Tending Your Heart Fire
How to care for your heart and work with your inner fire this year.
This year brings with it an opportunity to work with our inner fire in the context of fire qi. Doing this well requires a sense of our surrounding as well as our own internal fire. Fire is something that needs to be controlled in order to be useful: we want to work with fire not have fire work on use. When fire is in balance it fuels growth and transformation that nourishes our physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. On the organ clock, this year is the center of the daily cycle corresponding to the time of 11 am to 1 pm. The sun (yang fire) reaches its zenith, similarly with the summer solstice (June 21st), and the height of fire energy will take place in the lunar month from June 15th to July 13th. That is the horse month of the horse year. Days that will be dangerously high in Fire energy include the following dates: June 21st, June 22nd, July1st, July 2nd, July 11th, July 12th, August 20th, August 21st, August 30th, August 31st, Sept 9th, September10th, September 19th, September 20th, September 29th, September 30th, and October 9th. These are dates where it is best to let the qi glide through the day and carry its own momentum. It can be gently guided, but do not add to it or try to quell it - it will very likely burn anyone that does.
So how exactly does one work well with fire qi?
We begin with an image of what controlling fire and using it to produce something that we want and then an image of water and fire in mutual balance, to end with an image of what happens when fire takes over and the fire has the control. Set your intention to hold the first image in your thoughts this year - what it feels like to access the fire energy as needed in order to achieve your desired outcomes. As soon as that balance shifts and you feel the fire is driving your actions instead of your intentions, it is time to step away.
This year it will be easy for the body to demonstrate and cope with signs of heat. Not only should this be a warm year with less rainfall, but any fluid or blood deficiencies will show up more and be easily aggravated because fires deplete fluid reserves. To protect ourselves from the likely circumstances that we can get burned, we can use some self-care techniques that include managing our sleep, healthy diets, healthy exercise, herbal medicine and most definitely hydration.
If you are feeling depleted, resting during the middle of the day (11am - 1pm) will be a quick way to restore energy. Early signs of depletion will show up as a sense of anxiety, easy to anger, frustration, feeling irregularly warm (particularly with cold extremities), difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep. All of these symptoms point to an imbalance of yin and yang, with your body not regulating the balance well. The tension that develops with this imbalance is meant to be balanced by the liver because the liver regulates qi. The dysregulation of qi happens very easily with stress which can then turn to anger and frustration when the fire element is strong. When this feeling begins to creep in, it is a sign to withdraw, nourish and re-assess.
Tempering heart fire by smoothing liver qi can be done in any number of ways. (I have to put in the usual disclaimer here: all medical related information should always be instituted under the guidance of your chosen healthcare practitioner. I am available for online consultations should anyone want to schedule, or please visit a practitioner of your choosing before implementing any treatment plan(s).)
