As I write bits and bobs for our website, I have again been pondering the need for soul medicine. In part it is because I am asking myself many of the existential questions around the purpose of therapy (as I train to be a counsellor). What is the value of people feeling more OK in a society that is not OK? What does ‘healthy’ even look like in our current environment or are we just helping people ‘fit in’ better to a way of living that doesn’t really support our human spirit? It reminds me of the quote "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”
I am grappling with the thought that if it doesn’t end up leading to a shift in our collective experience of living, are we still just prioritising our left-brain individuality, a place all the research is pointing to as not being helpful and certainly not easing the growing anxiety that now sits at the heart of our human world.
I watched episode 1 of the documentary ‘China’s secret lands’ about Yunnan province, which as the birthplace of tea, meant the film crew visited the Bulang ‘tea mountains’. There the Lahu people, nomadic and egalitarian, harvest wild tea trees and protect the ancient 1000 year old trees that still grow there, trees whose lives they consider more important than their own.
I was moved to tears by these human ‘guardians', those whose lives are dedicated to honouring and protecting the natural resources that support our ability to live. Their existence is both beautiful and hugely confronting, as nothing natural needs guarding from anything other-than-human, only ourselves.
There was a big part of me yearning to be transported to that life, to live as a tea guardian in a beautiful mountainous forest in an egalitarian tribe. This sense of rightness and comfort in not always being the most significant thing in our heads, is the job gifted to our right brain and the expansive, connective view it provides of the world. How freeing.
At college this weekend we were doing a grounding meditation and all I could hear were birds chattering. It made me consider how if we could just regularly still the constant chatter of distracting thoughts, the sound of the world would be birdsong. When I had that thought, a lovely feeling stirred inside me, something eased.
In our fast-paced, hugely left-brain world, it is easy to lose sight of these moments. But just as I felt watching that episode or hearing the bird song, we still have the knowledge and feeling of it deep inside of us. When we give ourselves the rare space to stop, we notice the longing we have for a place where we comfortably sit as a species amongst many, to be of service, the craving for that richer sense of belonging currently lost to us. But we can re-find it through shifting our perspective and welcoming back the right brain's input.
In neuroscience, "mental space" refers to the cognitive capacity within the brain that allows us to temporarily hold and manipulate complex thought processes, to think clearly and creatively without feeling overwhelmed.
Soul medicines are the conscious practices that open these spaces and bring a greater sense of peace, wholeness and authenticity to your life. They tend to call more greatly on the right brain, helping us synch and activate the 2 hemispheres simultaneously so there is a more balanced integration of your experiences. They have the capacity to nourish all of you, by opening up connections to your interconnectivity with all things.
As always I return to the teas as they are such a simple and perfect example of such medicine, happily opening these spaces for us by impacting our brain chemistry in a really positive and regulating way.
So as our hearts sing at the return of the sun and spring arrives, let’s allow ourselves to be wrapped in nature’s joyful arms and commit to nourishing our souls. We look forward to speaking to you again in April.
Anne and Ric x