June 19, 2021
Dear Friend,
What could be more beautiful than a June day? After a year of Covid quarantine, sunny warm days feel uniquely splendid. Go outside and enjoy the flowers, the sun, and some freedom. We don’t know what is in store for us this fall, but we have this moment of grace and warmth. It can be enough. Summer is so short in New England.
In Chinese medicine, this is the time of the Fire Element. Like a flower in bloom, we too are at the peak of our physical functioning during the summer. The energy of the universe supports this external expression of life. Fire energy is related to happiness, enjoyment, laughing, having fun, and playing. This is the time of year to find what makes us happy and do it. Joy, like fire, is ephemeral and expansive, warming us and bringing us light and laughter.
The Fire Element governs the heart, small intestine, heart protector, and triple heater - our organs of circulation, digestion, and temperature modulation. We can strengthen these organs by living according to the energy of the season.
Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Shop at a farmer’s market or grow a garden. Cooling foods are cucumbers, watermelon, salads, lemons, and limes. Herbs that help to cool us are mint, chamomile, and lemon balm.
Come in for a summer acupuncture tune-up. I am fully vaccinated and all covid safety precautions remain in place.
Take advantage of the season’s lightness and warmth, the flowers and beauty. Go outside and smell the roses, the lilies and each blossom that has opened. We have been through a tough year, but we have a reprieve right now. It is enough for us to find joy.
Love,
Margaret
More Than Enough
By Marge Piercy
The first lily of June opens its red mouth. All over the sand road where we walk multiflora rose climbs trees cascading white or pink blossoms, simple, intense the scene drifting like colored mist.
The arrowhead is spreading its creamy clumps of flower and the blackberries are blooming in the thickets. Season of joy for the bee. The green will never again be so green, so purely and lushly new, grass lifting its wheaty seed heads into the wind.
Rich fresh wine of June, we stagger into you smeared with pollen, overcome as the turtle laying her eggs in roadside sand.