When you visit Van Buren House you’ll now be greeted with a stunning red feature wall in the main entrance hall along with a beautiful new wall hanging depicting the Neijung Tu 內經圖. After graduating from ICOM this summer, the very talented Anabela Santos kindly gifted the wall hanging, screenprinted by hand herself, and even painted the wall that it sits against, as a token of her thanks to the college. We all love the new wall and we are so grateful to Anabela for her kind gift. Anabela is about to return to Portugal to embark on her new career as an Acupuncturist and we wish her the best of luck in all she does.
About The Neijung Tu 內經圖
內經圖 Neijing Tu combines three characters 內 inner, 經 warp (vs. woof); canon, classic, norm, river, acupuncture channel and 圖 drawing, chart; the first two are also found in 黃帝內經 the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon. It has been translated as:
Diagram of the Internal Texture of Man, Diagram of the Inner Scripture, Chart of Inner Passageways, Diagram of Internal Pathways, Chart of the Inner Warp or Landscape
Although its origin is unclear, all received copies derive from an engraved stele dated 1886 in Beijing’s 白雲觀 White Cloud Temple based on an old silk scroll discovered in a library on Mount Song (in Henan).
The Neijing Tu depicts a human body as a microcosm of nature (an inner landscape) with mountains, rivers, paths, forests, and stars. The text includes names of zangfu organs, two poems attributed to Lü Dongbin 呂洞賓 (one of the Eight Immortals), and quotations from the Huangting Jing 黃庭經 Yellow Court Scripture.
The head shows Kunlun Mountains, upper Dantian cinnabar field, Laozi, Bodhidharma, and two circles, labelled sun and moon, for the eyes.
The heart depicts Niulang 牛郎 the cowherd holding Beidou 北斗 the Northern Dipper/Big Dipper. Together with his archetypal lover Zhinü 織女 the weaver girl, they propel Qi 氣 up to the tracheal Twelve-Storied Pagoda.
The Liver and Gall Bladder are a forest, the Stomach is a granary, and the intestines caption reads the iron ox ploughs the field where coins of gold are sown referring to the Elixir of life.
At base of the spine are treadmill waterwheels being run by two children representing Yin 陰 and Yang 陽.