The Earth Movement: Eternity and Nourishment within the Five “Elements” of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Let’s begin by stepping into a time machine. This is not a time machine that will take us back to the dinosaurs, or to try out a shiny new hover car. This time machine allows us to observe a pristine forest in fast motion over the course of 10,000 years.
We see seasons come and go; great trees reaching up into the sky, fresh green leaves drunk on sunlight and dancing in the winds, lightning flashing and fire consuming, and new life springing up from soil enriched by fallen ancestors. Over and over we see physical forms appear and fade, but the life that runs through them continues unbroken. What is it that takes the life that was a fallen leaf and transforms it into a fertile resource for the next generation? That is the earth movement. It is the way by which life moves from one form to another.
Transforming, Processing and Nourishing
Within the life of a human this has a powerful connection to our ability to nourish ourselves and others. We eat the leaves or flesh of another being, and by some mysterious process they become the stuff of us—our cells, our bones, and the energy that runs through both to animate them. What was once broccoli is now me. This wondrous transformation was called the earth movement by the founders of the Five Movements philosophy (often mistranslated as the Five Elements philosophy).
In a similar manner, our lives serve us challenges and gifts, obstacles and opportunities. Taking in those experiences and “digesting” them into understanding, inspiration, motivation and learning allows us to move forward and grow. A sustenance of the mind and spirit absorbed from and processed from the living of our lives is the earth movement. In a sense, we are our lives lived.
Planets and Dirt
It should be said that there are completely separate phrases in the Chinese language for planet earth and for earth with the meaning of soil. The earth movement is not a reference to the planet, it is a reference to the soil. Just as the fallen tree is reabsorbed into the soil to form fertilizer for the seeds of that tree and others to grow, the earth movement is the process by which life moves from one form to another, from one physical reference point to another, in a continuous and unbroken flow that began with the very beginning of life itself.
Take a second to ponder on that. Visualize it. Go out into the woods and feel it in the depths of your being. You and all you see, every blade of grass, every beast, every mosquito… every manifestation of life has an unbroken line back to the beginning of everything, and forward to what will continue to live on this planet for billions of years to come. That is a miracle that we live every moment! Taste the deliciousness!
One Moves Through All
There are notions in many native cultures concerning a sort of spirit that moves in all things, connecting them in an unbroken way. This isn’t just metaphysics, this is observation and connection to the reality of our existence. Where did my body come from if not the minerals, calories and proteins of those who have lived before me; and where will my body go if not back to the grass and fields on which the progeny of tomorrow will walk, eat and love?
The earth movement is that movement that connects these generations, and these different physical beings one to the other. It is also a connection between each other in every moment. When the fire movement of my grandmother wells up to reach out to me and warms me with a hug, that grandmother’s love becomes the love within me and my life as well. In another way, when a stranger drops frustration into my path, it can become the lesson and growth of tolerance and forgiveness within my life.
Do you see how the earth movement relates so intimately with the nourishment of ourselves, physically and consciously? I hope so! Play with these ideas. Digest them and make them yours! In that way the teachings and legacies of the ancient past become the nourishment and growth of our own understanding and becoming.