The following reflections on winter are taken from the Monkey Press book The Kidneys. Beginning with the text of Suwen chapter 2, which describes each of the four seasons and introduces for the first time the idea of the resonance between winter, water, the north and the kidneys, it goes on to describe the three months of winter in the Li Ji, Book of Rites. The commentary is by Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée.
SU WEN CHAPTER 2
‘The three months of winter are called closing in and preserving.
The water freezes, the earth is broken up – there is no longer any communication with the yang.
Go to bed early, get up late. Do everything according to the light of the sun, exerting the will as buried, as if hidden, taking care only of oneself, falling back on oneself, as in possession of oneself.
Avoid the cold and seek the warmth. Let nothing flow out from the skin through fear of losing qi.
This way is natural to the qi of winter which corresponds to the maintenance and preservation of life.
To go against this would injure the kidneys causing weakening in spring through an insufficient contribution to the generation of life.’
The description of winter in this chapter is a closing in on oneself, nothing must be allowed to flow outside for fear of losing the qi. Losing qi you lose warmth, and in winter you need this inner warmth of life against the cold and darkness – or else you die. This was not just a metaphor at the time of writing, and to go against the qi of winter means that the shao yin (少 陰) does not store, and the qi of the kidneys is powerless in the depths.
The ideogram for cold is han (寒), and it represents people covered in straw huddling under a roof. This is exactly the movement of the north and winter and the conduct of life in winter. The north in classical Chinese books is both the place of separation and exile, and the land full of promise, and winter is both the time of closing in and a good time for sexuality and germination. The cold which tightens things up is also that which allows the springing up of the yang. When the cold leaves and the earth is broken up and opened by the plough all this force and strength of the yang comes out and manifests itself.
The north, bei (北), is also ambiguous and ambivalent because it is the separation, back to back, the place of exile and no communication, just as winter is the season of no communication. Suwen chapter 2 says that in winter heaven and earth are like strangers, yin and yang have nothing more to do with each other. But at the same time the north is also the place of returning, and of return to the origin and unity. This is very interesting because from this perspective the north is both the return to the beginning and the beginning of division and separation. In winter the soil and water are separated, the soil is hard because of the cold, and the water is also hard because it is frozen as ice; but at the same time the core of winter, according to the Book of Rites, is the moment for the mating of tigers and the period to keep seed for germination. It is the period of the tenth celestial stem, gui (癸), the mysterious gathering of water inside the earth ready to receive the impulse of heaven, the yang inside. This is like the yang of the kidneys or the yang of ming men, which is revealed through the yang of the liver and heart which are the two yang zang.
According to the Li Ji, the Book of Rites:
‘The first month in the winter is the separation because the water becomes ice and the soil is cracked. The pheasants plunge deep into the water and become oysters. The rainbow hides and no longer appears.’
The rainbow no longer appears because yin and yang are not meeting and a rainbow is a manifestation of the meeting of yin and yang.
‘Orders are given to the officers in these terms: the qi of heaven remains above and that of earth remains below. Heaven and earth no longer communicate together, the pathways of one to the other are blocked, and winter is established.
‘In the second month of winter the ice becomes thicker and tigers begin coupling. Everything must be kept well closed in or else all hibernating animals would die and the people would be attacked with pestilential diseases. In this month the shortest day of the year arrives. The yin and yang are struggling together because the yang begins to grow and the yin can never be as great as it is at that point. All living beings feel a movement.’
One of the commentators says that at this point all the plants prepare to give out shoots and prepare to bud. But the important point is that at the very heart of winter, at the solstice, there is a first resurgence of yang that has a particular movement which all living beings feel deep within them. This could be related to the power of the fire of ming men (命 門) and the deep power of the kidneys.
‘The wise man watches over himself and refrains from acting. He comes back to his foundation; he waits to see.
‘In the third month of winter the wild geese go north. The magpie starts to make its nest. The pheasant cries, the hen broods over the eggs. The son of heaven orders that a clay model of an ox be led into the countryside to lead out the cold air. It is the moment when you prepare to till the earth.’
The winter solstice it is like the tilting of yin and yang, it is a pivot, which gives orientation to the qi of life. All the qi and the expansion of qi moves around the winter solstice, just as all the stars and constellations move around the pole star.