The blue sky in this picture is yin compared to the browns, blacks, and yellows of the road, which are yang. The greens in the plants are yin compared to the browns in the building.
As a seed of grass germinates in the brown dirt, it begins as yang and slowly changes to yin as it grows up. At the end of its cycle, when the grass has grown up green and tall and then flowered and gone to seed, it dies in its most-yin state, and the seeds that it produced will then each start a new cycle over again. This is how life perpetuates itself, by producing more seeds than it started with.
Yang is at the bottom.
Yin is at the top.
Vertical movement is yin; horizontal movement is yang.
Chapter 9, Yin-Yang Theory, begins on page 110 of Zen Macrobiotics by George Ohsawa by listing some of the categories for classifying what is yin and what is yang. We can use this information to classify anything else.
For example, how would I classify a pumpkin compared to an apple in terms of yin and yang? And what can I do with that information?
A pumpkin is more yang than an apple because it grows horizontally on the ground, rather than vertically on an apple tree.
One pumpkin might be more yang than another pumpkin because it's smaller, rounder, heavier, and more orange — or it may be more yin because it's bigger, taller, and white.
I can eat more pumpkins more often than apples and still be in balance during the cold winter months (especially after I've cooked them), unless I'm sick with the flu, in which case, I would avoid both. Incidentally, I can only hope that I never get sick with the flu again as my understanding of macrobiotics becomes better and better. I know now that eating sugar, which is extremely yin, would make me very vulnerable to the flu bugs, especially during the cold, yin winter months.
One of these days, I'll write a page of yin and yang categories...
Related Blog Articles:
The Colors Of Yin And Yang
The Acid And Alkaline Dimension of Food, Part 1
What is "Macrobiotics"?
Peanut Butter — My Oldest Most Favorite Food
