The Wood element I can and I do
In Feng Shui, Wood stands for the east, spring and early morning, for growth, drive and new ideas. Its colours are green, turquoise and vivid blue, its forms tall and upward-reaching. Typical materials are wood, plants, paper and cotton.
- Compass directionEastSpring, early morning
- Strengthened byWaterweakened by Fire
- Wood years4 or 5as the last digit
What does the Wood element stand for?
- Compass direction
- East
- Season
- Spring
- Time of day
- early morning
- Planet
- Jupiter
- Yin organ
- Liver
- Yang organ
- Gallbladder
- Body
- Tendons, finger and toe nails, eyes
My Feng Shui student Frauke made a video about Wood. The text, images and voice are hers.
Wood is assigned to the east, the rising sun. Wood is growth and expansion, reaching upwards, breaking through the earth and growing: early morning, spring.
Wood types are people who have, develop or take up an idea and carry it upwards, helping it come to life and grow. Wood is the ideal leader: people who can decide quickly, join in with playful zeal and enjoy a contest. Wood needs the open sky (an overview) to grow. Wood wants to “aim high”. It is energetic, imaginative and tolerant, as long as its growth is not curtailed. The adventurer. Wood likes to change, and often. Obstacles are overcome. There is no such thing as “can’t”. Wood types are agile, often sporty and creative.
Wood is the years of birth, associated with energy, growth, Yang, learning, courage, assertiveness in motion (“tank driver”), pioneering spirit, a powerful fresh start, optimism, trust in God, trust in one’s own strength, bouncing back, flowing ideas, resolve, generosity, playfulness, curiosity, being “street-smart”, the future and direction. Wood types think big.
In Feng Shui, Wood means more than the material: it is everything that grows and reaches upwards. It forms a cycle with Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, in which each element nourishes the next.
Strengthening and moderating Wood
Wood is strengthened by Water, drawing its power from it. It is weakened by Fire and cut and worked by Metal. At best, and in the right measure, Metal can give Wood structure and form. Wood itself holds Earth in check.
Too little Wood
Complacent, lacking courage, a “yes-man”, shy, inflexible. Water then supports Wood.
Too much Wood
Reckless, thoughtless, overtrusting, naive, angry, immature. Fire then moderates Wood.
In their negative expression, Wood types are angry, bottle things up and then burst out shouting. Failure and constant criticism leave them uprooted, and their enthusiasm dies.
Wood in a room: colours, forms and materials
Colours
Green, blue-green, vivid blue, turquoise, and bright, light greenish yellows (lemon). I describe how I use these tones in my guide to Feng Shui colours.
Forms
Upward-reaching, upright rectangles, erect, columns, obelisks, minarets, factory chimneys, slender skyscrapers, steep high mountains, phallic forms, monuments, tall pagodas, towers, pillars, possibly wooden houses (material), floor lamps, shelving, poles.
Materials
Everything plant-based: wood, parquet floors, rattan furniture, baskets, cotton, paper, books, flowers, branches, fruit and vegetable decorations, leaves, pictures of plants, vegetables, green gardens and trees. Living Wood in a house means plants. Which plants suit a home and where to put them is set out in the guide to plants in Feng Shui.
Wood and wind
In the Bagua, the “first daughter” (Sun, Xun or Soen) is also called Wind. She belongs to Wood and the south-east. A picture showing wind in the south-east is one of many ways to awaken Qi there.
Wood and spring
The Tiger month begins on 4 February. In the Chinese calendar, this is also the official beginning of spring, which belongs to Wood. It carries the awakened, active energy of life and renewal. Fittingly, the first snowdrops in my garden were flowering in early February.
The Chinese calendar knows other starts to the year as well. I explain which one applies to what in the starts of the year in the Chinese calendar.
Buildings and occupations associated with Wood
Building uses
Nurseries, hospitals (health), homes, restaurants (preparing vegetables), studios, dining rooms, children’s rooms, children’s clothing boutiques, development offices, penthouses, bright and airy buildings and so on.
Nurseries and children’s rooms are not on this list by chance: Wood is the beginning, and growth. I have summarised in a guide what I look for in a child’s room in Feng Shui.
Occupations
Field research, planning, design, designers, artists, architects, all areas involving wood (joinery, timber trading and so on), interior design, sport, athletics, nursery teachers (Wood = beginning = growth = infancy), psychologists, software developers, healing professions (herbal medicine).
Personality: the Yang and Yin sides of Wood
Yang qualities
Playfulness, purposeful growth, curiosity, stubbornness (“moving like a tank”), courage, “street-smart”, assertiveness, future-minded, healing with plants and herbs, freedom from being told what to do, adventurous, fundamental trust in life, bouncing back, a childlike urge to play, uninhibited, direct, hurtfully undiplomatic, straightforward, movement, sport, ideas.
Yin qualities
Sensitivity to others, responding to others, pursuing goals gently but steadily, bending without breaking, rolling with life’s punches like a boxer, delicate plants, flowers, grasses, shrubs, oversensitive, creative, taking the world to heart, bottling things up, compromising at one’s own expense to keep the peace, flexible, getting up again, held-back growth quickly becoming a complex.
Wood in the Chinese horoscope
Tiger (Yang Wood) and Rabbit (Yin Wood) have Wood as their fixed element. The birth year may still have another element; Wood years are those ending in 4 or 5. I was born in 1954, the Year of the Horse. The Horse is firmly Fire, but 1954 is Wood, so I am a Wood Horse. I explain how element and animal form a pillar together in the Chinese horoscope under Chinese astrology. Only Bazi reveals whether Wood is also strong in your own birth date.
Where does the day begin?
The day begins in the east of the house. I look at what belongs there during an on-site Feng Shui consultation, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.