David Bowie famously sang:
Turn and face the strange Ch-ch-changes Don't want to be a richer man Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes Turn and face the strange Ch-ch-changes There's gonna have to be a different man Time may change me But I can't trace time
Was he a Prophet in great 70's glam and incredible make up? Many people would argue that he was, but regardless of opinion, the idea within that lyric 'Turn and face the Strange' embodies a kind of acceptance to the reality of what is. And here we stand, all trying to place ourselves in positions of clarity within the reality as the entire world comes to terms with what is going on.
In Victoria stage three of the lockdown has been announced with no more than 2 being allowed at ‘group gatherings’.
Though our country hasn’t seen the devastation to the extent other countries have, we still stand side by side knowing that we are human and knowing that it could have happened here, like it happened there. This is a rare insight, and a rare connection to the entirety of the world.
The lungs and the large intestine are the organs associated with autumn- intake and release, holding on and letting go.
In this newsletter, we focus on the lungs. The lungs are our first connection with the outside world. We bring oxygen in from the external environment into our body and we combine this external life-force of air with our internal life-force giving us our unique vitality. The strength of the lungs depends on many many variables but in essence the quality of the lungs is the quality of our life force, our energy.
In health Lung qi energy is characterised by its ability to consolidate, gather together, maintain strength and unify against disease at every level, including cellular immunity. According to Paul Pitchfork in his book Healing With Wholefoods, the lungs receive the qi vital force of the air and mix it with the qi extracted from food giving us our post natal life force.
Good foods for autumn the autumn season and their associated organs are pungent foods. Pungent foods help to disperse the stuck, music laden energy of both the lungs and large intestine- these include turnip, ginger, horseradish, cabbage, radish, daikon, seaweeds and seeds such as flaxseed and fenugreek seeds are great for autumn.
The season is also governed by the element of Metal and the emotion associated with this season is grief. Grief that is expressed and resolved strengthens the Lung, grief that is not weakens it. Sometimes the simple nature of allowing an emotion to be there is all that is required to ‘resolve’. Resolve may not mean the emotion being gone- it just means that we have developed the capacity to integrate experience into our whole being.