02/21/2026
++THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE ++
"The Five Elements
For thousands of years, the Chinese observed Nature’s rhythms and cycles through the model of the Five Elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. These elements are in everything, everyone, and observable in any process. In nature, for a plant to grow, there must be a seed capable of growth (wood), sunlight and warmth (fire), soil (earth), minerals, trace elements, and air (metal), and, of course, water. Too much or too little of any of the elements would place the plant in peril. The expression of the seasons (spring, summer, late summer, fall, and winter) is another way in which we see this unchanging cycle. Furthermore, we can analyze any process in terms of its beginning phase (wood), its fruition (fire), its harvest and decline (earth), its letting go (metal), and its resting phase (water). The Chinese understood human beings to be microcosms, meaning that within us are the same elements that are found in nature. When these elements are functioning in health and balance within us, we experience health. If the elements are imbalanced, disease must be the result."
FROM: Five Elements, Twelve Officials, and the Causative Factor
By Neil R. Gumenick - June 22, 2016
Pacific College of Health and Science
https://www.pacificcollege.edu/news/blog/2016/06/22/five-elements-twelve-officials-and-the-causative-factor
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