Let’s break it down for you:

Chinese Medicine practitioners are trained to observe and ask about the 5 Elements.

What are the 5 Elements you ask?

They are Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal.

All 5 of these elements, respectively, transmute into the other as in nature. You’ll see this especially with their corresponding seasons – Winter, Spring, Summer, Indian Summer, and Autumn.

The development of Chinese Medicine is based on the observation of nature. And if you think about it, the 5 element cycle is a generating and controlling cycle.

Water feeds Wood
Wood feeds Fire
Fire feeds Earth
Earth feeds Metal
Metal feeds Water

….And if you need something more concrete like a beautiful Chinese painting depicting the mountains, forest, rivers, and valleys and the energetics of balance, you can see how every is connected!

Chinese Medicine practitioners are trained to listen for the sounds, to smell the odors, and see the colors of their patients. The sounds, odors, and colors all present information about the constitution of the healthy or sick individual.

It makes a lot of sense why we have our senses, because they give us so much information about our environment as well as the things going on with our health. If you think you’ve lost your ability to sense things, it’s really because we’ve been socialized to turn off and become desensitized to our environment, much because of modernization and increased security in our environments.

The best news of all is that you can actually redevelop these skills, just like building muscle at the gym.

So what are the sounds, odors, colors, emotions, and seasons associated with our organs?

Here’s a quick chart for you:
Water – Kidneys/ Urinary Bladder/ Adrenals/ Sex organs – Winter – Groaning – Putrid – Blue/Purple/Black – Fear
Wood – Liver/ Gallbladder – Spring – Shouting – Rancid – Green – Anger
Fire – Heart/ Small Intestine/ Pericardium/ Triple Burner – Summer – Laughter – Scorching – Red/Ash Gray – Joy
Earth – Spleen/ Stomach – Indian Summer – Singing – Sweet/ Fragrant – Yellow/ Orange – Worry/Pensiveness
Metal – Lungs/ Large Intestine – Fall – Weeping – Rotten – White – Grief/Sadness

The descriptions of the odors of the 5 elements are well described here.

This is just a small chart of the relationships in 5 Element theory. We can expand into the tastes of the 5 Elements in an upcoming post and how it relates to food therapy.

Until then, cheers! xx Eva