On Being the First day of Spring, an Extra Big Full Moon, and How it Relates to Liver and Gallbladder, Wood and Yang, Vision and Purpose, Sour and Bitter

Usually I awake in a cheerful mood, relaxed, light, clear headed. Today I didn’t.  I woke up feeling a bit tight, and I felt as if I was swollen – not painful, but uncomfortable, as if I had suddenly become too big for my skin. Morning conversation with Kellie (my partner) started as it does most days, with light banter and playfulness. Then at one point for no apparent reason I became frustrated, the focus of it being work and feeling stymied by the learning curve associated with computer technology. Over the course of what seemed like a few sentences, the frustration consumed me, and I felt like everything in my life was an obstacle course not of my choosing and impossible to navigate. In a calm tone, Kellie tried to be a voice of reason, offering sound, rational, constructive suggestions, but I would have none of it. I was overcome with belligerence and felt full of bile, focused primarily toward myself and technology.  At one point Kellie realized any intervention was futile, and backed off. Shortly after that, my “observer” was able to gain some perspective, and I saw both the power and absurdity of my thoughts and feelings, as if I had been temporarily possessed by an ill wind.   

Later the same day I was involved in a practice session for a form of trauma therapy called Somatic Experiencing. I volunteered to be a client, as I was truly being challenged and activated by . . . something. During the 20-minute session, I was skillfully led to watch and feel the physical and physiological sensations in me rather than focus primarily on the emotions, and the stories I had attached to them.  The practicing therapist noticed how big and red my hands looked. Ham hocks, he called them.  I commented on the discomfort across my brow, the heat rising like swelling lava into my head and down my arms. I wanted to gnash and snarl and rip and tear at something. As I followed the shifting physical sensations of temperature and pressure in my body, I gradually cooled off and calmed down, and with it I felt returning my first bit of peace and perspective.   

This is what came to me. I have been saying for a long time that I am a “slave to the cosmos.” By that I mean my life flows easily when I abide by Natural Law, and it stumbles and spins when I don’t. Being aware of it is the first step.  When I am not abiding by it, I suffer. When I do, then it just is, and I adapt accordingly. Today, I experienced something, and it felt like suffering until I remembered where and when and who I was: By Chinese standards, I am man with a strong Yang nature and governed and influenced strongly by Wood and Fire. By traditional Western standards, I am a blend of Choleric and Sanguine temperaments.  I know that my liver and gallbladder can be easily challenged. And today is not only the first day of spring (the season of Wood), not only the first day of Aries (cardinal Fire), but also a full moon (an expression of full Yang), and a larger-than-usual full moon to boot. Spring marks the emergence of strong surges of Yang energy – outward, upward and forward movement.  It is a time when sap is rising in plants and blood is rising in animals.  In Chinese medicine, Native American  medicine systems of the Northeast, and traditional Western medicine, spring is liver and gallbladder time. Because my constitutional nature and temperament coincides with the season of spring, there is a tendency for its correlating energies to be amplified in me.

Emotions and energies associated with a balanced, harmonious Liver-Gallbladder -- especially when accompanied by conscious awareness of these rhythms and shifts in behavior and diet to better ride rather these rhythms -- include ambition, healthy aggression, focus and drive, clarity, purposeful vision, coordinated physical movement.  When the liver and gallbladder are not balanced and harmonious, and/or when the person is not adjusting his or her behavior to match seasonal transitions, different emotions and energies are apt to arise, including anger, resentment, frustration that disrupts focus and obscures goals and visions, volatility, restlessness and agitation, heat rising toward the head and outward to the extremities of the upper limbs, potential rise in blood pressure.

Many of us are inclined to forget that thoughts and emotions are intimately connected to organs and energy. Today I forgot, and the emotions of frustration and anger and the thoughts and stories connected to them consumed me. When I remembered who and where and when I was – in this present moment – I saw and directly experienced the cyclical nature of thoughts to emotions to physicality. Negative attachment to my feelings and emotions was replaced by awareness that this is spring Wood energy rising in me, like sap. Because I was caught off guard, this energy turned into something we deem negative.  Once I became aware, it turned back into neutral energy running through me, and I gained the perspective I needed. And I remember that I need to honor the season by doing what I need to do to live in rhythm with the planet: take care of my liver and gallbladder.

I returned to my apothecary and made a cooling, cleaning, relaxing formula to help my liver and gallbladder. And I have shifted my diet to become leaner and cleaner, focusing on tastes of sour and bitter, such as spring-gathered bitter greens, raw or steamed, perhaps lightly sauteed, with a squeeze of lemon or lime. Sour and bitter foods and herbs are cooling by nature, something I need. Sour is toning, bitter is calming. Sour and bitter are tastes that benefit the liver, gallbladder and digestion, heart, vessels and blood. I'm going to enjoy 1 to 2 cups of hibiscus tea a day for the first six weeks of spring, reassessing where I am at the cross quarter, May 1.

Now I have a different take on the belligerent frustration that consumed me this morning. I see it as a herald of spring, reminding me to wake up and pay attention, just like a rooster call heralds the dawn.  And I thank it. Thanking it also improves my treatment of myself, and I am reminded to be kind to myself, and to congratulate myself that I heeded the signs as quickly as I did.  

 
Welcome to Spring!