Basics: The Five Phases
How Life Moves
Last week I had a request to cover some introductory material. I figured that, besides yin and yang, there’s nothing more fundamental to Traditional East Asian philosophy than the five phases (wu xing), also known as the five elements. I hope this piece proves to be a fun romp through the elemental terrain, whether it’s your first time or your twentieth. -JEd
If you’ve ever read a book on feng shui or Chinese medicine or astrology, ever encountered gongfu (kung fu) or tea ceremony or any traditional art form from the greater Chinese cultural area, then you’ve had a brush with the five phases.
You know.
Water
Wood
Fire
Earth
Metal
…and Water again.
Around and around they go.
Now, despite their names, which do seem very noun-y, the five phases don’t describe things so much as stages or steps. They’re a seasonal, process-oriented way of looking at the world.
Take Water, for example. (Water’s generally a good place to start).
Our modern minds say “I know all about water. It’s got two hydrogen and one oxygen, it’s liquid, it’s full of fish….” Yes, but as a phase, Water signifies something a bit different. It starts from the fact that Water goes to the lowest place and collects there, deep and cold.
For the Chinese, or anyone exploring the five phases, Water is synonymous with winter, the time when everything goes inward to rest. Water stands for stillness. Depth. Storage. Think ‘deep freeze.’ Think ‘ice.’
Water’s nature is compressed, cold, dark. You can guess that its color must be blue-black. As for Water’s bodily representatives, they are the Kidney and Urinary Bladder, for reasons that might become clear upon reflection. Among the emotions, awe and fear belong to Water.
Although this phase theory is ancient, it’s alive and well today. The ancients classified grains and horses according to the elements; we can debate which kind of car belongs to Water (how about a black Tesla, dark and quiet and a little mysterious) or which band has the Water-iest sound (one candidate: Godspeed You Black Emperor!).
You see how this works: anything can be classified according to its phase. Seasonality pervades the world we live in. And the web of associations has unlimited reach. And everything is always changing.
Even as we speak, Water is turning to Wood, as inevitably as winter turns to spring.
Wood means movement, growth, new life! (Think curling tendrils: new growth not dead wood.) Wood is supple, flexible, spreading. Its color can only be green. In the body, the Liver and Gallbladder belong to Wood. As do Benevolence and Anger.
More poetically, Wood is the itch to get planting as the days warm. It’s the new idea rattling around your head. It’s the face of ambition, the part of you that sees how things could be different (vision and the eyes belong to Wood, too).
As Wood matures, it thickens, hardens, dries…and eventually catches ablaze.
We come to Fire.
Fire needs little introduction. It’s summer, full expression, a riot of color and connection. Fire is all bloom and buzz and blaze. Red, naturally. The Heart and Small Intestine partake of the nature of Fire, as do another pair of channels called the Pericardium (xin bao, ‘heart wrapper’) and Triple Burner (san jiao, ‘three cookers’). (The story of how Fire ended up with two pairs of organs is one for another day; let’s just say Fire is charismatic like that.) Its emotions are joy and mania.
Fire is explosions, starbursts, orgasms. Music festivals, peak experiences, the meeting of two hearts in the dance we call love. It’s ecstatic…and too fleeting.
In its wake we’re left with ashes on the ground, and a sweet, lingering memory.
Hi, JEd here. I mean, it’s been JEd all along, but this is the version of me that comes along every so often to interject an appeal to your more generous angels.
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Earth.
Earth means ripening, fullness, sweetness. It’s that post-peak, late summer moment when everything hangs still for a golden spell before the first cold winds snap us out of reverie. Earth is the center, including the center of our bodies: the Spleen (Chinese spleen, sometimes equated with the anatomical pancreas) and Stomach. Its emotions are contentment and worry.
Earth is the full belly, the nurturing gesture, the bear hug. The place of comfort, the sweet spot in the middle. Earth is the pivot, around which things turn. And it’s the hearth: not the blaze itself but the masonry that holds the heat, gently radiating.
Gradually, its juicy warmth thins out. Things become dry and brittle. Cold enters around the edges. The skies become razor-clear and the wind hones its edge.
Metal.
Autumn’s blade, scything down the harvest, clearing the air, whittling everything down to the essential. Metal is clear or white. Belongs to the Lung and Large Intestine. Governs grief and respect.
Metal is order and discipline. Cold hard cash. Anything with a keen edge or sharp look. Metal season was the time of punishment and execution in ancient China. For us still, it’s the time of pruning. Clearing away the excess as nature contracts in and down….all the way back…
to Water.
In this way, each element engenders the next, just as each season turns inevitably around the wheel of the year. This turning we’ve just walked through is referred to as the sheng or “generation” cycle. It’s contrasted with the ke or “control” cycle depicted here:
In the sheng cycle, each element gives birth to its child, just as winter gives birth to spring. In the ke cycle, each element restrains its grandchild. This is less easy to see through the lens of the seasons, but plenty intuitive from the perspective of the elements themselves.
What controls Fire? Water, of course.
Likewise, Metal controls Wood (an ax chopping a tree).
Earth controls Water (a sandbag preventing a flood).
Wood controls Earth (roots breaking up heavy soil).
Fire controls Metal (a forge melting a blade).
In this way, each phase or element has a parent, a child, a grandparent, and a grandchild.
Put differently, each element (a) gives rise to, (b) is given rise to, (c) controls, and (d) is controlled by precisely one another element.
This perfectly elegant and dynamic system has internal checks and balances without containing anything superfluous. It has just enough complexity to effectively model living processes. What seems like a somewhat naïve model, in other words, turns out to be powerfully descriptive and predictive.
So, how can this theory be applied in practice? The answer is “in a million and one ways, across endless disciplines.”
We’ll explore some of them in the second part of this series.
Got any burning five phase questions? What other subjects would you like to see addressed through ‘Basics’ series posts like this one? Feel free to drop a note in the comments.