A central capital diary: summer

As a result, rural ground has gone through periods of saturation, flooded by rivers, lakes, streams, even overflowing sewers. Doubtless, crop and fruit-producing plants will have been hit by these conditions and will affect a later harvest.

Summer in five elements terms is labelled fire. The season’s action is totally yang, symbolised by the full power of the sun – fire is about maturing. Its role is to receive the fruition of the growth spurt of spring – wood, its parent element – following the dormant winter season. Wood supplies the material for fire to bring to maturation. In turn and in time, fire hands over its matured material to be harvested and broken down – rotted and ripened – by the earth element in the seasonal cycle in late summer.

Associations in diagnosing and treating people are the colour red, the sound is joy (or lack of), the odour is scorched, the emotion is joy (or lack of). This element is about sharing and communication – its sense organ is speech and its orifice is the tongue.

Fire is arguably the most populated element, seen frequently in those around us – in the party person, the person who usually responds first with laughter, who laughs the loudest and longest, the person whose passion is often most evident, and the person who often inspires and leads others to their best.

But although often the performer, when the fire element is imbalanced it can also manifest either as mania or conversely, as withdrawal from life, sadness, lowness, a state of vulnerability, depression.

Dawn is early these summer days, 3.30 am – dusk is late, 9.30 pm. The local crows are vocally and physically active through this time – feeding their chicks, protecting their territory. Finches fly, dipping and swooping on the air, chit chattering. Pigeons are bobbing on the pavement, parenting their offspring.

In the city I see people dress more casually and with few layers – brighter colours are evident, shorts come out… There’s more socialising in the pubs, bars, cafés, restaurants, especially after work. Tourists pour into central London – luggage-pulling, backpacked hoards of them. Hotels reach capacity, bus and river tours heave; popular tourist attractions teem with visitors. Public parks and spaces – when the weather allows – are more heavily populated, often with lunchtime workers taking a break over food.

Schools spill out mid afternoon, filling the local park with their play and sounds – groups of parents relax with their offspring and friends. Quarrels of sparrows chirp incessantly, busily in the bushes of a nearby London Bridge park. The singing blackbird outside my flat, has an upward, wild, final, screeching note after each of its fruity, mellifluous renditions – as though it can no longer contain its excitement, bouncing from brick to concrete to steel.

In contrast to the surrounding buildings, trees look vivid green, fulsome, lush, undulating with lyrical movement in wind and breeze. The square mile and The Shard are illuminated in the full strength and brilliance of the sun, reflecting its beams.

In the heart of the capitalist city, in the depth of the financial sector, on a monolithic architectural structure, as I ascended the entrance on an impressive escalator… I saw a lone magpie land, twitching its tail and wings to balance.

On the opposite side of my flat recently, I watched one afternoon a cloud of scores of seagulls circling, high in the sky, surfing, gliding, slowly, easily on the hot swirling, upward currents, wailing, crying for some time. Even in the din of the city I heard the twittering of nestlings in a building recess. Further up the road, I saw a lone, cold, dead early-born chick on the concrete pavement – a fallen, hapless victim.

The planters on my balcony have sprung into flamboyant life, growing upwards, sideways and trailing. Colour and texture are prolific and varied. The brickwork absorbs and holds the heat of the sun into the cooling evening, nurturing into the night. Regular evening watering is needed. I’ve planted lettuce and tomatoes this year for the first time. The lavender is just going over into seeds.

Fire is the only element that has four components to it – often referred to as organs/officials – the other four elements having only two each. The heart is seen as the monarch, the supreme controller of the organism and the home of the shen – the spirit of the person – seen in their eyes and demeanour. The heart is shielded by the heart protector, commonly known as the pericardium – an official surrounding the organ of the heart. And they are paired with two yang officials – the small intestine and the circulation sex, also known as the triple burner. All four work as a team within the fire element.

Some characteristic examples of fire element point names include: Utmost Source HT 1, Spirit Path HT 4, Spirit Gate HT 7, Little Marsh SI 1, Small Sea SI 8, Heavenly Window SI 16, Gate of Chi Reserve P 4, Inner Frontier Gate P 6, Palace of Weariness P 8, Outer Frontier Gate TH 5, Assembly of Ancestors TH 7, Relax and Enjoy TH 12.

To finish off, let Shakespeare have the last words:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

Robert started adult life training to be a classical ballet dancer. After a ten-year career working in Austria, France, Canada and London’s West End, he retrained as an acupuncturist, graduating in 1992. He set up his clinic in a Buddhist-run practice in London’s East End, where he continued to see patients for the next 30 years. Alongside, he also worked in the admissions department of the British Acupuncture Council for 17 years.