by Shawn Kirby L.Ac.

I stepped from my front door this morning to a wondrous sight. Last night when I arrived home I noticed that the little ash tree that grows near our front door had begun to turn. This morning it had changed into a shade of gold so beautiful that the English language cannot sufficiently describe it. Dozens of its leaves now covered the ground beneath, creating a carpet of sparkling jewels standing out in relief against the dark surface of wet asphalt. The horizon beyond had changed as well. Whereas yesterday there had been a clear demarcation between the mountain we live at the base of and that beautiful blue sky that one can only see in Colorado near the equinox, today I saw the mountain trail that I hike with my dog disappear into a mist. It struck me that the particular beauty of this precise moment in time would most likely not last the morning – and that it was precisely the impermanence of this moment in time that made it so beautiful.

Autumn is the time of the metal element and of the Po. It is said that there are five “souls” in the human body, one for each of the five Zang organs. The Po, which belongs to the lung, is said to be the corporeal soul, the only one of the five which does not survive physical death. Because of this, the lung/Po is said to govern the emotion of grief. Personally I think that simple grief, the powerful yet selfish emotion that comes from loss, is too limiting to truly understand what is implied. The Japanese have a special, poetical term that better fits the bill, called “yugen.” Yugen is often described as the emotion experienced when watching a flock of geese fly into a mist, never to reappear.

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Virtually all of my mentors have told me that, while the “spirits of the organs” are fun and poetic, they are of no real value in the practical everyday world of the clinic. While I have found this to be true in my practice of herbs and acupuncture, I do not entirely agree that they are of no value. Poetry, after all, can be powerful medicine.

Whether or not you “believe” in these spirits, I can guarantee you this - in all the lifetimes that you may have lived and may yet live, in all the parallel universes or bardos or what have you, there will never be another lifetime, another day, or even another moment like this one. Recognizing the transcendent beauty in the reality of impermanence is a tonic that can benefit anyone.

And so I leave you on this misty autumn morning, at the base of a cold mountain, with my favorite poem.

Searching for the Hermit in Vain

I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said, "The master's gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown."

Chia Tao (777-841)
Trans. Lin Yutang