Fire and Water (Yin-Yang)

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Got this from Smith Sensei's posting and it kind of resonated with me as to just how fluid life is and yet in need of as much balance as possible. This one kind of speaks to that fluidity both of water, a fluid, and fire, a type of fluidity in the flame. Then there is that line between the two allowing water to exists while coming close to evaporation into another fluidity of gas and not extinguishing the flame or fire that would in it self become gaseous when put out.

"Life is like this!"

There are five elements used to symbolize a Chinese belief, "Wood (木 mù), Fire (火 huǒ), Earth (土 tǔ), Metal (金 jīn), and Water (水 shuǐ). AND The system of five was used for describing interactions and relationships between phenomena. AND geomancy or Feng shui, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine, music, military strategy, and martial arts." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing

Fire/Summer: a period of swelling, flowering, brimming with fire and energy;

Water/Winter: a period of retreat, where stillness and storage pervades.

As can readily be seen, as you probably already know because of your martial prowess and understanding, using fire and water for the symbol of yin-yang is described well, i.e., "retreat" and "swelling." I attribute all five elemental processes or concepts in the way the Chinese do simply because of how they feed one another with fire and water being the extremes. 

Water nourishes Wood

Wood feeds Fire

Fire creates Earth (ash)

Earth bears Metal

Metal collects Water

In its original listing wood is last after water is collected by metal. I moved it to the front to show the relationship of water and fire and you can put it this way, "water=fire=ash/earth= metals=water" completing the entire cycle. A bit of creative license I know and I do so for the sake of the theory and concept. Nothing denotes in historical documentation that the original list is to be written in stone after all as you can imagine.

Historically speaking, the words and meaning were appropriate to the time and social reality of then while evolutionary changes are expected to bring it into the modern social reality to create or manufacture concepts that apply appropriately to this time, this now and this moment with the expectation of change when the time, now and moment shift to the next. 

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