In my mind, everything with human beings is about control, and one of the ways we try to control things is by locking them down with definitions, by putting them in categories, by using words.

I use acupressure and touch therapy to help myself and my family. The concepts of yin and yang are useful to me for this purpose. My understanding of yin and yang, therefore, is that they are always attributes defined through relationship.

As a simplistic example: On a hot day, boiling water is yang compared to tap water which is yin. But on the same day, tap water is yang compared to ice water which is yin.

Water itself, is generally considered yin but this can never be absolute.

When working with/on the body, it is helpful to conceive of yin and yang as transform into one another. I believe this idea of transformation, of becoming if you will, is also underpinned by the I Ching.

In my relationship with my wife, sometimes I am yang and she is yin. But sometimes she is yin, and I am yang. These attributes shift constantly as our relationship shifts.

So, yin and yang are not fixed attributes – they are relative, to situations or locations for example.

If I may be facetious, I could also say that trying lock things down by defining their meaning, to make it solid, is a tendency to yin-ness whereas allowing things to shift and change, to be empty, is a tendency to yang-ness.

Yin is electrochemical emotional energy while yang is electromagnetic brain-heart energy.

Oh course it is. How could I have thought otherwise. That makes perfect sense now.