Understanding The Five Elementary

Understanding The Five Elements

The Basics of The Five Elements

In Chinese philosophy, the Five Elements are the building blocks of everything in the Universe. The elements are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water.

Also known as the Five Transformations of Energy, each of the elements represent a different phase of energy and the Five Element Cycles show how these phases transform from one to the other.

One of the best ways to illustrate the energies are with the seasons:

Wood represents Springtime and uprising energy, such as plants pushing through the soil.

Fire represents Summer and ascending energy, such as flames reaching to the heavens.

Earth represents Early Fall and stabilizing, grounding energy.

Metal represents Late Fall and contracting energy, such as when trees lose their leaves to conserve.

Water represents Winter and descending energy, such as falling rain or water seeking it's lowest level.

The Creative Cycle works like this::

Wood feeds Fire

Fire creates ash (which is soil)

Earth produces Metal (minerals)

Metal condenses into Water

Water feeds plants

To counter balance and keep harmony in the natural world, there is also the Controlling Cycle:

Fire melts Metal

Metal chops Wood

Wood breaks through Earth

Earth dams up Water

Water dowses Fire

Every element has an element that "creates" it and an element that "controls" it. Therefore, balance and harmony are maintained.

In Chinese philosophy, the Five Elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, are representations of all the energies in the universe. (This post here provides basic information on the Five Elements). These Elements can be found in us as well, which I find to be a fascinating study on human behavior, emotions, and motivations.

If you are interested in learning what your primary Element is, fill in your name and email in the box to the right and take this simple quiz "What is Your True Nature?" 5 Elements Theory

Wood’s strength is zeal and initiative to move forward on projects and explore new things. If this behavior gets out of control, Wood can collapse into despair, apathy and discouragement.

Enter, the Fire Element, which can restore balance this apathy through it's strengths of excitement, passion, and charisma. On the other hand, Fire’s charisma can become obnoxious and arrogant, off putting to others.

But Earth’s strength of seeking harmony and agreeableness among others can overcome this. Too much agreeableness and Earth can become wishy-washy and sacrifice self for others too often creating imbalance.

Metal’s ability for discernment and restraint, knowing the limits of maintaining harmony at all costs - when and how much to be agreeable - can help balance Earth. But too much restraint and discernment can become too rigid and lead to black/white thinking.

So Water’s ability to be imaginative and creative, to think out of the box (gray, and pink, and yellow, and purple!) as well as its ability to go with the flow softens this rigidity of Metal. Water, though, can become too amorphous, detached and sink to the lowest level.

Wood’s strength of zeal and initiative can pull Water back up and get it back on track.

Having balanced qualities of all of these Elements in our life contributes to healthy, joyful and productive lives.

What is Elemental Cranial Sacral Work:

See in video below:

https://youtu.be/brNpNkCsRvM