Bursting Growth · fa sheng

In brief

Wood going to excess. 木曰發生 — wood is called bursting growth — and its 紀 is 啓㪝: 發生之紀，是謂啓㪝。土疏泄，蒼氣達，陽和布化，陰氣乃隨，生氣淳化，萬物以榮. The earth loosens and gives way, the green qi reaches through, the yang’s harmony spreads its transformations, the yin follows after, and the growing qi thickens everything into bloom. Its attributes are the excess form of the paragraph: 其化生，其氣美，其政散，其令條舒，其動掉眩巔疾，其德鳴靡啓坼，其變振拉摧拔…其象春，其經足厥陰少陽，其藏肝脾，其蟲毛介…其病怒. Where the even circuit’s viscus is the liver alone, this one’s is 肝脾, liver and spleen together — the excess of wood reaches the earth it overcomes. And where the even and short paragraphs end by saying which phase the circuit turns into, this group ends instead on the harm: 邪乃傷肝, 秋天’s reaping comes back against it, and the trees wither.