Writing at the intersection of medicine, art, and seasonal wisdom.
The Bountiful Path is a twice-weekly Substack newsletter from Dr. Lisa Belisle. We publish a longer essay on Sundays and something lighter on Fridays, organized around four pillars: Story, System, Self, and Seasonality.
We come to this work from a family medicine practice that integrates Western medicine with acupuncture and Five Phase theory, from a long love of literature and the visual arts, and from a home on the coast of Maine where the tides and the seasons ask us to pay attention.
Story. What shapes us. The narratives we inherit and the ones we revise. Memoir, history, and the lives around us.
System. How we care for one another. Medicine, public health, the systems that hold or fail us, and the people who work inside them.
Self. How we pay attention. Contemplative practice, Chinese medicine, the body, and the quiet work of a life in progress.
Seasonality. How we live with the year. Five Phase theory, the tides and the shoreline, and the landscapes of coastal Maine.
Sundays, a longer essay. Fridays, something lighter: Books on the Boat, the Thursday digest, a seasonal field note. The rhythm is meant to match the week, not fight it. We write when the week has something to say.
Dr. Lisa Belisle is a board-certified family physician (MD, PhD, MPH, MBA), the host of Radio Maine, and the co-host of A Healthy Conversation on Newsradio WGAN. She lives on Littlejohn Island, off the coast of Maine, with her family.
She is at work on three books, including Daughter, Doctor, Mom, a memoir centered on her late father, Dr. Charles Belisle, a family physician who practiced in Maine for nearly fifty years.
Most of the essays are free. Paid subscribers support the work and receive access to the seasonal reflection toolkits and companion materials described on the Companions page, as well as occasional subscriber-only notes.
Literary, warm, place-rooted, reflective. Informed by the Maine coast and the seasons. Bridging medicine, integrative care, and everyday human experience. We write as "we" rather than "I," not because the work is not personal, but because the path is shared.