Book Launch: Boxing & Dandelion
Deep thanks to United Plant Savers for hosting yesterday’s event and to everyone who shared in the inaugural conversation about my new book AWAKENING ARTEMIS with Lily Kwong. We spoke about the structure of the book, my process of writing, and the way I used plants to organize the memoir elements and themes. Lily, a landscape designer who recently took up boxing, asked me to read an excerpt of the Dandelion chapter. Here is the snippet that I read:
“Like herbalism one day would, boxing now felt like a deep remembering, something I already knew that only needed to be awakened in me…
After intense and sometimes demoralizing tours of boxing gyms and potential coaches in New York City whose tests of my ability and heart resulted in black eyes, bloody noses, and bruised ribs, Gleason’s Gym became my home away from home. I remember the first day I walked up the stairs and into the famous, grimy Brooklyn boxing gym. There was no music, just the sound of boxers hitting heavy bags, speed ropes hitting the floor, trainers yelling at their fighters, and the intense, overwhelming smell of sweat. That day, I was the only woman there to train among serious fighters and I was intimidated. I’d been training in gyms for years, mostly around men, so I was used to that, but the atmosphere here felt different. This was Gleason’s. And I came because I was ready to fight, not just box for fun anymore.
Women’s boxing was in its infancy then. There were few female fighters and not much of a career to be had for most, but that didn’t matter to me. My compulsion came from someplace else. My body and I were still catching up on lost time together and I wanted to know the part of myself that was predator instead of prey.
In Waking the Tiger, trauma therapist Dr. Peter Levine talks about moving as an essential way to release embodied trauma.6 By moving, we’re following our impulse to literally get trauma out of our system. When threatened or injured, all animals draw from instinctive reactions to protect and defend themselves, such as freezing, stiffening, bracing, fleeing, collapsing, or fighting. But when those responses are interrupted or overwhelmed, we experience trauma. When I think about the way I dealt with my abuse when I was young— freezing, leaving my body, and playing dead— it makes sense that as I finally faced that trauma, I had to move in such an intense and extreme way to get it out. Boxing gave me a sense of purpose like nothing else at the time. I felt there was no way anyone could take me down with all I’d been through.”
“You’re too intense” are words I’ve heard a lot. Balance is something I’ve struggled with; when I find something that I know I must pursue, I go all in. When that kind of knowing crescendos in me, it’s like a buzz, and then a spark. If I pay attention, give that recognition space, and feed it with my thoughts, the knowing becomes a roaring flame. If I push that knowing or instinct down to follow what are often arbitrary rules that define balance or moderation, I betray myself and sacrifice inner space that is meant to be filled with wildflowers to something tamer and more manicured instead. When I listen to my hunger, the wildflowers of my passion and focus can break through pavement to guide me into light.
In healing traditions like Ayurveda, our center— our digestive system and inner fire— is where our seat of confidence lies. This center, our solar plexus, is perceived as being yellow, illuminated like the sun and dandelion’s beautiful flowers. Strong and relentless, dandelion always comes back to bloom every year, unphased by her unpopularity or contemporary categorization as a weed, to bring light to lawns, sidewalks, and city streets. These so‑called weeds appear on lawns no matter how much toxic poison people douse them with. In fact, dandelions take up toxins and appear to cleanse the very toxins they are poisoned with.
I found a book called Healthy Healing in my twenties, a book of natural remedies that I always referred to when I felt out of balance. It was because of that book that I started to use roasted dandelion root tea as part of my morning ritual. Back then, I bought my dandelion root at an expensive health food store, which now feels absurd considering this wild healer grows everywhere. These plants are available to us for free, and for a reason. Though I considered myself an activist, this is something that hadn’t registered yet.”