Summer Part 2

In the previous post I talked about the summer season from the lens of Chinese medicine and the associated emotion of joy. How it is a time of expansion and spreading out. And while that is all true, I realized that I had left out some important details that might contribute to a more complete sense of the tone of summer.

There’s nothing quite like life experiences to rear their heads and remind me of the complexity of each season, and recently I’ve been confronted with some quick, somewhat erratic shifts… one minute a sense of heaviness and overwhelm and then soon after, levity, buoyancy. Moving in and out, fast movements without a predictable pattern. Reminders of the potential volatility of life, and the necessity of grounding into practices that stabilize.

Fire moves quickly and is inherently transformative. We hone fire to create and to survive, and then there is fire that burns out of control. As I sit here looking at the strange colors in the sky from the fires in Nova Scotia, I observe in real time fire’s destructive capacity, while also enjoying my tea that was made with fire in another form.

The emotion of summer is joy, but we acknowledge in Chinese Medicine that joy can become imbalanced and that can look like mania. The fire of the mind spreading out of control. Or, a less extreme version of that might be scattered thinking, or an inability to focus. Fire wants to move and spread, to connect and to light things up. Amazing and wonderful unless it gets out of control.

So, if this is some of the experience that you’re having, I hope this provides a template of sorts. It’s a season, and knowing the energy of a season gives us agency. It is also temporary. Key here is leaning into the alchemical transformation.