Chinese North
Body as Map
The parts of the body associated with the north are bones, ear, kidney, bladder and skin. Oracles bones were a favored divination device in ancient China and their association with the north relates to ancestors. Since ancestors resided in the ‘beyond’ it was believed they could influence the future. More recently, Chinese medicine and its acupuncture practices consider the ear as a microcosm of the human embryo, and in these practices water energies invoke the kidney and bladder. Drums were part of communicating invisibly, since most people do not ‘see’ sounds, but rather hear them. Stretched skin as a membrane for percussion is a common practice, so it is not surprising that drums and hearing are both associated with the north. Furthermore, the skin is the organ through which perspiration (salt water) exits the body and serves as a parallel to the shell of the tortoise as the human ‘covering.’ Thus, salt water, kidneys and hearing are easily seen as part of the same cognitive map of the north.
Animals
Animals associated with the north include the tortoise, the rat and animals with cloven hooves. The original animal of the north was the Tortoise. Used in divination, its shell came to be associated with: communication from ancestors and other spirit energy; old age (the animal lives a long time) and protection (shells are a kind of armor). Since one usually followed the ‘career’ of the ancestor, this northern association, too, is traceable to the ancestor affiliation of the tortoise. In addition to the tortoise, the rat, which is the first of the twelve animals in the Chinese lunar zodiac, is also associated with the north. The Chinese New Year always begins with the rat moon and there are ways to account for this primacy position of the rat, from the western idea of ‘the rat deserts the ship first’ to Buddhist tales where the rat ‘cuts in’ to the front of the line to be selected by the Buddha first. By way of proximity, animals with cloven hooves are suggested, too, since the boar and ox are in the NW and NE respectively. Furthermore, the Chinese zodiac shows the sheep in the southwest, which is the later heaven terminus point of the earth energy that originates in the north in the early heaven.
ELEMENTS
Earth and water, the elements of the north, are derived from the trigrams kun (earth) and kan (water. The relationship between earth and water is called by several names, such as destructive, controlling, yin, spatial, simultaneous. It is called destructive cycle because earth swallows water in the Chinese element cycle. This particular phase of the destructive cycle is reversible. Indeed, we often access ground water by bringing it up via wells to drink it, feed it to plants and animals, etc. Water in the earth is rather like money in the bank, i.e., stored, but hopefully available if needed in the future. Since northern water in the later heaven comes after (to some extent replaces) the earth of the earlier heaven, the cycle is continuous.
MAPS
Early Heaven Map is spatial and yin
Northern shape is square, color is yellow ochre. Yellow ochre is the color of the earth and comes from the trigram kun, which means earth/mother/wife and is the resident of the north in the early heaven.
Show map of early heaven, then image of trigram kun.
Later Heaven Map is temporal and yang
Northern shapes are crescent and irregular ribbon/river, color is black. Dark, deep water comes from the trigram kan, which means deep water/middle son/minister. Kan is the resident of the north in the later heaven.
See Image of “Map of later heaven” in gallery elsewhere on the site. See also, image of trigram kan.
