Seasonal Tips
Living with awareness and sensitivity to the qualities of the different seasons is a time-honored approach to wellness and self-knowledge. In the west, perhaps mostly because of technology, we have become somewhat desensitized to the different gifts and challenges of each season. We can control the climate in our homes and workplaces and automobiles, so we barely notice the temperature, air quality, insect and animal behaviors, etc., as our ancestors once did. Nonetheless, the seasons have offerings that can serve us powerfully if we are attentive to them.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) divides the year into five seasons - fall, winter, spring, summer and late summer. Summer and late summer offers a special time of abundance. The natural growth of green and growing things surrounds everything; fresh foods are readily available nearly everywhere.
Update: 2024
May and June are often my favorite months. Comfortable temperature, lower humidity, greenery, blue skies or nourishing rain, birdsong, frog symphonies and lighter clothing, to name just a few gifts. I learned from Chinese philosophy that after the heavens’ manifest gifts to the earth disappear in the autumn, they return resplendent in the spring and early summer offering gifts for us all to savor and finally harvest, share and store in the late summer.
I write this to encourage us all to keep emerging, just as we see new plants come up and out, no matter their surroundings. These past few years have challenged and limited us, as well as strengthened and expanded us, in ways seen and yet to be seen. We have known fear and isolation, discouragement and courage, hope and disappointment. While we may feel that we’ve moved on, we are likely carrying yet to be fully understood consequences of the pandemic and these politically...