The Turning

At 1:46 in the morning on Saturday March 21, while most of us were sleeping, the earth reached a point of perfect balance.

The Autumn Equinox. From the Latin aequi meaning equal and nox meaning night. Equal night. The moment in the year when day and dark are held in precise equilibrium before the slow descent into the quieter, darker months begins.

I find it profoundly moving that this turning happens in the dark. Without fanfare. Without our conscious participation. The earth simply arrives at balance and moves on.

The body works the same way. So much of our deepest shifting happens beneath the surface, in the quiet hours, before the mind has any idea.

As we approach the end of 2025, we stand in a powerful threshold moment.
This year — the Wood Snake — has been a year of shedding, listening deeply, clearing the undergrowth, and meeting the parts of ourselves that live close to the ground. Snakes don’t rush. They feel through the skin. They wait until the old layer is too tight… and then they slide out of what no longer fits.

As we approach the end of 2025, we stand in a powerful threshold moment.
This year — the Wood Snake — has been a year of shedding, listening deeply, clearing the undergrowth, and meeting the parts of ourselves that live close to the ground. Snakes don’t rush. They feel through the skin. They wait until the old layer is too tight… and then they slide out of what no longer fits.

Something changed in my gut. I hadn't changed a thing.

Not my diet. Not my routine. Nothing obvious.

But my digestion was off. Unpredictable. Uncomfortable.

I've been a practitioner for thirty years, I know the body well.

What’s really going on here?

The answer wasn't only in my stomach.

Our gut has a direct line to stress.

Most people think of digestion as a plumbing problem. Food goes in, gets processed, comes out. If something goes wrong, we look at the food.

But the gut doesn't work like plumbing. It works like a conversation.

The Turning

At 1:46 in the morning on Saturday March 21, while most of us were sleeping, the earth reached a point of perfect balance.

The Autumn Equinox. From the Latin aequi meaning equal and nox meaning night. Equal night. The moment in the year when day and dark are held in precise equilibrium before the slow descent into the quieter, darker months begins.

I find it profoundly moving that this turning happens in the dark. Without fanfare. Without our conscious participation. The earth simply arrives at balance and moves on.

The body works the same way. So much of our deepest shifting happens beneath the surface, in the quiet hours, before the mind has any idea.

Now in perimenopause the rage, anger and irritation are intense. She's terrified of blowing up her marriage, her family, everything she's worked so hard to build.

I had a lot of shame through my own perimenopause. In a way, the crisis of perimenopause saved my life.

We're told to lean into rest and digest. But the charge of the sympathetic nervous system is the very energy we need to protect ourselves and our children.

In Chinese medicine, a woman's life is mapped in cycles of seven years. What opened at 14 is the very same vessel now closing.

Every time she spoke to her mother, her body went to war. It's no accident this rose for her in her early fifties.

Our nervous systems were built to respond to a threat and then settle once it passes. But these threats aren't passing.

Most women don't arrive talking about anger. Underneath, very often, are the words they never said.

If clean living could buy a quiet menopause, I had paid in full. Menopause is more than lifestyle.

This primary relationship shapes so much of our lives, whether we are happy with her influence or not.

Connecting with anger, particularly in adult life, is a crucial part of healing. So often, what's actually needed is understanding, not suppression.

Yin and yang were never equal in the sense of sameness. They were equal in value, while remaining entirely different in nature.

The 8 Extraordinary Vessels are used to access the deepest aspects of ourselves, to assist us in fulfilling our earthly curriculum.

A cancer cell isn't really an invader. It's a cell that has lost connection with what's around it.

Chinese red dates, cinnamon and fresh ginger, simmered together. Simple to make, deliciously sweet and the making of it can be part of the medicine.

When did we decide that being a monk, and meditating like one, was what we need in our very busy lives?