 INDIAN
SUMMER
In Chinese medicine Indian or late summer season represents
the EARTH PHASE and corresponds with the spleen and pancreas
organs, the emotions of pensiveness and worry, the color yellow,
digestion, the earth and mother nature, centeredness, repose,
and the culmination of summer’s productivity. Poetry
that nourishes the spirit of our Earth Elements is filled with
the correspondences of late summer and the Earth
Phase.
MEDICINE MAN:
THE HEART OF HEALING
(G,A)
Born of mud rising to the sun—
Bark and stone
The deepest beauty curls within my blood
Resounds like thunder, deafening time.
Grunting savage of earth and beast
Slowly wading the thick forest mist
Incarnating a language centuries past—
Breath so green, dark and laden
Mist and sweat develop my scent.
Before me, within me, maps and layers
Evolving, turning, weaving a wisdom
I cannot say.
Skin of layers, darkened soil
Breasts like memory I hold within
Peeled from time, dissolved to soul, flesh and love.
Millennia tinged a verdant spark, pulse a landscape
Inside I see the world before me—
Gathering roots, smelling leaves
This is home eternity says
Never a choice from heaven unknown.
I hold my heart so you may see it
Let go, let go
A depth inside I cannot say. |
MEDICINE MAN:
I wrote Medicine Man one week prior to entering Chinese medical
school as a testament to my own roots in nature and natural
medicine. When I showed the poem to my first year herbal medicine
teacher, Cathy McNease, she told me to tape it to the inside
of my Materia Medica (a textbook encyclopedia of medicinal
herbs) so that I would not lose my vision, heart and purpose
while going through the rigors and hoops of medical training.
I referred to this poem often throughout
my four and a half years in school. It helped me stay centered
in my heart and
soul, and it remains in my Materia
Medica to this day. Only after graduating did I add to the title, “The
Heart of Healing.” For me this poem represents the Earth Phase and my
deep connection to nature that generously provides us with plants for food
and medicine, as well as the setting to find a deeper sense of wellness and
who we are. This poem is part of the “Holistic
Medicine poem Cards” series and will soon also be available in calligraphy
as Poetry-Art. The excerpt from a description
of the poem on the back
of the card reads:
“I still experience our “natural medicines” as
excessively human-centered and not ultimately healing to
the planet unless they extend health to our ecology as a
whole. Our medicines must help us find and create a sustainable
home in the world; for me as a healer that home begins in
this poem.”
(Click
on the symbols below) 
|
*Poems marked with a "G" after
their title are available as greeting
cards.
Poems marked with an "A" are available as original
calligraphy art pieces. |
