Hi Andrew, I have always thought about Yin and Yang as a waterglass exactly half full with water. The water (Yin, heavier, grounded, more material, etc.) is below, the air (Yang, lighter, more volatile and less material, etc.) is above. The interdependence between the two, which also shows if one of the two is in excess vs. the other deficient will be seen, when moving away from the balance (half water, half air), i.e. putting more water or more air into the glass. Put more water in it (excess Yin), you have less air left (Yang deficiency) and vice versa. (*And this is the point where your chart started to puzzle me….) The natural (healthy) movement of the two can also easily be explained or visualized by this anology: Take a straw and blow air into the bottom of the waterglass: the bubbles (air, Yang) move upwards naturally. Or drop water (Yin) from the rim of the glass into it: it will fall down. Thinking it through further and adding some heat (be it heat as the Yang or as a pathology). The water (Yin) will start to become steam (Yang), the glass will have less water and more air over time, so we have excess Yang and deficient Yin. We have to add cold to have the steam condense, become droplets and water again to bring the half-half glass back into balance. Ok, so if I assume in your chart, that the dotted line is at 0.5. In balance, Yin is 0.5 (half) and Yang is 0.5 (half). Then, if I use my waterglass anology, if Yang goes over 0.5 for whatever reason, Yin has to decline below 0.5. If not there is some additional material (and I mean this as a disease, not as a general personal contitution)…. So, I thought, additional material (like phlegm) or missing material (e.g. blood deficiency(?)), is a more manifested, more lasting/chronic or at least more serious a condition and more difficult to treat (since you have to add or get rid of something) than if the balance between Yin and Yang has just moved to 0.3 and 0.7 (and treatment just has to move the line between the two). Sorry for the long post, but I hope now my question is more clear than during class (sorry, Eileen for having caused you a knot in the brain…lol) Thank you. Annette

I like most of your analogy but it is missing a couple of concepts. True, yin and yang are related/interdependent etc. However, in this "bar chart" way of thinking you can also have less water and less air in the glass (meaning there would be a partial vacuum or empty, non air-filled space in the glass). Additionally, you could have the glass overflow with too much water and too much air (which would make it break). So, it is not always an exact ratio. You could have 0.7 yang + 0.3 yin. Or you could have 0.3:0.7, 0.8:0.8 (=1.6), 0.2:0.2 (=0.4). Does that make sense? So, in effect, in a normal state the ratio of yin to yang is ideally 1. However you could also have more than one or less than one in a pathological state. This means there is an infinite number of combinations of relative quantities of the two. I think your analogy works best for healthy physiology of yin and yang but we have to add something to the model. What would happen if the physiology is disturbed and becomes pathology? I hope this helps clarify. Does that make sense to you? Please let me know!