The Four Flames of Fire

There is a moment in early summer that is impossible to mistake.

The light shifts. The air carries warmth that doesn't apologize for itself. Trees are fully leafed out, flowers have stopped rehearsing and simply opened, and something inside the body, responds. Not with thought. With recognition.

Fire Season has arrived.

In Five Elements theory, Summer is the season of the Fire element. It is the great outward movement of life, the moment when everything that rooted itself quietly through Winter and pushed upward through Spring, to finally arrive at full expression.

Nature does not hesitate during Summer. It radiates.

Fire is the energy of maturity, warmth, and light. It governs our capacity to love and be loved, to feel genuinely alive inside our own experience, to laugh from somewhere real rather than somewhere performed. Its color is red, the flush of vitality, of circulation, of life moving freely through the body. Its sound is laughter. Its emotion is joy.

But here's what most people don't know about Fire.

It has four flames. Not just one.

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Fire (huǒ 火)

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The Flames (Officials) of Summer

When we talk about the Fire element in the body, we are talking about four distinct meridians and associated organs, working in harmony with one another: Heart, Small Intestine, Pericardium, and Triple Burner.

Most conversations about Fire stop at Heart. And Heart deserves reverence, it is, in Five Elements Theory, the Supreme Controller. The Empress of the kingdom of body, mind, and spirit. More than a physical pump, Heart is the seat of our deepest loves, most profound passions, capacity for genuine warmth and connection. When Heart is healthy, the kingdom flourishes. Every other Official receives guidance, warmth, and direction. Life has meaning, purpose, and joy.

This is why heart coherence, heart centeredness, opening the heart, and forgiveness have become dominating conversations within modern wellness. And these conversations are not wrong.

Yet, they are, incomplete. And here is what I find fascinating (and what our bodies may already be trying to tell us). The Heart cannot easily do its job without having its 3 trusted advisors online. Interestingly, those 3 Officials provide critical support that is almost entirely absent from modern wellness conversations.

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The Small Intestine is the Heart's most trusted minister, known in ancient texts as the Alchemist, the Sorter, the one who separates the pure from the impure before anything reaches the Supreme Controller. Physically, Small Intestine extracts nourishment from everything we consume and sends the rest for elimination. But its medicine extends far beyond digestion. At the mental and energetic level, the Small Intestine governs discernment, the ability to sort what is truly ours from what is not, what nourishes from what depletes, what deserves a place in our fields from what needs to be released. A compromised Small Intestine doesn't just affect digestion. It affects perception. It leaves us absorbing indiscriminately, taking in what isn't ours, mistaking noise for signal, feeling chronically overwhelmed in a way that looks like sensitivity but is actually a sorting problem.

Of Note: The Large Intestine cannot let go of what the Small Intestine has not yet sorted. Read that again. Because if letting go practices have been a regular part of the healing journey and something is still hanging on…

Then there is the Pericardium, the Heart's protector. The membrane that determines who and what gets access to the most sacred space in the kingdom. Not a wall. A discerning boundary. The difference between a heart that is open and a heart that is safe enough to stay open.

And the Triple Burner, the sovereign of the body's thermal regulation, immunity, and relational safety. The official that asks, constantly: “is this environment safe enough for me to be fully present, fully alive?”

Together, these 4 Officials govern not just joy and warmth and connection, but discernment, protection, and sovereignty. The full architecture of a Fire element that can radiate without burning itself out.

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This June carries something rare.

In Chinese cosmology, we have entered a year of double Fire, elemental Fire and Horse Fire, arriving together.

With Summer Solstice approaching, seasonal Fire is added, raising the intensity even further. This creates a level of heat many people will feel in their bodies, their emotions, and lives, even if they cannot identify its source.

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“Fire this potent can burn you. Or it can transform you.
The difference is knowing how to sort, anchor, contain, and refine it.”

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Summer is not asking us to perform joy. It is not asking us to force open a heart that doesn't feel safe. It is asking something more specific and more honest than that.

It is asking what we are giving our energy to. What truly lights us up versus what is simply loud. Where warmth ends and depletion begins. Which relationships nourish our spirits and which ones scatter it.

These are not philosophical questions. They are Fire questions. And they deserve more than a journaling prompt.

If something in this landed, in the sorting problem, in the letting go that hasn't fully worked, in the overstimulation that looks like sensitivity, I will be offering multiple opportunities and tools to go deeper this Summer. Most of which, I’ve never brought forward before.

Let’s begin with something simple. Something that can be done today, without any equipment or extensive training. Because the Fire element's medicine is already inside each of us, it simply needs a point of entry.

The Source Points of the Fire element, which live exactly where we would expect to find them. In the wrist and hand. The same part of the body that reaches toward what nourishes us, and pushes away what does not. The physical gesture of discernment itself.

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Acupressure + Qi Practice

A Summer Self-Care Practice: The Fire Source Points

Every meridian has a Source Point, a concentrated holding tank of energy that flows directly to the organ system it governs. Working with these points speeds healing, revitalizes the organ, and stabilizes the physical body.

Source points are said to be 4x more electromagnetically active than other acupressure points. This is not subtle work. This is direct access.

The Fire element gives us 4 source points, one for each Official. And here is what makes this practice remarkable: all live in the wrist and hand. The same part of the body that reaches toward what nourishes us and pushes away what does not. The physical gesture of discernment itself.

Yin Fire Source Points

Located on the inner wrist at the crease.

Heart 7: Spirit Gate The Supreme Controller. The seat of our deepest love, capacity for genuine joy, and sense of meaning and purpose. When Heart 7 is supported, the entire kingdom settles. Work here if feeling disconnected from self, joy, or a sense of inner warmth.

Pericardium 7: Great Mound The Heart's Protector. The Official who determines who/ what receives access to our most sacred interior space. Not a wall, a discerning boundary. Work here if feeling overexposed, if connection has become costly, or when confusing boundaries with being loved/loving.

Small Intestine 4: Wrist Bone The Alchemist, the Official responsible for sorting the pure from the impure at every level of your being. Physical, mental, emotional. Work here when decisions feel impossible, when needing to locate a clear yes or no, when absorbing everything around and unable to find the signal beneath the noise.

Triple Burner 4: Yang Pool The Knight, governing the body's thermal regulation, immunity, and the fundamental question of safety. Asking, is this environment safe enough to be fully here? Work here when the nervous system is feeling chronically activated, when unable to settle into spaces or relationships that should feel safe, or when it takes more effort than it should to simply be present.

Yang Fire Source Points

Located on the outer and back wrist at the crease.

To work with any or all of these points:

Apply gentle steady pressure or slow circular massage on each point. Breathe slowly and deliberately. Spend 1-2 minutes per point, per hand. All points do not need to be worked in a single session. Feel invited to allow intuition to signal what is calling for attention.

Gently hold space to ask: What is actually mine?

The Fire element knows. It has always known. These points are simply the door.

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Autumn Wisdom

In ancient Chinese wisdom, each season is associated with specific physical, emotional and spiritual energy. Similar to the ocean’s tide, where we can more easily catch a wave during high tide, seasonal energy offers an opportunity to more readily heal the associated physical, emotion and/or spiritual malady, as the energy is at its highest access point.

The season of Autumn is associated with the Metal element and the lung and large intestine organs; and thus, affects our ability to breathe and eliminate. From a physical perspective, Autumn reminds us of how essential it is to differentiate between what is needed and what is not, for optimal resilience. For example, when we fully exhale, our diaphragm wholly relaxes and thus, allows for complete oxygen exchange on the next inhale. In contrast, when we only partially exhale (i.e. shallow breathing), we hold onto ‘old breath’ (carbon dioxide) and top it off with suboptimal levels of ‘new breath’ (oxygen). When shallow breathing predominantly replaces diaphragmatic breathing, it creates low-level stress in the body and, over time, the diaphragm may weaken and ultimately, work less efficiently.

From an emotional perspective, Autumn offers a golden opportunity to get in touch with ourselves, to mine our worth. To do this, the metal element of Autumn provides a tool to ‘cut through’ emotional baggage, release and expel the nonessentials, and, in doing so, open our awareness to the new, pure, precious. Like the breath example — when we forego deep breathing, the amount of new we are able to inhale becomes limited — and when, in Autumn, we ’hold onto’ accumulated emotion — we limit our ability to receive and embody the energetic gifts of the season — inspiration, awe, reverence. While some may say, “I don’t need such gifts!”, the energetic access point of Autumn does not discriminate and is omnipresent. And the resultant discordance between our human desire to ‘hold on’ while being energetically guided to ‘let go’ — can result in feelings of sadness, sorrow, grief and depression.

Within western culture we have lost (or never learned) the skills necessary to navigate troubled waters, which has left many feeling unequipped. The result — instead of honoring the experience — we reach for the quick cure. In the case of sadness, grief and sorrow, it’s not uncommon to overhear (or even participate in) conversations that include ‘just let it go’ or ‘just get over it’. Yet, what does that really mean? For, we cannot truly make something magically disappear, this is the law of thermodynamics in modern physics: “Nothing is created, nothing disappears; energy is either transmitted or transformed.”

Whether it is feeling the depths of a personal loss or the sorrow of another’s, we have forgotten sadness, tears and grief are a natural element of the human experience, just as feelings of joy, awe and reverence. In this post [as with all seasonal energy posts] we will further explore the seasonal attributes — based on Five Element Theory — and our ability to build resilience through working with the seasonal energetic access point to consciously transform physical, mental and emotional energy.

One of my earliest experiences of grief

I was only twenty-two when I experienced one of my profound moments of professional grief, and it has taken an additional 20 years to appreciate the nuances of letting go and the complexities of grief. To fully experience sorrow, to be stuck in it, to feel broken by it, to realize the value of it and finally, to slowly learn how to release it. It is my sincerest hope that my story, and more importantly the techniques, will help readers develop a new relationship with grief, perhaps, uncovering the wisdom buried within.

During my last year of nursing school, I interned at an Intensive Care Unit. During the 3-month internship, I cared for many patients — some young, others old, some who were extremely ill and others who I only worked with once. That said, the patient who has yet to leave my memory, was a woman dying from alcoholism. She was in liver failure and her bilirubin level was so elevated that when I touched her skin, my gloved-hand stained yellow. I provided care for days and following her death, I dreamt about her for months. My nurse training had taught me the mechanics of providing medical care; however, it failed to teach me how to release the grief and sorrow from the experience — both my own and the patients.

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“We live in a culture that promotes independence, self-reliance and above all, strength. To seek support, to fall apart, to not know what to do, is perceived as weakness. Which is entirely untrue — as conscious grieving — requires profound courage and tenacity.”

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Grief and sorrow come in many shapes and sizes. Whether the passing of a loved one, receiving a significant medical diagnosis, the death of a dream or acceptance of the limitations of our aging bodies — at their core, are all deep loss. The emotions of grief and sorrow are often felt physically in the chest, with a profound sensation that things are not okay, and will never again be okay.

While mourning practices and ceremonies vary by culture, and there are many mental health experts who offer professional emotional support, there are also powerful acupressure, qigong and energy healing practices which can ease the physical and emotional impact of sorrow and grief. By no means is the intent to promote turning away from or bypassing the loss. Instead, the goal is to both provide emotional respite and to keep the wavelike energy moving; as like all emotions, grief, loss and sorrow are meant to flow through and not get stuck in our physical, emotional and/or energetic bodies.

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Five Elements Theory

Within the Five Elements Theory of Chinese Medicine, there are five distinct Seasons with five representing Elements and five emotional patterns. See Rhythmic Pulse of Life to read more background details.

Autumn is represented by the Metal element – silver, gold, crystals, precious gems and minerals, all of which are housed underground; like treasures waiting to be unearthed and discovered. Jin, the Chinese symbol for Metal, represents the “golden nugget hidden within”, suggesting something of substantial value. 

Just as precious metals are valuable, the Metal rhythm feeds our personal self-worth and relationship with value. When something of “value” leaves, dies or is lost, an imbalance within the Metal energy may make it difficult to release or ‘let go’, causing extended sorrow, grief and feelings of loss.

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The Lungs are the Yin organ associated with grief and the Metal element, and the Large Intestine is its Yang partner. Not surprising, as the ancients believed when a newborn infant took her first breath, Heavenly energy, or Qi, entered and enlivened her body. In return, when the last breath of life was exhaled, Heavenly energy exited the body. This connection between the Lungs, the breath and heaven continues throughout life; with each breath we inhale, we breath in not only air, but also Heavenly energy.

One method for energetically balancing Metal energy, and therefore feelings associated with grief, is working directly with Lung acupressure points. There are hundreds of acupressure points located on the surface of the body, each corresponding to one of the fourteen meridians. Each of the points has an ancient name that can be especially meaningful, when working with emotional or spiritual dis-ease. Some names pertain to the point's location; however, most names describe the "Spirit of the Point" or the specific healing energy associated with the point.

Because the energy of Autumn, the Metal element and the emotions of sorrow and grief are all comprised of Yin energy, working with the corresponding Yin meridian can offer deep support for those seeking seasonal support, along with anyone hoping to release deeper physical or emotional patterns of loss, sorrow and grief.

The Centre of Wellness

Lung Meridian Acupoints

Lung 1 “Middle Palace” — This point is extremely beneficial when caught in grief, loss, disconnection or feelings of emptiness or unworthiness. This point directly touches the core of our spirit, giving a fresh breath of inspiration. On a physical level, Lung 1 eases breathing difficulties such as asthma, coughing, wheezing and nasal and throat obstruction. Working with Lung 1 opens the chest; easing chest pain and tightness. As the lungs open, this allows us to emotionally open to the world and to heaven. It enables us to breathe in the richness of life and connect more deeply with the higher spiritual realms — allowing inspiration, vision and a sense of connection with all that is.

Lung 9 “Very Great Abyss” — This point is a power location, also known as the source point, on Lung meridian. Working with Lung 9 can directly relax the organ and provide energetic balance to the entire meridian. Physically, this point helps relieve cough, wheezing, difficult breathing, dry throat, phlegm in the lungs, cold hands and weak voice. Emotionally, this point will help when we cannot find our way out of emotional turmoil or we are unable to find our sense of self within the darkness.

How to administer acupressure

The goal of acupressure is to clear energetic blockages and balance the acupressure point(s), to more fully support the corresponding meridian and organ.

• Find a comfortable position, either sitting or lying. Relax your face, shoulders and abdominal muscles.

• Use the chart to locate the two recommended acupoints.

• Starting with Lung 1, located at the lateral side of the collar bone. This point can be especially tender during the Autumn months or when experiencing loss or grief. Tenderness is a sign of stuck energy and if this point is tender, it is beaconing attention!

• Apply deep, firm pressure to stimulate each point. You can work both sides simultaneously, by using your left fingers on the right side points and vice versa.

• If working one side of the body at a time, start on the left (Yin) side of the body and then proceed with the right (Yang) side.

• Close your eyes, and consciously breathe. When you actively inhale and exhale while working on a point, you help release any stagnant energy and bring fresh oxygen to the part of the body needing balance.

• Move to Lung 9, located on the end of the radial bone, at the wrist crease. Along with feeling tenderness over an acupoint, it is common to find a “divot” over key points.

• Again, apply deep, firm pressure to stimulate each point. The point may not have tenderness the first time you work it, but subsequently develop tenderness. This is normal and again, your body signaling you to support the release of stagnant energy.

• Repeat the point stimulation often; several times per day if it continues to feel supportive. You cannot “overwork” an acupoint (aside from pressing too hard and bruising the tissue). And just like you would not take a blood pressure pill once to control high blood pressure, applying acupressure just once will likely not address the energetic imbalance!

When working with acupressure and the energy body, changes can be subtle and slow. Remember, nature moves slowly; the seasons do not change from one to another overnight or in a few short days.

I have experienced again and again, when we explore and directly apply the resonance, characteristics and primary concerns of the rhythm during its own season, the impact permeates deeply into the body, mind and spirit to re-pattern actions, emotions and health imbalances. Join me in taking a few moments this Autumn, to allow grief and loss to flow through, to exhale, to release. And in doing so, to find greater inspiration and perhaps, tap into the golden wisdom hidden within.

“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally.”

— Rumi

The Rhythmic Pulse of Life

One of my favorite aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is the emphasis on attuning the body and emotions to the energetics of each new season. Within TCM, the Five Rhythms or Elements reflect a rhythmic pulse of all life that influence human events and cycles. This energy flows through the entire body and leaves its imprint on every energy system. The law of Yin and Yang weaves through each rhythm, becoming the natural order of the universe, becoming the foundation of all things, Mother of change and the root of life and death:

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Yang is the energy, the vital force, the potential. 

Yin is the substance, the foundation, the mother who gives rise to all potential.

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Metaphors for describing these five distinct patterns were originally drawn from elements of nature (water, wood, fire, earth and metal) and from the seasons (winter, spring, summer, late summer and autumn).  Each meridian vibrates according to one of these Five Rhythms or Elements—i.e. Bladder + Kidney = Water. 

Although we have all five rhythms within us, a primary and secondary rhythm most heavily influences individual health and experience of this lifetime. For example, when in balance, the Water Rhythm easily flows through life, he is the philosopher and is a wellspring for new ideas. When out of balance, the Wood Rhythm becomes commanding and experiences emotional and/or physical symptoms such as anger, rage, jealousy, gallstones, knee pain, tendonitis. 

Like the background music during a movie, a person’s primary rhythm, in combination with the changing rhythms of life’s seasons, directs the tone and mood of the entire energy system and sets the atmosphere of the life being lived. The Five Rhythms Model provide a lens for understanding and working with chronic health issues, behavioral patterns and emotional challenges.

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The five-rhythm cycle is best understood in the macrocosmic view of the elements

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Earth represents Late Summer and stabilizing, grounding, nourishing energy: The ripe apple

Metal represents Late Fall and contracting energy: Trees falling their leaves to conserve

Water represents Winter and descending energy: Rain falling or water seeking low ground

Wood represents Springtime and uprising energy: Plants bursting through the soil

Fire represents Summer and ascending energy: Flames reaching to the heavens

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Would you like to flow through the seasons with more grace?

Do you want to build resilience in mind, body and spirit A N D have fun doing it!?

The 5 Rhythm Model provides a lens for understanding and working with chronic health issues, behavioral patterns and emotional challenges. This autumn, I will begin teaching workshops at both Yoga Sanctuary and Gilda’s Club TC, to explore and tap into the healing energy of each season. Through the past five years of study and personal practice, I have experienced again and again - when we explore and directly apply the resonance, characteristics and primary concerns of the rhythm during its own season, the impact permeates deeply into the body, mind and spirit to re-pattern actions, emotions and health imbalances.

The rhythms have so much to teach us!

Join me during these potent times of the year, to become more whole and live in greater resonance with the natural order of the nature, heaven and earth.

“In the universe, the pure Yang Qi ascends to converge and form heaven; while the turbid Yin Qi descends and condenses to form earth. This movement helps create the rhythm of the seasons, enabling earthly beings to manifest. Birth in spring, growth in summer, consolidation in autumn and storage in winter.  By possessing this knowledge, you can coordinate your activities around these cycles and benefit from them, as all human life is interconnected with its environment, heaven and earth.
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— The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine