Seasonal Living; Balance Through Autumn
Your layers are shedding…
As the crisp air fills your lungs and the strength of the wind brushes strands of your messy hair across your face, you feel the natural tendency to drop a layer of yourself just like the trees drop their autumn leaves.
This natural tendency towards shedding can feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar and unwelcome… it can feel worrying even dismantling. You’re trying to hold a part of yourself that seems more known, more comfortable, more ‘you’ when really it’s not.
This autumnal shift drives Mother Nature to stir, move, whisper, howl, crack, shake and destruct, and you will start to feel this in your own internal nature. In Ayurveda autumn is the season of Vata, a force of nature governed by the air element. (read more about the five elements here). Vata is cold, windy, irregular, moveable, light, rough and dry and as these qualities ramp up in nature, they start to encourage an internal and individual seasonal shift.
Your body may reflect the cracking and drying of the leaves within your joints and skin. Your mind when left unattended to can mirror the irregularity of the weather and become anxious and in constant movement...
If you're not honouring this shift, you are increasing the potential for imbalance within your body and mind…
When the mind is challenged with the imbalance of Vata we experience anxiety, restlessness, spacey, scattered and ce the imbalance of Vata in the layer
These elements are present within us all in completely unique quantities. No two of us have the same elemental energetic makeup just as no two of us have the same fingerprint. When you learn about these different energies you can feel into your true self. This wisdom of your unique elemental energy means you will learn to identify when you’re sliding out of balance so that you don’t ever fall off the edge and have to climb your way back up.
We harness the power of these energies to rise into our beauty and essentially our soul's purpose.
The story of Shakti and Shiva truly honour the cosmic love affair, we’ll explore that another time (I have a special video just for you). This story explores the creation of the universe and the mystical mythology of these teachings.
The 5 elements really are the basis of Ayurveda. These elements are real in nature as well as energetic. If we feel heavy, stuck and unmotivated there is an imbalance in the Earth element.
Earth
Earth is the energy of stability, structure, groundedness, support. Earth inside of your body is your bones. Earth in your mind is steadiness.
Water
Water is the giver of life and beholder of emotions. Water is the carrier of nutrients through the body and the energy that cleanses and heals us.
Fire
Fire is the energy of digestion, assimilation and transformation. Fire is present in the doors of perception - your eyes, ears, skin, nose and tongue - this subtle fire is responsible for the way you perceive life through your senses. Fire transforms food into digestion and life experience into wisdom. Fire is desire and radiance.
Air
Air is the energy of movement and Prana is the basic principle of the air element. Air is the movement of consciousness from one cell to another. This energy helps us to communicate, breathe. Every single movement is governed by this subtle element.
Ether
Ether is the omnipresent, all pervading energy. Ether or space, is the absence of all the other elements and it is the space that homes everything in the universe, the space that holds the other four elements. Ether feels like freedom. Ayurveda says that within Ether there is a pure presence of spiritual potential.
Inward Journey
Now, take time to reflect on which element you felt most at home reading about? This will be the element you are mostly made up of right now.
Which element do you feel least at home in?
How is that creating imbalance and how can you bring that element back to balance within your inner landscape?
Do you want to learn more about Ayurvedic living?
I’d love to work with you in a bespoke 1:1 Ayurvedic Wellness session. Explore more here