Summer is the time for the Heart, the Fire Element. The sun reaches its peak at the Summer Solstice as our Fire element burns stronger during the Summer season.
The heart processes all of our emotions, every thought and feeling that goes through your mind also travels through the heart. When we are emotionally/mentally strained, our heart feels the same stress. When we are excited and full of joy, our heart is elated and light – ready to pump blood for revitalizing the body, filling us with energy.
To experience radiating heart fire is equivalent to listening to a song that just makes you want to dance. You don’t try to fight it; with no resistance your hips start wiggling, feet are tapping, shoulders are gyrating, and before you know it, your entire body is bouncing around to the beat of the song, bellowing out every word…experiencing pure joy. There is no sensation of embarrassment or being shy, no reservations or constrictions.
No second thoughts, no digesting of the situation, only pure action. You let this song flow into your body, energizing your cells and invigorating your bones. The energy reaches your core and takes over, driving your entire being and causing you to have excellent social skills and charisma. Nothing can bring you down and you are able to find the joy in every situation.
Now, if you are not careful, you can burn out and spend all of your fire. Fire does not come from nothing, it needs a resource, a provider of energy. A campfire doesn’t burn without logs and heart fire doesn’t burn without liver energy. The heart draws energy from the Liver, but only if the Liver is willing to release its energy. Many of us experience “liver qi stagnation”, which means our liver is not willing to be free-flowing and allow energy to feed up to the heart, preventing us from fully experiencing light-hearted joy.
Our fire element may also be too strong, burning too bright and depleting energy from our liver, making our liver weak. The liver pulls its energy from the kidneys and adrenals. When the liver is weak, it replenishes itself by drawing extra energy out of the kidneys. To a degree, most of us will experience the typical American lifestyle – constant stress and everything is “go, go, go” with no time to rest and recover…no time to replenish. This lifestyle further depletes our kidneys, our vital life force.
The heart is a muscle, it can be weak or strong and this causes our Fire element to be in or out of balance. The descriptors above reflect an in-balance Fire element (earlier) or excessive Fire (latter), but what does it look like when the Fire element is weak? Weak Fire will often show up as periods of sadness, little to no emotional expression, no smiling or laughing, no joy. Weak Fire is also where you start to see physical complications arise in the heart and circulation.
The Fire element and the Heart are but a small component to these complicated bodies we live in. All organs (all elements) of the body are important for living a happy and healthy life. Energy must flow freely and smoothly throughout the entire body. When our energy stops flowing or is depleted, we begin to see imbalances in our organs and disturbances in our lifestyles. To restore balance in our body will restore balance in our life’s journey.
Consider visiting with one of our Clinical Herbalists to see how you can bring your body and its elements, its organs, back into balance.
Here is a list of herbs and foods to help support the Heart and Fire element:
- Hawthorne
- Linden
- Rose
- Prairie Wild Rose
- Rose Hips
- Rhodiola
- Yarrow
- Cacao
- Motherwort
- Horse Chestnut
- CA Poppy
- Cayenne
- Cinnamon
- Stoneroot
- Reishi
- American Ginseng
- Pomegranate
- Rosemary
- Albizia
- Ginger
- Cherries
- Blueberries
If you feel your Fire element is balanced, consider looking at the other elements of the body:
- Water – Kidneys and adrenals, reproductive system, bones
- Wood – Liver, gallbladder, joint health, nervous system, skin health
- Earth – Spleen, stomach, lymphatic and immune system, muscles
- Metal – Lungs, large intestine, sinuses, self-expression
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