Seasonal Attunement: Rest, Dreams & Qi In Winter

Step into the quiet power of winter with this seasonal reflection rooted in the ancient Tong Shu — the 24 microseasons of Daoist seasonal wisdom.

In this deeply yin moment known as the Great Snow Qi Node, you're invited to slow down, listen inward, and restore your energy from within. Through rest, dreams, and gentle awareness, Bronwyn shares nourishing practices to protect your qi, connect with your ancestors, and align your daily rhythms with nature. Let this offering be a guide back to your body, your instinct, and the stillness that heals.

Transcript

Hello beautiful people!

Today we're going to step into one of the deepest moments of the year in the Taoist seasonal calendar.

It's called the Great Snow Chinoad.

It's this two-week cycle where visions,

Dreams,

And the quiet magic of deep winter rain.

So you may already know about the idea of eating with the seasons or changing our lifestyle in the winter or the summer,

But in the classic Taoist Chinese view there aren't only four seasons but 24 what are called chinos or 24 seasons that are each about two weeks long and have their own flavor or energy and its own influence on our bodies,

Minds,

And spirits,

And also our own capacity to harmonize with the environmental qi to promote health,

Healing,

And happiness.

So the chinoad we're now in or approaching depending on when you're listening is called Great Snow and it's a time when yin is very very full and yang has retreated deep inside.

The image that we use is it's a tiny glowing ember inside of a cave inside of a snowstorm in a very very deep wintry land.

So in this episode we're going to explore what the Great Snow Chinoad actually is,

How yin and yang move through the year,

And why winter dreams matter so much in this tradition.

We'll also look at how this time affects your qi,

Your blood,

Your emotional life,

And even your ancestors.

So at the end hopefully you'll come away with some concrete tools and things you can use to help live in a healthier more balanced way.

In the west we usually divide the seasons into four based on the solstices and the equinoxes.

The equinoxes are when the day and night are equal but it's not when yin and yang are equal.

They're equal in terms of quality but not in quantity.

It takes only a very small amount of yang to make yin balanced.

Usually we need a the longest day,

Winter solstice is the longest night.

And from a Taoist perspective that whole dance is really the story between yin and yang.

When daylight is dominant yang is dominant and when night is more pronounced that's when yin is dominant.

So if we simplify it in the spring yang is rising,

In the summer yang is at its fullest,

In the autumn yang is descending and yin rises and in the winter yin is full and yang is tucked away.

So right now in the great snow qi node we're in full yin territory.

So this means something very important which is that the environment itself is providing plenty of yin.

You don't need to make more yin,

We're literally surrounded by it,

But we do need to protect our yang.

This is the tiny precious ember inside that is keeping us warm,

Alive and able to transform and eventually when spring comes to grow again and sprout up.

So if we don't tend winter well we can fail to sprout in the spring is sort of a simplistic idea or way to think about this.

So this qi node is the time where the shamans ride the backs of dragons and go into their winter retreat and they can encourage their intuition and sight,

Inner sight and knowing and capacity to divine in the spring.

So the winter retreat is a time where they can cultivate that depth of listening to be able to then give wise counsel in the year ahead.

So people would often know if the success of the shaman's retreat based on their capacity to give this counsel later in the year.

So the 2014 yin and yang are much older than formal theories of yin and yang and five elements that often show up in TCM.

They show up in records as far back as 3500 BC and a lot of modern TCM textbooks tell a very neat story like first there's yin and yang and then may birth the five elements and then from there is the 10,

000 things.

But in reality Chinese culture is a woven tapestry of many tribes and lineages and traditions and knowledge evolved and got rearranged and re-edited and the qi nodes are some of the most ancient layers because they come from simply watching nature and listening and also from a series of divinations that were recorded over many generations and then patterns that started to emerge from these divinations.

So they're noticing in this tracking how the wind is changing,

How animals behave,

How the light shifts,

How people's bodies and moods change and the key idea is that we are composed of these qi nodes and during pregnancy the mother is essentially transmitting the qi nodes to the fetus month by month and when we're born we come out the three qi nodes early about three months of this time is unfinished so these missing qi nodes can also create lifelong areas of curiosity or long-term vulnerabilities and these are the edges where we're still learning how to be human.

And in this Taoist tradition that there's instinct as one of the signs of healthy qi so if your qi is sufficient we will feel tired when it's time to sleep,

We wake up when we're rested enough and we have certain foods at certain times of the year and we have the capacity to feel these subtle shifts in weather and light even if we can't necessarily name them out loud but modern life often chains this out of our capacity to sense meaning we use alarms instead of bodies to wake up or instead of the light changing we go to bed exhausted,

We wake up we may not feel rested and sometimes we eat the same foods all year long rather than changing our food based on the climate and we may push productivity even deep in winter time.

So over time this sort of cuts the wires between the environment and our instinct and it makes us less able to follow the environmental qi and adjust our conduct in accordance with the suggestions from nature.

So the idea that is that when we stop responding to nature we become less alive and more ghost-like not in the horror movie kind of way but in an energetic way.

We become tired all the time,

We may feel fuzzy or disembodied or ungrounded and life happens mostly in our heads,

Screens or anxiety loops and maybe our bodies are like an afterthought rather than the primary focus of how to be human.

So in this Daoist cosmology there is this idea that if we live in accordance of these cycles,

These two-week cycles and qi nodes that we have the capacity to nourish our destiny to really live into what it is we came here for by harnessing the environmental qi to create,

To rest,

To nourish,

To allow,

To have insights,

To connect with our ancestors.

But if we use up our life force faster than destiny intended through exhaustion or substance abuse or chronic stress,

Ignoring instinct,

Then we may not really complete our human cycle and we become like a wandering kind of ghost.

So you can be a ghost while you're still alive.

Some symptoms of this might be feeling always drained,

Unable to rest deeply,

Unable to feel at home in your body and unable to really land in your life and what it is that you came here to do.

In winter,

Especially in this great snow qi node,

This ghost-like pattern can either deepen or begin to heal.

So we can harness blessings from the ancestors and our conduct to deeply heal and nourish our yin or we can further deplete ourselves and become a little more of an insomniac,

A little bit more in our heads,

A little bit less able to focus and listen,

A little less able to be in our lives in a way that we find nourishing and that is helpful to other people.

So this is a choice point,

One of the many,

But still a point where we can choose to either harmonize and heal or create more deficiency and more depletion.

So in this framework,

The psyche,

The mind,

We have sort of five spirits we talk of in TCM.

They're the shen,

The zhe,

The yi,

The hun,

And the po.

The shen is the heart spirit.

This is the one most people have heard about.

It's often thought of as the nervous system in the West.

That's sort of like a correlation and it's our capacity to be aware,

To be present,

And for clarity.

And then we have the zhe,

Which is the kidney spirit,

Which is our persistence,

Courage,

Willpower is another way that it's translated.

The yi is our spleen spirit.

This is our capacity to have intention,

Focus,

And thinking.

And the hun,

Which is our liver spirit,

This is imagination,

Dreaming,

Vision,

And direction.

And po,

Which is the lung spirit,

That's the one we just came out of in autumn.

I mean,

It's the ruler of autumn.

It's the body,

Instinct,

Animal,

Self,

And our breath and our capacity to grieve.

So these spirits can either live inside the body or sort of hover slightly outside.

And when we're well nourished and well rested and in sync with our environmental qi,

These spirits become embodied and you feel like yourself most of the time.

When we're chronically deficient,

Then the memory can come and go.

Maybe you only appear focused under pressure.

Happiness shows up as a conditional on certain conditions.

So we know that any two-year-old can be happy when everything's going their way,

But it takes mastery to be happy when things are not going the way that we maybe wanted them to.

It takes mastery to still stay focused on our awakening when things are really hard.

Also,

It can take the same level of focus to stay clear on our intentions.

When things are going our way,

We might forget our spiritual path,

But it's like actually that's the time to really focus and make leaps in our consciousness.

So it might feel if these spirits aren't landed in the body,

It might feel almost like they're orbiting instead of inhabiting us.

And in a clinical setting,

Sometimes it's like if you see a patient almost hovering above the table or their spirits are hovering above them and some of the acupuncture or Reiki or which different modalities can help kind of call these spirits back into the body,

Which is a huge relief for people to feel like landed back in.

But to really rebuild the blood in the continuously,

Food,

Diet,

Nourishment,

And our conduct will have a bigger impact than any one treatment because they're happening continuously throughout our lives all the time.

We're always making choices about how to be in a good way with our bodies.

So winter is all about this,

Giving ourselves the time to regenerate,

To heal,

To be quiet,

To feed the ancestors,

And to be focused on sleep and dreaming.

The herbs can also be very helpful and deep nourishment to rebuild the blood and the cheese to the spirits can actually want to come and stay home.

It's like giving the spirits a beautiful,

Quiet,

Still,

Well-fed place to come back to.

So this tiny ember that we're speaking of glowing inside of a cave in the winter storm,

This ember is your yang.

So this is the warmth,

The courage,

The metabolism,

A capacity to act,

Change,

Create,

Love,

And move.

And the storm around that is yin,

It's stillness,

Nourishment,

Protection,

Darkness,

Quiet.

In great snow,

Qi node,

Yin is abundant and yang is very small and precious.

So the key teachings are do not force yang out.

This is not the time to push,

To detox,

To purge,

To do extreme workouts.

If we drive yang to the surface at this time with too much activity,

Stress,

Or stimulation,

We can seriously deplete ourselves.

A counsel is to let yin nourish yang.

So this is the moment where stillness,

Sleep,

Warm food,

Gentle practice can restore our internal battery more than any supplement ever could.

So,

You know,

We often have a tendency to want to just take something to nourish ourselves rather than changing and adjusting our conduct to be in alignment with these seasonal cycles.

The greatest capacity for restoration is around 11 o'clock p.

M.

That's when the qi node is at its peak.

And sleep and dreams are medicine at this time.

It's said that sleep can cure a thousand illnesses and dreaming can cure a thousand more.

So if you're sleeping,

The deeper structures of our system start to reveal themselves through dreams.

So one very simple and rather radical,

In some circles,

Winter practice is to simply go to bed early.

Let yourself sink into the yin.

Allow the ember to be wrapped,

Held,

And supported of that tiny piece of yang inside of you.

And the regularity of our sleep is as important,

If not more important,

As the quantity of sleep that we're getting.

So finding a way to get to sleep around the same time each evening and waking up at the same time each morning is very healthy for the quality of our sleep.

So in the Tang Dynasty,

Which is about 600 AD,

Doctors would heavily inquire about their patients' dreams in winter.

Why?

Because when the yin is so deep and yang is so inward,

The hun spirit,

That of the liver,

Our dreamer and visionary,

Has a direct line to the body,

So it can send messages,

Images,

Warnings,

And blessings through the dream space.

So some traditional interpretations of dreams is,

For example,

If you find yourself walking through ruins or broken buildings or abandoned architecture,

It could be a chronic deficiency because architecture represents the body.

If you're wandering through ruins all winter long,

Your system may be deeply depleted.

If you find yourself looking for a new apartment all the time in your dreamland or a new place to live,

It could be a sense of instability or searching for a home in your own body or life.

If you have the great dream of meeting your ancestors,

People that have passed,

It could be that the ancestors are checking in,

Possibly to bless,

Advise,

Or reorient you.

It's important to bring your dream journal by your bed,

Recounting your dreams,

Writing them down,

Contemplating them,

Letting them work you,

Maybe painting a picture,

An image from your dream.

Our psyche is building a symbolic language throughout our life,

And when we honor our dreams by remembering them or intending or working with them,

We allow the language of the night to speak to our daylight consciousness.

So winter is the season of re-evaluation.

What is truly valuable to me right now?

What am I done with?

What do I need to protect?

Who wants to be born in the spring?

And dreams can help answer these questions.

One practice,

If you're having trouble remembering your dreams,

Is you can before sleep saying,

I welcome the dreams that serve my healing and clarity.

And when you wake up,

Write down even fragments,

Even small fragments.

No need to enforce forced interpretation,

But we're just bridging this dream realm,

The realm between the unconscious to the conscious.

This is the time when our blood,

This part of the year,

Is thickest and deepest,

And circulation naturally slows down.

So winter is asking for a very specific kind of nourishment.

It's asking for long,

Deeply nourishing,

Slow-cooked foods.

So those light,

Crispy,

Yummy spring sprouty salads will not have enough capacity to nourish our yin at this time.

They're fine as a way to brighten the plate,

But as a main food,

They won't really allow the yin to be nourished substantially.

So think stews,

Soups,

Slow-cooked bone broths,

Congees,

Root vegetables,

This kind of way of deeply,

Deeply cooking so that you can allow that depth of yang and nourishment to come out of the food.

Dried mushrooms cooked for a long time can be very beneficial.

Both contain a kind of hidden yang,

A deep vitality that only releases when it's cooked for this long time.

And this subtle yang can penetrate all 12 meridians.

It's very,

Very,

Very nourishing and can keep that inner ember warm.

You don't have to eat meat if you prefer not to,

Of course,

But the warm,

Slow-cooked foods still are very beneficial.

Let the meals be simple but deeply satisfying.

So if you're taking herbs or receiving medical treatments or allopathic or,

You know,

Chinese treatments,

Your diet can either support these herbs or sabotage them.

So winter is a powerful time to support your treatments by bringing in food,

Herbs,

And rest into alignment.

Another layer of the great snow,

Qi note,

Is the ancestral dimensions.

In many nomadic and shamanic cultures of Central Asia and Mongolia,

Winter is a time when the dead come closer,

Where ghosts wander about looking for home and some shamans will spend an entire day working to full-time helping them to return to their lineages.

The idea is that the dead are not spooky or somehow anything promoted by Hollywood,

But they're a part of the ecology some are confused,

Some are peaceful,

Some are protective,

Some are mischievous.

So family gatherings where we share food and fire and stories are a powerful way of calling our ancestors home.

They invite blessings,

They prevent disturbances,

And they realign the living with the dead.

So I think it can be very helpful to research the ancestors and know at what era,

What century,

If you have the great benefit of being able to track down,

Not everybody can because of all the horrible things that have happened in humanity with slavery and the rest of it,

But if you're able to track as much as you can of your ancestry and know at what era people lived in different places,

What centuries,

Research what food they ate at that time,

What food were they eating in Ghana in the 1900s or Scotland in the 1700s or the Vikings in the 1200s and make foods like this if you're able to conjure up ancestral dishes as a way to honor these ancestors and invite in their blessings.

It's a potent,

Potent way to realign with these lineages.

Imagine the difference between a simple,

Soft winter gathering with candle and firelight and warmth and presence and family and food versus a house blazing with artificial lights and screens and noise.

It's like night and day difference between the capacity to nourish at this time or the capacity to set the house on fire.

So you can feel how one is more conducive to this thin veil listening and another just adds to the scattering of the environmental chi.

On great snow,

This chi node,

You might consider lighting a candle for your ancestors,

Speaking their names,

Thanking them for what they've passed down,

Asking for guidance in your winter dreaming and bringing them offerings of flowers and fruit and these ancestral meals,

Ancestral songs.

You don't have to believe in anything specific.

It's more about making a space for continuity and for all the life that came before you and all the life that will come after you.

Let's take a breath together.

Let's take a moment to tune into this image of the hearth lit,

The lights low,

Warm cooked broths and stews on the stove,

A family gathering of the inner circle where we share songs and stories and memories,

Soft music,

Deep connected listening,

Going to that early dreaming and inviting in omens and visions,

Waking rested,

Creating spaciousness in our days to listen and respond.

Lots of yin yoga and gentle stretching,

Hot baths,

Deep rest.

Wishing you all well during this deep season of yin.

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