A Word A Week Photography Challenge – Wood

This week’s theme from http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/a-word-a-week-photography-challenge/  is Wood.

The Chinese have the five Elements making up the material world: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth.  All of these elements are very important to us, some of the elements will enhance the others, for instance, water begets wood but suppress  fire as it would put out a fire etc. The complex connections between substantial objects are explained through the relationship of interdependency and mutual restraint that governs the five elements.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

The Wu Xing, (五行 wŭ xíng) also known as the Five Elements, Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, Five Processes, and the Five Steps/Stages, is a fivefold conceptual scheme that many traditional Chinese fields used to explain a wide array of phenomena, from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs, and from the succession of political regimes to the properties of medicinal drugs. The “Five Phases” are Wood (木 mù), Fire (火 huǒ), Earth (土 tǔ), Metal (金 jīn), and Water (水 shuǐ). This order of presentation is known as the “mutual generation” (xiangsheng 相生) sequence. In the order of “mutual conquest” (xiangsheng 相勝) or “mutual overcoming” (xiangke 相剋), they are Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal.

Wood is a male (Yang) element that represents solidity and pliability, as symbolised by a tree which bends and sways a little in the wind so as to maintain its form. Furthermore, just as a tree grows upwards and spreads outwards, Wood signifies expansion, and is particularly associated with the Springtime and new growth

When travelling to Inner Mongolia last summer, I was very impressed by some wood stumps in a temple which are said to have lasted a thousand years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . .

I like Wood in that it represents growth and expansion. I know I am dangerously treading on a Taoist subject which I don’t know much about. However, in my simple mind, I have always wondered what the world would be like if we do not have wood!