Episode 02: When in Doubt - Starfish

Welcome to Cara’s podcast!

In this episode of Roots & Points: Understanding Acupuncture Medicine, we’ll delve into the energetics of Late Summer, the Earth Element, and the magic of Starfish!

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Hey friends, I'm your host, Cara Mafuta Raboteau from Acupuncture In Motion, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Welcome to episode 2 of my podcast, Roots and Points: Understanding Acupuncture Medicine! We are a few days away from the rare Blue Moon - the second full moon of August, and third supermoon of the year, and a few weeks away from the fall equinox!

I’m thinking about the Moon, and since it’s Late Summer, I’m also thinking about the tides of the Ocean, and their push and pull.

We’re transitioning out of Mid-Summer, the time of the Heart, the season of Joy and Sadness, growth and spontaneity, and communication, laughter and vulnerability. I feel a reluctance to embrace this season’s end. But Late Summer is enticing - the growing sound of singing cicadas and crickets, the calmer, cooler, longer nights, the ripening, completion, and saturation of this time, are all helping me yawn and stretch my way into readiness for autumn.

While transition is a constant on our planet, and in our universe, this part of the year - Late Summer - is a particularly noteworthy transition in acupuncture medicine Five Phase theory. It’s a “fifth” season, so to speak, and the time of the Earth Element. It’s also an ever-present season, since transition is a part of every seasonal change. In the part of the world and time period this medical system was developed, this season - externally and internally - was typically damp. Late Summer is a time many folks are interacting with the ocean, so I’ve been thinking a lot lately about parts of the earth that humans generally can’t see, parts that are submerged, and what creatures are able to survive in those places.

Since the planet is made up of mostly water, dampness tends to be experienced in excess. When the Spleen and Stomach (Earth) channels are imbalanced, our internal environment might feel energetically dampened or bogged down, “swamped,” overburdened, or stuck.

When I feel overwhelmed - that feeling of never being enough, prone to excessive and repetitive thoughts and doubt, and moments of “I just can’t,” sometimes I “starfish.” I get down on the ground, not really very carefully - I just drop down and “splay” there, arms and legs outstretched, and sigh, so my jaw can unclench. I physically give up. This isn’t meditation, it isn’t mindful, it has no agenda, and sometimes I don’t know if it even helps, but frequently, when I do this, the speed and circling of my mind and heart start to slow down, just a little bit. My thoughts sometimes start to loosen from an over-analyzing tight spiral to a more flexible dreaming and wondering. I might start to unpack where this excessive deliberation is coming from - too many demands and burdens? Resurfacing childhood wounds? External pressure to please and conform and maintain inequitable status quos?

And so with all this thinking and questioning and anti-thinking and thinking again, I try to remember-imagine my inner starfish.

This ancient ancestor has survived for so long - over 450 million years - in part because of its adaptable life phases and structure. It doesn’t even have a heart or brain or blood, but it survives. It’s okay. It doesn’t have to think. It just perceives, and eats, and reproduces, even asexually when need be. It loses a limb and grows a new one. If it loses some of its center with a limb - no worries - the severed part just grows into a whole new starfish.

But actually it’s more accurate to call it a sea star because it’s not even a fish - it doesn’t have a backbone. That’s right, it’s spineless. So while this spineless creature appears to be very yin - it’s passive, just lays there at the bottom of the sea - the sea star has yang within - it’s an active, ravenous hunter too! Well, opportunistically, but still, it does stuff even though it appears to be still.

Its eye-like structures perceive light and dark - not in the eerily intelligent way that cephalopods (like a squid or octopus) seem to be able to stare into and understand something beyond the depths of your soul with the ultimate side-eye. The sea star simply uses its water vascular hydraulic system to move around, and perceive light and dark to find mostly live food, and hide from larger predators. It has a nervous system, so it can feel physical pain, but it doesn’t really care, like humans do. Its primary concern - or not very mindful effort - is to eject its stomach through its mouth, grab and liquefy its food with its stomach enzymes, digest and move on.

But the reality is humans are not sea stars. We can’t just slide around the sea floor and grow new limbs when we need to. We have actual hearts. We can feel a different kind of pain - a heart pain - when stressed and overwhelmed. And sometimes - a lot of times - we need help.

The strength of the Spleen and Stomach Earth energy in humans is that it holds our intention, and capacity for understanding and caring. It helps us out. The phrase “the way to a person’s heart is through their stomach,” in a way reflects the nervous system and vagus nerve - the longest nerve of the autonomic nervous system - that runs from the brain, down through our trunk all the way to the colon. It plays an important role in regulating heart rate and digestion. Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine practitioners are hugely focused on impacting the nervous system. From a Five Phase perspective, the fire phase is thought to generate the earth phase, so in the case of overwhelm, the practitioner might combine certain acupoints or sweet and aromatic herbs that focus on nourishing the Heart & Small Intestine (Fire element) in order to tonify the Spleen & Stomach meridians (Earth element).

While our sea star ancestors don’t have hearts, their survival strategies are helpful in a way, when thought of metaphorically:

1. The Bottom has its advantages. We might not be the biggest, most powerful fish in the sea, but by positioning oneself closest to the earth’s surface, we gain a perspective that those higher up in hierarchical systems above us might be missing. We can feel the earth hold us, and maybe build a little more trust in ourselves.

2. Regrowth is possible. We can’t organically regrow limbs like sea stars, but we can grow new thought patterns and ways of viewing our internal and external environments. When done with compassion and patience, this process can literally build new and healthy neural pathways.

3. Adaptation and movement is essential. Getting unstuck doesn’t have to be a race, it’s not a rush. We can inch toward the next source of soul food, one knee or toe, or elbow, or arm or finger or head tilt at a time. We can stretch ever so slowly into our capacity, observing where we find edges, and pausing when we need to.

4. Simplicity and the ordinary is good too. The boldness of Spring and Summer is calming down. Late Summer is a time of ripening and harvest. The sea star is complex and simple at the same time. Its main goal is to be and to harvest and eat mollusks, clams, oysters, and snails with its tube feet. It is solitary and individually focused, and yet, we benefit from how its pursuit of survival maintains an ecosystem that benefits us collectively. Our inner Earth energy benefits from simplicity and routine too. Adulting and working and studying will have their inevitable demands, but in moments when we need to pause and just be, to reap what we’ve sown - that is enough.

Just the other night, as I was working from home, contemplating all the things with 10 tabs open on my laptop, my youngest child, my charismatic, silly, summery, fiery sagittarius - bounced into my room, and asked me what I was doing. I told them I was working, and they sat for a while, watching me. I could feel the medicine of the moment - the opportunity to watch someone watching me and look at myself through their eyes. Through their eyes, I could see myself deep in Spleen mode - the concentration and pensiveness looked pretty thick. So I wasn’t surprised when my child’s perceptiveness spoke up. I felt it coming. The Fire in them nourished the Earth in me and said, “Mama, I think you should take a break. Wanna come play Calico cats with me?” I felt something in me lighten, I bargained with the worry in me and we agreed that we had done enough for the day, and then I felt comforted in the realization that Summer’s Joy can be accessed in any moment.

Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for the next episode of Roots and Points. If you’re interested in trying acupuncture medicine, contact your local licensed practitioner. Take care.