Healing Season Program
Episode 36: Personal and Collective Healing in Chinese Medicine and Deep Ecology (with Leilani Wong Navar and guest interviewer Lydia Violet Harutoonian)
Our bodies are just like the rest of the living world: coursing with healing, life-affirming intelligence and capacity; and suffering the effects of being out of balance. The body is one setting for what Joanna Macy called “the three stories of our time”: Business as Usual, the Great Unraveling, and the Great Turning. We’ve explored…
Read MoreGetting Better Can Feel Really Good
The things that are bringing us into better balance FEEL GOOD ✨ Trust your compass. Here’s what I say in the video: “Getting better can feel really good. The things that bring us into balance make us feel good. I’m sure that one reason I love to sing is that the Metal element in my…
Read MoreHealing Sunday / Healing Season
I had a dreamy Sunday morning a few days ago: I wrote down my dreams, practiced qigong and back rehab exercises, played guitar and sang myself some songs, breathed in gratitude with the green leaves around me – all before I emerged from my room. Then I had a yummy breakfast, followed by a little…
Read MoreWhat the Five Elements Really Are
The Five Elements are not like the atoms on the periodic table of the elements. They’re not the building blocks of matter. In Classical Chinese Medicine, in Daoist philosophy, the word xíng, which we usually translate as “elements,” could better be translated as “phases”. These five phases are processes. (Verbs, not nouns – hey! just…
Read MoreStress Causes Disease – So What Do we Do?
We’ve all heard that stress causes disease. Chinese Medicine teaches us that about half our diseases trace back to how we relate to our emotions. And, the world right now – there’s a lot of stress, and a lot of emotion. So what do we do? A new round of Healing Season: Practical Wisdom from…
Read MoreThe Wood Element in You: Vision, Anger, Passion for Justice, Flexibility and Compassion (a few minutes of Healing Season)
I love hosting Healing Season. One of my favorite parts is sharing the poetic science of the Five Elements, as applied to the body, mind, and emotions in Chinese Medicine. Here you can see a few minutes of the course video about the Wood Element. If you’re curious about Healing Season, a 12-week small group…
Read MoreDo I need emotional or physical healing? Which Element do I focus on? Clearing what I once stuffed down AND not stuffing anything new? (Healing Season Q&A Call)
Here are a few selections from a Healing Season Q&A in February 2022. This was about halfway through the group program, after exploring Fire, Earth, and Metal. Watch and listen to get a feel for the kinds of conversations we have in Healing Season, and to hear my replies to the questions below: 0:00 Question: How…
Read MoreChewing One Bite of Food, Thoughts, or News at a Time
Physical, mental, emotional – all are working with the same qi. The Earth network of organs and channels processes information AND food. Overthinking or worrying can be like chewing, and chewing, and chewing on the same bite, without swallowing it. (✋🏼 I’m familiar with this one…) I share a couple of suggestions in this video…
Read MoreBreathing Through: a way to meet bad news
https://leilaninavar.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Breathing-Through.mp4 How do we stay open to the essential function of feeling our pain for the world (or the person next to us, or ourselves), when it feels like it might break us? Or might make us feel helpless? Or might separate us? I recorded this video yesterday to post on Instagram, for anyone who,…
Read More