Chinese Organ Networks: Large Intestine

^A youthful Ahh-nolt showing off his Large Intestine channel^

The main themes of the Large Intestine are relatively straightforward.  Take the associated time of day: 5-7 A.M.  This is when two things happen: the sun rises (reliably), and we get up and take a crap (ideally).  So you'll know what I mean when I say this organ is about manifestation in the material world.  The concept is about as subtle as a blazing orb appearing in the sky, or a pile of dung steaming in the morning light.

In the last position, that of the Lung, a sort of tense equilibrium reigned.  Yin and yang were in dynamic balance, and their interaction gave rise to a kind of pressure.  The spring of Spring was loaded, but not yet sprung.  Well, with the Large Intestine's move into manifestation, it springs.  Plants pop of the ground, leaves burst forth from buds, and bunnies (the Large Intestine animal) tumble out of hats.  And do the other thing that bunnies are famous for, thereby creating--more bunnies.  Material manifestation.

                                                Hexagram 34, Thunder over Heaven  >>

Though we tend to take it for franted, the Large Intestine's function is an essential one.  A couple days of constipation are enough to remind us: it's important to get rid of waste.  This holds true on various levels; having lived in Kathmandu during garbage collection strikes, I can attest that there's no faster way to shut down the normal working of a city and make it downright unlivable than to stop taking out the trash.

  << Portrait of a badly constipated city

Despite the seemingly lowly nature of this job, it's one to be held in high esteem.  The great ancient text of Chinese Medicine, the Huang Di Nei Jing, credits the Large Intestine with 'Conducting the Dao,' or 'Showing the Way.'  The Dao is the great ineffable, transcendent concept of ancient Chinese philosophy; of all the organs to be associated with the Dao, our feces-forming colon is perhaps not the first to come to mind.  I am still somewhat baffled by the Nei Jing's statement.  But perhaps a hint comes from the L.I.'s classification as a metal organ--metal being the phase element associated with purity and cleanliness.  This is the organ that can handle the waste and remain pure, that can roll up its sleeves and dive deep into the vicissitudes of the material world and come up sparkling clean.  The lesson of the Large Intestine may be about how to be "in the world but not of it."

In order to accomplish its all-important mission of taking out the trash, the Large Intestine has one major strategy, and one secondary one.  The major one is: push!  And the other: let go.  It's a decisive movement, this pushing and releasing--no pussyfooting around.  This is strong, directed action.  And it is characteristic of that Large Intestine archetype, the dictator.  A dictator is unafraid to show the way (to conduct the Dao, in the best case scenario) and use his Large Intestine channel index finger to point it out.  And he doesn't shy away from letting go of waste, either.  Indeed, it takes a bit of an asshole to make an effective dictator.  Nice, polite guys wouldn't get the job done.

Now it's an interesting congruence that Mao's symbol was the rising sun.  Gregory Sax's interpretation here is that Mao was a pathological force insofar as he was unwilling to let go of that moment of power.  A healthy L.I. moves beyond dictating the way forward; it releases and allows the qi to flow to the next organ, the Stomach.  To keep pushing without letting go is not a happy solution.  And what better illustration of this megalomaniacal constipation than the Three Gorges Dam project.  This brainchild of the Chairman's aimed to dictate the course of the Yangzi river, which was associated classically with the Large Intestine.  To the horror of environmental groups worldwide, in 2006 this world's largest dam across the biggest river in Asia was completed so that there might be "enough power to keep the lights on...forever."  This is Large Intestine thinking run amok, and China now risks a potentially fatal case of constipation.  Death, after all, begins in the colon.  It did for the Yangzi river dolphin, a "functionally extinct" species that once graced China's great Large Intestine channel like a majestic parasitic worm.

                                                                      ^ Farewell, sweet prince!

Finally, as an avid student of herbalism, I can't help but wonder if the Chinese herb Da Huang ("big yellow"), Turkey Rhubarb root, could have cured Mao of some of his pathological tendencies.  This is the major, formula-heading herb used classically for pathologies of the Yang Ming channel (Stomach and Large Intestine).  It is a laxative herb that drains heat and excess down and out.  In doing so it is said to clear out the old and generate the new.  But--and here's the beauty of classical Chinese thinking--Da Huang's use isn't limited to cases of constipation or heat build-up.  It is also indicated for certain kinds of delusional psychosis.  It may be that Mao, obsessed with the rising sun, the power of"light forever," and even swimming in the mighty, roiling Yangzi river, could have been prompted to let go of some of these ultimately destructive notions.  It may be that, as living Large Intestine archetype, Mao just needed to take a good shit.