From End to Beginning: The Way of Culmination and Return in the Great Cold Solar Term
This article offers a deep reading of Great Cold (Dahan), the final of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, drawing on pre-Qin Confucian and Daoist philosophy, etymological analysis, and astronomical and phenological traditions. It reveals the dialectic of extreme cold and returning spring, the cyclic principle that every ending harbors a new beginning, and illuminates the late-winter rites of the Grand Nuo exorcism and the clay ox ceremony—inviting the reader into the ancients' cosmic wisdom of 'tracing origins by returning to endings' and the eternal circle of ceaseless renewal.
Chapter Nine: The World of Phenology (Part Two)--Raptors Hunt with Fierce Swiftness: The Extreme of Austerity and Life's Striving
I. "Raptors Hunt with Fierce Swiftness": The Swift Strike of Birds of Prey
Great Cold's second pentad is "raptors hunt with fierce swiftness" (zheng niao li ji). "Raptors" (zheng niao) are birds of prey such as hawks and falcons ("zheng" connotes swift and far flight, hence fierce-flying raptors are called "conquest birds"); "fierce swiftness" (li ji) means violent, keen, rapid. The full meaning: during Great Cold's second pentad, hawks, falcons, and other raptors fly and strike with extraordinary ferocity and speed.
Why do raptors become especially "fierce and swift" during Great Cold's second pentad$24 The logic is twofold--both the urgency of survival and the extreme expression of autumn-winter's killing breath.
At the most immediate level, survival's urgency drives them. Great Cold is the year's coldest season, food is desperately scarce, and raptors must hunt more frequently and more fiercely to withstand the cold and sustain life. They circle the desolate sky, scanning snow-covered plains for scarce prey with piercing eyes, and upon sighting quarry dive like lightning--this "fierce swiftness" is the burst of vital striving that life produces in the most severely hostile environment. The more punishing the cold, the more ferocious the raptor's strike--this is life's instinctive struggle against the threat of death.
II. The Extreme of Austerity: The Manifestation of Yin-Qi at Its Height
At a deeper level, "raptors hunt with fierce swiftness" manifests the extreme of Great Cold's "killing breath" (su sha zhi qi).
We know that autumn and winter belong to yin, governing "harvest" and "killing." From Start of Autumn onward, heaven and earth's vital breath turns from summer's "growth" to autumn's "harvest" and winter's "storage," and the killing breath gradually pervades. By Great Cold--the year's pinnacle of yin-qi, the summit of the killing breath--the "killing" energy between heaven and earth reaches its zenith. Hawks, falcons, and other raptors are precisely the embodiment of this "killing breath" in the animal world. Fierce, swift, living by predation (killing), they are the executors of heaven and earth's austere, killing force. "Raptors hunt with fierce swiftness" is the most vivid portrait of Great Cold's killing breath at its most intense, most keen--even the raptors' strikes have reached the year's most violent, most fierce degree, showing just how powerful heaven and earth's killing breath has become.
III. Austerity and Birth: Two Faces of One Body
But here--and this is the most profound, most dialectical point of Great Cold's philosophy--"the extreme of killing breath" (su sha zhi ji) simultaneously signifies "the beginning of birth's stirring."
We must place "raptors hunt with fierce swiftness" (extreme killing breath) within the overall context of Great Cold's three pentads. Consider their order: first pentad, "hens begin to brood" (the nurturing of new life); second pentad, "raptors hunt with fierce swiftness" (extreme of killing breath); third pentad, "ice on lakes and marshes freezes to the core" (extreme of yin-cold). This sequence is deeply thought-provoking: the ancients did not place "killing" (raptors' fierce hunting) at the end as Great Cold's culmination, but in the middle, preceded by "new life" (hens brooding) and followed by "yin at its extreme" (ice to the core). This means killing (fierce raptors) is not Great Cold's destination, but merely one link in the great transformation of "yin at its extreme, yang being born."
At a deeper level still, "killing" and "birth" in the Way of Heaven are two faces of one body. The Zhouyi, Xici Xia (Commentary on the Appended Phrases, Part II), states: "The great virtue of heaven and earth is called 'life'" (tian di zhi da de yue sheng). Yet heaven and earth's "life" is achieved precisely through "killing" (harvest, storage, austere destruction). Autumn's harvest, winter's storage, Great Cold's austere killing seem to be "killing," but they serve "life"--gathering life's energy, preserving vital reserves, culling what is unfit to persist (as raptors cull weak prey), thereby clearing space and accumulating energy for the coming spring's "birth." Without winter's "killing" (austerity, concealment), there would be no spring's "birth" (emergence, flourishing).
IV. The Striving of Life in Extremity
Finally, "raptors hunt with fierce swiftness" offers a profound insight about "vitality"--in the most difficult extremity, the strongest vitality bursts forth.
Great Cold is the hardest season--frozen ground, scarce food, survival at its most difficult. Yet precisely at this hardest moment, raptors burst forth with the year's most violent, most keen striking power (fierce swiftness). Adversity has not crushed them; instead, it has called forth their strongest survival will and vitality. What a magnificent spectacle of life!
This provides immense encouragement to those in difficult straits. "Raptors hunt with fierce swiftness" tells us: harsh conditions should not be a reason for despondency or retreat, but an occasion for kindling one's vitality and striving with all one's might. The colder and harder it gets (Great Cold), the more one should be like the raptor, "fierce and swift"--with violent, keen, unyielding posture, fighting hard for survival and advancement. This spirit of "striving in adversity" accords perfectly with the Confucian "Heaven's course is vigorous; the noble person thereby ceaselessly strives for self-improvement."