Autumn, the season of letting go, will be all the more difficult for us if we haven't experienced the fruition of our hopes and plans. According to Chinese traditional medicine, the Fire element manifests in our body through the heart, small intestine, pericardium, and the function known as the triple heater, which regulates internal body temperature. The lungs can lose their ability to expand and contract fully and easily, resulting in poor oxygenation of the blood, coughing, and nasal congestion. We may experience sluggish digestion, abdominal pain, and watery diarrhea because the digestive organs lack the heat needed to process and assimilate nourishment. At the other extreme, excessive heat can result in painful inflammation of the joints, hypersexuality, chronic infections, dryness of the lung, inflamed throat and sinus, burning diarrhea and urination.
Excess heat can also dry out the stool and cause constipation.
Affecting the heart, an excess of Fire can cause anxiety and sleep disturbance. Menstruation, sexual secretions, lubrication at joints, digestion, and metabolism, to name a few, reflect and depend upon the balance of our Fire element. Fire at the spirit level On a deeper level, the Fire element expresses itself as joy and manifests within us as love, laughter, and enthusiasm. During summer, the season of maximum expansion, we can become aware of ourselves at our fullest. Drawing on the expansive warmth of Fire we can reach out and relate to the world like a flower opening.