What Are the 5 Elements?

Here you see the elements in the creation and harmonizing cycles

The theory of Five Elements comes from Chinese medicine. It is a model based on the recognition that on a large scale everything is connected. All the different things that we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch are just energy changing forms. This constant transformation is due to a dynamic interplay of related but opposing forces. This is yin and yang: cold and heat, water and fire. Due to this energetic dance, all of the material world is formed. The elements represent phases of energy transformation as they occur in the environment and inside of our being.

In this model, the elements or phases are arranged to form a cycle where one follows from another. This generating cycle flows from Water, to Wood, to Fire, to Earth and Metal. They represent vectors of energy as it is expanding and condensing. The star-shape inside the circle shows how the elements counterbalance each other. According to this theory, each element has many associations and can be used to explore aspects of mind, body and spirit. We can see their relationships in nature and to feel them in our bodies through each season of our lives and each day. There are lots of ways to interpret the elements based on our observations of these vectors of energy.

Let’s begin with an introductory explanation of the energetics and some of the associations of the five elements:

Water is depicted at the bottom and is the most condensed form of energy. Its direction is the North and its season is the winter. Like midnight, it is dark, and somewhat mysterious as it holds the infinite unknown. It holds the potential for our lives and connects us with our ancestors through DNA, growth and development, and reproduction.

Next comes spring, and like a seed germinating, Wood rises and grows up and out, expanding in all directions. It’s quality is growth and reaching. It is located in the East, where the sun rises. This element is about our vision, making plans for our life and taking decisive action. Wood marks the transitions all the way to the top of the cycle, to the element of Fire.

Fire sits in the South. It is like a flower blooming in the summertime. It is the most expansive and rapidly-moving phase of energy. It is associated with the heart, which in Chinese medicine is the home of the spirit. Our consciousness helps us to connect with the present moment and have heart-to-heart relationships. When Fire burns out, it settles down to Earth.

The phase of Earth slows things down and brings everything to the center. Earth is fundamentally related to nourishment and reciprocity. It helps us take things in and is the foundation of our bodily energy. Like fertile soil or our home planet, it is the flesh of our bodies. It allows us the ability to have creative thought and intellect.

Next, like a plant going to seed in the autumn, everything simplifies. Only what is essential remains, and the energy descends into Metal. Metal is about clarity and discernment. It is home of the felt senses of our body. It is our sense of righteousness and of value. It can also be described as Crystal or Air, so an image could be mountain tops with clouds around it.

Then, the cycle begins again: clouds condense to form rain, fresh mountain streams eventually make their way to the ocean. Water causes the seed to germinate, allowing dreams to become our visions. We take action and our visions bear fruit, then we rest, process, and let go of what we don’t need. Each day we rise up and out, we express ourselves and share with others, then we come back toward center, and we contract down and in to rest.

As you can see, this cycle provides a sort of road map, an example of how we might flow through our lives, accepting the inevitability of change and transformation. Most simply, we can know ourselves as part of these natural cycles. It can help us to find greater harmony within. Though we will tend throughout the course of our lives to find ourselves in some sort of imbalance, we don’t have to get stuck there. We can use the elements to help us to move along the path of growth, maturity, and wisdom. Each person has relative strengths and weakness in these elements. Some call this our constitution. As we observe ourselves, and our tendencies, we can learn about our own expression of the elements.

In this blog, I share my own explorations of these elements and the relationships among them as I am learning about them from teachers, the natural world, and my own body. I first began learning about the Five Elements through studying shiatsu, a Japanese form of bodywork, in massage school in 2009. I deepened this study in an apprenticeship with Nini Melvin starting in 2018. My other major influences include my study of Chinese Medicine at Daoist Traditions, as well as Body-Mind Centering, a method of somatic education developed by Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen. I embrace a somatic approach, which means I believe one of the best ways to learn is through direct perception. We turn our attention to the environment around us and our own inner landscape of our body and mind. We can learn to listen to and trust ourselves to generate knowledge that is both true and meaningful for us.

I’m inspired to share what I have learned and find useful because we need all the tools we can get right now to help us find connection with ourselves, with others and the natural world. Through the lifecycle we can become more ourselves: connected to our purpose, able to manifest our visions, express ourselves, make mistakes, come back to center, nourish and exchange with our communities. We can turn to the elements and to the natural world, to learn how to live a human life.

-Faith Enuol