After the long, inward months of winter, spring can feel like someone has opened a window. The light comes back, buds appear almost overnight and many of us want to get moving again. In Chinese medicine, this is the season of the Wood element.
I want to look at how the tradition sees Wood, and at the advice for spring in one of the oldest texts in Chinese medicine. None of this is science in the modern sense. It's a way of thinking about the year that people have found useful for a very long time, so take from it whatever feels helpful.
What is the Wood element?
Chinese medicine groups the natural world into five elements, sometimes called five phases: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Each one is linked to a season, a direction, a colour, a sound, an emotion and a pair of organs.
Many of these links are set out in the Huangdi Neijing (the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic). Chapter 5 of its first part, the Suwen, connects the East with wind, wind with Wood, and Wood with the sour taste and the liver. The same passage pairs Wood with a blue-green colour, the sound of shouting and the emotion of anger.
That last link can sound off-putting. In Five Element acupuncture, the style I practise, anger isn't simply a bad thing, though. In its healthy form it's the drive that moves us towards our goals. Picture a shoot pushing up through the soil, or the energy you feel when you finally decide to tackle something you've been putting off.
The Neijing's advice for spring
Chapter 2 of the Suwen is called, roughly, "the great treatise on regulating the spirit in accordance with the qi of the four seasons". It works through the seasons one by one. In the English translation by Paul Unschuld and Hermann Tessenow (University of California Press, 2011), the spring section begins:
"The three months of spring, they denote effusion and spreading."
It's an image of things opening out after winter. The text then sets out how to live in step with the season:
- "Go to rest late at night and rise early."
- "Move through the courtyard with long strides."
- "Dishevel the hair and relax the physical appearance."
- "Give life and do not kill."
In the original Chinese, that last line belongs to a longer run of contrasts: give life rather than kill, give rather than take away, reward rather than punish. Spring, in other words, is a season for encouraging growth, both in the world around you and in your own attitude.
The passage closes with a warning, "Opposing it harms the liver." Traditionally, going against the season in spring weakens what you'll have to draw on in summer.
Reading it today
These lines were written for people living very different lives, so it helps to read them as a mood rather than a rulebook. Here are some gentle ways to bring their spirit into a modern spring.
- Get out early. The text pairs lighter evenings with rising early. A short walk in the morning light is an easy way to notice the season changing.
- Loosen up. "Dishevel the hair" is about not holding yourself too tightly. Comfortable clothes, a stretch, a slower pace for a few minutes.
- Take long strides. Walking with a relaxed, open stride is about as simple a spring practice as there is.
- Encourage rather than criticise. You could read "give life and do not kill" as an invitation to be generous, with other people and with yourself.
- Start something. Wood is about growth and direction, and spring is a natural time to plant seeds, literally or otherwise.
Wood and getting going
Because Wood's emotion is anger, and healthy anger is understood as drive, the Wood tradition is often summed up as the push to grow and move forward. That fits the season well. Spring is when many of us feel the urge to clear out, start projects and get outside again. And if you notice frustration building instead, the tradition would simply see that as Wood energy looking for somewhere to go.
You don't need to know anything about the elements to enjoy spring, of course. But if you're curious about which element you feel most drawn to, they can be a lovely lens for noticing how you respond to each season.
A calm hour for yourself
Plenty of people like to come for a seasonal treatment as winter turns to spring. A Five Element acupuncture session with me is unhurried, and many people find it relaxing. I take time to talk with you about how you are, and the treatment is tailored to you rather than to a label.
If you'd like to follow the year through the elements, my Five Element seasonal calendar shows what the tradition links with each season as it comes round.