The Hardened Heart, Fear and Samsara.
“I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution; there is only circumambulation of the self.”
~ Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
In Chinese Medicine the same structure of time can be seen in a year, in a day, or a lifetime. Like each year has seasons, so do our lives, so does each day. The yang of summer, of birth, of the morning. The yin of winter, of death, of the evening. Time within time within time. Each day, each year, we are reborn within our being born, each day, each year, parts of us die, as we move closer to our death.
Each day the earth dips from the sun, the sun lights up the moon, the moon lights up the night. We move and shift, we fade and we return. Moon around the earth, earth around the sun, 24 hours, 28 days, 365… Things within things within things. Expanding and contracting, ebbing and flowing, moving and yielding. The shortest day, held, in the knowing of the longer days to come.
Joy followed by sadness, peace followed by pain. The world asks more of us, but we remain the same. Our hearts harden quicker than they soften, one force pulling stronger than the other, we pick ourselves up, we go again.
Quietly hardening,
Hardly softening
Looking forwards
ruminating backwards,
never here
never now
never enough
Looking for answers
looking outwards,
safer moving
scared to be still
give me the thrill, give me the thrill
Human touch
give me a hug,
my touch your touch
the breeze through the window
Is that enough?
Be tender with me
don’t fool me,
bring me back to my centre
set me free
let me settle within my own axis
let me pivot on my own time,
stop me crawling for infinity.
Winter asks us to trust in quiet and listen to stillness, to look inwards not outwards. & as all socials will be telling you, February the 17th will mark, on the Lunar calendar, the end of the year of the Wood Yin Snake and the start of the Yang Fire Horse.
Like a snake snuffling and sniffling through shrubbery and hedgerows, the year of the Wood Yin Snake has been about slowly exploring who we are and in turn, gently shedding what no longer serves us so that as the Fire Yang Horse approaches, we are ready to gallop into what does.
I’m glad to have a reason to rest and reset, permission to shed and gallop, yet as I think on these concepts of time, I hear that Bon Iver song “things behind things behind things,” and it heightens to me the continuous cycles we can get trapped in, time and time again. Because, shed and gallop away but how long will it be until we find ourselves back circling the same old mysteries?
I’m jumping across different lineages here but it reminds me of a well known concept I come across often within Buddhist and Hindu writings named Saṃsāra. It has many translations but essentially it discusses the continuous cycle of life, death and rebirth, and ultimate liberation as the potential for transcending this. Like it to a hamster on a hamster wheel, round and round we go, just watch it in your mind and you feel tired. But how do we do it?
Of course the human capacity for falling down and picking ourselves back up is impressive and essential in order to get by, but does it have to feel so extreme, so tiring, so repetitive? How can we learn to let things move as they must, but not get caught up? How can we experience the difficulties of life, but not let our hearts harden too much? Learn from our mistakes but not become too tough. How can we keep dreaming whilst still seeing what’s in front of us?
I sit and I think and try to feel all of this in my body, a shedding snake, a galloping horse. Winter, quiet, stillness… boredom, fear, loneliness. Yang, movement, energy… Love, lust, desire. Strong emotions come to mind, ones that we often disallow ourselves to feel. And maybe that’s it, denying ourselves of feeling and in turn, not feeling.
Dimming the light and hardening our hearts. Fearing ourselves, our beliefs, our choices. Keeping us looking in the wrong places, focused on the wrong faces. Stopping us trust in what already exists and keeping us circling the circle instead of residing in the middle of it.
Keeping us forgetting that each year, the shortest day is held, in the knowing of the longer days that come next
~ All words, movements and recipes are my personal interpretations, shaped by what I have read, learnt, felt, and experienced. I do not claim that this is the definitive way of understanding Traditional Chinese Medicine, or anything I write about, but rather my own way of seeing and engaging with the things i’m thinking about. My work is an attempt to embody and honour the limitless history of these ancient traditions within today. ~
