The Taoist Earth Element: Earth goddesses & seasonal rituals for late summer
Five Elements are a Taoist framework mapping the seasons, the body, and our emotional life onto five phases — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. This piece is about Earth Element and late summer, the first piece in the series about elemental, seasonal living. Check also the accompanying Earth Element wellness piece HERE.
Earth Mother in Kenya and in Finland
Before I knew anything about the Five Elements, I knew the story of Mumbi.
I lived in Kenya for four years, and at a Sunday farmer's market, a Kikuyu woman selling natural cosmetics told me about the origin story of her tribe. It is believed that the first woman, Mumbi, with her husband, Gikuyu, was allotted land near Mount Kenya.
The couple was blessed with nine daughters: Wanjirũ, Wambũi, Njeri, Wanjikũ, Nyambũra, Wairimũ, Waithĩra, Wangarĩ, and Wangũi. I had met these women many times driving their cars, doing their shopping and running their salons around the city of Nairobi, but I had never known that the names represented the nine Kikuyu clans that were born from those daughters.
It was clear in Mumbi's story that she was a creator, and deeply connected to the tribe's holy lands with mountains and fig trees.
I'm not sure why it's easier to appreciate these stories from other cultures and toss one's own stories aside as old superstitions. Perhaps it's a European mentality, perhaps just the fact that I had always been a modern city girl.
But my Finnish tradition also had Akka, or Maaemä, the Earth Mother. She was the keeper of soil, livestock, the land, and fertility. She was wife to Ukko, the sky god.
Perhaps Mumbi and Akka were not two isolated folk stories, but more like two dialects of the same, much older language.
Mother Earth across cultures: a world of Earth goddesses
Mumbi and Akka are definitely not alone. Mother Earth might just be one of the most widely repeated ideas humans have ever had across cultures.
Ancient Greeks had Gaia from whom everything else was born. Ancient Rome had Terra, often depicted with abundant fruit cornucopia, the goddess of agriculture and livestock. In the Andean mountains, Pachamama represents both a nurturing and a fierce goddess of earth and time. The Aztec Coatlicue holds both fertility and death in the same figure — the earth that grows things and the earth that receives the dead. In China, Nüwa is said to have molded the first people from yellow clay and to have fixed the broken Pillar of Heaven. The Vedic Prithvi provides food and shelter for those in need, West African Asase Yaa looks after the Earth, agriculture and fertility, and the Sumerians worshipped Ninhursag, the Lady of the Sacred Mountain. Mountains again.
Many of these Earth goddesses are partnered with Father Sky, like the Finnish Akka. The Māori Papatūānuku, a personification of Earth on her own right, was locked in a tight emrace with her partner Ranginui, whose tears fall as rain from the sky after their separation.
Even the oldest human-made object widely believed to depict a deity, the so-called Venus of Willendorf, carved roughly 25,000 years ago, is read as an Earth and fertility figure.
The Earth is feminine. This may just be one of the oldest things every human culture has independently agreed on.
The importance of elemental understanding for seasonal living
Now, what importance does this have for seasonal living?
These stories could be used as aesthetic moodboards and pretty tales to sprinkle over a cup of tea, or we could look at them more closely. Not that we have to, but after many late summers on this Earth, it is kind of nice to find new sides to this repeating cycle of seasons, and perhaps experience them with more depth.
The Taoist Five Element framework maps the world, the seasons, and the human body onto five phases: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Each governs a season, a color, a set of organs and physical manifestations, as well as emotional terrain. Taoist Earth represents stability, grounding, nourishment, and the central balance that supports life.
The Earth-coded season is late summer, the yellow or golden month (think of a field of wheat and golden sunsets). It is the transition period where the peak, active yang energy of summer turns into the slower, calmer yin energy of autumn.
If nearly every culture independently arrived at the same idea — that the ground beneath us holds, gives birth, feeds, and receives back — then late summer is not simply a stretch of weeks between the heat of July and the cooling of September. It's a time when we can pay more attention to these ideas and find the harmony of living in accordance with them. It might not be so visible sitting in your cubicle, but the following things are happening:
An old Finnish word for August, mätäkuu, literally means "rot month." Food spoils and wounds get infected more easily in the heat and humidity, consistent with the Chinese medicine observation of increasing dampness in nature and our bodies.
The heat and humidity of this season may make some of us sensitive to digestive issues — Earth governs the Spleen and Stomach responsible for our digestion. Keep an eye on symptoms such as bloating, loose stools or constipation, heaviness, brain fog, weight changes, and sweet cravings.
Another symptom running rampant is more emotional: worry and rumination. Western medicine is not the only medical system that has made the connection of the gut-brain axis. Sluggish digestion affects the mind, and worry is often called the indigestion of the mind, when the mind cannot digest all the information and experiences coming in.
If you look around the fields and orchards, they are abundant, and the full, round fruits are ready for harvest. Being in tune with the seasons, we can maybe understand that there is a time for stopping active planting and growing, and receiving the abundant harvest of what already is, and starting to slow the rhythm going into colder months.
Doesn't this way of thinking make the season more legible? The ordinary passage of a year feels less like time simply elapsing, and more like something you're a conscious participant in. And, for a modern reader, it offers an understanding of how much our physical and emotional wellbeing can benefit from being in tune with the seasons.
15 Taoist Earth Element rituals for late summer
None of this is only meant to be understood. It's meant to be lived, in small, repeatable, sometimes mundane ways. My specialties are yin yoga and Chinese tea, but there are 15 ideas in total I'll share with you.
1. Earth Element Yin Yoga to ground
Yin yoga is a beautiful practice that offers the benefits of stretching your tendons, ligaments and the body-wide fascial network in long, deep holds; moves energy through meridian lines (also associated with the Five Elements); and offers nervous-system-regulating benefits through its slow pace and belly breathing.
An Earth Element yin yoga class is designed to move energy across the Spleen and Stomach meridians through the inner and front foot, leg and thigh, the hip flexors and the abdomen. The Dragon teaches you to breathe patiently through discomfort and gives a beautiful opening for your hip flexors, while a Saddle opens your quads like no other pose. Twists give a boost to your digestion, spiraling toward your center, the navel.
And, perhaps, through such practice, not only do you gain mobility, but perhaps the worry from your gut gets dissolved, and your nervous system can settle into the rest and digest state. The body and mind are in a loop, with one affecting the other, and sometimes to disrupt unproductive loops, we can descend from our minds to our bodies.
Practice at my Yin with Aino Yoga YouTube channel: 30-Minute Yin Yoga for Late Summer Earth Element
2. Yellow tea to soothe digestion
Of the six recognized families of Chinese tea, yellow tea (黄茶) is the rarest. Its roots trace back to the Tang dynasty, but fewer farmers make it with each passing generation: the yields are lower than green tea's, the process takes longer, and green tea is simply more profitable to produce — a trend the current matcha boom hasn't exactly reversed.
Its taste is smooth, mellow, and round. Like green tea, yellow tea is rich in polyphenols, associated with cardiovascular and cellular health, metabolic and blood sugar support, and anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects optimal for oral health. But the more interesting distinction, to me, is what it doesn't share with its more famous cousin. Green tea is considered cooling in Chinese medicine, and a great many of us are already walking around with compromised digestion (something the current wave of iced, sweetened matcha drinks is arguably making worse). Yellow tea, by contrast, is considered gentle on digestion and understood to nurture the Spleen and Stomach.
More Earth Element seasonal living tips for late summer
3. Sound and playlists: I love using sound to tap into the vibe of seasons. In Earth season, I look for low drone sounds, humming and drumming, and return to my Afrobeats playlists. Earth's sound is singing, but even soundless humming, with its vibration, is calming for the vagus nerve.
Explore my Spotify playlists here: Aino Yoga Spotify
4. Mindfulness meditation trains the skill of healthy detachment, observing information instead of hungrily swallowing, consuming, and being consumed by it. Great for chronic overthinkers.
5. Gratitude journaling directs our attention to the harvests of our own lives, appreciating what has ripened and stopping to enjoy that. And, perhaps by noticing what we already have, we can more easily get our minds into the state of attracting and manifesting more of it.
6. Digital detox: Modern life certainly comes with challenges for someone trying to embrace seasonal awareness. Meals over scrolling TikTok, poor sleep hygiene, constant notifications, and more terrible news than our Spleen can digest call for an occasional Do Not Disturb. This makes it easier to hear the subtle messages of our bodies, too.
7. Analog hobbies are an excellent way to literally bury your hands in the soil by potting plants, gardening or joining a ceramics class, and be fully present and grounded in that activity.
8. Personal projects fit nicely in the late summer season, but with intention: prioritize, move slow and steady, one step at a time, take ample breaks to avoid excessive mental load, and commit to resolving obstacles rather than thinking about them over and over again. Harness your mothering and nurturing power to create something new in this world.
9. Time in nature is essential now that we are enjoying some of the last moments of warm weather! Frolic on fields, meadows, hills, valleys, mountains and canyons. Barefoot, if you can, for extra health benefits.
10. Dressing earthy means playing with natural materials, earthy tones of yellow, gold, brown and nudes translated through your own color palette, stones and crystals — perhaps in abundance.
11. Decluttering is an act of getting rid of the stagnation caused by excess Earth. When energy can flow in your space, it translates into your wellbeing, too. I'm sure you've noticed.
12. Decorating is another way to make your home (perhaps the earthiest of places) more cozy now that you'll likely be spending more time indoors compared to peak summer. Bringing in yellow color, low-lying furniture, earthy tones and natural materials, terracotta pots and fruit bowls, brings in a kind of hominess. Highly recommend checking out Molly Weasley's kitchen, traditional Swahili homes, and African mudcloth!
13. Hosting is also a way to deliberately fill your home, but now with people. Earth element extends to personalities, so explore whether you have it in you to be the one who brings people back together after summer adventures, even if it's just for a casual potluck.
14. Earthy foods: Chinese medicine draws heavily from the Five Element Theory, and has specific earthy foods, recommended in various doses depending on your constitution. In general, this season and digestive health call for more warm, cooked foods, hearty soups, root vegetables (from the earth), whole grains and subtle sweetness, rather than iced coffees, cold salads, and excessive stimulants like alcohol.
15. Bodywork: Abdominal massage such as womb massage or Chi Nei Tsang, reflexology for your feet, as well as resistance training, speak directly to the Earth that relates to muscle mass, fat, digestion and groundedness.
A season to get grounded
Mumbi sent me to look for my own Akka, who made me notice that humans everywhere looked at the Earth and recognized a mother in it. Once you know the stories around the elements, you understand their qualities better, and can draw so much more depth into your seasonal living practice.
Let this late summer be the season you get grounded, centered, stable and strong. It will nourish you far into the deep winter.
I teach Yin Yoga and FasciaMethod for fascia health, mobility and nervous system recovery. I also offer seasonally informed, Chinese inspired tea ceremony. If this piece resonated, do have a look at my service offering, event calendar and the contact form below.
If you’d like these stories and seasonal living tips in a video form, link to my YouTube piece below, along with a late summer Earth Element yin yoga practice.