I like to keep a picture of each element in my mind as a
template against which I can measure those I meet, and from this I recognize
whether they do or do not fit into this template. So here let me first discuss my thoughts
about the Wood element.
I always think that one of Wood’s most important functions
is that of bringing order out of chaos, adding structure to the unstructured. Its desire is to ensure order wherever
possible, for it wants a world on which it can impose its own structure and
design upon what might otherwise be disorganized and unstructured. We
order and arrange things into boxes when we want to tidy up our homes or our
offices. This seems to me to be an accurate image of what Wood wants to achieve
in life. The picture that comes to mind here are those TV pictures of bank
employees leaving their offices with all their working possessions stuffed into
boxes after the banking meltdown in 2009 as the banks closed their doors for
the last time. In a similar way I can see
the Wood element trying to enclose everything it does within the narrow
confines of individual boxes.
It might seem as if a bud, which is Wood’s signature in
nature, appears to have a much less clearly defined contour than the boxes I
have just talked about, but in fact each bud is a very structured object, whose
shape has to adhere to parameters strictly laid down if it is to grow properly
into a fully grown leaf, plant or tree.
Without this well-planned structure, laid down in what I like to call the
DNA of the seed, a bud will wither and die. This is a symbolic representation
of what the Wood element within us needs to offer us if it, too, is to fulfil
the functions it is there to fulfil.
A world in which things move in straight, ordered lines, have
their allotted place and move forward in their allotted ways seems to me to be
an image of Wood’s ideal world. If I
were to put this feeling into words, I would describe it as someone saying,
“And this is, and that is so, and yet again this other thing is so,”, forming a kind of movement at right angles to itself,
and in words always spoken with precision and with emphasis. When I represent Wood graphically to myself,
I visualize it as a series of straight lines, which run up and down, from right
to left and from back to front, as though forming the squares of a Rubik cube
which, when rotated, re-forms itself again into a further small square.
Wood always tends to speak with precision and with emphasis,
creating a sense of order with its words.
It can be said to want to “tell” rather than to communicate. To tell somebody something is just as much a
way of ordering things, this time through the structure of words. Wood’s telling something can be described
more as making a statement, rather than taking the form of a discussion with
others. This is where its talking differs from some of the other elements, such
as Fire, whose communications become a two-sided affair moving from one person
to another and back again. Wood’s is in
one direction only, towards the person spoken to, with far less emphasis upon
the need for the words to be returned to it by the person spoken to, or, if
Wood is very unbalanced, with no attention at all paid to the need for
discussion with the other person. The
image I have of Wood’s speech is to think of it like a tennis player practising
alone by hitting a ball against a wall, whereas I see other elements as taking
part in a game of two or more players, one or more on each side of the net,
hitting a ball of words to one another across the net.
When I asked some Wood people what they want of their
interaction with others, they all agreed that what they wanted was to “engage”
with them. This is an interesting
word. My dictionary gives it a very
active meaning, which includes the sense of battling and grappling with, and is
much used in military terminology. It
implies more than just interacting, for there is the sense within it of some
kind of a struggle, or, at the very least, pressure from one side to push
against the other, which we can see as representing the push behind all that
Wood does.
When thinking of the Wood element it is always good to have
in mind the image of nature outside on an early spring day. We can see buds pushing themselves up from
below the ground as though summoned into the warmth and daylight as the cold
dark days of winter yield slowly to lighter, warmer days. I did not fully appreciate the force required
for each bud to break through the often hard soil to emerge above ground until
one day I happened to be walking across a concrete wasteland where a building
had once stood, and noticed tiny little patches of green here and there below
my feet. On examining them more closely
I realised that they were the first vestiges of little plants, and was amazed
to see how these tiny growths had managed, each individually, to break through
what I could now see was a very thick layer of concrete, perhaps at least 1
metre deep, cracking it open to allow the plant to reach the sunlight. Over the next few weeks I watched these tiny
growths become taller and taller, until when I returned a few months later, I
found small trees, now a few feet high, their roots embedded deep within the
concrete, but creating large cracks in it as they grew. The fact that a single bud has the power to split
concrete apart in this way has always remained a vivid illustration for me of
the force impelling the Wood element upwards and forwards.
And a sense of movement must always be associated with this
element, for movement of all kinds is what Wood enjoys. It can be said often to appear to enjoy
activity for activity’s sake. One of the
traditional qualities associated with it is that it controls our tendons and
ligaments, the parts of our body which dictate our movements. They tighten and relax as they propel the
body forward, back, up or down. If you clench your hand it is the Wood element
which first tightens your fist and then relaxes it to allow it to lose its
tension. If you do this a few times in
succession, you will feel how much effort is needed to keep this repetitive
movement going. Eventually your muscles
will be too tired to respond to your brain’s command and simply allow the
tendons to lie still there as though defeated.
All sportspeople have to concentrate much of their work on honing the
Wood element in themselves. Just watch
footballers out on the pitch before a match gradually exercising their muscles
to a condition which will allow them to work at full strength for the whole of
the match.
We are usually quite unaware of all the normal effort
involved in moving around in our daily life, unless we are ill, when every
attempt to move is exhausting, or when we are too tired to make the effort and
are just glad to sit still. But there,
hovering behind each everyday movement we make, is the Wood element doing its
busy work without our noticing it. We
can see this easily when we watch a body on the move, as we observe Wood
controlling every stage of this activity, from a blink of our eyelid to the
lifting of a leg as we walk. But we have
to remember that the elements also do their work in all the other spheres of
our life, those which relate to our mind and our spirit. Wood’s influence extends to these, too.
It does this by adding impetus and strength to our mental
activities and emotional impulses (those of our spirit). If we translate this image of a Wood person
striding strongly into the future into a mental image, we can see how the same
impetus which guides our movements can guide our thoughts and the way we
respond emotionally to life. It is
likely that a Wood person may not wish to dwell too long upon the intricacies
relating to our approach to life, the decisions we need to make, the way in
which we distinguish what is essential from what is not essential for us to
do. They are more likely to want to move
on quickly to a new thought, a new decision, a new approach to life, not wishing
to dwell too long in one place in the same way as their feet itch to move their
body forward.
If we want to deepen our understanding of some of the
qualities of the Wood element, it will be good to look at its role in forming
the initial phase of each cycle. Let us
think first of the impetus needed to change things from a quiescent phase as
they slow to a stop to a more active phase as they start up again at the
beginning of their next cycle. I have
many mental images of the way the different elements display themselves. I find a picture of the Wood element that I
have is very helpful here, which is that of an old steam train. We can all visualize the train gradually
coming to a halt; its engine slowly
stops, releasing steam, its wheels slow down, each becoming visible as it
emerges from the blur of its movement at speed.
The train appears to be releasing its breath until at last, with its
final puff, it comes to a halt. The
movement from slowing down to halting leads forward from what we can call the
Metal phase of the train’s cycle of movement, its ending phase, to its Water
phase, almost its dormant phase, as movement stops and all falls quiet.
What then will need to be done to re-invigorate the train’s
energy to allow it to be re-started? All
kinds of bustling activity will have to take place. Similarly much effort is involved in moving
things forward from the passive Water phase of winter to the active Wood phase
of spring. It is to Wood’s natural
energy that we owe the ability for things to restart in this way. In the steam engine, all is activity, as coal
is heaved manually into the furnace, shovelful by shovelful, to power the
furnace which will drive the engine forward.
The driver and fireman leap into action, as though trying to keep up
with the fire devouring all that they feed it with. Gone is the temporary peace of the stationary
train. All is hurry and bustle. Activity has replaced non-activity. Thus does spring’s Wood energy bustle in its
attempts to bring life back to the apparently lifeless energy of winter. Keeping this image in mind is a very
practical way of understanding the power that Wood harnesses in restarting all
cycles.
What Wood finds difficult are situations which challenge its
need to stay on the move, things which force it in some way to come to a
halt. We can visualize examples of this
in physical terms as situations in which Wood people are prevented from moving,
for example if they work in a sedentary office job. This was true of a Wood patient of mine who
felt that her working life was spent as though she was chained to her
desk. Inevitably this had an effect upon
her health, and might indeed have been regarded, as I did regard it, as the
main cause of her physical symptoms. All
of them, from her migraines to her back-ache, disappeared after treatment of
her Wood element, and this treatment included my suggesting that she would
benefit from changing her work at a desk for something more active, if this was
possible. I found it almost laughingly
appropriate that when she returned for follow-up treatment some months later
she told me that she was now happily working for a gardening company which
involved much time spent in the open air tending to the growth of plants, such
a Wood-like occupation.
It is always good to think of the elements as together
creating a complete cycle of activity, with each element allotted its specific
activity within that cycle. I think of
them as each waiting for the element before it to do its work before it takes
over for the time of its activity. In
terms of the year, this reflects its particular season, before the change of
season dictates that it is time to hand over to its successor element. Because the demands of our element so
dominate our lives, I feel that each of us is reluctant to allow our element to
give up its place, as each season has to the next in nature. In a profound way, each us, so closely tied
in with our particular element’s demands and wishes and under its power, would
much prefer to bask in the blessings our season showers us with, not merely for
that one season each year but for the whole of the year. In my case, Fire might like to enjoy a
lifetime of summers, and Wood would bask in the joys of the year’s renewal in a
lifetime of springs. But, as we know,
this can never happen, so instead each of us must make the most of what our
element’s season offers us once each year.
We therefore also have to take the greatest advantage of
where our element places us in terms of the cycle of any activity. Wood is the element that most enjoys doing
things just for activity’s sake, and is less interested in completing an
activity that it enjoys starting. The
bud, after all, hands over to the summer, Fire’s season, to draw it up to its
full height. In a similar way, Wood
people are not as interested in completing what they have started as perhaps we
would assume they should be.
I had a Wood patient who was happiest in his retirement
working on repairing a boat he had bought.
On asking him what kind of a boat, I was not surprised when he answered,
“wooden, of course”. Interestingly, his
wife complained that he spent all his time fiddling around with different bits
of the boat, but never actually completed it sufficiently to take it out on to
the water. I did not find this odd. Wood people like working on things
(particularly, as here, if they are made of wood), but are not so concerned
with finishing them. They just enjoy the
doing of things, often just for doing’s sake.
Other elements, above all Metal, want things to be completed, or need to
have things complete. For Wood,
completion can bring to an unsatisfactory conclusion what they most enjoy,
which is actively continuing to carry on doing what they are doing.
A Wood patient told me this week: “I always have these bright ideas, but then I
never do anything about them.” If we
translate this into an image of the Wood element in nature, this is like shoots
popping up on all sides above ground in spring, many of which simply get
trampled underfoot without growing to full size, with only a few gradually
given the time and space to develop into mature plants. I cannot, for example, imagine any other
element expressing itself in these words.
