Wood/Spring Energy

The essence of Wood is that it is the Element of growth and planting of seeds to be nurtured and grown over the Spring and Summer, then harvested in Late Summer. Wood is the Element that is the origination of our vision, in body, mind and spirit. It is also the Element of movement which the tendons and ligaments help to facilitate.  This is the Element of single-mindedness with a focusing on the vision forward. There is an optimism, newness and excitement of a vision, of knowledge of where it came from and where it’s going, with a knowing of how to get there. This Element, as is each element, is crucial in that it is the Mother of Fire and without it there would be no fuel for its child.  As with each Element there is a wide variety of how this manifests in nature. There are millions of different types of woods in nature which can either be very flexible or very stiff. This is actually true of each wood at different points of its life cycle. Young wood is very green and flexible; it then strengthens with age and gains firmness, sense of purpose. In old age it becomes stiff and inflexible. The climate of Wood is wind which is nature’s way stripping away the unnecessary and doing its spring cleaning.
I see a lot of myself in this Element, in that when I am in balance I am full of ideas, plans for the future. For example the decision to be an acupuncturist was born of this time. Seven years ago I made the decision to change careers and pursue an education in Classical 5 Element Acupuncture. This was a big change for me as I had been successfully teaching for thirty-three years. The beauty was that as soon as the dream was formed, the knowledge of how to get there was totally available to me.  I put into motion the necessary steps for retiring from teaching, found the necessary
pre-requisite classes within 5 minutes of my house and conveniently fell into a job with incredible flexibility.  Even as I questioned the wisdom of entering a new career at this point of my life things fell neatly into place for the success of my plan. Now I am here pursuing my dream with a deep knowing that this is where I am meant to be at this point in time.   
I also relate deeply to out of balance Wood as I have myself been mired in that dark inflexible, stuck place of depression. I have often fought the immobility, the inability to see beyond the hopelessness. There have been times when I felt that all was darkness and there was little reason to believe there was any thing beyond that black place. I was stuck in this very place when the Universe/ My Higher Power brought me to Emily Calvert, my first Five-Element acupuncturist for the first time. I felt talked out as far as traditional psychotherapy went. Emily helped me to talk, but also anchor the healing in my body. Her treatments helped me to discover and act on the potential within with confidence and a new found knowing of my own inner beauty. Interestingly there was a gradually lightening of my load and my world became brighter and more hopeful.  It was a big step in my journey to realizing my potential and fulfilling it on a daily basis.