Wood Becomes Water, my first book, explores the ways that Chinese medicine connects our bodies and minds to the natural world. Using imagery and symbolism, the Taoist cycle of the five elements links physical ailments with emotions, behaviors and also with the forces of nature--with weather, color, sound, time, space, and more.
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About Wood Becomes Water and the Cycle of the Five Elements
The five element cycle that lies at the heart of Chinese medicine is, at its core, the simplest of concepts---a circle. The elements---Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water---are stations of that circle. Without beginning or end, a circle is timeless, evoking the continuous renewals of night and day, the orbits of the planets, the phases of the moon, and death and rebirth. In cultures the world over, from ancient Europe to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, the circle has been used in ritual and in art to represent the continuous and cyclical nature of life.
Like mandalas and medicine wheels around the world, the cycle of the five elements integrates human activity with the natural rhythms of the universe. The Taoist five-element cycle, comprised of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water, has been used to map time like a calendar, space like a compass, the movements of the heavens, the divination of events on earth, medicine, psychology, music, and even the rise and fall of emperors.
- Wood represents birth and early growth.
- Fire pertains to the height of development.
- Earth describes transition and balance.
- Metal governs condensation and decline.
- Water represents quiescense, death, and renewal.
Living processes are considered to move through this cycle from Wood to Fire to Earth to Metal to Water, then back to Wood again: first growing, then reaching a peak, declining, and renewing again. The continuity of this cycle can be grasped most easily in relation to the cycle of the seasons, where Wood's early growth corresponds to spring, Fire's activity relates to summer, Metal's decline is akin to autumn, and Water's repose is like winter. Earth's transition is analogous to late summer, as well as the equinoxes and solstices, which are the turning points of the seasons.
The stages of ebb and flow described by the five elements are aspects of all growth: they can be found in living things like humans and plants, in nonliving entities like civilizations and careers, and in creative processes like writing or building. The great wheel of life thus lends itself to many aspects of our experience, casting them as living systems with their own births and deaths, struggles and transitions.
The beginning of the Five Element Cycle is the Wood phase, which finds qi in the process of condensing and taking on form. As Wood's voluminous energy bursts into being, the process of life begins. . . .