This is the monthly live event, on the second Friday or Saturday of each month, as part of my Imperial Tutor mentorship. I either present a more formal lecture myself, followed by a lively discussion (what used to be called “History Train Lectures”), or I invite an important voice or two in Chinese medicine (practitioner of the East Asian healing arts, philosopher, anthropologist, historian, translator, author etc.) for a casual chat. While this is a members-only event, the general public can always join for a 9-day $9 trial to check it out. Imperial Tutor members will get a direct invitation via email.

My guest for this month is Sheri Lee, a practitioner with a deep interest in the calendar and the cycles of the seasons, who also has a special ability to ask difficult questions! For this event, Leo Lok and I will attempt to answer her query about the season of Late Summer, and how this fifth season interacts with the four regular seasons. Here are her own words, from the beginning of Septemer:

Currently I am most interested in how we collectively understand late summer. I have been noticing more and more sharing from practitioners about this time being referred to as late summer.

It is making me wonder where to find a reference of earth/late summer “season” as a period of late August to autumn equinox instead of what I’ve come to know as the last 18 days of summer, just as it is the last 18 days of every season.

I have come to understand the season of earth as a late “season” to all 4 seasons. A period of transition from one season to the next. To quickly summarize my understanding—the Neijing references 4 seasons, totaling 90days each with the last 18days of each season belonging to earth. That creates 5, 72 day seasonal qualities which correspond to the energetic qualities of each dynamic (phase/wuxing), but still only 4 seasons- not 5, per se. There are many references to the 4 seasons, and late summer seems to be a way to describe the quality of earth/spleen, yet the spleen doesn’t rule its own season.

I refer to the last 18 days of every season as the earth/transitional season, but a reference to the fifth season is more of a nod to its importance— much like the term 4th trimester is a way to honor the importance of the postpartum period. This is not because there are 5 seasons. There are only 4 seasons. Yet, understanding how we observe our connection to the centre, ourselves and the earth energy is what makes us human… or so I’ve learned through the numerological importance of number 5.

With that, you can perhaps understand my confusion when I’ve been noticing many practitioners referring to this time of year as late summer. I wonder if there is a source for this that I may be unaware of? I have noticed some share the time of late summer to be the second half of August through autumn equinox, about 6weeks time, others are vague just describing this as the dog days of summer and no clear time frame is shared.

Yet, it is currently the second node in the season of autumn, according to the jieqi calendar