Today is Qixi (七夕), Chinese Valentine’s Day, and while it’s a celebration of love, its story is actually just as much about longing, separation, heartbreak, and reunion.
And maybe that’s why I love it so much.
Qixi falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month and comes from an ancient Chinese love story about Zhinü, the Weaver Girl, and Niulang, the Cowherd.
According to the legend, the two fell deeply in love, but their love was forbidden. They were separated by the heavens, with the Milky Way placed between them. Only once a year are they allowed to reunite, when a bridge of magpies forms across the sky so they can find their way back to one another.
It’s beautiful, but also bittersweet.
Because love isn’t always just the happy parts. It’s missing someone. It’s grief. It’s longing. It’s having your heart broken. It’s finding your way back to someone—or sometimes finding your way back to yourself.
One of my favorite things about Chinese medicine is that we don’t separate our emotional health from our physical health.
Every organ system has an emotion associated with it, and the Heart is connected to joy.
The Heart also houses the Shen, often translated as our spirit or consciousness. It’s part of what makes us feel connected, present, alive, and deeply human.
And when I think about love, I think about this.
Love between partners, yes. But also love between sisters. Love between friends. Love for your parents and grandparents. Love for your dog. Love for your community. Love for the people who show up for you when you need them.
There can be so much negativity in the world that sometimes we forget just how much human decency, kindness, joy, and beautiful emotion surrounds us every single day.
Qixi is a little reminder to notice it.
Not everyone experiences a day about love as something joyful.
Maybe you’re going through a breakup. Maybe you’re grieving someone. Maybe you miss someone you can’t be with. Or maybe you’re simply in a season of your life where your heart feels a little heavier.
One of my favorite acupressure points for these moments is Heart 7, or Shen Men—“Spirit Gate.”
You can find it at the wrist crease on the pinky side of your wrist.
In Chinese medicine, Heart 7 is traditionally used to calm the Shen and support feelings of anxiety, emotional overwhelm, sadness, and restlessness.
Place your thumb over the point and gently massage or hold it for 2–3 minutes on each wrist, taking slow breaths into your belly.
Sometimes healing doesn’t require doing more. Sometimes it’s simply giving your body a moment to feel safe enough to soften.
So much of Moonbow was born from love.
Love for the Chinese medicine traditions I grew up with in Hong Kong. Love for the remedies and rituals passed down through generations of my family. Love for herbs that I now use every day in my practice. And, of course, building this company alongside my twin sister, Heather.
But Moonbow has also become so much bigger than the two of us.
It has become this incredible community of people who are curious about Chinese medicine, who want to understand their bodies differently, and who have supported our little dream of bringing these traditions into modern skincare.
That is why, for Qixi, we wanted to turn the celebration back toward you.
Everything at Moonbow is 30% off today in honor of Chinese Valentine’s Day.
It’s our way of giving a little love back to the community that has given us so much love from the beginning. Find Moonbow HERE.
Whether you’re buying something for someone you love, treating your mom, your sister, your best friend, or simply choosing yourself today. I hope it feels like a little ritual of care.
Because love doesn’t have to be grand.
Sometimes love is making someone tea.
Sometimes it’s checking in on a friend.
Sometimes it’s putting your phone away and sitting with someone you love.
Sometimes it’s your grandmother passing down a remedy she learned from her grandmother.
And sometimes it’s taking five minutes at the end of the day to care for yourself.
Happy Qixi. ❤️
Here’s to love in all of its forms, the joyful parts, the messy parts, the heartbreak, the healing, and finding our way back to one another.
xoxo,
Dr. Felice
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