Colon As Executioner
In ancient China, autumn was the traditional time of year for the beheading of criminals. In each autumn, in each village, how many criminals were beheaded was relative to the counting up of the stores and calculating how much food we have to take us through the winter.
Metal is poised between Earth and Water, between bounty and hardship. How much food do we have to survive through the winter? Are we going to starve some children in order to feed this psychopathic murderer? No—we’re going to kill him. We’re not doing it to be mean. It’s nothing personal, but frankly, we’re not going to feed the psychopath because instead, we’re going to feed the kids. We’re going to feed the citizens who are contributing to life in the village, whom we declare to have lives of more value than the psychopath’s life—because as resources get scarce, such decisions have to be made and it’s nothing personal. It’s natural, and arguably it’s what scarcity is here to teach us: values and priorities.
Heiner Fruehauf compares the Colon to the Executioner. When the Colon is not junctioned to the Lung, these executions are ‘nothing personal,’ but with absolutely no sense of connection to anything higher or greater than myself. This can be a problem.
If the Executioner is connected to the Lung’s sense of the greater good, then no, I don’t care personally, but I care transpersonally. I care that this village survives; I care that when spring comes, we’re not all half-starved. I care that there be an order that begins in Heaven, in reference to a higher value, that is transmitted to Earth. I understand that in that process, sometimes there is severity, and sometimes there are necessities of great value that on a personal level we don’t like.
It’s important to have good solid Executioner energy. I’m thinking about a client who has been to India and spent a lot of time in various ashrams. Let’s call her Bambi. She was 24 and was a 10-year vegetarian because she came from a philosophy of being “above” the animal world in every way. She believed that it was spiritually important never to take a life. She was full of parasites. She’d been through parasite treatment, and she was still full of parasites, and they had eaten her hollow inside. I felt like I wasn’t talking to anybody. Nobody.
It was pretty clear that Bambi was a Metal person, that she was a Colon constitution, and that the parasites were in the Colon. She wanted me to give her guidance and lifestyle counseling. She said with those big empty eyes, “Tell me what I should do. Can you give me homework? Tell me how I should be, to get well.”
I said, “I think you need to learn how to kill.”
She said, “Huh.”
I said, “I think we need to get your killer energy going, because your Colon is full of parasites, and the Colon is the energy of the Executioner, saying ‘Enough! Over. Done. Not on my turf. Finished.’ How is your Executioner energy in your life, when it’s time for something to be over—when it no longer serves, and it’s time for it to be done?”
This is a major issue for many people who have parasites and Gu syndrome, this hospitality of the Stomach which welcomes all things, and which has to be balanced by the Colon energy which knows when to say, “Off with their head!”
Colon energy is about where in life I healthfully say ZERO TOLERANCE. I’m talking about zero tolerance for, for instance, diphtheria inside of me. The Colon enforces the zero-tolerance policies of the Lung through execution.
Initially, Bambi was overwhelmed at the thought of awakening her inner virtue as a killer and started to balk. I said, “Okay, just take on three kills. Between now and next week, find three things in your life that it would be good to have ended, and go ahead and end them decisively: This is over.”
She took it on and went on a fabulous “end-it-now” spree. By the time she came back, there was much more of her there. As the years have gone on, she’s become real and substantial. She’s married, got pregnant, and became a great healthy oinking animal without parasites. She’s not a vegetarian anymore, because she’s come into a whole new relationship with endings, and with herself as an Executioner.
The grieving process of the Lung is what we go through when the Heavens put an end to something, and our position is to yield and accept. The Colon has more to do with us saying—hopefully in Heaven’s name, hopefully from one who has yielded to the pattern of what serves from Heaven, with Heaven’s authority— “I put an end to this.”
If the Lung and Colon are junctioned, then inside every “no,” there’s a secret “yes.” When I say “No hitting” to the kids, that “no” is a secret “yes” to a different kind of play. The “no” to parasites is a “yes” to intestinal health. Everything we say “no” to is actually a “yes,” but it’s the back end of the “yes.” You could almost say it’s the protective shell to a “yes” zone.
Metal has a lot to do with protecting and defending, and making a sacred space of the body by saying “no” to certain things. What do we say no to, in our lives and in our bodies, this autumn?
To join the discussion, find us on my Perennial Medicine discussion listserv (all are welcome).
