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Chinese Physiology
Wu-Xing: the Five Phases: Correspondences
diagnoses

definition

Basic Cosmological Correspondences
(directions, seasons, their particular climate, color and stage of development)
• Wood = East, spring, windy, green or cyan and beginnings
• Fire = South, summer, heat, red and growth
• Earth = Center, Indian summer, humidity, yellow and maturation
• Metal = West, fall, aridity, white (shiny or absence of color) and decline
• Water = North, winter, cold, dark blue or black (darkness) and dormancy or termination (end of cycle)

Primary Physiological Correspondences
(Zang-Fu Organ, Sense/Sense Organ and Special Tissue)
• Wood = Liver/Gall Bladder, vision/eye and sinew (tendon, ligament, nerve and muscle, i.e. the motor unit)
• Fire = Heart/Small Intestine, speech/tongue and blood vessels
• Earth = Spleen/Stomach, taste/mouth and muscles/flesh (as an indicator of nourishment, e.g. meat on the bones)
• Metal = Lung/Large Intestine, smell/nose, integument (skin and mucosa)
• Water = Kidney/Urinary Bladder, hearing/ear, bones and teeth, ("bones" includes marrow, which for the Chinese also meant the spinal column and the brain)

Secondary Physiological Correspondences
Taste, Odor, Symptom Reflex Area, Emotion and Vocal Sound
• Wood = sour, goatish (like vinegar and stale sweat, a locker room), the finger and toenails, anger and shouting
• Fire = bitter, scorched, the complexion, joy and laughter
• Earth = sweet, fragrant, the lips, worry and singing
• Metal = acrid, spicy, pungent, rank (like spoiled meat or fish), skin and body hair, grief, sorrow and weeping (sighing)
• Water = salty, putrid (like old urine), head hair, fear, moaning and groaning

Five Phases in Anatomy and Physiology
• each organ, with its corresponding channel and points, is associated with a particular phase
• each organ/channel "sphere" implicitly contains all five phase energies within it
• each channel possess a series of five points that represent each of the five phases
• the points where the energy of a phase may be "contacted" coincide with the five shu points


footnotes