The Liver Jieqi 節氣
Xiaohan 小寒
The first seasonal node that is matched with the Liver, 小寒, starts around January 6th. This can be translated as the “small cold,” or “minor cold.” It is interesting to note the character han, 寒, which can be translated as noun in “cold,” or “needy,” or as a verb as “shiver,” or “ignore.” This character is composed of a double roof, with a human under it, and the radical for ice underneath the human being.
We can see the picture of a seed bursting forth when we look at that character. It is as if the ice is under the seed, with life inside, and then the roof represents the seed casing. This is the season in which the seed is starting to feel the cold, and the sun has come back and is beating down on the roof. We could almost translate this as the “small shiver,” or the “minor shiver,” as the seed is just starting to shiver in the ground.
Dahan 大寒
The second seasonal node that is matched with the Liver starts around January 20th. This can be translated as the “big cold,” or “major cold.” This node is also composed of the character, han, 寒, and with the previous explanation can be thought of as the “big shiver,” or “major shiver.” This is the energy in the life force that is so big, it’s getting ready break the roof off the house.
Cold is about the congealing and confining force, and the picture in the character of han definitely shows a person who has been holed up and sandwiched between the double roof and the cold. Now that this “sandwich” is becoming even more constraining, a healthy amount of anger (the emotion that goes with the Liver) can be used to “shiver” free of the confines.
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