Hope this finds you well during these interesting times!
- totemic guardian of the season -
Our days continue to lengthen. Here in Chapel Hill, daffodils are beginning to bloom. If you live in the North Carolina Piedmont, you may have heard Chorus frogs singing on warmer rainy days, or the first songs of bluebirds. The twig ends of red maples and box elder are beginning to color, red and green respectively. Piedmont Almanac author, Dave Cook, reminds us that now is the time to look for paired wrens, and mourning doves, and to forage Creasy greens. In classic North Carolina fashion we have some of our coldest days intermingled with balmy warmth, sometimes oscillating between the two on the same day. This dance will likely continue as we see and hear the signs of the arrival of Spring.
Spring is resonant with East, beginnings, birth, movement, wind, the Wood phase, the liver and the gallbladder, sinews, and the color green amongst many others processes and dynamics. Yang's expansive expression is unfurling as the Sun (Taiyang : Great Yang) shines for more of each passing day.
One of my first teachers of Chinese medicine, Brian Moran, used to say the liver (in this case meaning Wood Phase as expressed in and through the human body) loves inspiration and perspiration. This was his pithy way of reminding us that movement and creative expression support free flowing and coherent circulation through the body.
As we read in the quote from the Suwen above:
Stroll at ease around the yard,
Loose the hair and relax the body,
Allow intent to come to life.
A simple way for us to harmonize with the new season is to move with as much ease as we can while we seek to relax the body and be loose and fluid. If we have creative interests, or practices that have been dormant through the Winter months, now is an ideal time to reconnect with them.
If we don't have a creative practice, how might we "allow [creative] intent to come to life," within our day to day rhythms?
What would it be like to experience our life as art, as creative play?
The Chinese calendar has both solar and lunar aspects. While the seasonal musings and reflections of this newsletter are primarily oriented to the solar aspects, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that February 10th will be the Chinese lunar New Year. The new year begins on the first new moon following the beginning of Spring (which was 2/3 this year).
