chinese cosmology I: the large intestine

Lung and Large Intestine are both metal elements according to five element theory and both fall within the spring months according to the neijing cosmological organ clock and as such share some general functions.
However, their differences are potent: the lung is represented as the pressurized bow in which the arrow is waiting to be shot. In contrast, the large intestine is the arrow that has left the bow. Lung is represented by the tiger who waits in his cave, demonstrating power through its stillness, ready to pounce at any moment. Large intestine, on the other hand, is the rabbit who bounds endlessly and recreates with abandon.

One of the more palpable analogies we learned about the large intestine was that of a political leader. Lung is the official who stands in the background, ruling with calmness and only exerting force when necessary. Large Intestine is the charismatic dictator who claims equality, claims to be a populist leader, while achieving his objectives by dictatorial means. As with any organ system, there can be a healthy and unhealthy representation; a healthy Large Intestine representation in this analogy might be Jesus or Confucius, whereas the pathological representation is Adolf Hitler, the ultimate dictator.

The theme of “dominance within equality” is captured in other symbolic systems as well; as mentioned the Large Intestine time on the organ clock refers to the 2nd month of spring, the time when the insects come out. Notably, it is the time of the Chinese vernal equinox; the time when the length of the day vs. night are exactly equal. However, the tidal hexagram that corresponds to the large intestine time, hexagram 34, has 4 yang lines underneath 2 yin lines, indicating that the yin yang balance has already been tipped in favor of yang.

Another flavor of large intestine that was emphasized to us highly was its crudeness, its crassness, its bluntness. If there was a company made up of 12 people, each who represented one organ network, the large intestine would be the person who got fed up with the lack of progress of the group. The crudeness is furthermore a corollary to the large intestine’s connection to the material world - “the equation of shit [from the large intestine] and stuff” is not coincidental in this view.