Awhile ago, I posted a 5 element quiz. It included a 10 question quiz meant to give a general idea to what your 5 element constitution is. I explained that your constitution is the lens that you primarily see life through. It’s your greatest strength and weakness. A gift and a curse.
But the 5 elements are more than just a way of pigeon-holing people with specific emotions and symptoms. It originated as a theory of life in ancient Asia before it became a health system. It is also found in many different styles of acupuncture from Chinese, Japanese, and the specific 5 Element style which is out of England.
The ancient asians noticed how the energy of the seasons changed. The downward and powerful energetic of winter mimicking water. The aggressive and anticipatory energy of spring mimicking plant life going straight up like a sprout bursting from a seed in the ground. The warmth and joy of flowers in the summer sparking love and spreading like a wildfire. The inward and circular energy of the earth and the harvest of late summer that nourished for the upcoming tough times. The slow descent and grief of the fall as one chapter ended and prepared for another one.
At some point, after the theory of the seasons, someone figured that humans were a reflection of the environment around them and that these energy movements should occur in us as well.
The idea of Chinese Medicine and especially 5 Element Acupuncture being a fractal is my own. My mom got me a dvd of the PBS documentary on fractals about 10 years ago and it changed the way I looked at life. Fractals were everywhere and helped simplify the complexity of life on earth.
A fractal is a design that no matter how large or small the lens you look at the design, it is the same thing. I’ll give you two examples.
I tend to explain it in the office using the example of broccoli.
