This is a love letter to Metal Season. What is Metal Season? It's the time of year just ripe with introspection and letting go. Metal is one of the five elements is Eastern Energetic Theory, and Autumn is it's season. It rules the meridians of lung and large intestine, which energetically are the meridians connecting us to the outside world. They are where the outside world ends and our inner world begins. Breathing all the information in the air, breathing out what we no longer need to hold onto. Taking in our nourishment and food from the world eliminating from our body what we have no use for. If all that sounds basic to you, it really is, on the bodies terms, but we are more than bodies. We are minds and spirits and those aspects need fresh air(ideas) and nourishment(reading, art, exposure) and very important they need to let go of the garbage of broken patterns so we can flow into Water season(Winter). Metal is the emotions of grief and of courage. Metal is pungent. Metal opens so we can take in and release. Metal is the echo of crunching leaves. Metal is the caw of the crows. It is red wing black birds leaving, and the sweetness of decay. Metal is frankincense burning. Metal is skin and nose. Metal is strength. Metal is time for finding what is rare and precious in you. Metal is reflection.
This is the time for digging roots. This is the time to remember our ancestors and our companions we have lost. To remember past leaders, guides, and our own higher intentions. It is our time to heal our relationship with our stillness and darkness, because we can feel it coming. It is time to meditate, to honor your breath, your skin, your boundaries. Where do you end and the world begins? Find strength in that line, protect that line.
Botanicals to support us during Metal Season:
I find most aromatics can support us through this season. The volatile oils easily impregnating the air we breath and being taken into our body to be processed. Certain aromatics I lean more interpreting as Metal types. Frankincense, Eucalyptus, Rosemary, Myrrh, Cypress, Pines, Resins, Camphoraceous types of smells. Smells that help open us and clear our minds.
Resinous flowers that support our lungs and skin like New England asters and calendula and also plantain(Plantago ssp) and aloe can help to soothe the borders of our body inside and out.
I can't forget mullein here either. Known for it's support for lungs, I have also used this plant emotionally with the grief and courage dynamic. Ways that I did that was by using a flower essence and I also burned leaves as incense every morning through the Winter. Leaves of first year plants are still out to harvest if you want to dry for tea, smoke, or to make a tincture.
Supporting our bodies with cooked roots is important as well. Rich in fiber and prebiotics, roots nourish our guts, keeping our digestion and immune system balanced.
Also support can be found in apples, onions, garlic, and mushrooms.
Comments