Chapter Five of the Daodejing — straw dogs, the bellows, and the paradox of useful emptiness. We open with a Neiye breathing practice that puts the chapter's central image in your body before a word of explanation is spoken. The Dao Moment comes from a Hakomi somatic retreat in California, where a womb regression practice cracked open something unexpected about the field state Chapter One describes. We then work through the chapter's most misunderstood image — straw dogs aren't cruel indifference, they're complete equanimous presence — and close with a look at how Mitchell, Le Guin, Hall/Ames, and Red Pine each illuminate and occasionally obscure the indigenous intent of this ancient text.