Late Summer & The Earth Element
There’s a thick fragrance in the air. The pause and expansion of summer is ready to descend towards autumn and into winter. Yang is slowly transitioning and softening into yin where you can feel the heaviness and sweet humidity of the downward pull. This transition between summer and autumn has its own unique season called “Late Summer” that is represented by the centering of the Earth Element.
It’s a great time to reflect and evaluate our harvest. Do you feel full and bountiful from the fruits of your labor during the spring and summer seasons? There could be a tendency to over or under indulge. Ask yourself, do you feel stagnant, stuck or sluggish? Or maybe depleted and drained? How are you “digesting”, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually?
The DOYO Period Reset
In Chinese Medicine, we have a 5th season called “Late Summer” also known as the Doyo Period. The concept of “Late Summer” or Doyo not only has its own season, it also represents the transition between all 4 seasons which are the eighteen days before the end of each season and the beginning of the next. These seasonal transitions are governed by the Earth Element which has everything to do with how we’re digesting the things we took in.
The Doyo period offers us a beautiful opportunity to ease into change and “reset” for the upcoming season. We can anchor into the Earth Element to strengthen our journey through not only seasonal transitions, but also those tender passages through our menstrual cycle phases and the metamorphosis that occurs in between our life cycles from menarche to menopause and beyond. So in essence, the “Late Summer” or Doyo period acts as a bridge between transitions that is anchored by the Earth Element. It then becomes important to optimize and strengthen our digestion during these shifts.
You can now see why your acupuncturist is always asking how your digestion is. It’s crucial for not only nourishing your mind, body, spirit but also serves to anchor you through natural cycles of change.
Our Bodies In Late Summer
Our Earth organs are our stomach, spleen, pancreas, lips, and general musculature. Earth also represents our thoughts, intellect, intention and comprehension. All of these govern the way we take in information and digest it in order to nourish our mind, body, spirit. If our intake and digestion is challenged, our whole wellbeing suffers.
Late summer is the perfect time to adjust our habits into slowing down. Seek clarity in your food choices to support digestion and strengthen your immune system for the rest of the year. Here are a few tips to aid in the fortification of your Earth Element:
Reset your digestion with a mono-diet of kitchari, congee or porridge for 1-3 days
Reflect on how you are mothering and nurturing yourself vs others. Is there a balance or imbalance here?
Start to evaluate your work-life balance
Make the slow transition into adjusting your schedules around shorter days
Clean your kitchen and shift your pantry from summer to autumn staples
Start moving away from too many cold and raw foods and have the majority of your meals cooked and warmed
Late Summer & Earth Element Herbals
The flavor that represents late summer is Sweet! Late summer is a great time to reassess our own sense of harmony with the seasons. If we’ve overindulged in sweetness, we might feel the dampness encumbering our ability to move. If we’ve deprived ourselves of sweetness, we might feel dry, weak and undernourished. These late summer herbals are great for the digestive system. Be sure to stock up and use them whenever you’re needing some help through seasonal transitions.
Patchouli (Agastache/Huo Xiang): This herb is amazing at transforming dampness that results in nausea, vomiting, bloating, stomachaches, and overall sluggish digestion. It’s classically used in a formula that helps relieve stomach flu symptoms.
Licorice (Gan Cao): Called the Grandfather of all herbs, licorice enters all 12 meridians of the body. It helps to nourish all signs of deficiency and boosts our immune system.
Job’s Tears (Yi Yi Ren): This is a wonderful pseudo-grain, that’s actually a seed (coix). It’s a great summer and late summertime staple to help transform damp accumulation in the body. It also has the added benefit of beautifying the skin.
Mint (Bo He): The pungent and cooling quality of mint may help to ease the damp-heat that late summer might aggravate in some individuals. Limit or avoid it if you have a more cold digestive system.
Chinese Medicine offers us an anchor point to return to over and over again in order to help us transition with a bit more ease. Within the 5 Element/Phase Theory 五行 Wǔxíng, we have Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. In many traditions, the Earth element is placed in the center as this serves as a resource for the other elements to transition into one another.
Each element, representing a major season, dips into the Earth element in order to help bring us forward into the next season. Earth represents the Late Summer season but also all of the in-between times between the major seasons.