Five Elements , Wu Xing (Chinese: 五行)
The Wu Xing (Chinese: 五行), also known as the Five Elements, Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, Five Processes, the Five Steps/Stages and the Five Planets of significant gravity: Jupiter-木, Saturn-土, Mercury-水, Venus-金, Mars-火 is the short form of “Wǔ zhǒng liúxíng zhī qì” (五種流行之氣) or “the five types of chi dominating at different times”. It 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), Fire (火), Earth (土), Metal (金), and Water (水). This order of presentation is known as the “mutual generation” (相生) sequence. In the order of “mutual overcoming” (相剋/相克), they are Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal.
