Autumn is a season I did not know as a child; in Malaysia, we have only 2 seasons – dry season and rainy season. As I got to the USA for my studies, I began to experience Autumn but again, where I went to university first, in Reno, Nevada, is a high-desert, where only few trees grow. I heard the Americans describe “Fall” for Autumn, but I didn’t really get the full experience of it until I got to Switzerland, where there are many trees that fall leaves. The moment of Autumn when the first cold hits the skin after a warm Summer, the light diminishes in the mornings and evenings, and the colors of the trees change as well as the trees become bare of leaves. I used to dislike this season, it felt like a “hard” time was coming; of feeling constantly cold, getting sick, looking outside and seeing nothing but grey, dark skies with no or little sunlight, like a premonition for death. But this has changed over the years of living here and understanding the 5 Elements. Maybe my views on death have changed too.

Many of us in Chinese Medicine become observers of Nature, at some point. This comes from our Daoist foundation of seeking harmony with our environment and the belief that we humans, are not separate but a part of Nature. I have become a fervent observer of Trees and Plants; I often find that they have so many lessons to teach me. Right now, I am gazing out of the window at our Japanese Maple tree, which has gone from dark green, to bright red and today, after the winds of last night, almost bald, leafless over a span of a month. One of our Chinese Medical scholars, Deanna Slate Stennett describes,

“I believe that all aspects of our planet, and most likely of the entire Universe, are linked in such a way that what happens in the autumnal trees simultaneously happens in other forms of life. In the trees, though, the process is easy to see: to make ready for the chill of Winter, the trees choose what is valuable and worth storing, versus what must be let go. They pull their vital essence to the safety of the roots, depriving the leaves of that essence. So those beautiful colors are actually signs that the leaves are dying. Eventually they fall and turn brown, withered corpses of the beauty they once were […] In nature, Autumn is when all forms of life store their valuables where they are safe, yet available, and let go of everything else.”
(Slate Stennett: 2018, 17-18)

We have come to a point in the year where we can no longer hold on to the external accessories or adornments that serve to decorate our exterior. If we are to survive the “death” of Winter and rebirth in Spring, the transformation of our Self, then we need to let go of excess baggage to delve deeper into our beings. Slate Stennett suggests some very powerful questions that we should ask ourselves, in deciding what to let go of, whether “physical belongings, emotional baggage, or spiritual practices.” They are:

1. What is most valuable?
2. What is precious and serves life?
3. What is unnecessary and no longer serves life?

(Slate Stennett: 2018, 18)
 
These are sometimes not simple questions to answer and to apply in our lives, as they can be relationships to people who have been with us for a while, but are no longer aiding us in life’s journey. Or maybe it could be a job that is draining us of our life essence but we can’t see a way yet to let go of it without some other way of making a living already lined up. These can bring up themes of survival and the fear of not being able to make it through.
 
Chinese Medicine attributes Autumn to the organs or `officials´ of the Lung and Large Intestines. Both have to do with purifying the body; with air (Qi) by the Lung and letting go of feces, the waste, by the Large Intestines. In this time of year, we may experience many Lung and Large Intestine themes, especially if we do not give space for these processes to occur naturally. The body is then forced to do it on its own by creating dis-ease, like fever, upper respiratory or digestive disturbance to compel us to slow down or even flat out immobile, in order that these organs can do their jobs to purify our beings of the unnecessary; these unnecessaries can be from an emotional or even spiritual point of view but still manifesting as physical symptoms.
 
Once more beautiful and precise advice from Slate Stennett to end this post:

“In our Autumns, then, let’s be deliberate in deciding what we want to let go. Honor each item – then let it go. Let it be like the brown leaves that fall to the ground and return minerals to the soil as they decompose […] In the mind and spirit, letting go leaves an empty place for something new.”
(Slate Stennett: 2018, 19-20)
 


Reference
Slate Stennett, Deanna (2018) : Poetry of the Body – Stories about Acupuncture Points. Bloomington, IN, USA: iUniverse.
 
 
 

Image by Elaine

Over a month ago, we were discussing the coming of autumn in my yoga class. A few of us spoke of the "dread" of the change from summer to fall season; the change of light and temperature. I find this time of year has its beauty but it is not simple to adapt to. From the full openness that the summer warmth has created in us, we begin the journey back inward of autumn. The darkness and the coolness outside forces us inward, our bodies are pushed to close the pores of our skin in order to conserve warmth. Since I began studying Chinese Medicine, I have begun to understand and appreciate each season of the year better and observe how my body/being changes with them.
 
As Claude Larre and Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée, sinologists and Chinese Medicine scholars describe in The Secret Treatise of the Spiritual Orchid:
 
"To rise in order to fall, and to fall in order to rise, that makes circulation. It is so high that we cannot perceive the essence of it. It is so universal that everything, everybody, every animal and every plant is affected and is under the same natural movement of tian yun. The progression of this is seen through the four seasons [...] Spring manifests itself everywhere as some beginning of life or renewing of the beginning of life [...] Summer takes what has been started and progresses along the line up to an acme, to the highest point of that progress, and then suddenly, in order to protect life and to protect the universe, it has to reverse its movement. So on some uncertain morning in the autumn time, the quality of air is very different. It's shocking. Something has started to reverse. It means that the yin which has been there but covered, unable to manifest itself except as a hidden, sustaining power, is now able to arise in its own right." (Larre, Rochat 1992: 7)
 
This "uncertain morning in autumn" is upon us now and we knew it was coming. Nevertheless, it is "shocking" for our beings, just as a metallic object touches our bare skin; a certain coldness makes us contract inward. This is the effect and energetic movement of Metal, to be more inward focused and passive, more Yin.
 
From the 5-Element perspective, Metal is associated with the organs of Lung and Large Intestine. It is not surprising then that many of us will experience Lung and digestive themes, such as a cold/ flu or those with asthma can have a flare-up or a gastrointestinal virus (stomach flu) at this time of year. As with all the elements there is an emotion associated with Metal, it is sadness/ grief. The direction is the West, where the sun sets. Makes sense, doesn't it? The Yang, like the sun and daylight, is setting, and the Yin, the moon and night, is rising. The climate becomes dry, making our skin dry. This is that clear manifestation of the energy moving inward, no longer nourishing the most external parts of us, as with the trees. In humans, the skin and in trees, the leaves. 
 
For me, this is a beginning of a death that will happen in winter. But through this death, comes new life next spring. Can we find beauty in death? Yes, I believe so. I look to the trees, the Japanese Maple tree, Acer palmatum, especially. We have a few in our garden. One in particular has a longer process of a "glorious death." He, I sense him as male, is green and robustly thick all summer. Then, just as that "uncertain morning in autumn" comes, he transforms his green leaves into a rusty red. Then suddenly comes the piercing frost at the end of autumn and then begins that magnificent, crimson red phase till he drops his leaves completely for his winter's sleep. The Japanese have a practice in this time of year, momijigari, "the hunt for deep red leaves." Many go on a "pilgrimage" to places where the Maple trees are transforming life to death, to appreciate this beautiful process. I personally have not yet been to Japan but I know that I will be at least once in this lifetime on a momijigari.
 
As I have mentioned before in other posts, I look to the trees for life's wisdom. Even in this time of contraction and closing in, there is beauty and purpose for the inward movement. It is as Larre and Rochat state, it is "in order to protect life and to protect the universe."


Reference
Larre, Claude/ Rochat de la Vallée, Elisabeth (1992) : The Secret Treatise of the Spiritual Orchid. Nei Jing Su Wen Chapter 8. Cambridge: Monkey Press.

Images by Elaine ​