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Taking Muppet-voiced Bob Dylan at his word when he sings,
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,"
I decided recently to step out and let the elements ( Chinese style) do what ever they may.
I would trust to the simplicity of intuition and not get caught up in convoluted spiral logic or methods of relating times of day to acupuncture points to internal organs to colours to sounds to.... death strikes! So armed with very little knowledge I set out to the local park one summer's day to explore Earth, Wind, Fire and Water.
I must emphasise the following comments are observations and interpretations of my own experiences.
My starting point was a simple observation: 'Different weapon forms have their own distinctive feel.'
The staff form immediately focused me on Earth. The physical weight of the staff heightened my awareness of my root.
The straight sword, I found, has a light, loose and delicate character, which immediately made me think of air or wind. I found myself focusing on the joints in my body, expanding them, metaphorically speaking, with the wind.
The stick or cane form I do in a more energetic, even athletic manner, than the other two weapons. There's a definite Fire element to it. The fire is moving in all directions and its focus is in the dantien and waste movements.
At this point I ran out of weapons. But what about Water! I decided to run through the open hand form once for each element, including Water.
Earth ~ focus on root and being 'song' (relaxed).
Wind ~ focus on air and space in the joints.
Fire ~ focus on the dantien.
Water ~ focus on co-ordinating all the movements. Let it flow. Dong Dang (? Swing and Return).
Well there you have it. No great insights really when you see it written down. The experience of the elements is of course, like other visualisation techniques, another matter.
Since my experiment in the park I've dabbled in sitting meditation with the elements on the train to work and walking meditation but I shan't bore you further.
I'm aware that other elements such as Wood, Metal and even Void (wherein all the elements of Elements come together) are lurking out there somewhere but they'll have to wait for a rainy day.
As I indicated earlier, my point of contact with the Elements is one of practical application with Tai Chi movement and experience. To this end the Elements provides a very neat pocket sized reference to experiencing the body. What next? If anybody out there has any comments observations or book/article references then please let me or (The) Spanner know.
By Dean Dalrymple
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