The wheel of the 5 elements
Year 2024 dedicated
to the WOOD element

The theory of the 5 elements is a way of representing the world in its greatest beauty and in great simplicity. We find this vision in several cultures, particularly in Asia (the wheel of the 5 elements) and in Andean cultures (the Chakana).

Our association has chosen to adopt the theory of the 5 Asian elements: Wood, Fire, Metal, Water, Air and to honor one of these elements every year. 

The 5 elements take their source from the relationship of the two great powers of the universe: Heaven and Earth.

Heaven is a power that stimulates and triggers the transformation of the Earth which, in turn, nourishes and strengthens all its biodiversity. The Sky, combined with active, warm and luminous forces in action of the celestial bodies, emits a Yang Energy which, by its cyclical increase and decrease, offers four energies: the 4 seasons of the year, the four phases of the day.

The Earth, Yin energy, evokes a calm and passive force, a stable base, which embraces this external power and which, in many cultures, also materializes the 4 directions.

This theory of the five elements symbolically describes five movements (WuXing in China and Japan). These five movements are named after five elements: Wood, Fire, Metal, Water and Earth.

The Five Movements:

• The Wood Movement represents the force of activation and growth, it is the beginning of a cycle, the birth of Yang, it is an active and voluntary force like the powerful and primitive force of plant life which germinates, grows , emerges from the ground and rises towards the light. The Wood bends and straightens.

• The Fire Movement represents the force of transformation and maximum animation of Yang at its peak. The Fire rises, rises.

• The Metal Movement represents the condensation, the taking of a lasting form by cooling, drying and hardening, which is present when the Yang decreases towards the end of its cycle. Metal is malleable, but it retains the shape you give it.

• The Water Movement represents passivity, the latent state of what awaits a new cycle, gestation, the peak of Yin, while Yang hides and prepares the return of the next cycle. Water descends and humidifies.

• The Earth Movement, in the sense of humus, of compost, represents the support, the fertile environment which receives the heat and the rain: Fire and Water. It is the reference plane from which Wood emerges and from which Fire escapes, into which Metal sinks and within which Water flows. this Earth movement is both Yin and Yang since it receives and it produces. The Earth allows to sow, to grow and to harvest.

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Each new year is linked to one of the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Also called agents, these elements follow a 10-year cycle and govern two consecutive years.