The Way of the Five Seasons

Living with the Five Elements for Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Harmony

John Kirkwood

• Publisher: Singing Dragon
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781848193017
• eBook ISBN: 9780857012524
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Medicina alternativa y complementaria

Here is a comprehensive and practical guide to using the Five Element model in your daily life in ways that can improve your physical health, foster mental ease and clarity, create more emotional balance, and bring you closer to spirit.

Having introduced the philosophical and practical principles of the Five Elements, the author invites you to 'live the book', immersing yourself in the many aspects of each Element during its corresponding season. He offers a range of methods of doing this, including activities such as movement, cooking, gardening, journaling, visualisation, meditation, dialogue and self-acupressure. In working with each Element, he explores the three levels or expressions of human life - the physical (structures, organs, tissues and systems), the psycho-emotional (thoughts, beliefs, self-images, emotions and reactions), and the spirit.

Detailed information is provided on each Element's specific attributes, associations, resonances and gifts, and anatomical illustrations are included for further guidance. An invaluable reference book for practitioners and students of Chinese Medicine who hope to become better practitioners to others, the book also provides the means to become a practitioner to yourself.

Part 1

PREPARING FOR A JOURNEY

Chapter 1

How to Use This Book

Living the Book

It is amazing how many people, when I mention the Five Elements, say, ‘I’ve always wanted to know more about that.’ Well, this book tells you more.

But it is more than just a collection of information that satisfies the mind’s curiosity. It certainly does contain a lot that is interesting, but it is much more than that. What this book offers is a practical guide to using the Five Element model in your daily life in ways that can improve your physical health, foster mental ease and clarity, create more emotional balance and bring you closer to spirit which is the True Nature of who you are.

The way these changes can come about for you is by evoking each Element in turn, immersing yourself in all the manifestations of that Element and engaging with its qualities in all areas of your life and your being. The more you actively call the Element into your life, the more the gifts of that Element will be revealed within you.

When you have this kind of access to an Element, you are able to experience the world and interact with it through the strengths and gifts of that Element. If you have access to all five, then you are living a full life. You are able to live fully from all possible phases, all possible perspectives. The corollary of this is that if you are closed down or stuck in an Element, you are unable to perceive and experience the capacities and gifts of that Element. It closes you down to one area of human life.

The way to get the most out of this book is to ‘live the book’ over the course of a year. This is how I wrote the book, by living each Element chapter in its own season as thoroughly as possible. While the material may be read at any time, the chapters are best lived in their own seasons. This is because nature provides us with five seasons that are perfectly aligned with the vibrations of their corresponding Elements. For example, the Water Element is most prominent in winter. Winter provides us with cold days and long dark nights, the better to rest, sleep more and gather our resources. It supports us to stay home and do less. And it gives us the opportunity to find our still places, to go inward and explore the depth of ourselves. If we do spend the winter immersed in the Water Element, we are much better prepared to take advantage of everything that the Wood Element has to offer in spring. Rested and restored as we are, we can leap up and move forward with a spring in our step, put plans into operation with vigour and purpose, fully supported by the energy in nature that is doing exactly the same thing.

If you choose to accept this mission of living the book, start by reading Part 1 of the book. Then choose the Element chapter that corresponds to the season you are currently in and begin there. If you are part way through a season and don’t have time to fully explore all the exercises and activities, that’s okay, the season will come round again next year and you can finish then. I know from long experience that when you immerse yourself in an Element in its own season, you are inviting its wisdom in. This begins an alchemical process that is as magical as it is mysterious.

The focus of this book is on actively engaging with the Elements. It offers a range of methods of doing this. There are several categories of activities which are described in more detail in Chapter 5. These activities include movement, cooking, gardening, journaling, visualisation, meditation, dialogue and self-acupressure. All of these activities I have used myself and many have been used with groups, so I know they can work. Since we are all very different people with unique backgrounds and experiences, some of these activities will resonate more than others. Some of them might feel awkward at first, but I encourage you to give them all a try. You never know if you’ll find some new way into yourself by trying something unfamiliar.

Each Element chapter is divided into three sections, each of which focuses on one level or expression of human life. The first of these levels is the physical body, its structures, organs, tissues and systems. The second is the psycho-emotional body, made up of thoughts, beliefs, self-images, emotions and reactions. The third level is that of the spirit, that part that is neither body, personality nor history, and which is both eternal and non-dual. I will explain more about these three levels in Chapter 4.

If you have got this far into the book, then you are probably a person who has an interest in self-awareness and self-exploration. What the book offers is a simple yet elegant model of the world that is perfectly suited to this endeavour. The Five Element model arose out of the philosophy of Taoism which sees everything in our world as arising out of the void or the Great Mystery. Moreover, we and everything else in the world are being continually recreated moment by moment out of this void. Thus, we are both separate and indivisible at the same time, like waves arising out of the same ocean.

The philosophy that underpins the work of this book presupposes that we are both wave and ocean. There is a particular wave of you which eats, sleeps, thinks, feels, goes to work, has relationships and hobbies, and eventually dies. And there is the ocean of you that is also the ocean of everyone and everything, an ocean which never dies and is indestructible.

The activities in the book encourage you to explore yourself at all levels of your human existence. By so doing, you are allowing the Great Mystery to express itself more completely in this strange and wonderful world of ours.

Becoming a Practitioner to Yourself

In our quest for good physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, we all need the help and guidance of specialists. When we have a physical illness, we seek a practitioner such as a doctor, an acupuncturist, a naturopath or a chiropractor. When we feel our mental and emotional state is interfering with our functioning in the world, we seek psychological help from a counsellor, therapist or psychologist. And when our spirit is suffering, we seek guidance from spiritual individuals or groups who can support the unfolding of that part of us which is eternal.

All of these sources of assistance are invaluable to us as we move through the many changes and phases of our lives. But we may overlook the inherent wisdom within ourselves. Some have called this place the inner doctor, the part of us that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• By The Same Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on the Text
• Preface
• Part 1 Preparing for a Journey
• Part 2 The Journey
• Notes
• References
• Further Reading
• Index