What Late Summer Teaches Us About Letting Go

A particular kind of light shows up in early September. It is softer than the light of true summer, and angled differently. Mornings are misty. Days are warm but evenings get cool earlier. Your body already knows the seasons are turning, even if YOU may be reluctant to admit it. 

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this in-between stretch of the year belongs to its own season entirely. It sits between summer and fall, and it has a name: Late Summer, sometimes called Earth Season.

Earth Season and the Spleen

Where summer (Fire Season) is expansive and outward, Late Summer/Earth season feels like something different. It is the season of ripening, of harvest, of things coming to fullness before they change form. Late Summer is actually known as the “5th season” in TCM, and it has its own feel and philosophy. In the body, this season is governed by the Spleen and Stomach — the organs responsible for transforming what we take in, whether that’s food, information, or experience, into something usable.

When our Spleen energy is steady, we tend to feel grounded, clear-headed, and appropriately fed and nourished. We’ve enjoyed the full sun and warmth of summer and we’re still glowing. When our body does not feel full and nourished, it feels taxed, the signs may be: a heaviness after eating, fatigue that doesn’t lift, looser digestion, or a mind that feels foggy or scattered rather than sharp.

Earth season is genuinely a transitional one, and for some it can be a challenge to adjust.

Eating With the Season

Late summer nutrition in TCM tends to favor foods that are warm, easily digested, and mildly sweet in the TCM sense — think root vegetables, squash, warming grains like millet or oats, and gently spiced, slow-cooked meals. Raw and cold foods, which may have felt good in the height of summer heat, often become harder to process as the season shifts. Less salads, less raw veg and cold drinks or smoothies. (Really, the cold drinks and smoothies should always be at a minimum according to TCM).

If a meal leaves you sluggish rather than satisfied, that’s useful information.

The Arrival of Metal

As Earth season completes its work, we move into autumn proper — the season of Metal, governed by the Lung and Large Intestine. Metal season is associated with contraction, refinement, and letting go. Nature demonstrates this plainly: leaves release, growth slows, the outward energy of summer draws inward.

It makes sense, then, that this transition often brings an emotional undertone that can be harder to name. In TCM, the emotion associated with Metal is grief. Not necessarily grief in the acute sense, but something quieter — a wistfulness, a sense of resistance to what’s ending, even when what’s ending was simply a season.

Naming the Resistance

If you find yourself a little reluctant as summer closes — holding onto the last warm days, feeling a low hum of sadness or dread about the shift ahead — this is not something to push past. It’s a fairly universal response to seasonal change, and TCM has long treated it as worth acknowledging.

Grief, in this context, isn’t only about loss. It can also be about release: the letting go of what a season allowed us to be, in order to make room for what comes next. Metal season asks us to sort through what we’re carrying and decide what’s still useful.

Preparing Without Forcing

A few gentle ways to support the transition:

• Begin easing into slightly earlier bedtimes as daylight shortens
• Favor warming, well-cooked meals over raw or iced foods
• Make space for reflection rather than rushing to fill the quiet
• Notice feelings of resistance or sadness without needing to resolve them immediately

The body moves through seasons gradually, and there is nothing wrong with needing a little time to catch up.

If this transition has been feeling heavier than usual, (physically or emotionally) acupuncture can offer meaningful support during seasonal shifts like this one. It’s one of the things this medicine has always done well: helping the body find its footing as the world around it changes.