There are a few times in a year when we can start anew: the beginning of the calendar year, the beginning of Spring (end of February), for some it is also at the Spring Equinox, for others it is the Summer Solstice. Yet another time to start anew is also right now! We have got over the maximum heat and active energy of Yang during the Summer months, and now we start going back to self, back to our center.
Summer is getting out and about, meeting people, traveling, getting involved in activities that are out of ordinary, sleeping less and playing more. From the mid August, however, there is an energy of gathering back all that external energy. This gathering of the energy from the surrounding activities, situations, relationships and making best use of it for completing self, is the new year for constructing your new You.
Spirit Focus: making myself whole again
It is the time to look at the past Spring and Summer months and ask yourself:
how do I assimilate best the experiences and people I've met, into my reality? Summer months was the time to be open to, to choose and make a range of new experiences. Now, the Late Summer is here to transform them into concrete, solid and clear ideas, statements, projects, plans or relationships.
For example, from all the new persons we have met over the Summer, who do we really want to keep in touch with going ahead?
Or, thinking of this summer seaside vacation, what new has it brought to me as a person? What feelings, experiences, activities I would like to continue to repeat regularly as a result? Perhaps you have marvelled yourself at how great you felt about replacing a car with a bicycle and you wished you could use it more throughout the year. So, right now would be the perfect time to do it, to start using your bike more in place of your car. In consequence you follow your inner integrity, in body, mind and soul, and the Element of Later Summer helps you to solidify that internally into who you are becoming.
Mind Focus: ability to have a broad perspective
The Late Summer's Element, the Earth, is energetically stable, it is concrete, it supports the completion of a cycle, of an idea. It opens us up to more perspectives from which we can see how to implement pieces and make it into a whole. So, it is the time well spent on a review and reflection of recent, external events. It is also about some reality checks. Often times Fire Element of Summer feeds our enthusiasm out of proportion. Perhaps you saw a villa on your holidays and desired to acquire it. Now, it would be the time to review that idea as the Element of Earth makes us more practical about some dreamy ideas we might have had over the holidays. It is not to say we should not have dreamy ideas. Or better still, we should avoid rejecting our summer dreams as too lofty, but we should allow time and this change in season to review if it is still something that in all our integrity we want and need. Perhaps it has been an inspiration to unravel a part of you that with time you can plan to realise.
Body Focus: "I nourish myself"
The energy of Late Summer permits us to have a broad view of our body as well. We may feel it more physically, be more present in our muscles especially, which means we may notice certain muscular tensions we have not spotted until now. The Earth Element relates to Stomach, digestion and absorption of nutrients. It is NOT the time to do detox as we are now at peak of transforming food into nutrients and doing detox could give our bodies a message of lacking the substances. More than other times, we should have a varied and rich diet (in wide specturm of nutrients). The Nature provides for us too as it is the harvest season. On the other hand, we can and should reduce the excesses we could have got away with in Summer months but we won't now: that ice-cream a day, a couple of beers a day, pizza every other evening, etc. may now not go down that well and give us health issues.
Remember any symptoms arising during the change of season is linked to that change in the energy and it can be easily adjusted by having an acupuncture treatment. To book yourself for an appointment, click below:
