The Heart Jieqi 節氣
Mángzhòng 芒種
The seasonal node of 芒種 begins on June 6th. During the fourth month, the time of the spleen, the grains were becoming full. Now they are growing beards. It is only when the grains have grown beards that they are harvested to feed humans. According to George Wilder, the character, se, 嗇, is a picture of bearded grains above a storehouse. The modern day usage of this word is “stingy” or “miserly.” It’s almost as if the bearded grains are true treasures and that a healthy heart can cut down it’s own treasures and spread them out to feed the people. An unhealthy heart (or emperor) feels the need to take the treasures and put them away in a storehouse where no one can get them. This is reminiscent of the fairytale, “One grain of rice.” The emperor who is truly a heart, or ruled by the energy of the heart, will not be stingy with anything.
Xiàzhì 夏至
The second seasonal node begins on June 21st. It literally means, “summer solstice.” Zhi, 至, is a picture of an arrow hitting it’s target. When compared with the earthly branch for the lung, which is a picture of a bow string being pulled back, we can see here that the season has now reached it’s target and is ready to turn back around. This corresponds with the hexagram and the idea that the yin energy is sneaking back in. This could be thought of as the energy that will pluck the arrow from the target so that it can be walked back to the bow line.
The heart is charged with an awareness of how to let the arrow fly so that it hits the target, as well as the awareness that the target is no more important than any piece of the arrow’s journey in getting there.
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