The Gourd
by Rene J. Navarro, Dipl. Ac. (NCCAOM)

But there was one that looked like the classic Chinese bottle gourd that I have seen so often in Taoist art...It was exactly the image of the gourd carried by one of the 8 Immortals.

It was New Mexico, Southwestern United States.  From Albuquerque, we were en route  to Santa Fe, past pueblos, reservations,  towns and deserts  on our way to Taos.  Beyond was Tres Piedras, just south of Colorado and the green mountains up north.  My traveling companion, who loved to try the fruits of the different regions we've seen, decided to buy some fresh apricots at a roadside stall. She had seen the trees growing and wondered how the fruits tasted in that part of the world. I can't remember now how much they cost or how they tasted.

There was really nothing much in that area, just mountains and desert with hardly any habitation. No place to get food or drink.
A few feet from the sagging tables filled with fruits and vegetables were dried gourds (more popuarly known as squash or calabash) of different shapes and sizes on the ground. Duck shape mostly, some with bent necks, others just standing up long and straight. But there was one that looked like the classic Chinese bottle gourd that I have seen so often in Taoist art— thick and round body, thin waist and short neck. It was exactly the image of the gourd carried by one of the 8 Immortals.
I bought it for $1. A gourd, light brown, as small as they come.
That was June 2000, just a day or two after the Summer Solstice. Four months before my 60th birthday, Year of the Dragon.

Gourd brush painting by Xia Jie Xi

Myth and Meaning

Flashback to 1989:  I bought a book  by Norman Girardot entitled Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism. I was then studying with the redoubtable Steve Birch, a famous acupuncturist and co-author of acupuncture books with Kiiko Matsumoto, also a famous acupuncturist and my teacher at the New England School of Acupuncture just outside Boston, and I was gathering materials for a paper I was writing for his class in "Concepts of Chinese Medicine."

Professor Girardot, a faculty at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, wrote one of the best books I have read about Taoism. I did not know him at the time, but I thoroughly admired his work. Everybody who is interested in Taoism should read the book. It is, to me, a lifework, one of those rare masterpieces that combine fine writing with scholarly analyses, and interesting facts and anecdotes. Like a good travelogue, it takes one to the distant places of the imagination.

I read almost every page of Myth and Meaning, even the footnotes and cross-references and bibliography (well, not the index, sorry). I was quite mesmerized by the book. 

An interesting detail in this informal narration is that the professor has not written—or published—another book since then. I suspect that this is his life-work, one of those masterpieces that  are hard to equal or surpass, and the author is drained and emptied, and  gets stuck for years, if not decades, trying to write a second one.  Myth and Meaning was copyrighted in 1983. It was I think Girardot's doctoral dissertation at the University of California-Berkeley.

What I learned (one of many, in fact) from reading it is that the gourd is an ancient symbol of genesis in many cultures. It is like the bamboo or the egg in Philippine myth.

From the appendix of Myth and Meaning, there are many myths from different countries about ancestors coming from gourds/squash or something like the egg.

An example from the Ilocos:

A couple prayed for a child for a long time. They grew a squash. When it bore a fruit, they decided to eat it. As they were cutting the fruit, they heard a voice saying please do not hurt me. There inside was a child.

Pan-Gu/P'an-Ku: The Egg and the Gourd 

It does not take much explanation to see how these two images are related. They both suggest the myths of creation and genesis.

And the parasites and bacteria became the human race. (This myth of creation does not speak too well of the human race, does it?)

Pan-Gu is a later (post 3rd century CE) myth in China. How it came about is not clear. (There is an Indian myth of genesis with the gourd in it, too.) But the story is that before everything —before time and space, before the before—there was Pan-Gu sleeping soundly in an egg (it could just as well have been a gourd or calabash for they are interchangeable). In my mind Pan-Gu has no gender; "it" is neither male nor female but androgynous. A "S/HE." As Pan-Gu grew (how can that be when there was no time or space? But myths always contain a contradiction in them), the space inside the egg became too small (space—another contradiction; anyway let us proceed). When Pan-Gu stretched, the shell broke. The contents of the egg spilled. The refined elements went up to form Heaven/yang and the gross elements went down to form Earth/yin. Being that opposites attract, Earth and Heaven began to come closer and closer to each other. Between them was Pan-Gu, who had to push up and down to separate the two. Until they were 36,000 miles apart. (Believe it or not, one version of the story is that specific.) Pan-Gu kept stretching until S/HE broke apart into the proverbial 10,000 pieces. (That number isn't in the original story, but in other literature of the Taoist canon.  In other versions, Pan-Gu simply died.) The hair became the forests and vegetation. The teeth and bones became the diamonds and the metals while the marrow became gold and other precious stones. The sweat became the rain. The breath became the wind and the clouds, the voice the thunder. The blood and veins became the rivers and oceans. The left eye became the sun, the right eye the moon. The four limbs turned into the four directions and the five fingers became the five sacred mountains. And the parasites and bacteria became the human race. (This myth of creation does not speak too well of the human race, does it?)
Here is what Dr. Girardot says about Pan-Gu or P'an-Ku:  

P'an-Ku  is identified with the cosmic egg of hun-tun and, in this sense, is related to the primal condition of chaos. . .  there is no consensus as to the derivation of the name P'an-Ku. One suggestion in keeping with the mythic overtones is that it means something like "coiled up (like a snake or embryo) antiquity." In a literal sense p'an signifies a "bowl, dish, or tub," which relates to the idea of the curved eggshell or gourd that embraces the universe in the Hun-t'ien system or, also, "to examine," "to coil up, wriggle"; and ku means "old, ancient" or "firm, solid." Perhaps the most intriguing of these philosophical speculations, and one supportive of the interlocking network  of mythological images, is that offered by Wen I-to. He shows "that the name P'an Ku may have been originally rendered with the characters p'an-hu" signifying the gourd symbolism of the dog ancestor of Man." p. 193.

Gourd brush painting by Xia Jie Xi

We can put another spin to this cosmogonical story. The separation/division of the elements explains the belief in: (1) yin and yang; (2) Three forces—Heaven, Earth and Humanity; and (3) Five Phases/elements—Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth. (4) 10,000 Things. If we pursue the Taoist perspective on it, we can draw the belief in Reversal and Return, Primordial Consciousness/Huntun, Fusion of the 5 Elements, Kan and Li meditation, Tantric Sex, and the Dantien. Which can be the subject of another essay or a book.

There is much more to the story, of course, but let's leave it at that for a while.

Hafiz (Shams-ud-din Muhammad), the Persian poet of the 13th century, mentions the gourd in the poem "Forgive the Dream":

We can drink wine
From a gourd I hollowed
And dried on the roof of my house.

There's mention of a gourd in the novel Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden:

[Memeha] gave me a little ornament in the shape of a gourd and showed me how to wear it dangling on my obi. The gourd, being hollow and light, is thought to offset the heaviness of the body . . . and many a clumsy young apprentice has relied upon one to help keep her from falling down. p. 168.

Livia Kohn:

The gourd is among a number of popular symbols that represent the microcosm in Chinese thought. The immortal most closely associated with the gourd is Hougong, the Gourd Master, who thereby carries his very own palace around him. p. 183,  Early Chinese Mysticism: Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist Tradition.

The Gourd

When there is a healer in a traditional Chinese shop, usually there's a signboard with a gourd.

"The gourd-shell, or a painting of the gourd on wood or paper, or a small wooden gourd, or a paper cut in shape like a perpendicular section of the gourd, or a paper lantern made in the shape of a gourd, is in frequent use as a charm to dissipate or ward off pernicious influences." (Quoted by Williams, p. 217)

Of the 8 Immortals, Li T'ieh-kuai is the one associated with the gourd.  He is portrayed as a beggar with a staff or a cane.

The God of Longevity, Shou Hsing, with a large forehead, white hair and eyebrows, is usually featured riding a stag. He holds on one hand a peach, also a sign of longevity (and immortality), and on the other hand, a staff at the end of which hangs a scroll (probably containing some secret formula) and a gourd. In some illustrations, a mist is rising from the gourd symbolizing the god's ability to de-materialize and escape into the gourd. In other illustrations, he is shown with the longevity mushroom, ling chi (available in your local Chinese herbal pharmacy under the same name), and a bat (because of its similarity in pronunciation is associated with happiness).

Of the 8 Immortals, Li T'ieh-kuai is the one associated with the gourd.  He is portrayed as a beggar with a staff or a cane. The story is that Immortal Li was often summoned to heaven by Lao-Tzu/Laozi. For this purpose, he would leave his body behind and only his spirit/shen would soar up to the sky. His servant kept watch over the physical body. One time, when Li was gone for a long time, his servant decided that he was dead and burned the body.  Upon Li's return, he found out that his body was gone. He looked around for a fresh body but the only body he could find was that of a lame beggar.

My Gourd

Since I got the gourd from New Mexico, I've traveled to a few places. To Thailand a couple of times, to the Philippines at least four times, to Amsterdam, Greece and Turkey, and all over the Northeast United States.

My constant companion has been the gourd.

A funny thing is that people usually notice it, especially children. Sometimes in the subway in New York City, a kid would look at the gourd and smile at me. One time, a boy asked to touch it. He was prevented by his mother.

When I flew from Amsterdam into JFK Airport in NY, I was stopped for one of those usual drug checks that Customs inflicts on travelers from the Netherlands, Turkey and Thailand, countries where drugs (cocaine, heroin, opium, mushroom, marijuana, hashish)  are smuggled.

"Do you have fresh vegetables?" The man asked me.

"No."

"Do you have fresh meat."

"No." That one is entirely new, believe me. Nobody at Customs anywhere has asked me that before.

The Gourd photo taken by Rene J. Navarro

One of my bags was passed through an x-ray machine. Visible were a few pieces of Holland goat cheese (fromage de chevre) and Belgian chocolate.

"Queso, senor," the man said. A Hispanic Customs officer in New York City.

"Si," I said," regalos para mi familia."

He pointed at my shoulder bag: "Es calabasa, senor?"

I looked at the gourd: "Si, senor. Es simbolo de Taoistas." And I went out of there fast more worried about my Spanish than about being detained for non-existent drugs.

That was the only time, honest, that Customs has noticed the gourd. In Hawaii, flying in from Thailand, I was stopped by Customs also.

"Random check," I was assured.

"I don't smoke, I don't deal, I don't drink, I don't do drugs," I said.

Nonetheless, the man went through two of my luggage like the proverbial fine-toothed comb.

He saw an unopened envelop from the Acupuncture Therapeutics and Acupuncture Center in Diliman, Quezon City.

"May I open it?" he said.

"Sure," I said.

A friend said that the gourd gives me an appearance of informality. A blatant euphemism, if ever there was one. I think he meant that it gave me the hippie look.

He found a letter addressing me as “Master Navarro” and thanking me for teaching Qigong and Chi Nei Tsang internal organs massage.

"You teach?"

"Yes," I said, "meditation, Tai chi, qigong. A few things."

He let me go with some token apologies.

A friend said that the gourd gives me an appearance of informality. A blatant euphemism, if ever there was one. I think he meant that it gave me the hippie look. Or perhaps, that I looked like a wanderer? At 60 I am not concerned about  my image or dignity.

When I came back from my journey to New Mexico, I showed the gourd to my two-year old granddaughter, Isabel. She liked it and wanted to have it as a toy. But I told her that it was for her lolo/grandpa. She was obviously disappointed. 

Meaning

What does it really mean?  I've been asked this question many times by friends and strangers. I am never able to give a complete answer. I suppose I should tell them to buy Professor Girardot's book and read about huntun and chaos and Foucault and Octavio Paz to deconstruct the meaning from the long and elaborate poetic explanation.

But often, I simply say, it is a symbol of healing in China. Or, it's just a gourd.

A friend said, no doubt mockingly, "It is a symbol of emptiness. See, there's nothing in it." One time she said, "It contains your dreams."

I like the idea that the gourd represents emptiness, the Void. Wu-Chi, perhaps.

Or a container waiting to be filled.

The Cauldron/Dan Tian/Elixir Field is sometimes represented in the shape of a gourd. There's the lid, the pot, and the furnace arranged in the center of the body just behind the Navel and in front of the Ming-Men.

It stands in stillness like an empty cup.

When people hold my gourd, they are invariably surprised how light it is. Everything inside, including the seeds, is dry, shriveled up into a few fragments of desiccated pits. The hot New Mexico desert sun had dried up all its contents. Perhaps, it was thrown to the ground along with others that were not bought on that lonely roadside produce stand. Who knows.

Instead of ending up in somebody's casserole or in the trash, it is tied with a leather thong to my shoulder bag.

Anybody can draw meaning from my gourd. Anybody can hazard an interpretation from it.  Is it   a gimmick like a tattoo or a nose ring or one of those  Indian clothes or ethnic shawls that fashionable westerners sometimes wear to appear chic?

Norman Girardot

Mantak Chia asked me to attend the conference on Taoism and Ecology at Harvard University in 1998. It was a gathering of scholars from around the world. Just to give you an idea of the cast of characters:

Kristofer Schipper, author of the book Taoist Body and famous Sinologist, was the keynote speaker. He read a paper on the Taiping Jing ("Scripture of the Great Peace") and the first Taoist community in ancient China. He was also a kind of consultant, a prestigious role, and indicated the respect the academic community had for him, considering that it was gathering of experts.  His address concluded that the body is a landscape and that the Taoist practitioner has to cultivate the inner garden. (Perhaps, he had in mind raising gourds?)

Livia Kohn, translator and commentator of Taoist scriptures and classics, was one of the co-chairs (along with Norman Girardot). She has translated several classics of the Taoist canons, aside from editing a couple of anthologies on Taoism.

On the table in front of the conference hall was a . . . gourd. A perfectly shaped and proportioned calabash with streaks of yellow in a background of green. It was brought by Norman Girardot.

Roger Ames, Taoist and Buddhist scholar and academic, read a paper on "The Local and Focal in Realizing a Daoist World."   When I visited him in Hawaii, he gave me a copy of his book Yuan Dao, a translation and commentary  on the origins of the Tao Te Ching.

Ursula LeGuin, novelist and translator (with J. P. Seaton) of the Tao Te Ching, spoke too.

Aside from me, there were a few other practitioners who spoke about their practices. Lin Dao, formerly Charles Belyea, founder of an organization called Orthodox Daoism in America, came with an assistant. He looked exactly like a Taoist monk, from his topknot down to his habit and slippers.  Vincent F. Chu, Yang Family Tai chi chuan teacher and writer.  Lu Weidong, professor and practitioner of herbalism and acupuncture at the New England School of Acupuncture. Linda Varone, a Feng-Shui consultant, who studied with several teachers, among them Lin Yun, the foremost instructor of Black Sect Tantric Buddhist Feng-shui in America. Daniel Seitz, president of the New England School of Acupuncture (just recently resigned due to some controversies about his administration). I read a paper on Taoist practice in Mantak Chia's system, including inner cultivation and alchemical work.

On the table in front of the conference hall was a . . . gourd. A perfectly shaped and proportioned calabash with streaks of yellow in a background of green. It was brought by Norman Girardot. He said during the introductions that he had raised it himself but I doubted it. A scholar like Dr. Girardot raising gourds in his garden? But then again, who knows.

________________
NOTES:

Looking at his book, Myth and Meaning, I can see Girardot's inscription on the title page. A brief story about how we met: During a break in the conference proceedings at the Harvard University Center for the Study of Religions, I repaired to a patio outside and practiced Yang Family Tai chi chuan. I remember that I was doing the second sword form when I noticed a man sitting under the trees smoking. He was apparently watching me. When I was finished with the form, we had a short conversation. Did he do any Tai chi? Yes, he did, sometime back. When I told him where I lived, he said we're practically neighbors and he must have heard about me before in Bethlehem or Allentown, Pennsylvania. We promised to keep in touch.

Later on, two years later in fact, Norman invited me to lecture to his class at Lehigh University. I spoke on Taoist Energetics in the morning. In the afternoon, I did a one-hour demo of different Yang Family Tai chi chuan forms -- solo form (excerpts), Knife form (first set), Chang chuan (excerpt), Sword form (second set), and Staff-spear form.
There are other meanings attached to the gourd. The symbol appears in many iconographics. The gourd (or the calabash) is also related to the egg.

F. R. Demetrio, S.J., in his wonderful book, Myths and Symbols Philippines,

[However,] it is not only the coming to birth of man that is patterned after the cosmogony from an egg. The symbols of the renovation of nature and of vegetation (Spring and New Year) as well as the feasts and cults of the dead are also patterned after the symbolism of the world egg. And we know that this symbolism is not to be seen in any kind of birth, but rather rebirth. In other words, in all these myths and rituals connected with the tree, with the coming of spring and new year as well as the feasts of the dead, the theory of eternal return to the beginning is exemplified. The beginning is the mythic time of creation. p. 60.

Aside from Father Demetrio, Dr. Kohn and Dr. Girardot, I have likewise consulted Werner's Myths and Legends of China, Williams' Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, and Whitaker's An Introduction to Oriental Mythology. There are other books available, I am sure.

If anybody has a contribution to this article, I'll appreciate hearing from them. E-mail: renejoven@yahoo.com

© Rene J. Navarro

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