Quarantine Digital Care Package #23
We hope this care package finds you all safe, healthy and ready to welcome a change in seasons for brighter, greener and milder days. May your senses be delighted by our gorgeous neighbourhood streets of powder pink cherry and plum blossoms as well as spring crocuses, snowbells and hyacinths as well as the giddy anticipating of planning our spring gardens.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), spring is a season of creativity, movement, growth, and renewal. So the concept of “spring cleaning” is in sync with this season associated with the Wood element.
It is an ideal time to focus on releasing emotions that no longer serve us—specifically those rooted in anger, resentment, frustration, and depression, that weigh down our mind and body, making us feel stagnant and heavy. Not unlike what we see mirrored in nature with dormant trees and other plants bursting through the soil and buds cracking and blooming in the spring glory of the Pacific NorthWest.
It is important that we shift with the season to shake off the winter woolies and welcome a fresh, renewed relationship with our mind, body and spirit as the days get longer, lighter and nature around us is waking from it’s winter slumber. This is the ideal time to start your spring veggies, get outside to move your body so you can recirculate your sluggish qi and blood circulation, consume for fresh, bitter or sour leafy greens and sprouts as well as keeping one foot in winter and one foot in spring by continuing to dress for the weather and protect your immunity as we are still living during a pandemic.
This month’s care package is full of strategies for you to practice emotional resilience and practice gratitude. Reminders of how to enjoy nature’s beauty both for your eyes and well as for your bellies. Otherwise, plenty of things to expand your musical and film repertoire, we hope this continues to bring your insight and comfort during pandemic life.
During a time where we still need to exercise caution due to COVID and the continuing societal divide, we stand in solidarity with all of the dedicated individuals who continue to save lives, keep society moving, cleaned and fed, fight injustice and protect our planet. We send them and all of you strength, courage and persistence during a continually turbulent time. We will get through this by holding one another close and with (self)compassion.
Spring, by Pablo Neruda
The bird has come
to bring light to birth.
From every trill of his,
water is born.
And between water and light which unwind the air,
now the spring is inaugurated,
now the seed is aware of its own growing;
the root takes shape in the corolla,
at last the eyelids of the pollen open.
All this accomplished by a simple bird
from his perch on a green branch.