Liu Rushi & the Sleepless Nights of a Woman Who Refused to Be Forgotten: A Ming Dynasty Courtesan's Guide to Surviving the Dark

"I have no country left to dream of. And yet I dream."
— In the spirit of Liu Rushi

There is a kind of sleeplessness that has nothing to do with caffeine, screen time, or an irregular schedule. It is the sleeplessness of grief — of loss so large that the mind cannot contain it in waking hours and so carries it, unresolved, into the night.

Liu Rushi (柳如是, 1618–1664) knew this sleeplessness intimately. She was one of the most remarkable women in Chinese history: a courtesan of the Qinhuai River pleasure quarters who became a celebrated poet, a political activist, a loyal wife, and ultimately a woman who chose death over dishonor when the world she loved collapsed around her.

Her story is not comfortable. But it is true. And in its truth, it offers something that polished wellness content rarely does: an honest reckoning with the emotional roots of sleeplessness, and a path — hard-won and real — back toward rest.

Who Was Liu Rushi?

Liu Rushi was born into poverty and sold into a courtesan house as a child — a fate that, in late Ming Dynasty China, was not uncommon for girls of her circumstances. But she was extraordinary. She taught herself classical poetry, calligraphy, and painting. She became one of the most sought-after literary companions in Jiangnan, the cultured heartland of southern China, known for her wit, her learning, and her fierce independence of spirit.

She was also, unusually for a woman of her time and station, deeply political. When the Ming Dynasty fell to the Manchu Qing in 1644, Liu Rushi urged her husband, the eminent scholar Qian Qianyi, to die with her in loyalty to the fallen dynasty. He hesitated. She did not — she walked into the lake herself. He pulled her back.

She lived another twenty years, outlasting her husband, navigating the treacherous politics of the new dynasty, protecting her family's estate. When Qian Qianyi died, his relatives moved to seize the property. Liu Rushi, then in her mid-forties, hanged herself rather than submit.

She was forty-six years old.

Her poetry survives. It is full of moonlight, longing, and the particular ache of a woman who loved a country that did not fully love her back.

The Sleeplessness of Grief: What TCM Understands

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, grief (悲, bei) is the emotion associated with the Lung meridian — the organ system that governs breath, boundary, and the capacity to let go. When grief is unprocessed, it constricts the Lung Qi, disrupts the flow of breath, and prevents the Heart-Shen (the spirit that governs sleep) from settling into rest.

This is not metaphor. It is physiology. Modern research confirms that grief activates the same neural pathways as physical pain, elevates cortisol and inflammatory markers, and significantly disrupts sleep architecture — reducing deep sleep, increasing nighttime waking, and producing vivid, often distressing dreams.

Liu Rushi carried grief that most of us will never know: the grief of a fallen dynasty, a compromised husband, a life lived at the mercy of forces she could not control. And yet her poetry, written in the darkest years of her life, is not only grief. It is also beauty — the beauty of a mind that refused to be extinguished by its circumstances.

The most resilient sleepers are not those who feel nothing. They are those who have learned to feel everything, and still find their way back to rest.

Silk, Skin, and the Body's Memory of Safety

The Qinhuai courtesans were, among other things, connoisseurs of material beauty. The pleasure quarters of Nanjing were famous for their silk lanterns, silk garments, silk bedding — a world of sensory refinement that was, for many of its inhabitants, both a gilded cage and a genuine refuge.

Liu Rushi wore silk. She slept in silk. And while we cannot know what comfort she found in those textures during her darkest nights, we know what the body knows: that the sensation of fine silk against the skin activates the parasympathetic nervous system, lowers the body's alert response, and creates a physiological environment in which rest becomes possible even when the mind is full of sorrow.

This is not luxury for its own sake. It is the body's oldest wisdom: that safety is felt before it is thought. That the path back to rest, when grief has closed every mental door, often runs through the skin.

Mulberry silk — the material at the heart of Taiji Sleep's bedding and sleepwear — offers this: a continuous, wordless signal of warmth and softness that the nervous system receives even when the mind is too full of loss to hear anything else.

The Emotional Roots of Modern Sleeplessness

We live in an era that is very good at diagnosing sleep problems in terms of habits and hygiene — screen time, caffeine, irregular schedules — and less comfortable acknowledging the emotional weight that keeps so many of us awake.

Grief. Anxiety. The particular loneliness of living in a world that moves faster than the human heart can process. The sense, familiar to anyone paying attention in 2026, that something large and important is changing, and that we do not know what comes next.

Liu Rushi lived through the collapse of a dynasty. We live through the acceleration of an era. The scale is different; the sleeplessness is recognizable.

In an age of artificial intelligence, algorithmic disruption, and the relentless compression of time, the emotional body is under a kind of pressure that has no historical precedent. We are asked to adapt faster than adaptation is possible. We carry more information, more uncertainty, more ambient grief than any previous generation.

The ancient remedy is not to feel less. It is to create the conditions — physical, ritual, relational — in which feeling is safe. In which the body knows it can rest, even when the world outside is uncertain.

Rest is not the absence of grief. It is the presence of enough safety to let grief breathe.

A Bedtime Practice for Grief and Emotional Weight

If you are carrying something heavy tonight — a loss, a worry, an unresolved sorrow — try this before sleep:

First, acknowledge what you are carrying. Not to solve it, but simply to name it. Liu Rushi named her grief in poetry — she gave it form, language, beauty. You might write three sentences in a journal, or simply say aloud, to yourself or to the dark: I am carrying this tonight.

Then, turn to the body. Place one hand on your chest, over your heart. Feel the warmth of your own touch. Breathe slowly, letting the exhale be long and complete — this activates the Lung meridian, the organ of grief and release in TCM, and signals to the nervous system that it is safe to soften.

Finally, let the material world hold you. The weight of the duvet. The smoothness of the pillow. The warmth of the bed. These are not distractions from your grief. They are the body's way of saying: you are here. You are safe. You can rest now.

Liu Rushi did not find an easy peace. But she found, in poetry and in beauty, a way to survive the night. That is enough. That is, sometimes, everything.

Carry Your Grief into Sacred Space

Liu Rushi prayed. In the temples and shrines of Jiangnan, she lit incense for a dynasty that had fallen and a future she could not see. There is something in that gesture — the act of bringing what cannot be solved to a place larger than oneself — that transcends any particular faith or era.

Every month, we journey to ancient temples and Taoist sanctuaries across China — lighting incense, offering prayers, and carrying the intentions of our members into sacred spaces. Those who walk with us for six months or more will receive, at year's end, a curated collection of sacred tokens gathered from the altars and shrines along our path — small objects that hold the memory of incense smoke, mountain silence, and whispered prayers. Each piece travels from a place of stillness to find its way to you.

Discover the Journey →🕯️🏮☯️

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