Yin and Yang - mostly Yin!

In the lofty endeavor to study AND understand Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, one has to go back to the origins, the root, of the Chinese world view. The fundamental aspect of this view is best described as Yin and Yang. "Yin and Yang are emblems of the fundamental duality in the universe, a duality which is ultimately unified. The symbol of Taiji, or the Great Polarity (above) demonstrates the Yin/Yang concept in a graphic form. Herein, black signifies Yin and white signifies Yang. The two colors coil around, fade into, and penetrate each other. Both are necessary for the whole to exist..."*

Yin is dark/Yang, light: Rest/Activity, Contraction/Expansion, Cold/Hot, Slowness/Rapidity - respectively. Complementary opposites. One cannot exist without the other. Neither is all good, or all bad, just relative parts of one another.

So it is with the cycles of our lives. With the examination (the proverbial 20/20 hindsight) of my adult life so far, I believe I have been in the Yin cycle. The Yin properties have expanded as far as possible, and are now receding to give way to more Yang properties - thankfully! Having already stated that neither "side" is all good, or all bad, and accepting that truth (as we are a sum of our life experiences and cannot be "here" if we were not "there"), I welcome this new phase with wide open eyes and arms.

I only hope the Yang expansion lasts as long as the Yin did.

That's my current take. I could be wrong, and often have been. But it makes me feel better to look at it this way...for now. :-)


* From the text: Acupuncture - A comprehensive Text by the Shanghai College of Traditional Medicine. Translated and edited by John O'Connor and Dan Bensky. (Not one of our required textbook purchases).