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Wu Xing (Five Phases)

Wood

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Origin 206 BCE to 220 CE

Wood (Mu) is the first of the Five Phases (wu xing), the dynamic categories through which classical Chinese thought maps the cycles of nature, the body, and the calendar. Wood is the energy of springtime: germination, upward and outward growth, and the green push of new shoots breaking ground. Its cardinal direction is the east, where the sun rises; its color is green (or blue-green), its climate wind, its flavor sour, and its emotion anger, the assertive, expansive feeling that, balanced, becomes benevolence and vision. In the body its paired organs are the Liver (the yin zang organ, storing the blood and smoothing the flow of qi) and the Gallbladder (the yang fu organ, governing decision); its celestial body is Jupiter, the Wood Star. In the generating (sheng) cycle Wood is born of Water and gives birth to Fire, feeding the flame as fuel. In the controlling (ke) cycle Wood is checked by Metal (the axe that fells the tree) and in turn restrains Earth, its roots binding and drawing from the soil. Interpretively Wood signifies planning, initiative, growth, and flexibility that can bend without breaking.

Facts
Attributions
Ruling Planet
Jupiter 1
Generates
Fire 1
Controls
Earth 1
Associated Emotion
Anger 1
Associated Taste
Sour 1
Direction
East 1
Season
Spring 1
Associated Color
Green 1
Yin Organ
Liver 1
Yang Organ
Gall Bladder 1
Origins
Origin Period
206 BCE to 220 CE 1Tradition: Han correlative cosmology
Origin Period
400 BCE to 250 BCE 2Tradition: Hongfan, the Great Plan chapter of the Documents
Origin Period
Wood is one of the five phases that take shape among Warring States naturalist philosophers, traditionally associated with Zou Yan, in the fourth and third centuries BCE; the full correlative scheme binding each phase to organs, colors, tastes, seasons and directions belongs to Han dynasty cosmology, 206 BCE to 220 CE. 1
Language
Classical Chinese 2
Identity
Position
1 of 5 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
The classical definition is a behaviour, not a season, a colour or an emotion 2Tradition: Hongfan, the Great Plan chapter of the Documents
Meaning in the Attesting Source
The Hongfan defines wood by what it does: it bends and it straightens 2Tradition: Hongfan, the Great Plan chapter of the Documents
Learn More
Wood, the Phase of Growth

Wood (mu) is one of the Wu Xing, the five phases or agents of Chinese cosmology, not static elements but dynamic modes through which all change is understood. Wood is the phase of growth, expansion, and upward movement, associated in the classical correspondences with the direction east, the colour green, the season of spring, the emotion of anger, and the sour taste. In the generating cycle (sheng) Wood produces Fire, feeding the flame; in the controlling cycle (ke) Wood restrains Earth, its roots binding the soil. These cycles of mutual generation and control order the relations among the five phases and underlie their use in Chinese medicine, the almanac, feng shui, and fate calculation. These are the conventions of the Chinese cosmological tradition, in which the five phases map onto directions, seasons, organs, tastes, and much else in a comprehensive scheme of correspondence.

The Wu Xing framework is usually traced to the correlative cosmology associated with Zou Yan (c. 305 to 240 BCE) and the Warring States naturalist school, and it was systematised further under the Han dynasty, where it became a general grammar for linking the body, the state and the calendar. Wood sits in this scheme as the phase of the generating cycle (Sheng): Wood feeds Fire, which is why it is placed before Fire in the standard sequence Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood. It also has a place in the controlling cycle (Ke), where Wood parts Earth, as a root splits soil, while Metal in turn controls Wood, as an axe fells a tree. In classical Chinese medicine, set out in the Huangdi Neijing (the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic), Wood is paired with the liver and gallbladder, the sour taste, the colour green or blue-green, the east, and spring.

Sources Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 2: History of Scientific ThoughtJoseph Needham with Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic)Traditionally attributed to Huangdi; actual authorship unknown

Wood in the Generative and Controlling Cycles

Wood's place in the Wu Xing is defined less by what it is than by what it does to its neighbours. In the generative, or Sheng, cycle each phase feeds the next: Water nourishes Wood as rain feeds a root, and Wood in turn feeds Fire, burning as fuel. In the controlling, or Ke, cycle each phase restrains another: Wood controls Earth, as roots bind and exhaust soil, while Wood is itself controlled by Metal, as an axe cuts a trunk. Neither cycle is a hierarchy; each phase is at once feeder, fed, controller and controlled, and the system's use lies in tracing which relationship is out of balance.

In Chinese medicine Wood governs the Liver and its paired Gallbladder, and by extension the eyes, the tendons, and the smooth movement of blood and temper; a Liver held in excess is treated as Wood run wild, prone to the anger the phase is also said to govern. The correspondence reaches feng shui, where columnar shapes and living plants bring Wood into a room, and the calendar, through Wood's season of spring and its direction east.

Western acupuncture schools imported the five phases in the twentieth century, but the cycle logic did not always travel with the vocabulary. Some adaptations use Wood as a fixed symptom category rather than the dynamic relationship the Chinese sources describe, a flattening that practitioners trained in the classical system have criticised as losing the point of the phases entirely.

Sources Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 2: History of Scientific ThoughtJoseph Needham with Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic)Traditionally attributed to Huangdi; actual authorship unknown

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

1924, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1924 together with 1925, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1925, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1925 together with 1924, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1934, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1934 together with 1935, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1935, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1935 together with 1934, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1944, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1944 together with 1945, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1945, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1945 together with 1944, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1954, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1954 together with 1955, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1955, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1955 together with 1954, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1964, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1964 together with 1965, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1965, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1965 together with 1964, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1974, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1974 together with 1975, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1975, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1975 together with 1974, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1984, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1984 together with 1985, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1985, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1985 together with 1984, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1994, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1994 together with 1995, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
1995, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 1995 together with 1994, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
2004, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 2004 together with 2005, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
2005, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 2005 together with 2004, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
2014, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Jia, which is yang wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 2014 together with 2015, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
2015, Years

The phase of this year, read from its heavenly stem Yi, which is yin wood. Each of the five phases holds two consecutive stems, one yang and one yin, so Wood covers 2015 together with 2014, and returns after ten years.

Source Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the EarthJoseph Needham
Azure Dragon, Mythical Creatures

Wood, the phase of the east and of spring.

Four Green, Flying Stars
Source The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui: Chinese GeomancyStephen Skinner
Three Jade, Flying Stars
Source The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui: Chinese GeomancyStephen Skinner

Contained In

Wu Xing, Disciplines

One of the five phases the system is made of.

Disciplines That Use This

Tai Chi, Disciplines

The five phases, which order the form as they order the rest of Chinese medicine.

Source Lost T'ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch'ing DynastyDouglas Wile

Originates in Language

Classical Chinese, Languages
Source The Five "Confucian" ClassicsMichael Nylan
Sources
1. Medicine in China: A History of Ideas
Paul U. Unschuld, University of California Press, 1985On the doctrine of systematic correspondence and the five phasesView the Source
2. The Five "Confucian" Classics
Michael Nylan, Yale University Press, 2001On the Documents, and the Hongfan enumeration of the five phasesView the Source
Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 2: History of Scientific Thought
Joseph Needham, Cambridge University Press, 1956Wood: the generating and controlling cycles and correspondencesView the Source
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