Discovering the 5 Feng Shui Elements and How to Use Them
The five feng shui elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water are essential components of feng shui design. Feng shui practitioners and thoughtful amateurs alike use the five elements of feng shui to work with the energy within a space to create balance and energy. Understanding this ancient art of Chinese placement allows you to use these ideas to detect areas that are out of harmony and bring in items that will counteract the imbalance.
Why are Feng Shui Elements Important?
Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice of placement. Feng shui design seeks to balance the flow of energy, known as “chi,” through furniture placement, color and light use, and the surrounding environment and landscape.
Feng shui practices are based on the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. The balance of these elements can promote health and well-being and create spaces that are aesthetically pleasing.
5 Elements of Feng Shui
There are five elements fundamental to Feng shui practice: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.
Wood Element
Feng shui practices associate the wood element with growth, revitalization, and renewal. According to feng shui practitioners, adding wood elements to your space can regenerate upward growth and energy in specific areas of your life. We also associate the wood element with health and vitality. Adding wood elements is helpful if your energy and health are depleted.
Fire Element
Passion, energy, excitement, anger, aggression, joy, and dynamism are some of the most common characteristics of the fire element in Feng shui practice. These qualities are intense, which corresponds to the nature of fire. This is a good element to incorporate if you feel lackluster or passionless. But you can overdo this component; you can generate intense excitement that passes rapidly. To make sure you create lasting energy, take care to balance it with other, more durable elements.
Add items that symbolize the fire element if you are trying to increase your public profile. Fire symbolizes how others perceive you, your reputation, and your goals and ambitions.
Earth Element
The Feng shui element earth represents stability and grounding, just like the stable earth around us. Increasing this element can help to alleviate anxiety and stress by making you feel safe and protected. We also associate the earth with nourishment and growth. The earth element is beneficial if you are feeling depleted and need to create calm in order to regenerate your energy and strength.
Metal Element
In Feng shui practice, the metal element represents clarity and precision. It represents speech and how we can use it to create understanding, as well as how we can use it to stand up for ourselves and what is right. Metal is also associated with introspection and self-reflection, which can lead to understanding. Use metal elements to promote organization, structure, and productivity.
Water Element
In Feng shui, the water element represents both flow and flexibility, as well as purity and cleansing. Water can be both energizing, as in crashing waves, and relaxing, as in a quiet pond. Water also represents the flow of money and careers, as well as the changes you experience over time.
Cycles of the 5 Elements
The Feng shui elements do not operate to create positive energy in a vacuum. Instead, they do so in relation to each other or in how they interact with each other. Feng shui practitioners use many illustrations to represent these interactions, but the most important for our purposes are the productive and destructive cycles, also called the creative and the controlling cycles.
Productive Cycle
The productive or constructive cycle demonstrates which elements contribute to the energy of another element. If you want to strengthen a specific element, use items that represent both that element and the element that helps to strengthen it.
- Wood feeds Fire
- Fire creates Earth
- Earth forms Metal
- Metal carries Water
- Water nourishes Wood
Destructive Cycle
You can also use each of the five elements to help temper the others. This is useful if you feel that you have excess in your life in certain areas that you want to control.
- Wood slits the Earth
- Earth absorbs Water
- Water quenches Fire
- Fire melts Metal
- Metal chops Wood
Five Elements and the Bagua Map
The bagua map is a tool in Feng shui practice that maps out nine areas that correspond to different aspects of our lives, like family, health, reputation, and travel. It provides a visual guide to help you balance your space. Each of the nine areas corresponds with one of the five elements. It is important to balance the elements throughout your home, but you can optimize each of the five elements in one of the nine areas.
Feng Shui Elements in Interior Design
The Feng shui elements are useful in interior design to increase the positive flow of energy and create a calming and balanced space.
Wood
Use items that represent the wood element if you want to revitalize yourself or particular areas of your life. You can incorporate the wood element by using indoor and outdoor plants, art that symbolizes nature, shapes that signify columns and stripes, and earth-toned colors like blue and green. You can also energize the wood elements by incorporating water elements. Be cautious of adding too much metal to your wood area, as this can decrease the energy of the wood element.
- Shapes: Vertical columns, stripes
- Colors: Blue, green, teal
- Bagua area: Family, wealth
- Element that strengthens: Water
- Element that weakens: Metal
- Decor items: Growing plants, art that represents nature
Fire
Bring fire elements into your home when you want to increase passion or active energy. Feng shui design incorporates the fire element by using rich and vibrant colors like red and orange. You can also represent fire with decor or furniture items that have active energy, such as triangular shaped objects, creative items such as games, toys, and electronics, electrical items such as lamps and other light fixtures, and especially items with a live flame such as candles or a fireplace. Be cautious about adding too much of the fire element to your home, as quick energy can burn out quickly. Keep intense fire items outside rooms where you want to relax.
- Shapes: Triangles, shapes with points
- Colors: Red, orange
- Bagua area: Fame and reputation
- Element that strengthens: Wood
- Element that weakens: Water
- Decor items: Candles, fireplaces
Earth
The earth element can help you create a sense of stability and security in your space. The earth element is represented by earthy tones such as beige, yellow, and orange in feng shui design. You can also incorporate stable shapes like rectangles, cubes, and squares, as well as earth-inspired decor such as pottery, crystals, natural stone, and artwork that represents the earth.
- Shapes: Squares, rectangles, flat
- Colors: Yellow, brown
- Bagua area: Health, knowledge, relationships
- Element that strengthens: Fire
- Element that weakens: Wood
- Decor items: Earth materials, like crystals, pottery, stone
Metal
Metal symbolizes precision, stability, and logic. Feng shui practitioners represent metal with the colors white and gray. Incorporate metallic objects such as plates, flatware, vases, windchimes, and picture frames to help boost the qualities associated with the metal element. Order and organization are always important in feng shui design, but they are especially important in areas where you want to increase the energy associated with the metal element.
- Shapes: Circles, spheres
- Colors: White, gray, metallic
- Bagua area: Children and creativity, helpful people and travel
- Element that strengthens: Earth
- Element that weakens: Fire
- Decor items: Metallic objects
Water
The water element represents movement and adaptability. Feng shui decorators use colors like deep blue and black to represent the water element. You can also promote water energy by incorporating water elements such as aquariums and water fountains. Another way to represent the water element is with curved or flowing lines and wall art features. Make sure you consider the kind of water you are portraying. Crashing waves can stimulate energy that is too aggressive. Use pictures of calm lakes and ponds to calm your spirit.
- Shapes: Wavy or curvy lines
- Colors: Black, dark blue
- Bagua area: Career and life journey
- Element that strengthens: Metal
- Element that weakens: Earth
- Decor items: Water features like fountains and aquariums