Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast.

I'm Emanuel Von Lee, executive editor of Emergence Magazine.

Each week we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

Lisa Lee Herrick is a second generation among American writer. In this essay, Lisa struggles with how to respond

to rising anti-Asian American violence in the wake of COVID-19. Already warned from the racist

attacks and abuses that have long been directed at her family, she wonders if she can move

beyond hurt and anger to instead ground herself in healing.

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.

And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Part 4, Aphorism 146.

For the first time, we stayed home during the Lunar New Year.

It felt strange not to be at our favorite restaurant on Grant Avenue

in San Francisco's Red Lantern-Lined Line Chinatown, clinking our porcelain teacups,

and biting into ingot-shaped, juicy pork and cabbage pot stickers dipped in white vinegar for good money fortune.

This year, we did not pull the long-life noodles from the family plate for good health,

or spooned flaky fillets of milk-white steamed fish with ginger and sesame oil

to symbolize the forthcoming abundance in the new year. On January 19th, just the

week before, a 35-year-old man returned to Washington State after visiting family in Wuhan, China,

and officially became the first U.S. recorded case of infection by the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19.

Thousands of travelers from around the world were already on route to descend upon downtown

San Francisco for the annual Chinese New Year parade and street festivals, and out of an

abundance of caution, we canceled our annual tradition, our first family meal, and forwent all the

...