Beloved Yoga lovers,
As the movement of the after summer towards our Autumn season is embracing us, I look at the chestnut trees in front of my window, and they are becoming rusty brown. Every year the Chestnut trees seem to announce Autumn before any other tree. So after the harvest of your veggie garden has passed it’s peak, what now? A lot of people find the meaning of the element Metal the most mysterious. Metal is the withdrawing of our life energy from the outer world and turning it inward, and releasing what we do not need anymore.
My daughter walks around very happy:
“Oh mum look at the rain, feel the cold, I’m so happy it’s Autumn, I’m going to read my book in bed!” She is Metal through and through. Super organized, every school exam already planned for, and the amount of homework she plans to do per day. Scheduled jogging, soccer and self-yoga practices and one day rest for herself: Typical Metal-processes. Metal likes an organized life, and is a process of Alchemy: How to crystallize who I truly am? How to be REAL without nonsense? It is like Michelangelo chipping away the marble to reveal the Art piece he had in mind. This time you and I are the art pieces. A Metal person can make radical decisions if that’s best for them. How to be me in all my uniqueness? What to let go of, to stand in being me in this very moment?
The organs Lung and Large Intestine belong to Metal. The nose and the anus being the openings to our outside world. As yogi’s we understand the Lungs and it’s importance: When we breathe deeply in and out, our energetics expand, our clarity expands. The lungs are our sign of life after we left our Mother’s womb, after our watery existence, we have to breathe in the air to live. It is where our physical body attains the right color of our blood, and yes, we are here now, where our breath is.
The Metal processes are transformative, from a leaf to rotten earth, from earth to crystal, it is the time to create structure, to let go of what is not any longer needed, to create space for the new. It can be painful to let go, or liberating! It needs the courage of the Lungs to make those decisions, it can offer us sadness to let go. When our Lung and Large Intestine system are in balance, we feel expanded and full of courage, when we experience sadness it might be out of balance.
The autumn is the balance of yin and yang. Metal is the growing yin. The love of the heart and the Summer melt Metal
