Hi! I’m Jiling, an acupuncturist, herbalist, and artist in coastal southern California bridging medicine and expression through my Ventura acupuncture clinic, Five Elements classes, and Elemental book-in-progress that interweaves nature, art, movement and ritual for thriving personal and ecological wild beauty. Learn more about me here, join events here, and get acupuncture here. Enjoy this month’s May 2025 newsletter! Get monthly letters at Jiling.Substack.com

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“Lectio Divina,” he said. “Huh?” I asked. We were lying naked in a hot-spring in the middle of the wilderness, nakedly discussing things closest to our heart in the pre-dawn stillness, currently detangling morning rituals, meditation, and how we maintain mindfulness amidst the everyday chaos of teaching, partnering, being.

Lectio divina, or “divine reading,” is a contemplative practice of sitting with meaningful words over time. My old friend Joe drew wrinkly hot-spring hands through the air, describing how he’s been practicing lectio divina with a seasonal book of scriptures for over a year now. Returning over and over to these verses, they pattern their exquisite beauty into his one wild life. Reading them again and again, he digests their depths through the crucible of living. I am not religious, but I love the idea.

My simplified version of lectio divina:

Read something. Sit with it. Do it three times.

Here’s my expanded version:

* Read a passage.

* Sit with it.

* Read it a second time, noticing what jumps out at you.

* Sit with what caught your attention.

* Read it a third time, noticing what calls you now.

* Sit with it one last time, considering how you might apply this to your life.

I am lectio divina-ing with the Dao De Jing (道德經), a classical Chinese text written or compiled by Lao Zi (老子) around 2500 years ago, a text that I keep returning to over and over, a text that humans have returned to over and over for thousands of years.

I compiled my Dao notebook at my first Chinese medicine graduate school in Florida. Chinese medicine is based on classical roots like the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine (黃帝內經), Classic of Changes (易經)— and the Dao De Jing (道德經). My professors quoted the classics, but I wanted to read the real thing. At the end of long school days, I sat by the window typing up my favorite Dao translations. I printed out the 81 verses on our school printer. Cut them up, verse by verse. Bound a little 4×5 notebook with 81 pages. Glued them in.

Ten years later, my Dao notebook still travels with me through adventures everyday and exotic, urbane and wild. The edges are frayed and yellowing, the whole book covered in marks, notes, highlights, and pictures. I’ve collaged plants, landscapes, animals, and other inspiring imagery into my Dao notebook, and what started as a thin book of empty pages is now teeming with cut and paste beauty.

Returning anew to the Dao with the practice of lectio divina, I read a passage a day. I try to reel myself in, so I don’t spend hours poring over different translations and cobbling together my own translation, as I am wont to do. Each word has its depth of meaning. Partnered words undulate into fresh meanings. Pull together a whole passage, and it’s a glittering skyscape of worlds upon worlds.

I like to journal for the final sitting. The Dao comes alive when I list three ways I can apply 道法自然 “The Way of Dao is the Way of nature” (passage 25), or freewrite about personal applications for 上善若水 “The greatest Virtue is that of Water” (passage 8).

May heralds the beginning of summer (立夏) in the lunisolar Chinese calendar. As the fresh buds of spring and Wood Element burst into the great flowering party of summer and Fire Element, grounding practices like reading and writing, returning to beloved tomes and nourishing words, can help us maintain rootedness amidst great flowering. The potential chaos of socioeconomic upheavals and political unrest might rattle us less, when our feet are firm, our minds clear.

What books, poetry, quotes, or classical texts do you return to over and over? How have others sat with these words over time? How might you sit with these words now, and apply this wisdom to your life?

RECOMMENDATIONS

* 5/21-22: Seasonal Rituals for Wild Embodiment in Almond, WI

* Listen to my interview with Rosemary Gladstar, where we chat about her newest book, The Generosity of Plants, a beautiful collection of quotes from beloved herbalists

* My favorite books from April: The Body is a Doorway, by Sophie Strand. On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder. All Fours, by Miranda July. The Man Who Could Move Clouds, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras.

* My mentor 7song has released his Herbal Database project, a comprehensive resource of herbal info from a lifetime of clinical herbalism, wildcrafting, and teaching— generously for free. Visit 7song.com and click on “Herbal Database” at the top to check it out!

❤️ May this be the best season of your life,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac.

JilingLin.com • Acupuncture, herbs, art

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