2024 甲辰 Wuyun Liuqi Recap: Dampness, Flooding and Toxicity

Don and Era Farnsworth - Bulwark

This is a companion piece to the 甲辰 / Wood Dragon Wuyun Liuqi blog, please refer there for more information.

As we have now concluded the year of the Wood Dragon, and it feels relevant to reflect back on what we have witnessed in terms of climate health, human health: how these can be understood through the lens of the Wuyun Liuqi system to provide deeper understanding of the pathological dynamics in our world and offer practical measures we can take to keep ourselves, our communities and our planet healthy.

Liuqi - Environmental Damp & Health

濕為陰邪，自長夏而來，其來有漸，且其性氤氳粘膩

Dampness is a yin pathogen, originating from late summer. Its onset is gradual, and its nature is characterized by a pervasive and sticky quality.

Let’s start with the Liuqi, or “Six Climate Forces,” which affect both global climate and human health. From late July 2024 through January 2025, the dominant “Guest” climate is Excessive Damp, which manifests environmentally and in human health pathology. Dampness can be understood as an imbalance of water distribution in both humans and the environment. It occurs when an excess fluid arrives too quickly to be processed and/or drained, causing boggy stagnation and standing water, and as such can also lead to dryness elsewhere, as the water is not smoothly distributed. This is what we were dealing with in the second half of last year, which the Neijing Suwen describes as a year characterized by “rainstorms, flooding and erosion,” leading to illnesses of dampness that affect the kidneys.

The “late summer” period of July 26th - September 24th 2024 additionally had the “Host” seasonal climate of Dampness, doubling-up the presence of Damp in the environment and our bodies. This was the time period when Cyclones, Floods and Hurricanes destroyed cities around the globe, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in destruction and untold damage to local environments and communities. Not only that, the devastation left by these chaotic weather systems was made worse by the presence of toxins that were dredged up by the storms and floods, and seeped into the surrounding landscape. “Toxic Mud” from Hurricane Helene has plagued North Carolina residents and businesses, and makes the cleanup and recovery from these storms even more daunting.

The “pervasive and sticky quality” of dampness can be seen here environmentally - once water mixes up toxic sludge and dumps it out of rivers, lakes, sewage systems and other containers, it becomes almost impossible to fully remove, as it saturates the landscape. Similarly in our bodies, dampness takes up residence in joints, our digestive system and elsewhere in such a way that is saturates and stagnates, making it difficult to remove. This is why, both environmentally and personally, preventative measures to keep the damaging effects of dampness at bay is crucial. More than any other environmental pathogen, once it gets in it is hardest to get out (Wind is the other pathogen that can be intractable, but only after it has settled over a long period or in a place of extreme vulnerability, leading to degenerative conditions).

At the same time as Hurricanes and Floods were happening across the globe, COVID rates saw another spike in the United States. This is relevant because COVID can be characterized as a ‘Damp Disease’. In the Wen Bing Warm Disease school, descriptions of 溼溫 “Warm-Damp” illnesses closely match the pattern of COVID, with the following symptoms:

頭痛惡寒，身重疼痛，舌白不渴，脈弦細而濡，面色淡黃，胸悶不飢，午後身熱，狀若陰 虛，病難速已，名曰溼溫

“Headache with aversion to cold, a feeling of heaviness and body aches, a pale tongue with a white coating, no thirst, a wiry, fine, and soft pulse, a pale yellow complexion, chest oppression with no appetite, afternoon fever, and symptoms resembling yin deficiency. The disease is difficult to resolve quickly and is called damp-warm disease”

Ang Tsherin Sherpa: Form-is-Emptiness

COVID-19 began in 2019 — the year of the Earth Pig 己亥 Ji Hai — which is characterized by warm winter climate that is conducive for epidemic diseases to spread, according to the Liuqi. These climate conditions emphasized the “warm” aspect of the “damp-warm” disease, and COVID’s early variants were especially deadly, with more recent variants producing more low-grade symptoms, which often include pronounced lethargy, shortness of breath, fatigue and heaviness - all pronounced “damp” symptoms. the years of the Pig and the Snake are paired animals in the Wuyun Liuqi system, so the same conditions that gave rise to COVID in late 2019 will recur in 2025, as an the same indication of a warm winter leading to epidemic illness is present. Learn more about 2025 health and climate in our Wood Snake Wuyun Liuqi blog, here.

Also, we see above repeated the idea that damp diseases are especially difficult to resolve. This can be seen in the prevalence of "Long COVID,” in which the acute phase of a damp illness resolves, but the lingering pathogen continues to create heavy, sluggish feelings that even stimulants, steroids and other “boosts” can’t always overcome. This is again due to the pervasive, recalcitrant nature of dampness which requires it be assiduously purged for conditions of illness to completely resolve.

In addition to well-known “damp” diseases such as COVID, Norovirus, RSV, Influenza, etc., the 2nd half of this year also presented dampness in many subtler forms, with patients coming in having old injuries aching again, digestive upset, brain fog, exhaustion and heavy feelings in the body. A curious symptom I observed in several cases was a “damp” illness resulting in chronic dizziness after its resolution, indicating possibly damage to the kidney-ear axis leading to inner-ear issues and vertigo. This is indicated through the Wuyun Liuqi for the Wood Dragon Year as a possibility.

In summary, what we can learn from 2024 in general is the need to be proactive with preventative care when it comes to dampness. Whether we live in a humid climate, experience a sudden flood or or abnormally wet season in our local area, or have patients whose diet and lifestyle have a predisposition for dampness, taking prophylactic measures — specifically, bland flavors (such as medicinal polypores) to help percolate dampness before it accumulates. The other lesson of the year is to take seriously the health implications of climate irregularities, and the map of climate as described by the Wuyun Liuqi. Even when it seems like the specific climate abnormalities described in the Neijing are not happening in our own local area, the global climate seems to follow these movements, and health effects are still widespread. Studying the Wuyun Liuqi and using preventative measures can be a way to promote personal health through uncertain times.