May 25, 2025
“Remember the sky that you were born under,
“Remember” from “She Had Some Horses” by Joy Harjo, 1983
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.”
Dear Friends,
How are you all? These days my life is packed with my full-time job as a growth marketer in this economic environment, a mother of a 14-year-old boy who is graduating from junior high school, and a part-time meditation teacher who is trying to find her path and voice in teaching. It means often growth doesn’t come from retreats or even a regular meditation practice. Growth comes from making many choices in daily life and learning from relationships. My teacher Jonathan Foust once said, “Our deepest work is in relationships.”
Did I mention that my son is graduating from junior high school? After a busy year navigating New York’s school system, we are coming to this moment of celebrating the end of his early teenage years. My friend Lisa Freedman offers this beautiful freewriting process called “Breathe Read Write.” In one of her writing circles, we could pick a line from Joy Harjo’s poem “Remember” as the writing prompt, and here’s what I wrote:
“Remember
I remember when my son was born. A tiny baby who immediately stopped crying when he lay on my belly. Remember the joy of holding him and the helplessness I felt as a new mother, of not knowing what to do. Of so much complexity of feelings in those early days of excitement, and going through the heartache of a divorce at the same time. Yet it led me to a new path – a path of discovery and rediscovery, a path of spiritual awakening, of self-realization, of creating my own vision of life and projecting my voice. A path of many ups and downs, excitement and loneliness, growth and struggles. Circling, coming closer and farther from the center, meandering in a labyrinth. It’s not so much a path as a walk in the labyrinth.
And now, my son is 14, graduating from junior high school and growing into a smart, kind, emotionally aware and intelligent young man who wants to process deeply, who asks questions of the meaning of his life, who tries hard to make his parents and teachers proud, who longs to belong. I can recognize him. I see myself in him. I remember when I was 14.”
Yes, I remember when I was 14, graduating from eighth grade three years after immigrating to New York from Guanzhou, China. My family finally settled in Brooklyn after moving six times in those three years. I was just able to comprehend English reasonably well, but still thought in Chinese and often felt culturally perpetually in a foreign land, despite I could understand the language and excelled in school. And I was excited that I got into LaGuardia High School of Arts and Performing Arts as an art major, my dream school, despite the fact that I wasn’t interested in art and didn’t create art till the audition. My heart was set on entering as a music major, loving piano and classical music. Yet in the midst of nervousness, I froze in the middle of the music major audition and couldn’t finish playing the piano piece that I had practiced for months. In contrast, I put together an art portfolio the week before the art major audition and somehow they saw potential in that portfolio.
By the time I graduated from high school, I had grown to love art and truly believe that in those most tumultuous years of my family life and teenage years, doing art constantly saved my life. It probably helped me process all my emotions in a way that I couldn’t articulate in words, especially when I was struggling with using two different languages to inhabit two vastly different cultures. Immersing in art opened up the world beyond my loving but insulated immigrant community. We spent hours drawing at the Lincoln Center, The Met, and MoMA. We toured galleries around the city and I would spend hours wandering around Soho in the early 1990s, back when Soho was still filled with street artists. Looking back, that admission as an art major was exactly the right place I needed to be at that point in my life, even though it seemed random at the time. Over the years, I have learned that, even when it felt like a purposeless meandering in life’s journey, they were a journey that was guided by unseen forces, perhaps shaped by the ancestral, celestial, and angelic realms.
I digress. And now looking at my son at 14, he is so much better at handling performance pressure than I was. He joins chess tournaments regularly and faces the pressure of constantly being put against opponents who are just as good as he is and often better, for 6-8 hours at a time, and yet finds a way to stay calm and focused, bouncing back from a loss immediately and restart again. The resilience training is incredible.
In the past 14 years, we have grown up together. When he was a baby, I was just learning about psychotherapy, non-violent communication, Buddhist philosophy and meditation, energy healing, kundalini yoga, and group dreamwork…I was learning so much new knowledge and skills. Most of the time, I needed to apply them right away as I was in crisis and needed to heal to be a nurturing mother. Other times, it takes years to integrate these learnings, and deeply tangled intergenerational karmic knots are still hard to untie. We learn and bump into each other. I definitely recognize many moments when I mess up. And undoubtedly, I would have been a much worse mother had I not learn these skills.
I love this line in Joy Harjo’s poem:
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
I am still walking the labyrinth. The center is still elusive, seemingly near and far from moment to moment. Yet etched in these walks of circles are our memories and our love for each other. I know I have been growing. And I am grateful that we grow together.
Where are you in your labyrinth? Hope you enjoy the meandering and circling. Wishing you joy, peace, and light as you journey into this summer.
Blessings and love,
Lin
Photo: A charcoal drawing from high school years, early 1990s.
GoFundMe: 2025 -2027 Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leadership Training
Pay it forward: I’ll be joining the next Community Dharma Leadership (CDL7) training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. This program includes five retreats over two years and costs ~$14,000. Your contribution will help me cover these expenses. No contribution is too small—every donation is deeply appreciated. Thank you for your support!