09/07/2025
Great description of the 6 evils in Chinese Medicine theory. Many of my clients will recognize some of these ideas from or conversations during treatment.🌿
Metaphorical description of the Six Evils in Chinese Medicine/Acupuncture.
🌬️ Wind – The restless wanderer
Wind is like a traveler who never stays in one place—shifting, unpredictable, and invisible until it rattles the trees. In the body, it brings sudden changes, like pain that migrates from one joint to another, or symptoms that come and go without warning.
🔥 Heat – The blazing midday sun
Heat is like standing under the summer sun too long—draining, parching, and restless. It consumes fluids, dries the land, and agitates the spirit. In the body, it burns through yin, leaving irritability, fever, or inflamed skin in its wake.
🍂 Dryness – The autumn wind that withers
Dryness is like a sharp autumn breeze that strips leaves from the trees and cracks the soil. It depletes moisture, leaving land brittle and streams shallow. In the body, Dryness parches the lungs, roughens the throat, and dries the skin, leaving cough, thirst, and a voice like broken reeds.
❄️ Cold – The silent winter frost
Cold is like an icy hand that grips and constricts. It slows rivers into stillness and makes the earth rigid. In the body, it causes stagnation, tightness, and pain that feels better with warmth, like frozen soil longing for spring.
💧 Damp – The heavy fog that smothers the valley
Damp is like mist that clings to clothes and never quite dries. Heavy, turbid, and suffocating, it weighs everything down. In the body, it clouds the senses, weakens the limbs, and creates a sluggishness, as though walking through mud.
🔥🔥 Fire – The raging wildfire
If Heat is the sun, Fire is the inferno. It is untamed, fierce, and consuming, leaving destruction in its path. Fire scorches body and mind alike—bringing mania, ulcers, bleeding, or restless dreams—burning both forest and spirit when it spreads unchecked.
