What I've Done, What I'm Doing, & Where I'm Going Next
Projects In Review – Taking stock in late summer 2025.
There are many among you reading Autoimmune In Practice today who have purchased a copy (or several copies!) of Auto-Immune Heresy: A Memoir. Thank you for your support. It was released in February of 2024, on my 28th birthday.
It is no longer an accurate description of my daily life, if it ever was. It was already a record of the past when I collected the essays. It stands as a record of life lived, one that struggled to record and narrate experiences I've had.
Those of you who've read it may recall most of the entries are dated 2019-2021. The contents of the chapters reach deeper still into my past, to describe a child's experience of pharmacy and medicine, of so-called chronic immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) from 2001 onwards.
Today I find it to be a strange, angry book. So much of the text was scrawled furiously as an ongoing attempt only to decipher my own experience. I was not writing for an audience, only looking for grammar describing reality. That experience was, and is, wholly indebted to the cultural ecology that I was born into.
This life is nothing if not a record of entanglements. So the book talks about those entanglements to describe my felt sense of having a bloodstream that spans the globe.
The project accomplished what it was meant to do. It was an initial plowing of the field, meant to reveal the major themes of my work. The visceral experience of writing, editing, designing, and self-publishing was a process of claiming my own story.
Being a medical patient for my whole early life had left me without a sense of self or purpose. I was "the sick kid." That book is a rendering of the soul work that was required of me to honour that child while preparing for the next phase of my life, now unfolding.
It was an alchemical project: elevating my daily suffering into something resembling art. By that act, I was able to be present to the beauty and awe in the story and prose.
It is not an easy read, and it makes no concessions to its reader. It was meant to be for me. That it has prompted any response at all is a welcome gift and a surprise, in return for having given of myself to its making.
Since the book’s release, I have begun my therapeutic bodywork practice. I've gone to Kerala twice. I still haven’t been to an allopathic doctor, but I lean on Chinese and Indian medicine to nourish my body/soul, and trend towards health.
My studies are ongoing. My practice of qigong and somatic movement has gone nearly uninterrupted since 2019, with many intensives and deep-dives, notably with Andrew Harwood and Nita Little in Contact Improv, and Ethan Murchie, Oamsin Termpaiboon, and Zhang Mingliang in Gongfu and Qigong.
My foundational training in Tuina body-therapy and Chinese martial arts and medicine at the Montreal Gongfu Research Center was an intense 2 year period of training, 2023-2024.
My writing is, I hope, a testament to my love of learning.
I've been teaching and facilitating, since 2022. It started with Contact Improvisation and somatics. It has grown to be a Qigong and Focusing based somatic education approach that I share in 1-on-1 sessions.
With my partner Shanthi Minor, I co-teach yearly Coaching Your Nervous System retreats. Shanthi’s an osteopath and long-time yogi, with a passion for polyvagal theory and practice. We make a really strong team, and our testimonials bear witness.
"I want to express my heartfelt thanks for everything that made the Cocoon retreat one of the best experiences of my life. From the moment I arrived, I felt surrounded by such warmth, care, and positive energy. Since the retreat, I’ve been practicing the techniques we learned, especially those that help me relax and center myself. Thank you for creating such a transformative space for us. I truly hope our paths cross again one day.
— M.H., 2024 participant
December 5-7 2025, we’ll be leading our third Nervous System Retreat, Sanctuaire, in Sutton, QC. Stay tuned, I’ll announce it more formally. Read about it here.
Last year I helped design and publish SASSY – Sensibiliser, autonomiser, soutenir et s’entraider : SexEd by and for 2SLGBTQIA+ and/or neurodivergent people, a community-sourced comic book project now distributed to over 300 public libraries across Quebec, available in 5 languages. I'm very proud of the work we accomplished.
Since 2024 I've been working with the Académie Québécoise d'Ayurveda. This is also the school I’ve chosen for my own studies in Ayurveda. Now, that work is scaling up, and I'm glad to be an integral part of the team.
I'm preparing for my next trip abroad. With Shanthi, we're leaving in January 2026 for Chiang Mai, Thailand, to do immersive Thai Massage training, then heading back down to Kerala for continued spiritual education.
I've been blogging the whole time. My personal website has an archive dating back to 2019, way more than this newsletter, and you can read Auto-Immune Heresy there online free of charge. It is a messy work in progress, the result of many platform migrations. It lives over here: www.mxmarin.ca
In 2025, I want for nothing. My whole working life is spent helping to spread traditional and holistic views of health and the body. My needs are met. No more, no less.
All I ask is to continue my work and my training, so that I can share freely with anyone who cares to practice. I have shelter, food, and partnership. I can pay for the herbal medicine I need, see the healers who help me move forward, and afford continuing education.
I can go to Asia every winter and come back each spring. I can use hours of my waking life each day to practice being in a body, connecting to what is sacred and alive, and I sleep soundly at night.
τίς εὐδαίμων, "ὁ τὸ μὲν σῶμα ὑγιής, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν εὔπορος, τὴν δὲ φύσιν εὐπαίδευτος"
Who is happy? One who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind and a docile nature."
(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, BOOK I, Chapter 1. THALES circa 585 B.C.)