Nourishing our Deepest Energy: The Water Element

As we move into our third year together as a Qigong community I’m thinking about the ancient Chinese pictograph for winter. It shows an upside-down bottle encasing the sun, holding its warmth within. It represents storage, the way nature draws inward and goes into hibernation during the colder months, conserving its resources. In winter we can follow nature’s lead and pull back from over- activity and the addiction of “too- busyness”. Physically, we can nourish our deepest energy by focusing on the water element, which includes the kidneys, bladder, bones, fluids, and brain. The kidneys are the batteries of the energy system; they hold not only the “yuan qi” which we inherit from our parents, but also the “jing qi” or the reserve energy which we cultivate to keep us strong and healthy. Perhaps most beautifully, the kidneys also support our energy to be trusting and tranquil. The transformative and cleansing exercises we do help us let go of fear and remind us that we have a deeper, more powerful energy within us, the skill of flowing like water: pliable and soft, yet over time capable of eroding even hard stone.