yin, yang, and a fire horse year check-in on summer solstice

I taught this class yesterday, on summer solstice, during the hottest month of the hottest year according to ancient Chinese cosmologists. Are you exhausted? Does time feel like it’s slipping through your hands like fine silk? This episode is an energetic reset for you, for the days are long but the years are short, and we best be awake to it all.If you’re new here, start with an earlier essay I wrote “A Beginner’s Guide to Chinese Astrology Through The Lens of Daoism.”Timestamps00:00 embodying yin and yang using the breath08:08 yin and yang theory (refer to image below)12:44 re-introducing the fire horse year17:19 prompt 119:10 fire horse year check-in20:45 prompt 222:38 “the cost of anything is the amount of life force you exchange for it”23:19 closing meditation & readingReflective Writing Prompts*  Where in your life have you reached maximum yang and yin is begging to be integrated? And where have you bottomed out with yin in your life and action and visibility is being asked of you? How can you be more in alignment?*  Reflect on how you can build more yin energy into your life, and what resistance/blockages you have towards doing so. Further reading* The yin and yang theory from this class forms the basis of the ancient Chinese divination text, I Ching, or the Book of Changes, which posits that every situation in your life maps to a certain yin-yang configuration of six lines, called hexagrams. It’s from the I Ching that Daoist thinking was borne – this is your sign to get a copy and learn how to do a reading.* The reading at the end of the session is from Good Company, an anthology of answers to all kinds of questions by H.H Shantanand Saraswati. Profound insights in simple language; it sits on my altar like a bible. Here’s the quote I read out:Q: “ It seems obvious that there is a world of consciousness as well as a world of movement. One wonders why it takes so long to discover it when it is so obvious that in a world of consciousness there is stillness and one cannot be moved.”H.H: “Birds have two wings by nature, and it is the interplay of both the wings which allows them to fly high in the sky. If one of the wings is cut off or put out of action, then the bird is forced to stay on the earth and it cannot fly anymore. Similarly, there are two wings of our existence there — the material and the spiritual. Somehow, people seem to prefer the use of one wing only and either cling on to the material wing or the spiritual wing. Since both are naturally necessary, there is much strife in search of bliss. Unless people do realise the need to use both wings and refrain from being partial, they will be deprived of the freedom and bliss which all seek Unless this truth is realised, the work cannot pick up speed nor can the flight into the spiritual world materialise.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yunshu.substack.com