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I
n Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) there
are five seasons in a year, compared to our
four, with the addition of ‘late summer’. After
all the reawakening and planning energy of
spring, followed by the activity of summer,
late summer signals us to slow down before autumn
arrives. Think lazy warm days in the garden; the last
few days of your holiday where you’ve done all your
exploring and can just relax; picking and enjoying
fruit that you’ve lovingly tended since spring. It’s
a time to take stock of our labours, ready for the
arrival of autumn and its encouragement to let go
of anything that didn’t work so well for us.
Autumn is all about the quietening of energy, and
the transformation towards a more wintry way of
being. It’s a time to think about releasing energy we
don’t want to carry through until spring, turning our
attention inwards as the outdoor world follows suit
and starts to shed its flowers and leaves.
The calendar suggests that late summer runs from
the third week of August to the autumn equinox, with
autumn following, but the actual timing of these
seasonal shifts can vary. Identifying the movement
from one to the other is easiest when we abandon
calendar dates and instead look to nature for cues.
Are the hedgerows full of berries. Have leaves started
to crunch underfoot? Is the air still warm on the skin,
or are the mornings starting to feel cool and fresh?
TCM tells us that late summer is associated with
the earth element, and its organs of the spleen and
stomach, helping us to digest what the year hasbrought us so far. The spleen meridian starts at the
medial side of the big toe then traces all the way up
the inseam of the leg, into the torso at the groin and
up through the diaphragm, chest and heart, finishing
at the root of the tongue. The heart meridian starts
near to the nose and descends the body through the
diaphragm, stomach and spleen then down the centre
of the front side of the leg, ending in the second toe.
Autumn, meanwhile, is associated with the metal
element – characterised by transition and shift. Its
organs are the lung and large intestine, which are
both inherent in release on a physiological basis.
The lung meridian starts at the centre of the body,
then heads down to the large intestine, turning back
up and through the diaphragm and the lungs, across
the collar bone and finally down the upper edge of the
arm to finish in the thumb. The large intestine
meridian begins at the tip of the index finger, runs up
the outer top side of the arm to the shoulder where it
branches – one branch heading to the neck, mouth
and side of the nose, the other travelling deep into the
body to the lungs, diaphragm and large intestine.
The yin poses on the following pages are chosen to
ease you through this part of the year by stimulating
both sets of meridians, those for late summer and those
for autumn. While the poses are the same, we can
take a different approach to practice, using a different
intention to yield a result to suit the time of year.
In late summer, we may bring an awareness of all
we have achieved, all we have to be grateful for and
how far we have come this year. You may use extra
props for more support, such as some carefully placed
cushions or bolsters (not stressing or pushing on any
joints, or altering your form in general, but initiating
a sense of groundedness).
For autumn, we can take an intention of release –
using the mantra ‘let’ on the inhale and ‘go’ on the
exhale as we hold the poses. We don’t need to know
or think about what we need to release, just trust that
the body will start to undergo the transformation it
needs to in that moment. This kind of mantra practice
is a form of meditation, which helps to quieten the
mind and bring a calmer energy to the body. We can
also use the rebound periods – the transitional
periods between the guided postures – as a
movement-based ritual to shift any extra energy,
with a few simple movements of your choice that
aid the quietening this practice will bring...wellness