Speaker 1: 0:37

My name is Bronwyn Isla and I am speaking at this new moon that marks the beginning of winter. This is the time of the solar cycle when it is wise to stop, slow down and take a break. According to Taoist medical theory, the biggest cause of disease is a failure for us to live in accordance with the cycle of the seasons, and as the planet rotates around the sun, it moves through progressive phases which invite corresponding shifts in conduct. It's actually every two weeks that we enter a different qi node or cycle, and each cycle invites us to shift our conduct according to the season's changing landscape. So if we act, for example, in midwinter the way we did during the summer solstice, we make ourselves vulnerable to dis-ease. And most of this medical theory is coming from about 600 AD Tang Dynasty, china, and I received a lot of these teachings from my teacher, lu Ming, who passed away a few years ago. If you'd like to hear more about this lineage and the Tong Shu, which is the Chinese almanac that is where a lot of the information about the cycles is based you can go to my website at bronwynaylacom. Slash cycles.

Speaker 1: 2:08

So when we are living in harmony with the cycles, we align ourselves with an earthly realm and we have an ancestral prayer to live in a deeply embodied earthly existence that is in harmony with our surroundings. We don't live in a fairy world. We're not living in a place of ghostly. You know, it's like living as a ghost actually if we begin to not live in a way that's connected to what's happening around us. This is how ghosts behave. So having an earthly existence and being in the body world requires us to, if we want to be in health, to live in conduct with the way the earth is suggesting, with its cycles. So the environmental chi needs to be taken into account when considering correct conduct. And conduct in this context is not a judeo-christian kind of concept of punishment or morality, it's simply a resultant. What we experience in the present moment is the result of our conduct in the past.

Speaker 1: 3:21

So we're now moving into the first days of winter, when the yin hides the yang. It's a time of growing cold, where we develop big yin qi. The days get shorter and the nights get longer. Yin characteristics include cold, dark, quiet, inert, dense, watery and night, whereas yang is the energy of movement, action, heat, dominance and production. Big yin rests in big stillness, which means that during this time of year, small, wiggly, fast-moving young energy creatures like insects and mosquitoes go dormant and disappear. That annoying, aggravating young energy that we associate with buzzing flies is replaced with a slow, quiet, internally focused repose. Quiet, internally focused repose. Winter is the time when big yin is free to develop, unhampered by yang's effects of doing, being busy and moving fast. When we carry the summer yang energy into the winter, we miss out on this tremendous opportunity for recovery that the winter seasonal cycle offers.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Now is the time to turn inward. It is the time of the water element, which corresponds with the kidney and bladder organs and meridians. During this time, it is important to not bend over backwards, trying to get stuff done, lest we overflush the kidneys and exhaust the adrenals. In aligning ourselves with the seasonal cycles, we are wise to take our cues from nature. The animals are heading into hibernation, the plants are going down into their roots, some of them digging so deep as to reveal nothing of themselves. Above ground, water makes its way down from the sky sky and the shamans go into retreat. Wintertime is an opportunity to fall deep down into the depths of the ocean, of the unknown, of the mystery. A healthy water element is at home in the depths of the unknown and is comfortable celebrating the darkness. The unhealthy water element keeps going and doing recklessly, pushing the perpetual flight or fight mode and thus taxing the adrenals as it pushes on, despite the season's call for quiet and stillness In a harmonized cycle.

Speaker 1: 5:58

The autumn is a time to store, while the winter is when we withdraw. Spring's impending resources are external, so we have to cultivate our internal resources during our winter retreat time to be ready for and aligned with the fresh lettuce that spring promises. It's why the craving to live in a warm climate year-round is a symptomatic derangement that demands Yang's constant external engagement, while denying the natural cycles the earth endures. So many people will say, oh, in the wintertime I need to go in Mexico or go to this really hot, sunny place, but there's a denying, actually, of the wintertime, of the yearly cycle. So I'm going to go over a few simple ways to protect your kidneys during the winter and harmonize with the season. The idea is that the winter actually offers a really amazing opportunity to replenish our kidneys and if we just keep going and sometimes on my travels I meet people who are in the summertime, they're going to a hot place in the winter and they just kind of keep on this global cycle of only being in the summer zones, and I see a lot of adrenal exhaustion when that happens, and for a while it's okay, you know it doesn't really immediately impact us beyond missing out on an opportunity for deep cultivation of wisdom, but it starts to catch up physically to people, especially for a woman when menopause comes or when age starts to take more of a toll. So a simple thing that we can do is then go to a dark climate and spend a winter in Finland or Norway or somewhere where the days are short and the nights are long and let the body actually really rest into that winter darkness.

Speaker 1: 7:57

And we do a couple other ideas of ways to harmonize with the season, specifically with this time period from the new moon, which you know, we know from other cultures, is also a time to go inward. We have some Samhain, which is about, you know, the day of the dead and this going into the underworld and of the way it's often celebrated western world with Halloween or like going into this, the Dia de los Muertos, kind of honoring the ancestors and taking a time to connect into the world that we don't usually see in the waking, bright, summertime. So during this period the environmental chi is most potent at 9 pm. This is when the energy is most precisely aligned with this chi node. This is a time to wind down and to move towards sleep rather than activity. It is auspicious to use this time for a modest qigong practice or for yoga, for breathing exercises, harness it for a meditative practice as well. So most potent time is nine o'clock in the evening.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Another way that can be helpful this time of year is to wear a haramaki, which is hara means middle and maki is a wrap, so a middle wrap. This is a cloth band worn around the kidneys for warmth and protection. It's hard to imagine really how wonderful this feels until you actually try it, and any scarf or similarly proportioned cloth works well for this. Another practice that's really important all year round, but especially in the wintertime, is to do morning water. So our kidneys need water and the best time to hydrate them is first thing in the morning, 45 minutes before you have any other kind of food or drinks, and I would drink a big jar of water with half cold and half boiling water, so it's just drinkable and nice and warm. For the spleen you could put a little bit of orange oil or lemon juice in there, along with a little bit of salt to guide that hydration to the kidneys, and this is a wonderful practice. If you don't have it and I do have a blog just on morning water, which can be found at brownvaniyalacom slash morning water this is also a time of year when we begin to consume the autumn foods that we've stored, such as squash and root vegetables.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Bone stock makes a really great supplement to the autumn harvests, as fresh foods don't give us all the resources we need for the winter months. This time provides us with an opportunity to access a different quality of nutrient than those we accessed during the more young times of the year. For those who are navigating chronic spleen deficiency or digestive problems, pork stock is a really wise choice if you can get some locally grown, locally pastured. So when we slow cook, we boil away all of the fresh aspects of our food and reduce it down to a different, more yin nutrient state. So we don't, in this case, want the immature quality of fresh food during this time as much. When we slow cook food for a long time, it starts to generate something more precious, for example, dried mushrooms or tomatoes. These vegetables condense their qi and their jing, which is their life force kind of life force, inherited life force during the drying process. So when we rehydrate these dried vegetables and slowly cook them, they give off a highly concentrated essence that is unacceptable in their young, fresh state. Similarly, even a light vegetable soup made with boiled bones doesn't give up its deepest, most magical essence until the last hour as it's cooked. A stir fry doesn't offer us these concentrated qualities.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Slow cooking is a useful way to support our inner yang in the winter months. I recommend cooking with stocks rather than water to enhance simulation and allow nutrients to absorb more deeply. So you can make a big pot of bone broth. You basically take some high quality local organic grass fed bones and bake them in the oven for about 40 minutes until they become brittle, and then put them in the slow cooker or a stock pot and simmer them with a tiny bit of vinegar for about eight hours. So to get this stock really gelatinous you'll need to boil the bone marrow or bone tissue as well. When you're done simmering, strain out the bones and freeze the stock into ice trays and then you can just use. You can also just drink it as bone broth, but you can also freeze it into ice trays and then use one cube at a time when cooking anything that invites you to use water. You just add the ice cubes to other soups or different kinds of anything really.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Another way to protect qi and yang and yin this time of year is to dress warmly. We have to remember that the qi report is not the same as the weather report. So even in, for example, here in this part of California, it's quite warm in November, or it has been, but that doesn't mean that we're not vulnerable to pernicious winds that come off the ocean. So even though it might not be cold cold it's still important to dress warmly, and especially around the neck, kidneys, wrists and ankles. And if we don't do this, the body needs to work harder to protect ourselves from pernicious invasions such as colds and flus. And then, instead of using our body, the resources to protect our bodies, it's using those resources to warm us up. Or instead of using it to digest food, it's using it to warm us up. So if we can just keep ourselves warm, then the body can use its energy reserves to fight off different kinds of pathogens, or eat, digest, transform and transport the food we take in into qi rather than having to work just to kind of keep us warm.

Speaker 1: 15:27

This is a really, really beautiful time of year to practice, dream work, dreaming with intention. So, keeping a journal by your bed and, before going to sleep, have the intention to remember and be awake in your dreams and then in the morning, before doing anything else, just rolling over and writing in your journal any dreams that you remember at this time. This is a really great time to harness the power of your intuition and being guided by these deeper energies of our soul, purpose or beyond our analytical mind and into the world of dreams and symbols and memories, different ways of being guided besides the logical brain. So yeah, keep a journal right by your bed with that intention to write down and record your dreams before they start to wash away in the morning. Exercise this time of year is best to focus more on the relaxing side of exercise than athletic exertion. You can practice in the evening before bed, like that. Nine o'clock time is really good for the next two weeks.

Speaker 1: 16:45

In the spring and summer more vigorous exercise is indicated, but this time of year strenuous exercise can be damaging. It's certainly important not to get sweaty in the cold weather, cold wind, meaning the sweat is arthritis and paralysis in the making. We would say you might not feel this right away, but it could lead to a sudden onset later in life if we do this repeatedly for a long time. And I think it is important not to talk about things like in a way where we're impending doom. I'm open to all kinds of possibilities and not to pathologize anything, but it can be good to really stay warm and protect ourselves from this pernicious energy. Yeah, in the summer strenuous activity may give strength, but in the winter there's a suggestion of withdrawal. The same way, the plants are withdrawing and the animals are withdrawing. The bears are going into hibernation along with the shamans. So vigorous training in the summer is great and then meditation retreats in the winter, because that is a cultivation of a different kind of strength and it actually changes our notion of strength when we can focus on more of that meditative quality in the wintertime.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Strenuous activity in the winter drains chi away from the surface and cold wind can then easily invade. So misconduct in terms of not wearing enough layers, getting really sweaty, being really strenuous enough layers, getting really sweaty, being really strenuous it routinely enables us with our misconduct can be enabled by temperature control, like air conditionings and heaters and things like that. So it's like, oh, I'll just get cold and sweaty and then I'll go into this warm room and then so it's like an enabling of not actually being in right relationship with the environment. So you know, light bulbs are that, for example, at nighttime, having lights on allows us to have less time in the dark, less time in that underworld zone and less time to really contemplate our death, the term. You know that we're all going to die, unless you have some secret that I don't know about, unless you have some secret that I don't know about. So winter is actually a time of year that can prepare us for contemplation of our own death.

Speaker 1: 19:06

When you know, strength is a good idea as a teenager, but the older we get, longevity becomes more interesting and appealing than strength. It's a kind of maturation process where, instead of strength being the primary goal, it becomes more longevity and quality. The things that make us strong should turn into those things that give us long life. This idea that I can be stronger than nature that probably came from Christianity. It's not masterful to not live in harmony with nature. That's not a kind of mastery, that's a kind of teenage strength. So this idea that power that can't respond is not actually power, and strength that can't sense how to use itself is not strength. We need to have the sensitivity to know when to use strength. That's actually an essential part of wisdom. It's not only about being strong. You can even look at this on a fiber level with muscles. It's not only about their ability to contract, but also about their ability to lengthen. Modern life we often measure strength by contractility rather than ability to lengthen and contract a muscle or a muscle group.

Speaker 1: 20:29

So the idea, the invitation this time of year is to relax, not because it's warm, but because it's getting cold and we need to do less and to relax. This is the natural state. It's not the same as doing relaxation. It's about a returning to our own nature. It's about having nothing to do. It's not about being sedated. It's not an aggressiveness. It's a natural state. An aggressiveness, it's a natural state. It's a relaxed natural state. It's not about a sloppiness or a slurriness or a warmth kind of relaxation. It's about a cold slowing down, kind of like the way the water slows down in the winter because it becomes hard and cold and ice-like. Our blood slows down, everything starts to go slower. This is not really a time to go on vacation in order to feel relaxed. It's more of an original nature.

Speaker 1: 21:25

The invitation is more to move towards quiet, the quiet side of our nature, being in our homes, being quiet. In ancient China it was forbidden actually to travel this time of year. The invitation is to move towards a quietness so that yin can actually be nourished, and part of understanding our health and our nature and our humanness is a nourishment of yin. So when yin is not nourished we skip a whole level actually of understanding our own nature, our own beingness. We only get to understand one part of ourselves which is more of an exuberant, outward going, extroverted self. So nourishing in helps us to get to know our own selves on a deeper, more internal world. It's a movement from focus on the outside to focus on the inner landscape. So we're in the 10th moon of the year.

Speaker 1: 22:27

This is the time to go into retreat and to go into hibernation and to reflect and to be reminiscent and to find quiet. Traditionally, this is the time when shamans do go into their winter retreats. The spring and summer are the time to come up with lots of things, and now it's time to edit it back to that which is most important and to find what is most of value. So my teacher looming would say when in doubt, stay home. When in doubt, rest, lie down, do nothing. And one of my favorite lines he would say do not squander your free time with activity. There's an opportunity actually for each of us to have our own experience of knowing what is a value in life. When we use the winter to edit to that which is a value we can distill down to find our inner truth. What will stay with you through the winter is the thing of value. If we keep going and juggling all the things in the winter, this process of distilling down to what is most of value cannot happen. So it's the time to widen down down, to be withdrawn rather than celebratory. We don't need to put lights on in our house to pretend it's not dark.

Speaker 1: 23:46

This is a really great time for people to meditate. I have people come to say that's too hard for me to meditate. We'll try in the winter time, it's a lot easier. The counsel is stay close to home to say that was too hard for me to meditate. Like well, try in the wintertime, it's a lot easier.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Yeah, the counsel is stay close to home, start to let go of all the activity and begin to withdraw, and in six weeks time, when it's actually winter solstice, the mid winter, deepest, darkest time of the year if we can start now to begin to hone down our energies and let go of activity and busyness and that young, that youngness, by the time winter comes. We've already cultivated to this, this deep yin quality, so that when winter solstice comes, then it's starting going to start to be brighter and lighter and we could actually welcome and greet that light because we have enough yin. We've nourished ourselves from the beginning of winter to midwinter. These are the most potent time to nourish our yin so that when winter solstice happens and the days start to get longer, we can actually celebrate that from a place of having done our inner journey work. A place of having done our inner journey work and when the new year, meaning the brighter, light year, starts to come in, there's a sense of knowing what it is we want, where we want to go. We've distilled all the extra excess out to this fine concentration of what is most valuable to us and we can start moving towards the spring freshness with a sense of cultivation of a deep force in our system. Winter, in this way, is really a time to gather our power, and this is actually echoed in the kidney meridian. The kidney meridian's movement is a wave that rises up and then returns back down again. It gathers and then returns and in this way we also gather power and resource and be able to bring it forth. It's a place of balance, of yin and yang and the gathering of power and the ability that comes forth with this power.

Speaker 1: 25:56

I'd like to give an exercise to help us tune into the kidneys. In the winter time these exercises really can work well to do at 9 o'clock if you're not doing a different kind of qigong or meditative practice or to add on to it. So the exercise my counsel would be to sit in the dark, perhaps at 9 pm you can adjunct this onto your meditation or qigong or yoga practice any kind of gentle exercises and, with your eyes closed, just begin to notice what's happening in your body, listen to the sounds, feel your breath, blood, heartbeat, taking a moment to get really present to what is. And, with this awareness of your baseline, begin to breathe into your kidney organs and notice what effect your breath has on your kidneys and notice what effect your breath has on your kidneys and with that, initiate the breathing then from your kidneys and notice what impact your kidneys have on your breath. Then we're going to take a moment to sound into the kidneys.

Speaker 1: 27:32

When the kidney organ sound is tree, you can practice chanting this or toning this sound Chui Chui Chui and notice what impact this sound has on your kidneys. Focus the sound around your kidneys so that they begin to condense. So you're focusing the chui sound around the kidneys so that they begin to become condensing and then focus the sound in the center of the organ so it helps them to expand Chui Chui. Initiate the sound from the organ and notice how your kidneys change the sound. You can explore variations in pitch and intensity and you can begin to jiggle into your kidneys. A little bounce or wiggle can be small and notice how jiggling changes your kidneys. And then jiggle from your kidneys and notice how that changes your movement. How do the kidneys actually want to move you? So we're moving into the organ and noticing how movement impacts the kidneys and then you can initiate movement from the kidneys and notice how it impacts movement.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Finally, begin to initiate inhaling from the kidneys and then, as you exhale chui, let the sounds come from the kidneys, as you exhale Chui, chui, chui Chui, and then begin to improvise with sound and movement. You can keep going with this as long as feels good and, as you're ready, make your way towards dream time. Thank you so much for listening. I wish you super deep, blessed up, nourishing time as we head into the darkest time of the year, going from this 10th new moon and heading into deep, dark winter. Go gently, be gentle with yourself others, be kind, be nourished, slow down, let yourself say no to overextending yourself and find that deep in nourishment that's actually only available this time of year, this time of year Blessings. If you'd like more information, you can go to my website.