Seattle in winter snow, photo: Steven Miller
Yin and Yang
When Yin and Yang are in balance, there is a lovely interplay of the substantial and the immaterial. In the natural world that looks like a balance of sun, water, nutrients in the soil and wind that allow plants to flourish. In the human body it means our blood and fluids circulate through the vessels to nourish our skin and senses, bring warmth all the way to our toes and fingertips and give us the stamina to get through an energized day and a restful night.
Yin and Yang are interdependent, which means that one without the other is actually impossible. Even a rock, the perceived embodiment of Yin in its stillness and solidity, has movement to it if you watch it long enough. Most rocks were either molten lava or air or water particulate that settled and condensed. Rocks evolve their form over time. Even rocks have a Yang phase.
When Yin and Yang fall out of right relationship, we start to see problems pretty quickly. In the human body, when Yang is no longer in service to Yin, it can look like headaches, high blood pressure, anxiety, hot flashes, fevers, uncontrolled anger, acid reflux, hyper-vigilance, and pain in the neck and upper shoulders. When Yin dominates, you may not want to get out of bed, may have sluggish digestion, depression, fluid accumulation, cold extremities, low metabolism and a flat affect.
A Yang-Dominant World
Our world is currently undergoing a change in which Yang dominates, causing the glaciers to melt, forest fires to burn uncontrollably, and temperatures to rise. This creates chaos for plants and animals. There are more bugs and disease destroying trees, and epidemics that proliferate through human populations. Migratory patterns of birds are being disrupted, coral reefs continue to die off, and animals struggle to find food and water sources.
Outside my office window one hummingbird has started hoarding the feeder, chasing off any others that come along. The feeder is consistently stocked with sugar water and, for the last many months, hummingbirds have been stopping by sometimes three at a time to feed from it. Now the little bully chases off any other bird that gets too close. He isn’t even eating from the feeder most of the time, he just stands guard, puffing his red chest when another bird comes within range, darting after it like an angry bullet. Finally I get sick of watching this hoarding play out and take the feeder away. When Yang is not of service, it often looks like this level of aggressiveness that ultimately benefits no one.
In human society an overabundance of Yang, when it falls out of service to Yin, looks like toxic masculinity, over-controlling governments, war, and hoarding of resources. Without enough Yin, there is a sense of scarcity of substance and an overabundance of movement that is chaotic and disruptive. Yang-dominant symptoms are often parallel with the fallout from living with chronic stress in a sympathetic nervous system state of fight or flight. That Yang aspect of the sympathetic nervous system must be balanced by the parasympathetic “rest and digest” for our bodies to function and thrive.
Unfortunately, our life styles and habits in the West mimic this imbalance of Yin and Yang. Capitalism values productivity over rest and general wellbeing. Within the context of capitalism, there is no value placed on contentment, beauty or health unless it can be commodified.
Health During Climate Change
We are directly impacted by the climate in which we live whether we know it or not. Not just because the extremes of heat or cold and rain or wind influence our daily choices, but because the nature of our systems is to reflect the same patterns as the seasonal and climatic patterns around us through resonance. Our bodies are a microcosm of our world, following the same rules and patterns. When the weather dries out the plants around us, giving them that thirsty, dusty look, our own skin and sinews become hot and dry. When the earth is boggy and damp, we experience our own sense of being weighed down and sluggish.
Climate change has created a sense of chaos in the climate that we also feel in our bodies, in our political systems, and in our thought patterns and choices. We cannot help but be influenced by the changing of our world. Our bodies evolved to adapt to our surroundings to maximize survival, and adapting to a chaotic world can create chaos within us.
A direct result of climate change is that temperatures across the world have risen steadily since the late 1800s.
Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14° F (0.08° C) per decade since 1880, and the rate of warming over the past forty years is more than twice that: 0.32° F (0.18° C) per decade since 1981.
2020 was the second-warmest year on record based on NOAA’s temperature data, and land areas were record warm.
Averaged across land and ocean, the 2020 surface temperature was 1.76° F (0.98° Celsius) warmer than the twentieth-century average of 57.0°F (13.9°C) and 2.14˚F (1.19˚C) warmer than the pre-industrial period (1880-1900). *
* https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature
Every small change in temperature has an exponential impact because of the way the plants and creatures of the earth evolved to interact with our environment. The changing temperature impacts bird migration, food sources, insect populations and much more. Each of these changes in turn influences other animal and plant populations and as that thread unravels the effect is staggering.
In our own lives similar imbalances are created by technology. Beginning with the industrial age and the invention of artificial light, we have been able to defy the cues of nature and distance ourselves from the rhythms of the natural world. The sun and moon have a diurnal and nocturnal patterning, but our technology does not. Our phones, televisions and other screens distract us from listening to the cues of our bodies, the days and the seasons.
I wish there was an easy answer for how to live well in chaotic times. Perhaps it helps just knowing that if we are seeing and feeling chaos, we are perceiving reality. Perhaps it helps to remember that for better systems to form, outdated ones need to break down.
The breaking down phase can be messy, if not embraced, and it’s not something we Westerners prefer. We like growth and avoid decay and death. Our media prefers youth to old age. We talk endlessly about food but cover up our burps and flatulence and would rather not discuss defecation. We prefer spring and summer to fall and winter, and yet we need all of these phases of every day, season and lifespan. Comfort with the breaking down phase prepares us for our own old age and death. It’s like The Tower card of the tarot: the only way to avoid a great fall is to embrace the change around us. Decay reminds us that the atoms that comprise our bodies came from the stars and will be recycled into new beings at our passing.
While we are alive, we have the choice to bring Yin and Yang into balance in our own lives. We get to choose to counter the superficiality, overstimulation, technology, stimulants and artificial light with depth, rest, nourishing food and quiet time away from our phones and computers. We can choose to meditate, be comfortable in silence, and tune our senses into the more subtle offerings of the world. The choices each of us make impact our day, our moment and our body’s ability to rest and rebalance. The influence goes beyond that, and impacts the world around us in ways we can barely comprehend, because we are inextricably part of a larger eco-system.
For more on Covid-19 and climate change, I recommend this video by Dr. Edward Neal: https://vimeo.com/neijingstudies
A cozy window nook surrounded by bookshelves, photo: Clay Banks
Rest as Resistance
I view rest as resistance to the idea that you are only valued by what you produce. Meditation is protest. Naps are an anti-capitalist act. When we are well rested and nourished and our Yin and Yang are balanced, we have more capacity for kindness and love. Choosing love and kindness over judgement and fear actively dismantles the white supremacist system. This time of year our bodies want to engage with down time, introspection, deep dreaming, and rebuilding our resource-wells. I encourage you to embrace that. Allowing your body to slow down is a deep act of caring.
Rest isn’t what we’re socialized to do. We are made to believe our habits, schedules, rituals and bodies should remain the same year round and that our productivity defines our success. But to witness the world around us change with the seasons is to recognize we need to adapt our own habits to stay in sync. There is no price that can be put on a well balanced life, no way to measure a joyous surge in the chest, a full-bellied laugh or a moment in quiet presence. Celebrating the winter season and all it represents is about balancing ourselves so that we can show up for whatever the future brings.