East Wind Melts the Ice: The Way of the New Year's Beginning and the Origination of All Things in Lichun
This article offers an in-depth interpretation of Lichun (the Beginning of Spring), the first of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, through the multiple lenses of pre-Qin Confucian and Daoist philosophy, philology, and astronomical phenomenology. By tracing the origin of the character "chun" (萅), the image of the three yang lines ascending in the Tai hexagram, and the mythic archetype of the wood spirit Goumang, it reveals the profound significance of Lichun as the node of the year's beginning and the origination of all things, returning readers to the ancient world of the ancestors' communion between Heaven and humanity.
Chapter 7: The Phenological World of Lichun (Part One): The East Wind Melts the Ice
I. "The East Wind Melts the Ice": The First Signal of Yang Qi Stirring in the Earth
Among Lichun's Three Pentads, the first is "the east wind melts the ice." Both the Yi Zhou Shu's "Explanation of the Seasonal Instructions" and the Book of Rites' "Monthly Ordinances" record: "On the day of Lichun, the east wind melts the ice" (立春之日，东风解冻). The east wind blows, and the solid ice begins to melt—this is the first, and most emblematic, phenological signal of Lichun's arrival.
Why "the east wind," rather than a wind from some other direction$21 This is by no means arbitrary. Within the system of Five-Phase directions, the east belongs to Wood, governing spring. The east wind, the wind blowing from the east, is precisely spring's wind, Wood's wind, the wind of generation and growth. The Huainanzi, in "Treatise on the Patterns of Heaven," speaks of the "Eight Winds," among which the wind of Lichun is named "Tiao Feng" (条风, the Pervading Wind, also written 调风)—"tiao means to reach through"; the Pervading Wind is the wind that causes all things to reach through and unfold. And the Pervading Wind arises precisely from the northeast (the position of Gen, the position of yin). The reason the east wind (the Pervading Wind) is able to "melt the ice" is precisely because it carries the generative, warming qi of the east's Wood virtue. When this warm wind from the east blows across the land, the yang qi that has lain hidden through the entire winter responds to it, and thus the solid ice begins to melt from the bottom, from within.
Here lies a profound insight worth uncovering: the two characters "jie dong" (解冻, "the ice melts") reveal not the simple physical process of "the weather warmed up and so the ice melted," but rather a cosmological event—"yang qi first stirring within the earth." The ancients held that the melting of ice was not caused by external heat "sunning" it away, but because the yang qi beneath the earth began to rise upward, dissolving that "sealed" cold yin qi from within, from its root. In other words, "the melting of the ice" is the sign that yang qi is breaking through the sealed cold from below upward, from within outward. This accords entirely with the image of the Tai hexagram, "Qian below, Kun above, yang qi rising"—the melting of the ice at Lichun is precisely the first phenological manifestation of "Earth over Heaven, Tai."
II. Why Is "The Melting of the Ice" the Most Important Phenological Sign of the Year's Beginning$22
Among Lichun's Three Pentads, "the east wind melts the ice" is listed as the first pentad, and this ordering itself carries profound meaning. Why did the ancients regard "the melting of the ice" as so important that they placed it first among the year's phenological signs$23
Because "the melting of the ice" marks the fundamental transformation of Heaven and Earth from "closure" to "opening." Throughout the entire winter, water freezes into ice, the ground freezes solid, and the qi of Heaven and Earth remains in a state of "closure"—precisely the condition symbolized by the Zhouyi's Pi hexagram (Heaven and Earth not in communion). "The melting of the ice" is the first clear signal that this state of closure has been broken. The melting of ice signifies that water once confined has begun to flow again; the flowing of water signifies that the qi of Heaven and Earth has once again begun to "communicate." One might say that "the melting of the ice" is the phenological representation, between Heaven and Earth, of "Pi reaching its extreme, Tai returning"—it proclaims that the age of "Pi," in which all things were sealed and vitality lay latent, has ended, and the age of "Tai," in which Heaven and Earth interact and the myriad things flow freely, has begun.
From the standpoint of agriculture, "the melting of the ice" carries an even more immediate practical significance. If the frozen ground does not thaw, one cannot plow; if the river ice does not open, one cannot irrigate. "The east wind melts the ice" signifies that the earth has once again become soft and workable, signifies that the material precondition for spring plowing has now been met. The reason the ancients placed "the melting of the ice" as the first pentad of the year's beginning is precisely because it is the fundamental mark by which the year's agricultural labor can begin—without the melting of the ice, there is no spring plowing; without spring plowing, there is no harvest for the entire year. In this sense, "the east wind melts the ice" is not merely a natural phenomenon, but the "starting gun" of the agrarian civilization upon which the ancients depended for survival.
III. Water and Ice: The Philosophy of "Closure" to "Communion"
The core of "the melting of the ice" is water's return from the solid state of "ice" to the flowing state of a liquid. This transformation from "solidification" to "flow," from "closure" to "communion," contains within it a profound philosophy.
Water holds an exalted position in pre-Qin thought. The Most High said: "The highest good is like water. Water benefits the myriad things well, yet does not contend; it dwells in places that people disdain, and thus it comes close to the Dao" (上善若水。水善利万物而不争，处众人之所恶，故几于道) (Laozi, chapter 8). The reason water "comes close to the Dao" lies precisely in its "flowing," its "not contending," its "benefiting the myriad things well." Ice, by contrast, is the state in which water has lost its fluidity, confined by cold and yin. The freezing of winter is the temporary concealment of water's virtue; the melting at Lichun is the renewed flourishing of water's virtue.
The Guanzi, in "Water and Earth," states: "Water is the blood and qi of the earth, flowing through it as through sinews and veins" (水者，地之血气，如筋脉之通流者也). Water is the blood and vital breath of the earth, flowing without cease just as sinews and veins flow through the human body. In winter, the earth's "blood vessels" freeze, as if sunk into slumber; at Lichun, the ice melts, and the earth's "blood vessels" once again flow, and thus the earth "awakens." This image of "awakening" is precisely the most central spirit of Lichun—Heaven and Earth awaken from hibernation, and once again begin their ceaselessly generative movement.
From "ice" to "water," from "solidification" to "flow," from "closure" to "communion"—this phenological transformation is precisely the shared material vehicle of Daoism's wisdom of "communion" and Confucianism's spirit of "generation." The ice melts and the water flows freely; the water flows freely and vitality reaches through; vitality reaches through and all things are generated. Lichun's "east wind melts the ice" is precisely the first link in this chain of life's revival. From the melting of a sheet of thin ice, the ancients read the grand message of Heaven and Earth turning from closure to communion, from death to life—this is precisely the very height of the pre-Qin spirit of "investigating things": seeing the greatest Way within the smallest of things.