PERIHELIOS

by Thomas Rivers Brown

In the first chapter of his famous work, The Zhuangzi, the Chinese Taoist philosopher Zhuang Tzu describes a gigantic sea creature so vast that its body is an unknown number of miles long. In a passage entitled “The Carefree Excursion,” Zhuang chronicles the transformation of this sea creature, K’un, into an equally immense bird, Peng: when it rouses itself and flies, its wings obscure the sky like clouds.

A symbol of incredible strength and magnitude, K’un represents Thomas’s wine, Perihelios.