**This website is still a seedling. Thank you for your patience as it grows.**
Ginger | Zingiber officinale
Family: Zingiberaceae (Ginger family)
Ecology
(On it's way!)​
Associated with the Fire and Earth Elements
Ginger
Fire
Earth
Ginger is a globally treasured herb and is associated with the fire and earth elements.
Like fire, it is warm, transformative, and expansive. When we consume ginger, we immediately feel the spicy warmth invigorating our mind, body, and senses.
​
Like earth, ginger is stabilizing and transformative. It is a rhizome, which is an underground stem, so it starts from the earth and provides grounding thermal energy.
Earth Element
Earth
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, ginger has an affinity for the spleen, stomach, and lungs. The stomach and spleen are complementary organs, serving the foundational roles within our bodies.
​
In the Five Phases Theory, the spleen and stomach are associated with the earth element and the color yellow, which is the color of ginger when it is cut. The earth is where seeds start, water infiltrates, and the cycle of life begins.
Fire Element
stomach
food
nutrients and energy
distribute nutrients and energy to the rest of the body
Ginger is known for heating up cold stomachs and cold conditions in the body.
​
Ginger stokes metabolic fire and increases heat to break down and transform food into energy that can be transported to the rest of the body. It helps the body digest and eliminate waste more efficiently, leaving us feeling more energized.
​
When consumed, it works from the body’s core and extends outward to the peripheries.
Ignite the core
Ginger is traditionally used in many cultures for digestion and circulation. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, ginger is known for harmonizing and lifting qi, which is the energy that gives life. Ginger’s grounding properties regulate energy so it’s fiery properties can continuously circulate and warm the body.
Sustain your fiery core
Ginger not only helps us digest food, eliminate waste, and circulate warmth; it helps us digest our ideas, eliminate negative thoughts, and circulate motivation. It fuels the central part of our existence while regulating fire so it burns steadily with purpose in the desired direction.
​
Ginger initiates transformation of thoughts into actions, allowing us to reach outward and forward towards endless opportunities. Ginger keeps our passions burning, encouraging us to move forward with the warmth and light of the fire that’s within us.
Aids in digestion
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, hawthorn is primarily used for digestion, especially greasy, fatty foods and animal protein. The berries help relieve indigestion and heartburn.
​
Hawthorn also has been shown to reduce atherosclerosis, which is a build-up of plaque made of cholesterol, fat, and other substances within the arteries. Its ability to digest fats most likely contributes to its ability to remove plaque and fat build-up within the arteries, thereby clearing circulatory pathways.
Parts used & ways to use
Parts used
Berry
Leaf
Flower
Herbal actions & Parts used
Taste
Temperature
Moisture
Herbal Actions
Sweet, Sour, Astringent
Slightly warm
Dry
Excitation
Atrophy
Relaxation