It's Earth Time. Late Summer, in Chinese Medicine, is often thought of as the season of the Earth element. There is also a tradition that the Earth element is related to the couple of weeks at the ends and beginnings of each of the other seasons, along with the other element associated with that season. So either way this feels like Earth Time to me. It's a time of returning to Center, grounding ourselves even during the movement and shifting of the transitional times. And this time of year does feel like a huge transition, moving from Summer to Autumn, school starting, rhythms changing. There is a bittersweetness, an ache, a nostalgia, as we say goodbye to the brightness and spaciousness and fullness of summer. I've had a beautiful summer in many ways- soul nourishing lakes and rivers and ocean and mountains and trees and music and friends and family and deliciousness... In August I began to be conscious of a different quality to the sun as it shone through the trees, immediately evoking this late summer feeling of wistfulness and longing, beauty and heartache. Starting to notice some leaves falling from the trees, the dryness that sets in around here at this time (even though a bit more fog returns), the contrast of abundant harvests and waning light. Poignancy feeling the end of summer vacation, return to school. Grief about climate change and fires, sadness about the anxiety facing our youth.
I'm reading Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make us Whole, by Susan Cain. She explores how sadness/sorrow/yearning/longing/melancholy/grief often can lead to creativity/connection/compassion/art/activism/justice/healing/transcendance/ecstatic joy. (Samora Pinderhughes' Healing Project exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and YBCA's Dreamseeds exhibit, are gorgeous examples of this...) The book talks about how our longing is in itself a connection and communion with wholeness, with Love, with Spirit, with Beauty, with each other. It is a truly beautiful book, and feels perfect for this time of year. In Jewish tradition, this is a time of year we think about Teshuvah, turning or returning- to our most essential selves, to Life, to sacred mystery, to our oneness with the Beloved. This moon cycle in particular there is an idea that the Divine is our Friend/Beloved/Partner, walking with us in the fields, partaking in intimate conversation with us.
Thinking about these themes during this time of Earth feels intertwined with my feelings of sorrow and longing for the Earth, for our land and planet. How do we Return to connectedness and belonging with the Earth, how to turn our grief into healing for and with the Earth? How to recognize and receive the incredible ABUNDANCE in our lives, to move from scarcity into fullness and gratitude? How to give to the Earth, who gives us so much?
The Earth element in Chinese Medicine relates with our Spleen (a bigger concept than the conventional concept of spleen) and Stomach, our Centers, our digestive system as well as immune system, muscles, clarity, hormonal balance. In Chinese Medicine, the Spleen absorbs, digests, transforms, and transports nutrients throughout the body. The Spleen/Earth element is related with intention, creativity, manifestation, and with caring for and nurturing ourselves and others-- and can get out of balance with worry and overthinking, with over-caretaking so much that we lose our own center. Returning to our Center can look like taking time to really chew and absorb and digest our food, emotions, experiences, and ideas, without overanalyzing or overthinking (chewing it over too much), and then allowing them to move on to the next step of transformation. Returning to our Center can look like spending time on caring for ourselves, tending our bodies, caring for the Earth, tending the Earth, spending time in connection with our soul and with the Earth. Receiving the bounty and nourishment of what is here and now. This summer in the wilderness I could feel that subtle shifting and resettling, just as the Earth settles, that came with quiet spacious time in nature, that happened with my Center, and helped me feel my roots connect....
Just being present- it's almost a cliche sometimes, but really it is so very useful, isn't it? In the book Good Anxiety, Wendy Suzuki talks about how sometimes just getting comfortable with challenging emotions helps us with our emotional resilience so that we can channel our emotions in a beneficial way. I thought about immersing myself in cold lakes and rivers this summer- how much easier it is when I let myself feel and even welcome the discomfort of the cold water, that the discomfort is even a part of the exhilaration and purification and joy of it. And really experiencing and delving into this quality of longing and sweet sorrow, as it arises, feels like a poignant and meaningful way to be present, in love and connection, with all that is; yearning and loss as a portal for opening and healing....
As we move into Fall, season of the Metal element, of the Lungs and Large Intestine, of grief and joy, I invite you to join us in returning, realigning, re-centering, and renewing.
Metal [the element related with the Fall Season in Traditional Chinese Medicine] calls us to the experience of exhalation, letting go, descent, loss and death. But it also invites us to the experience of inhalation, receiving, prayer, inspiration and resurrection. Metal brings us to the immediate and acute realization of the preciousness of the moment, the sacredness of awareness and the understanding that our life is a gift we cannot hold on to.
~ from Kigo: Exploring the Spiritual Essence of Acupuncture Points Through the Changing of the Seasons, by Lorie Eve Dechar