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Foreword:
Life cycles, balance, equilibrium. The lessons of
change, growth and decay. The artist Leonardo da Vinci said: "Iron rusts
from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes
frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind." Throughout
the ages, each culture has been aware of how life imitates nature.
In China there is a long history of animism, astronomy
and geomancy. Confucianism, Taoism and more internationally, Buddhism
are all well documented and practiced the world over. The early Taoist
scholars seeking to explain the forces of nature, both productive and
destructive, came up with a five category system which could account for
everything in the universe.
The Five Elements (or Wu Hsing) are the Fourth
Pillar of the Tao and the basis of Feng Shui. They also describe
the Heavenly and Earthly branches of the Chinese zodiac.
Wood > Fire > Earth > Metal > Water
In the Productive Cycle of elements, wood fuels fire;
fire fertilises earth; earth produces metal and metal scoops water which
in turn nurtures wood in a never-ending cycle. All very yang and
forward-growing… Conversely there is a yin Cycle of Degradation,
where metal chops wood, water douses fire, wood leaches earth, fire
melts metal and earth absorbs water. Thus the changes in the cosmos are
explained, but the art lies in the subtle balances.
Wisdom from all times and places mirrors the
Taoist model; the connection between the human condition and our natural
environment is not the exclusive domain of the Chinese.
I hope you enjoy trying to decipher this selection of
thoughts and quotations. They uphold my belief that we are all
fundamentally identical as well as utterly unique.
Merissa 'Inkslinger' Walker, Sydney, 2001
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