Qi Dynamics in Nature: Heavenly and Earthly Qi (天地氣)

Ancient agricultural people, immersed fully in the natural world, watched as the seasons and the movements of the planets unfolded into predictable patterns which could be observed in the environment and experienced in their bodies. They sought to understand the workings of the universe in its entirety, including the seen and unseen. From the observations of the changing world and its effects on the human being, the central ideas that would become known as the correlative correspondences, which are thought to provide the defining ideological basis for East Asian medical theory, were born. Some would say that yin-yang or five-phase theory, or even the Yìjíng 易經 (Lifang & Garvey, 2008), provides the theoretical framework for the medicine, but the basis for East Asian Medicine is energetic movement patterns—patterns that were symbolically represented as early as the Neolithic age. All of the other theories could not have arisen without thoroughly understanding these patterns first. As adeptly described by Nèijīng scholar, Edward Neal, “the forms in nature are not important in and of themselves, but they are important because of the energy patterns that move through them.” (Neal, 2018)

Watching the sun in the sky (口 + 一 = 日) and planting seeds in the soil (口 +丨= 中)

Heavenly qi can be simplified to expansive movement, which in its absence, results in the opposite, contraction. Expansion is associated with the light of the sun and the way that light radiates from it and produces similar radial patterns in nature. The character for the sun, 日 rì, has a horizontal line in the center (一 yī), a symbol of a relative position in space (horizontal lines are used in Chinese characters to refer to the relative positions of the three levels of the heavens, humanity and earth (天人地 tiān-rén-dì). In this case, 一 refers to the daily east-west transit of the sun as it moves across the space of the sky, represented by 口 kǒu, a character that is used to represent any space, such as an outlined area of earth in a field, the undivided space that surrounds the manifest things of the world, a mouth, or a vessel that holds things. The sun has been the focus for humanity since the dawn of time, it is only because of the sun that the manifest things of the world can be apprehended at all. The presence or absence of sunlight is the basis for life on the planet, and by watching the way that the sun affects the environment and living things allows one to arrive at the movement patterns that became differentiated as heavenly and earthly qi.

Earthly qi is associated with the motion of rising, and the absence of which results in the oppositional movement of descending. Earthly qi is symbolized by the vertical line,丨, as in the character, 中 zhōng, for which the meanings are middle, center, and interior—all yin-earth correlations. The earliest depiction of 中 is the image of a flag in the middle of a pole, with streamers tied at the upper and lower ends (Figure 1). Thus, the ascending-descending motion of Earthly qi is exemplified by something moving between opposite ends of a pole or axis.

Image of 中 zhōng

Manifestations of heavenly and earthly qi (丨 + 一 = 十)

From at least 8,000 years ago, during the Neolithic era, millet farming was relatively advanced in north China, with the origin of agriculture being even earlier (Yan Wenming in Chang et al., 2005). For this reason, the characters used in relation to the energetic movement patterns of the heavens and earth, are most often pictures of plants, things in nature and the activities of daily living. By observing plants, the interaction of the two oppositional forces of heavenly and earthly qi were further refined and conceptualized.

“In the life cycle of most plants, there is the movement from the core seed stage to sprouting in springtime, to leaves and flowers in summer, to fruition in late summer and early autumn, and to decay or death in late autumn and winter, returning back to the original seed state. All living beings, whether plant or animal, follow similar patterns of growth, fruition, and decay. Chinese medicine is based on observation of these life cycles and their associated transformations. The human being is seen as a microcosm and reflection of the greater dynamics of nature.” (Rosenberg et al., 2018)

Heavenly qi (yang 一)

Heavenly qi is seen in nature in clouds that accumulate together and then swirl outward outward in the sky, flowers that expand from a bud into a blossom and contract back into a dead bloom, and in the way that plant foliage expands outward from the trunk and branches of deciduous plants in the spring and summer and then contract back toward the axial parts of the plant in the fall and winter with the falling of leaves.

Earthly qi (yin丨)

Again, earthly qi refers to the yin energetic movement pattern of ascending, which in its absence, results in descending, and is symbolized by the vertical line,丨. Earthly qi is seen in nature as mist that rises from the earth to form clouds and then descends down to the earth as rain, as seeds that sprout up as plants from the invisible mouths and wombs in the earth and then descend back into the soil (as seen in 种 zhǒng, meaning to plant a seed), and in way that the stem and roots rise up and descend down from the center of a plant embryo.

Next Article: Observable Patterns in Nature: The Seasons

References

Chang, K., Xu, P., Lu, L., & Allan, S. (2005). The formation of Chinese civilization: An archaeological perspective. Yale University Press.

Lifang, Q., & Garvey, M. (2008). Chinese medicine and the Yi Jing’s epistemic methodology. Australian Journal of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, 3(1), 17–23.

Neal, E. (2018). Neijing studies.

Rosenberg, Z., Schrier, D., Wilms, S., & Rose, K. (2018). Returning to the source: Han Dynasty medical classics in clinical practice. Singing Dragon.

Sears, R. (2022). Chinese etymology. https://hanziyuan.net/#about

The pictograph images of the older Chinese characters are from Richard Sears' work at Chinese Etymology. Please consider donating to help support his research.

Citation

Juniper, Evren. “Qi Dynamics in Nature: Heavenly and Earthly Qi (天地氣).” Universal Qi, 2022, https://www.universalqi.org/post/heavenly-and-earthly-qi-天地氣.

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