Feeling It All: The Metal Element and the Corporeal Soul in Autumn
Exploring The Spirit Of The Lungs, Grief, And Grounded Presence In The Metal Season
This post is Part 6 of a 6-part Autumn Health series rooted in Chinese Medicine.
(We recommend starting with the Five Elements Series for deeper context if you haven't yet.)
The Spirit of Autumn: Breath, Harvest, and the Season of Letting Go
Menstrual Cycles, Perimenopause, and the Power of Letting Go
Feeling It All: The Metal Element and the Corporeal Soul in Autumn (you are here)
This final post in the six-part Autumn Health series explores the Corporeal Soul, the spirit of the Lungs in Traditional Chinese Medicine. As fall invites us into stillness, we examine the role of the breath, grief, and the body's sensory wisdom. Learn how to honour sadness, reconnect with presence, and find meaning in letting go, just as falling leaves nourish the soil for spring’s return.
Corporeal Soul: The Spirit of the Lungs and Fall
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), each organ is associated not just with a function, but with a spirit. The Lungs, which govern breath, are linked to what is called the Corporeal Soul (Po). This is the spirit that lives in the body, the part of you that arrives with your first breath and departs with your last.
The Corporeal Soul is instinctive, physical, and sensory. It governs how you experience the world through breath, touch, sound, and reflex. When it is balanced, it helps you stay grounded in the here and now. It brings clarity to your senses and helps maintain healthy boundaries. When imbalanced, it may show up as disconnection from the body, numbness, unprocessed grief, or shallow breathing.
Returning to the Body: A Physical, Grounded Soul
We often speak of emotion as living in the heart: heartache, heartbreak, heart swell. But in TCM, the Lungs and the Corporeal Soul carry the imprint of grief and presence. This spirit is less about thoughts or ideas, and more about raw, embodied knowing.
Not everyone feels at home in their body. That’s okay. Just noticing that discomfort is a powerful beginning. The Corporeal Soul invites us to gently return, to build a relationship with the physical self, not by force, but by breath, by noticing, by being.
Loss, Sadness, Memory, and Presence
Autumn carries a quiet invitation to acknowledge loss. As leaves turn and fall, we are reminded of what has passed. In TCM, grief is the emotion of the Lungs. It is specific: the loss of someone or something meaningful. This is different from generalized sadness or melancholy.
Grief deserves attention. But our minds often turn away from it, creating stories or distractions. The Corporeal Soul asks us to feel what is present, not what could have been or might be. Sadness in the now is honoured through breath, movement, tears, or stillness. It is not a problem to fix, but an experience to witness.
TCM and Poetic Integration: Finding Beauty in the Falling Leaves
Falling leaves are not waste. In nature, they become a blanket for the earth, protecting the soil, nourishing the roots, creating homes for the small creatures that carry life through winter.
The same is true for our inner lives. What we let go of in autumn is not lost. It becomes compost for the seasons ahead. The pain we honour now will become soil for what wishes to grow.
Letting go is not easy, but it is part of the cycle. The Metal element, associated with both the Lungs and Large Intestine, reminds us: to receive fully, we must also release.
Looking Ahead: A Pause Before Winter
This post concludes our six-part Autumn Health series. We hope it has brought you insight, grounding, and care through the fall season. We'll return to seasonal health in late November, when we begin exploring the stillness and wisdom of Winter.
Until then, breathe deeply, honour what has passed, and know that letting go is a quiet kind of strength.
Other posts on the Autumn Health series:
The Spirit of Autumn: Breath, Harvest, and the Season of Letting Go
Menstrual Cycles, Perimenopause, and the Power of Letting Go
Feeling It All: The Metal Element and the Corporeal Soul in Autumn (you are here)