Aggression and Efficacy
The Tiger in Chinese astrology rules the month when yang energy is becoming activated. It is the month when coldness melts away and animals come out of hibernation. It represents the vigor of birth and the strength needed to push past winter’s inertia. Although the Tiger is known for ferocity and power, the secret to its potency lies in its stripes - the alternation of black and orange, yin and yang. Large cats in the wild can sleep up to 20 hours a day. The secret behind their aggressive power is conservation of energy that borders on laziness. Even during the hunt, a Tiger can stalk its prey for hours, waiting patiently for the most optimal moment to employ explosive force. Because of this, it is a master of effective action.
This month is also ruled by Yang Fire, which is symbolized by the sun. All life on earth depends on direction. The rising and setting of the sun is the cadence that governs our activity and rest, giving life on this planet orientation and rhythm. All movement and stillness require a tempo of alternation that is in sync with the environment. There are times to receive and times that call for ferocity. To read and respond to nature with the full spectrum of our available potential is how we develop efficacy.
When a Tiger hunts, it demonstrates maximum efficiency. Knowing precisely where you have and don’t have power helps you apply energy only where it is appropriate. All hunters know this formula of harmonizing effort with their surroundings. An archer becomes hypersensitive to the environment, reading the temperature and winds, applying hyper focused energy directed towards their target. When the timing is right, all that is left is to let go.
How to work with this month’s animal and element:
There has never been a time in human history where so much of our lives are handed to us. It used to be that in order to have basic things in your life, we had to make them. From our housing to our clothes, the chair we sit on to the food we eat, we now spend our time acquiring things rather than on the process of making them. This is why so many people feel disconnected from their creativity in modern urban life: we do not participate in creating the things that we have. Relating to our world through consumption is living in extreme passivity.
The hidden reality of consumption is pervasive violence - deforestation, abuse of labor and exploitation make mass scale consumption possible. However, this violence is experienced in the daily lives of western civilization as ubiquitous passivity. This numbing state means that innate aggression is repressed and therefore seeks an outlet in our collective psyche. You can look to all of our forms of entertainment, from film to sports to see how much violence exists in our lives as fantasy and fetish.
What is aggression and why does it need expression? It is a primal energy that is native to our embodied existence. In fact, you would not exist today without it. Ask a mother that has given birth if the process of labor did not demand aggression. This type of yang energy is also demonstrated in less extreme forms - initiative, assertion, willpower and passion all require aggression. Even creativity cannot happen without an attack on idleness. The truth is, you cannot be effective in life without the proper use of aggression.
Efficacy is about directed aggression, not arbitrary aggression. Like syncing our energies with the rhythm of the sun, direction is how we make aggression useful. Daoist masters are sometimes depicted riding a tiger, a symbol of self-mastery. Through self-knowledge and discipline, we learn to direct our wild and ferocious natures; they become of service to us. We find the way to use all our innate drives, not discarding any aspect of our inner nature.
Efficacy is activating your whole human potential, meaning you must be awake to your entire nature. You must be sensitive and responsive to the whole world, animating your gentleness as well as your vigor without arbitrary action. Daoist wisdom teaches us that the way of the sage is to be in harmony. Being magnanimous, warm and gentle must be balanced with being strict, stern and straightforward. Wisdom is learning how to harmonize hardness with softness. Too much strictness results in rigidity. Too much love results in indulgence, which is ultimately ineffectual.
This month asks, Where are you not being effective? Do you have a practice for exerting healthy aggression in your life? How can you apply the right energy in harmony with the needs of the time? Remember that yin and yang create each other. In order to generate movement, you must begin with its foundation, which is rest. Conversely, the potential for rest is found in movement. The dots in the yin yang symbol show us that the fullest expression of anything lies the seeds of its opposite. If you are in the pursuit of peace, receptivity, and healthy femininity in your life, you must also have outlets for firmness, rigor and exercising your durability.