Feelings taste
like something.

Chinese medicine ties five flavors to five organs, five elements, five moods — sour to the liver's growth, bitter to the heart's fire, sweet to the spleen's steadiness, pungent to the lungs' letting go, salty to the kidneys' stillness. We cook toward whichever one your body is asking for. Not a recipe. A diagnosis you eat.

Every element carries its color — wood's green, fire's red, earth's yellow, metal's white, water's black. You don't pick a color because it's pretty. You pick it because something in you is low on wood, or drowning in fire, and the paint knows before you do.

Qi doesn't move because you think about it — it moves because you do. Tuina finds where it's stuck and works it loose by hand; taichi keeps it flowing after. Less talking about your body. More being in it.