Chinese Five Elements

The Chinese five elements play an important role in the use of Feng Shui to find peace, happiness, and success in your surroundings.

The Chinese looked to nature for the source of their five elements:

• Fire
• Earth
• Metal
• Water
• Wood

On a simplistic level, the use of the Chinese five elements in feng shui requires that you look at the year you were born, correlating that to the element that relates to that year. People who take feng shui more seriously may want to go step further and track their element down to the day of birth; but for beginners, designing around the year of birth is likely sufficient to bring your home into balance.

If your birthday falls in January or February, your first step is to consult a Chinese Lunar Calendar for the correct Chinese lunar year of birth. You will use either the solar year or the year prior. Everyone else can use the solar year to look up your favored element.

Use this chart to determine which of the five elements correlate to your birth year:

Therefore, if you were born August 5, 1979, then your element is earth and your color is yellow.

Now that you know which of the Chinese five elements is yours, it is important to understand what role that element and related color has in feng shui. The elements follow a cycle. The cycle can be productive or destructive. The productive cycle is:

Wood feeds Fire --> Fire burns down to create Earth (ash) --> Earth produces Metal (ore deposits) --> Metal carries Water (think metal bucket) --> Water nourishes Wood

On the other hand, a destructive cycle might look like:

Wood divides Earth --> Earth absorbs Water --> Water puts out Fire --> Fire smelts Metal --> Metal cleaves Wood (axe)

A destructive cycle is one where those elements are presented out of order, and it creates a bad energy flow. For example, if you were born in 1979, your element is Earth and your color is yellow. If you home is full of blue, then you may experience a negative energy because earth absorbs water. A better choice might be the color red, because fire feeds earth. In other words, fire helps earth grow, where water is wasted, as it does nothing to improve earth.

To correct the chi, or the energy, between you and your area, look at the elements in the room. Do you see a lot of red and is your element metal? Replace some of the items with a color more productive. Repaint the room, or simply add some additional items to neutralize the destructive elements.

In the case of a family, it may be impossible to find elements or colors that are productive to everyone. In this case, cater to the chi of the head of household in the general areas and individualize more in private areas, such as the bedrooms. If two individuals of opposing elements share the same bedroom, consider adding knickknacks or pillows of complementing colors on each side of the bed.

By looking at the effect of elements and their related colors on you, you can improve the energy you live with. Review those items and colors around you that do not promote your well-being and change them out. Be cognizant of your surroundings, and you can make them work for you.

• Monuments with the Golden Ratio
• Yin Yang Pictures
• Yin Yang Art

• Yin Yang Dragons
• Tiger and Dragon Ying Yang
• Applications How to Place Feng Shui Elephant
• Chinese Dragon Clip Art
• Ying Yang Suns

• 2007 Chinese Yearly Classic Feng Shui
• Background My Space Feng Shui
• Elements Animals Feng Shui Calendar
• Feng Shui Elements Based on Birthday
• Feng Shui Elements