"The Heart is the fire at the centre of our being, from which the spirit radiates.”
In Chinese cosmology, everything derives from yin and yang, the active and the receptive, moving out into the world and drawing back within. From yin and yang comes the five elements; fire; our passion for life, our connection with each other, our love for community, our connection with ourselves. At the centre of the fire element is the heart, “...the emperor, the supreme controller. The Heart is the fire at the centre of our being, from which the spirit radiates.” -Neijing Suwen (Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine).
All other elements support the heart; the metal element; boundaries, value, taking in and letting go, taking in all that we need in order to give what we’ve got. As we breathe in, we inspire ourselves and as we let go, we release all that no longer serves us.
The earth element; our relationship with our body and the ground. The visceral deliciousness of being within the body, within the world. The earth element is about giving and receiving, balancing our giving into the world with our ability to receive back in all that we need. Earthing ourselves we heal, we heal the body, and by healing the body, we heal the mind, and spirit enters.
We are mostly made up of water; the waters teach us of rest verses action… knowing when to relax, when to act; when to go out into the world, and when to come back within. Wood; our creative force; enables us to create the lives that we want; manifest our dreams into reality. In wood, there is the dreaming element, the knowing what we wish to have and become, and then the action element; how to make it happen. Wood gives us our next steps in life, our pathway forwards. Can we see the wood through the trees? Do we know our best next steps to achieve our dreams?
And as the wood feeds the fire, it supports the heart and the spirit. With clear direction, we know where we are going, we manifest our dreams in life, our heart fills up and we rest in the knowing that we are being all we can be in this body. Our Shen (spirit) takes root in our heart, and we find repletion; we are satisfied, for we know that we are living our life in accordance with our destiny.
The Five Element Spiral
And thus, the five elements roll in a spiral, one supporting the other… the fire supports the earth. By sharing of ourselves in the world, by making our contribution, we rest back in the earth, enjoying the nourishment that she offers… and the earth support‘s the metal, we find value in ourselves and in all that we do, we find steadfastness; and the metal contains our waters; we flow with life’s currents easefully, having a secure boundary.
Moving between activity and rest & replenishment, the flow of our waters nourishes our wood, our creative force and we create our dreams, moving seamlessly in and out of our communities, expressing our gifts in the world and making our contribution.
Dancing the Five Elements
As we dance with the element’s we connect with our internal energy system, our meridians. Moving and expressing ourselves, we move our meridians and the five elements within.
Dancing the elements, we connect within ourselves and outside of ourselves, we connect to the breath of life, we feel it in our lungs, in our body, we feel the vitality and self-value of the metal element. Through earth we find our steadiness and our connection to the earth beneath our feet, we may feel the prana of the earth coming into the body, nourishing us.
When our waters are fluid, our nervous system relaxes, and we dance easefully between activity and rest; in wood, we move and flex like the trees, strong and rooted in the earth, free flowing with the wind, with the currents of life.
Dancing fire, we hear the messages of our deepest longings; we find our passion for life, and we connect with compassion and love for ourselves and all beings we share this life with. We flow in and out of relationship more easefully and are motivated to create and to live our lives to the full… when our heart is free and happy it’s a crowning of our sentience in this body.
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