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| element wood |
It all began in the mid-80s (1980s, just in case the internet survives into 2100 and beyond :-) when i was heavily into astrological research.
What troubled me at the time was one tiny little distinctive difference between the Chinese astrology and our Western astrology. (Do you believe astrology is an expression of human ingenuity to understand the world and time we live in better, that it is just another science, not disconnected from the more mainstream ones at all)?
The distinctive difference:
While we in the West were always told everything is made of just 4 things (elements), earth, water, fire and air .... the Chinese were told everything was made up of 5 things (elements), earth, water, fire .. metal and wood!!
Just while writing this i imagine the look on some newcomers faces and their spinning brain cells ... "what, metal and wood, you are joking, right"?
So, the questions to clear up here were; who is right or righter and why do the Chinese not mention air as a basic element??
Read all the rest about the 6 basic elements everything is made of here.
Now, this article is about the discovery of 2 basic elements, meaning these 2 elements are not new, they have always existed just like fire, earth, water and air have, but they just weren't recognized as such up to my entry to the matter, so i will focus on explaining that - rather than the very lengthy process it took over a few years to finally arrive at my conclusion. But, if you are fluent in German, you could read my notes about this scientific discovery in detail at http://useroo.tripod.com/tregem.html under Buchauszug aus "Geist und Zeit" von Rudolf Megert.
The Chinese element metal is actually our element air, this became clear through the description of that element as a cutting but inflexible force - similar to high winds.
The Chinese element wood was a bit more difficult to figure out ... but it helped to know its meaning is not just wood as we use it in buildings etc., it applies to everything that grows, all plants. Plants feed animals and humans, and apparently the greater the vegetative variety a creature can digest the more of their natural instincts can turn into intellect, hence into thinking processes. So, if digestion of plants produces thinking, and thinking is commonly referred to as spirit, here we now have an element i would rather call exactly that, spirit, than the Chinese wood element.
Thus, we have a 5th element, and it makes perfect sense that there is such, because with a creative spirit (note the importance here, creative spirit is an element, not some form or shape of the various gods people still worship) nothing would blend fire, water, earth and air together into strange mixes, these elements would stay and remain forever as their own separate entities.
This could have been the end of my elementary discovery, but it wasn't . . .
If you have an element that takes the 4 commonly-known elements and mixes them into all kinds of things you understand why there are animals that use air to move around and others that use water to get ahead and yet other creations that are capable of building their own furniture, mode of transportation and even try to recreate themselves by means of electricity - but ... why do all of these creations fall apart again eventually??
Because time too is a basic element, time is the 6th basic element!
Time kills - creations!!
You bake it you eat it, (whatever was created once will return to it's original state eventually again, the cycle of life)!
To simplify the understanding process for my readers, below are 2 graphic's of all the 6 basic elements of everything in existence:
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| The newer version of the 6 basic elements of life, showing the relation of elements and seasons |
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| The older, original version of the complete 6 basic elements of life, showing the positive and negative relations between each of the elements |