yin/autumn/black
YIN
Sometimes I go into yin energy – the descending, hidden interior of myself – usually not of my choosing, honestly, but because it happens just then. Sometimes it's a day, sometimes more. Sometimes it’s quite annoying and I don't want to be there. The stillness, the boredom, the restlessness.
Until I stop resisting and give up control and relax and fall further into it, finally accepting yin's receptive aspect. Then it’s really not so bad, this shady place, all things considered. Sometimes, though, it’s more shadowy. It's just a different quality, unfamiliar and familiar, unwanted and needed, on its own course.
I remembered then that this yin energy emerged from yang energy, and in turn, yin will then emerge into yang. That’s what I've begun to understand in qigong, a movement and healing practice I’ve been doing for about a year, and also in reading related books on Taoism and Chinese Traditional Medicine.
Yin-yang is a continuous arising and descending that cannot be separated, in which each aspect mutually depends on the other. Yin contains yang and yang contains yin. One becomes the other, and then the other, continuously, creating harmony in opposites. It’s represented in the yin-yang symbol.
In stillness, just be still. In restlessness, just rest. And boredom doesn’t mean it’s boring. It’s one becoming the other, and in turn, it will become the other again, too.
AUTUMN
Perhaps it’s only fitting that I find myself right here after the Autumnal Equinox, when the sunlight in our days wanes and the darkness of our nights waxes. Entering the season of dusk, when things are releasing, degenerating, and inhibiting, and I wonder what that means for me. I’ve cleared my calendar, being sick as I am, but not terribly so, and this writing seems to help.
The past week has been thick with clouds, blocking out blue skies and sunshine that are surely above them, casting a dull haze to just about everything. Except when it rained, and it’s been raining a lot, and that’s when everything glistened for a moment.
Even when things are hazy, when dusk is your companion, see beyond and see in front and see clearly what glistens, too, in your path.
And the blustery, erratic gusts of wind earlier, as Hurricane Ian reached his spiraling tentacles into Northern Virginia, though weaker and much spent by then. The whoosh of wind through trees, the rustle moving through wind chimes, and the swoosh releasing what seemed in need of falling anyway.
Wind is formless, don’t you see? But don’t try to see it. Just bend and move with its energy and give it what it wants, the wordless and formless that you no longer need...
BLACK
For the past few weeks I’ve also been focused on black – the color, the meaning, and the word.
So I looked up the etymology of the word black, its original meaning, which is really interesting!
From Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (“to burn, gleam, shine, flash”), from base *bhel- (“to shine”).
The same root produced Old English blac “bright, shining, glittering, pale;” the connecting notions being, perhaps, “fire” (bright) and “burned” (dark).
As a color, a modern definition of black “lacks hue and brightness and absorbs light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.” It seems all hints of brightness were snuffed out over time. Connotations took on darker tones and a wide range of other associations throughout its history emerged, too.
But I’m partial to seeing the bright in black, not as a negation or opposite of black, just that it's contained there, too. That in its original meaning, it can't be separated somehow.
I’m feeling better today, thankfully, after several days of really not. The boundaries of being sick have loosened and while not boundless, it’s less confining. The stillness has given way to some activity, as this writing and the image making has kept me gently engaged. The sun is shining and it’s warmer outside and my mood is lighter.
From the past bring it forward, and out of the darkness bring back the brightness, and shine as it always has.
✻
LouLou
About the images:
– Black and white photography of scenes and foliage in my back garden, taken after a rain.
– Black and white filter to photographic images of experiments with a huge (~20"x7") Anthurium acaule leaf from St. John, USVI. I gently took the leaf apart along the midrib and veins, painted each section using black acrylic, rolled and tied each section, and let them be for a few days. Then I untied and unrolled them to reveal coiled curls.
– I matched images together through comparison, contrast, and/or inversion.
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