The eighth phase of the Chinese seasonal calendar Grain Full (Xiaoman) starts as the sun crosses 60° Longitude (0° Gemini). Please join the thousands of practitioners worldwide who will usher in this event by practicing the Grain Full Empowerment. 

In this edition of the newsletter we explore the dominant quality that arises in nature during Grain Full and consider how you can awaken that same quality to empower your day-to-day life. Then, further below, you will find Practice Guidelines for the Grain Full Empowerment, a special Qigong exercise designed to help you boost your vitality by absorbing the Qi energies overflowing during this seasonal phase. 

In the last edition of the newsletter we considered the meaning of summer and described the theme of summer as booming growth and the joy it inspires. Now, let’s consider the unique contribution Grain Full makes to the fulfillment of that vision. 

Over the next fifteen days, nature will undergo a noticeable burst of growth. Grains in particular will puff and become fuller, though they will not yet ripen. The theme of “fuller but not yet ripe” characterizes the quality associated with Grain Full. 

Maybe you have an old high school yearbook gathering dust in a closet somewhere in your home. Let’s imagine that you find it decades after graduating and show your high school portrait to a friend. The natural reaction would be for both of you to chuckle. Seen through adult eyes, our teenage personas are comical. But why should we be amused? Laughter often happens when we expect one outcome and another unexpected outcome happens. The distance separating you as a “green” teenager and a “ripened” adult is funny. 

Now let’s imagine that your high school, teenaged self in the portrait stepped out of the yearbook and sized you up. What would your adolescent self think of your current, middle-aged self? Well, what does the average teen think of the average adult? Boring. Predictable. Domesticated. Chances are that your high school self would use similar adjectives to describe you as an adult. 

Adolescence is wildly curious and unpredictably foolish (from the adult perspective), and those qualities serve an essential developmental function: They hurl us into the complexities of life with an open mind and allow us to learn from our mistakes. As we move through this process we mature. We ripen.

Legally we become adults when we’re either 18 or 21, but psychologically, there is an aspect of us that remains adolescent forever—the part of us that is perpetually curious and open to new experiences. Grain Full favors that aspect of your personality. During this seasonal phase, you are encouraged to awaken your “inner teen” and explore and experiment, even if activities lead you to make interesting mistakes. Later this year you may look back at yourself now and chuckle. But the irony is that unless you exercise your curiosity and give yourself permission to make mistakes and learn from them, you might remain perennially green behind the ears.