Four Images, Five Phases, and the Rhythm of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter

Following the motion of the Taiji spiral, different circular movements can each be divided into their own Four Images.

We therefore do not need to be bound by a culturally fixed assumption that Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter can exist only on the annual scale of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. A reading closer to the underlying logic is that the four phase intervals of a fractal Taiji-like cycle can each be called Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

A day can therefore have its own Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and so can a month.

The “image” (xiang) in the Four Images can be understood simply as the perceptible appearance that recurs whenever a system enters the same phase interval across different cycles. If these are divided coarsely into four classes, they become four kinds of manifest phenomena. Temperature, landscape color, and even—according to the traditional framework—the scents sensed by particularly sensitive people or the “sounds of Heaven and Earth” may all show distinctions corresponding to the Four Images.

All things are therefore affected by the changing conditions of different Taiji-like cycles at different phases and may display collective behavior without conscious intention. For example, the Spacetime section discusses the four lunar phases and associates the full moon with a “Fire image,” describing increased sexual drive, violent tendency, or emotional elevation as possible manifestations.

Comparing this with the middle portion of Chen Dingsan’s “Diagrammatic Exploration of Origins” in Exploring the Sources of Medicine makes the intended pattern easier to see.

Diagrammatic Exploration of Origins

Wood, Fire, Metal, and Water are called the Four Images. Once the Four Images are distinguished, the Eight Trigrams are implicit within them. In the positions of Heaven and Earth, the East is warm, the South hot, the West cool, and the North cold. The Four Images revolve and complete one cycle in a year. Yang rises during the first half of the year and Yin descends during the latter half. Half-risen Yang is Spring; fully risen Yang is Summer. Half-descended Yin is Autumn; fully descended Yin is Winter. Spring gives birth and Summer promotes growth—these are the qi of Wood and Fire—so Spring is warm and Summer hot. Autumn gathers and Winter stores—these are the qi of Metal and Water—so Autumn is cool and Winter cold.