What Is the Earth Element? Nourishment, Worry, and the Body’s Center — Plus a Late-Summer Congee

There is a fifth season in Chinese medicine, and it belongs to the Earth element — the season of harvest, nourishment, and the body's quiet ask to be genuinely fed. Here's what Late Summer means for your health, your digestion, and your capacity to receive, plus a full recipe for a restorative late-summer congee.

CHINESE MEDICINE BASICSSEASONAL RECIPE

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8/9/20266 min read

Late-Summer Nourishing Congee

Congee — slow-cooked rice porridge — is one of the most fundamental foods in Chinese medicine’s dietary therapy tradition. It is the food most recommended for postpartum recovery, illness, and depletion of any kind, because the long, slow cooking pre-digests the grain, making it extraordinarily easy for the Spleen to absorb without spending the energy it doesn’t have.

This Late-Summer version is built specifically for the Earth element: warming and centering, with ingredients that support digestion, calm the mind, and gently nourish depleted Qi and Blood.

Ingredients (serves 2–4)

1 cup white or jasmine rice, rinsed
10 cups water or light unsalted broth
¼ cup dried lotus seeds, soaked 1 hour (calm the Shen and strengthen the Spleen)
2 tablespoons dried red dates (jujube), pitted and halved (tonify Qi and Blood)
1 tablespoon dried goji berries, added in the last 10 minutes (nourish Blood and Liver Yin)
2 tablespoons cooked adzuki beans (optional; resolve Dampness and support the Spleen)
3–4 slices fresh ginger (warm the Spleen and aid transformation)
1 small piece dried tangerine peel (chen pi), optional (move Qi, reduce bloating; find at Asian grocery)
Rock sugar or raw honey to taste — a small amount; sweetness in moderation tonifies the Spleen
Optional garnish: toasted sesame seeds, a drizzle of sesame oil, or thinly sliced scallion

Instructions

1. Combine and bring to a boil.

Add rice, drained lotus seeds, red dates, ginger, and tangerine peel (if using) to a large heavy-bottomed pot. Add water or broth. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

2. Reduce and simmer slowly.

Reduce heat to the lowest simmer your stove allows. Partially cover and cook for 60–90 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the rice has completely broken down and the consistency is thick and creamy. Add water as needed.

3. Add goji berries and adzuki beans in the last 10 minutes.

This preserves the color and texture of the goji berries. Stir in the adzuki beans to warm through.

4. Sweeten gently and serve warm.

Add a small piece of rock sugar and stir until dissolved, or drizzle with raw honey once in the bowl. Taste, adjust, and serve.

Rice cooker shortcut:

A rice cooker with a porridge or congee setting handles this beautifully. Add all ingredients, set to porridge mode, and come back to a finished pot.

Eat this warm, in the morning or at midday. It keeps well for 3–4 days in the refrigerator and reheats with a splash of water stirred in. Make a large batch at the beginning of the week. Let it be one less thing to think about.

The Earth element is not just about food.

It is about learning to receive.

One of the things I come back to most in my practice — here in St. Helens and in every conversation I have with depleted mothers — is that nourishment is not passive. In a culture that glorifies giving and treats receiving as selfishness, choosing to be nourished is an act that requires intention and sometimes real courage.

The congee is a beginning. Acupuncture is another layer. Rest, community, the choice to ask for help — these are all Earth element medicine. The season is supporting you in all of it right now. Let it.

Acupuncture on the Spleen and Stomach meridians directly regulates digestion, reduces Dampness, and addresses the worry pattern through its effect on the nervous system and the body’s stress response. Points like Stomach 36 (Zu San Li) — one of the most studied acupuncture points in the world — tonify Qi, support immunity, and regulate the gut-brain axis.

Diet is equally central. The Spleen thrives on warm, cooked, easy-to-digest food and suffers when taxed by cold, raw, or heavily processed foods. Late Summer is the ideal time to begin transitioning away from the salads and smoothies of high summer and toward the soups, stews, and grain-based dishes that warm and center the body as the season turns.

Which brings me to the recipe.

Come in and be nourished.

I see patients at Well Within in St. Helens, OR. If Late Summer has you feeling depleted, heavy, or stuck in circular worry — the Earth element needs tending. Let’s work on that together.

Book your first visit or join my waitlist at sashadewsnup.com.

Helping you to heal. — Sasha

RESOURCES

Kitchen Tools & Reading for Earth Element Nourishment

Kitchen Tools

Rice cooker with porridge/congee setting — a genuine game-changer for weekly batch cooking
Instant Pot — pressure cooker mode cuts congee time to 20 minutes

Specialty Ingredients

Dried lotus seeds — for your pantry
Dried red dates (jujube) — classical Qi and Blood tonic
Adzuki beans — support Spleen and resolve Dampness
Dried tangerine peel (chen pi) — move Qi and reduce bloating

Reading

The Tao of Nutrition by Maoshing Ni — practical Chinese medicine dietary guidance
Ancient Wisdom Modern Kitchen by Yuan Wang — accessible TCM recipes
Between Heaven and Earth by Harriet Beinfield — foundational Chinese medicine theory

This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I genuinely believe in.

There is a fifth season in Chinese medicine.

Most people know the four — spring, summer, autumn, winter — and their corresponding elements: Wood, Fire, Metal, Water. But Chinese medicine adds a fifth: Late Summer, the transitional weeks between the height of summer’s heat and the crisp turning of autumn. It is the pause between the outbreath and the inbreath of the year. And it belongs to the Earth element.

In our culture, this season barely has a name. We call it late August, or back-to-school season, or just the part of summer where the light starts to angle differently and you realize, with a small lurch, that the year is already more than half over.

Chinese medicine pays attention to this moment. Because the Earth element governs something most of us are quietly desperate for, and rarely allow ourselves: the act of being genuinely nourished.

What does the Earth element govern?

The Earth element is associated with the Spleen and Stomach — the body’s digestive center in Chinese medicine. But “digestion” in this framework extends far beyond processing food. The Spleen governs the body’s ability to transform and transport: to take in what it receives — food, information, experience, nourishment of any kind — and convert it into something usable. It is the organ system that turns what comes in into the Qi and Blood that sustain your life.

When the Spleen is healthy, digestion is easy, thinking is clear, and the body feels genuinely settled. There is a quality of groundedness — a sense of being at home in your own body, in your own life — that the Earth element, when it is balanced, reliably provides.

The emotion associated with the Earth element is worry. Specifically, the kind of circular, repetitive thinking that cannot find a resting point — the mind going over the same concern again and again without resolution. In Chinese medicine, this type of overthinking directly taxes the Spleen, impairing its ability to transform and transport. The more we worry, the more our digestion suffers. The more our digestion suffers, the less Qi and Blood we produce. The less Qi and Blood we have, the more anxious and depleted we feel. The more depleted we feel, the more we worry.

This is not a metaphor. It is a cycle that Chinese medicine has been interrupting for thousands of years.

How do I know if my Earth element needs support?

Digestive irregularity — bloating, loose stools, or sluggish digestion, especially after meals or under stress
Fatigue after eating — the Spleen is spending more energy processing food than it is gaining from it
Circular thinking or chronic worry that you cannot seem to turn off
A tendency to put everyone else’s needs before your own and to feel vaguely guilty when you don’t
Craving sweets — the flavor associated with the Earth element; moderate sweetness tonifies the Spleen, but excess depletes it
Feeling heavy, sluggish, or foggy — what Chinese medicine calls Dampness accumulating when the Spleen cannot transform fluids effectively
Difficulty receiving — compliments, help, care, rest — without immediately deflecting or feeling undeserving

That last one. I include it deliberately, because I think it is one of the most quietly pervasive Earth element imbalances in the mothers I see. The capacity to receive is a Spleen function in Chinese medicine. When the Earth element is depleted, it is not just digestion that struggles — it is the ability to take in nourishment in any form. Including love. Including rest. Including help.