NOVEMBER

NEST | REST | DIGEST

Greetings!

In this Issue:

Community Healing Event: Open House at Open Flow!
Descent into the Dark Season: Adaptibility
Nest, Rest, Digest: Sleep Habits, Metabolism
A Circadian Song and Dance: Honor the Dark

Community Healing Event:

Open House at Open Flow !

The leaves are almost all down, the first frosty mornings are here, and before we know it, fall will give way to winter. The holidays are right around the corner, and I've got a Community Healing Event to kick off the season:

I will be hosting an Open House for Open Flow Medical Massage at my home practice on the historic Codman Estate in Lincoln, MA.

SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, November 22, 2026 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

(Logistics / Weather Backup Date: Sunday, December 13th, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM)

More Details soon to follow but think of this afternoon as a scaled-down reincarnation of the Lincoln Holistic Health and Wellness Fair—but designed to be an even more interesting, intimate, and fun gathering within a true sanctuary environment.

(I also need your help!).

Thank you for offering your hands, energy, and presence to help anchor this upcoming event.

If you'd like to be involved and lend a hand, please use the brief sign-up form below to share your availability and logistics preferences. Once the schedule is finalized, I will follow up to confirm specific time blocks and assignments.

Click the Circle of Hands to

Access the Open House Volunteer Sign-Up Form

Descent into the Dark Season:

Adaptibility

Earlier this morning at 2:00 AM, November 1st, Daylight Saving Time ended. While our clocks registered a simple one-hour shift, our biology registers a profound descent into the dark time of the year. This sudden atmospheric transition impacts the pineal gland, disrupts our circadian rhythms, and triggers deep hormonal and nervous system shifts that affect us on every single level. As the sunlight wanes, our natural metabolic instinct is to migrate indoors.

Yet, this seasonal retreat frequently coincides with the onset of the holiday season—a challenging time that routinely compounds our internal stress. The holidays inevitably evoke dense psychological memories of family traditions, forcing us to front the very real losses and grief we have experienced in our lives.

This human reality is one I live right alongside you. I have to continually figure out how to consciously choose not to burn out in order to do the clinical work I do. Life is a colossal, ongoing balancing act for me as a sole practitioner—perhaps even more so than for many of my patients who navigate completely different professional, social, and economic strata.

Living in an historic building right near the commuter rail tracks is quaint, to say the least. Not to romanticize it all, but hearing the nightly coyote chorus actually grounds me, allowing me to drift off to sleep to their wild song before a train cuts through to drown out their rallying cries. In the first couple of years living here, I imagined that these tracks connected me directly through time—after all, they were here during Henry David Thoreau’s era.

Alongside a few magnificent trees that have stood for nearly two centuries, the tracks remain a consistent landmark, offering a brief glimpse into what life might have been like a century and a half ago.

Soon enough, however, that fantasy gave way to the modern reality of 34 daily commuter trains running for 19 hours straight. The roar is disruptive, shaking the frame of this antiquated, poorly insulated structure. Yet, this environmental challenge became my own clinical laboratory.

Nest, Rest, Digest

Sleep, Metabolism

Out of necessity, I have developed highly effective strategies to protect my rest—practices forged at the intersection of modern circadian science and the timeless wisdom of Ayurvedic daily rhythms—that I am eager to share with you.

Because I know the weight of this seasonal contraction, I must remind you of an absolute boundary: put down the phone, close the laptop, and offer your full, undivided physical presence to someone you love. That someone not only could be you, but it must be you. Attempting to show up for the people in your world without factoring your own biological limits into the equation is a direct recipe for deep burnout, anger, and resentment.

Rather than avoid or resent the dark with dread and loathing, I invite you to keep an eye on your inbox in the coming days. I am preparing a complete, straightforward Practical Guide for Sleep Sanity to help you reset your nocturnal responses. Along with these sleep tools, I will also be sharing critical metabolic support guidelines for the winter migration indoors, including my favorite recipe for a delicious, deeply grounding herbal coffee substitute to stoke your internal hearth.

There are too many things to name to stay hopeful for. If you need something to look on the bright side—in less than two months, the earth pivots on its axis and begins the slow, gradual shift towards the sun, and daylight begins to lengthen again.

Remember, our genes carry the ancient blueprint for survival, even when we forget the depth of our own strength. There is no need to worry—the natural world has a persistent way of reminding us exactly what our bodies are built to endure.

A Circadian Song and Dance:

Honor the Dark

In the meantime, as we navigate the initial days of this dark threshold, I want to leave you with Lea Morris’s piece, "Honor the Dark," because the Mystic Chorale performed a moving cover of it at our fall concert a few years back. It really resonates as a way to rest your eyes for a brief few minutes, listening to her beautiful arrangement and sing along.

Let her lyrics offer you a reframe to receive the quiet gifts that come to us by night, allowing the deep seasonal darkness to heal you of uncertainty and fear until only love remains: