September 2020
The natural forces of spring create wind in Heaven and wood upon Earth. Within the body they create the liver and the tendons, they create the green colour...and give the voice the ability to make the shouting sound...they create the eyes, the sour flavour and the emotion anger". ~The Inner Classic
Spring has sprung, if the wild winds contain anything perhaps it contains our wild spirits. While our bodies remain tethered to the confines set upon us, the wind moves, wild and woolly. Hopes and dreams and screams cannot be contained in amongst it. Don’t you love the idea of standing in the wind and screaming in it? Wild by nature the spring season represents many things- the beginning of a new renewed life, an opening out and an unfolding, an expansion, an unfurling, a movement and growth. The spring season carries with it a sense of no longer containing or no longer being contained.
Spring is one of the wonders of the seasons. It is associated with the organs the liver and the gallbladder, and the element of wood. It represents, freedom and growth, and expansion can be associated with its governance. If there has ever been a time to take the qualities of the season on-especially in Victoria- now, is it.
This season asks us to attend to the liver and gall bladder. 'Cleanse thy body', the organs will say. Spring cleaning is not just a thing of the home. The liver loves a clean body to expand into. In spring we naturally eat less to cleanse the body of the fats and heavy foods of the winter months. The diet should be the lightest of the year and contain foods which emphasise the yang, ascending and expansive qualities of spring. Young plants, fresh greens and sprouts, and immature wheat or cereal grasses, salads, and herbs are best. Salty foods such as miso, soy sauce or sodium rich meats have a strong component of sinking energy or energy that wants to draw deeply inward. In spring we are looking for outward and upward energies for the body -so heavy and rich foods are best avoided. It has been a tricky time, we can lean into the natures that surround us; the wind that blows, the sun that shines, the light foods that we look to eat- and allow these to guide us as we navigate our way into unknown territories.