ABCs of TCM:  Yin and Yang

"If you can understand Yin and Yang you can hold the universe in your hands."  This is the power and pervasiveness ancient traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) texts invested in these two universal energies.  Everything is composed of Yin and Yang.  A part of natural law, they are two opposite yet complementary energies, never separate, always interdependent.  This interpenetrating, inseparable relationship is reflected in the circular Yin-Yang symbol.  The small dots within each of the two energies symbolize that there is always some Yin within Yang and vice versa.  Nothing is absolute—the designation of something as Yin or Yang is always relative to some other thing.  For example, day is considered Yang, yet within every day is a Yang part—the early morning, and a Yin part—late day as it begins to turn to night.  There is a dynamic dance between Yin and Yang:  they constantly turn from one to the other and back again.  Nothing about them is static. In the natural world this phenomenon is seen in the changing of the seasons:  the cold of winter yields to the warmth of spring and summer heat and then gradually turns cool in fall to become winter once again.  The theory of Yin and Yang is fundamental to the practice of TCM in terms of understanding, diagnosing, and treating health difficulties.