted to is what we are naturally missing from our constitution. We crave what will bring us back into harmony. 

The universe does not separate, it integrates. All of the elements of our external environment coalesce with our internal environment. Each small decision creating a rippling cascade of after-effects. Whether it births, fuels, diminishes, evaporates, absorbs - everything is alive and dying within and around us. As such, I am figuring out how to be strong and soft with myself. Figuring out my growth edges while not pushing myself to the extreme. Trying to honor the cycles of seasons and knowing that I am an integral part of the cycle as is the leaf that dies and falls from the tree branch. I am in a season of transition and instead of worrying about what will come next, I am simply falling, dying, cracking open until I can be born again.