Time feels obvious—until it doesn’t. Winter landscape with night sky We divide our days neatly into hours, minutes, and seconds. Calendars align our work, our rest, our rituals. Yet at certain moments of the year—most noticeably around the Winter Solstice—something feels subtly out of sync. The light does not behave as the clock suggests it should. Sunrise and sunset refuse to align with our expectations. The shortest day arrives, yet the timing of darkness seems strangely di

The Year of the Fire Horse (丙午 · Bing Wu) As the Gregorian calendar turns to 2026 , many people naturally speak of a “new year”. From a Chinese cosmological and medical perspective, however, the true energetic year of the Fire Horse begins on 4 February 2026 , with Li Chun (立春) — the solar term marking the beginning of spring. It is at this point, calculated by the position of the Sun rather than the Moon , that the atmospheric and physiological influences of the new year c

A Classical Chinese Perspective Beyond One Hundred Years: What the Chinese Classics Actually Say Longevity has moved from the fringes into serious scientific debate. Researchers now openly discuss whether 120, 130, or even 150 years may represent a realistic upper limit of the human lifespan under optimal conditions. Traditional Chinese pagoda at night reflecting classical perspectives on longevity and time For Chinese medicine, this raises a familiar but often misunderstood

In Chinese Medicine (CM), few relationships are as fundamental—or as frequently misunderstood—as the relationship between Blood (血, Xue) and Qi (氣) .Classical physicians expressed this relationship with remarkable clarity, yet modern translations often dilute or distort its meaning. Nei Jing Tu To understand it properly, we must recognise that Blood and Qi in CM are functional realities , not anatomical structures or biochemical measurements. Blood in Chinese Medicine Is Not