Wood

Wood is the element associated with the Spring season and with wind.

The Wood element is associated with Feng Shui and Chinese medicine. The element of vital and strength, Wood helps move your life upward while anchoring you to your roots, the source of your strength. Wood represents breaking through barriers as it moves upwards. In Feng Shui, the Bagua Map represents wood as the element of New Beginnings & Family, and of Wealth & Gratitude.

~ Wood is nourished by Water in the Creative Cycle.

~ Wood in turn nourishes the Fire element

~ Wood is controlled by Metal in the Controlling Cycle, just as an axe cuts down a tree in the forest to control its growth.

Emotionally, wood allows you to be adaptable to life. It is the creativeness of the wood element that gets expressed when we are at our most artistic. Spring is the new life energy of growth, renewal and the life force sprouting upward and outward. Wood allows you to make a plan and stay true to that plan. It also allows you to be flexible, like a willow and adapt to the circumstances that intercept your plans and expectations.

The element is associated with the liver and the gallbladder, which regulates the smooth flow of Qi energy throughout the body and has a strong relationship with the reproductive organ system and the ability to nourish the body with blood.

Wood represents our mental activity such as intellect and the ability to reason, memory, thoughts, knowledge and comprehension. It also rules new beginnings, friendship, clarity, and positive expression. The Wood personality is very good at making decisions and carrying them through.

Psychologically, wood is the element that represents our growth. Too much wood in the environment can produce excess growth, as in when a relationship moves too quickly or a business starts growing too fast without a strong foundation. Not enough wood in the environment and the results is expressed as stagnation or barrenness. Wood represents our creative urge to achieve, which can turn to anger, when frustrated. The wood element represents all the activities of the body that are self regulating and/or function without conscious thought such as heart beat, digestion, respiration and metabolism.

The Solar Plexus Chakra is in the third in the Chakra system and represents our power and will and autonomy, as well as our metabolism. When healthy, this Chakra brings us energy, effectiveness, spontaneity, and non-dominating power. It is your center of will. This Chakra deals with the human ego, emotions and self-love. Intuition is believed to begin in the area of our Solar Plexus Chakra. Although, the Third Eye Chakra is most associated with intuition, the “spark” is what is felt in the area of our solar plexus.

Wood
March 21 to June 21
(Spring equinox to the eve of summer solstice)

Abilities: Growth, vitality, strength, grounding, family, reaching, striving, moving upward and outward, breaking through barriers, new beginnings, wealth, gratitude. New life energy of growth, renewal and the life force sprouting upward and outward. Wood allows you to make a plan and stay true to that plan. It also allows you to be flexible, like a willow and adapt to the circumstances that intercept your plans and expectations.

Stones: amber, jet, petrified wood

Plants: trees, all living things

Direction: East

Season: Spring (Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere)

Colors: Green, Brown

Organs: liver and the gallbladder

Cycle Celebrations: Imbolc, Ostara (Spring Equinox)

Number 5

Time: Dawn

Zodiac: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius

Planets: Mercury, Jupiter

Angel: Michael

Sense: Smell

Time of life: Childhood

Find the “Gifts of Wood” here

Learn about “Adapting to Life” here

Nine Sacred Woods

The Nine Sacred Woods are the first nine trees in The Ogham (commonly pronounced Oh-m) or Celtic Tree Alphabet and Calendar. This early Medieval alphabet, used primarily to transcribe the early Irish language, represents a sacred tree and are the only written form left by the Druids. These trees include:

~ Birch: the Goddess energy, change, new beginnings, transitions and purification
~ Rowan: Lady of the Mountain, female connection, protection, casting, charms, wands, dowsing
~ Ash: insight, divination, spiritual justice, balance, sun and fire, Queen of the forest
~ Alder: offerings, mysterious of nature, gods, fairies, male and female energy
~ Willow: death, mourning, transitions, spiritual guides, understanding and protection
~ Hawthorn: protection, love, health, prosperity, fertility, purification, inner journeys,
~ Oak: sun, leader, power, doorway, great protector, male energy, King of the forest
~ Holly: protection, prophesy, healing, invulnerability, watchfulness, good luck, death, rebirth
~ Hazel: prosperity, wisdom, dowsing, dreams, wisdom-knowledge, reconciliation, intelligence and wrath

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Meditation in the Woods

What better way to get inspired than through nature. Take a walk in the deep woods or through a beautiful park. Take in the sounds, smells and sights of our greatest gift and most precious resource. Gain some perspective through “free and easy wandering”!

The concept of the “free and easy wanderer” Wander – Take a trip. Walk around the block, through your neighborhood or through a park. Head to the sea, the hills or a forest trail. There is a concept (and herbal formula) in Chinese culture referred to as the Free and Easy Wanderer. Walking or simply wandering often allows us to clear our head and free our minds. This allows for the free flow of movement, vital energy or Qi and is extremely therapeutic.

First, choose an area where you can walk at least ten feet in one direction. Then begin walking slowly, (hands relaxed at your side, eyes straight ahead), focusing your attention on each position of the foot as you walk; lifting, forward motion as it moves through the air and placing each foot on the ground.

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The Caledonian Forest

The Woods of Celidon in Scotland, also called The Caledonian Forest, was the site of one of King Arthur’s Twelve Battles. The “army of trees” animated by sorcerers in the Welsh poem (The Battle of the Trees) are intended to be the Caledonian Forest. With a majestic collection of Scots pine, birch, rowan, aspen, juniper and oak, this infamous wood has a hallowed place in Celtic history. We blend together scents of Royal Scots pine with fragrant juniper along with the mystical embrace of lichen, fern and moss. The dragonfly charm of the Celdion Woods represent courage, luck, strength and happiness.

The Celadon Forest is the third largest forest on Corwyn, located in the Southlands; north of Reach. This grand woodland is home to many exotic types of woods found nowhere else on the continent. Although much of the Celadon Forest is located in the Reach, it is harvested mostly by Serathian merchants, backed by the power of Serathyr’s military.

This forest also contains mystical herb groves and hot springs that are used by many Ralani people for both religious and spiritual health and rejuvenation.

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Spring and the Wood Element

The Wood element is associated with Feng Shui and Chinese medicine. The element of vital and strength, Wood helps move your life upward while anchoring you to your roots, the source of your strength. Wood represents breaking through barriers as it moves upwards.

The benefits of Wood are a gentle and persistent action that is filled with creative potential. It initiates the power of both being and becoming. It shows us how to be true to ourselves and our own nature. It offers us the opportunity to express our inner needs, wants, and desires. By gently penetrating the earth, it demonstrates how we can draw from our own roots, find the energy within to push forward, and the strength of purpose and conviction. Like the willow, it exemplifies how remaining supple, yielding, and flexible, we can understand and endure any situation.

Spring forth

Wood and the Emotions

Wood is associated with the emotion of anger and shouting, in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, anger is most prevalent in the Spring. It is considered the emotion of Spring. Although we can and do experience anger at any time or season, it is Spring when we are most easily angered. This is believed to be due to the changes of light and dark and the balance between them.

It is very important to identify the actual cause of whatever unhappiness we feel. If we are forever blaming our difficulties on others, this is a sure sign that there are still many problems and faults within our own mind. If we were truly peaceful inside and had our mind under control, difficult people or circumstances would not be able to disturb this peace, and so we would feel no compulsion to blame anyone or regard them as our enemy.

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