The Fire Element- 5 Element Series
Oh, okay, welcome everybody, Aloha! Thank you for joining me in this week’s podcase. My name is Paul Fletcher and this is The Healing Source. I’m very excited to be sharing with you this week more information about the five elements and just for those that are tuning in at a different time than when this is recorded, today’s date is July 19, 2023, and we’re into series number six now of my podcast. And each layer in the series was designed to help you to better understand Tao healing and in the previous episode I covered the wood element. Typically speaking in Traditional Chinese Medicine, they refer to these five elements as wood, fire, earth, metal and water and last week I touched a little bit about how each one of these elements nourish and nurture each other. I briefly mentioned how too much or too little can obviously affect the other elements.
I also touched on how each element has a direct association in the Traditional Chinese Medicine model as a direct association to major organs, the skin or tissues, to emotions, and to the senses including sight , sound, touch, taste, etc. So, each one of these major five elements according to a Traditional Chinese Medicine philosophies have a direct association to your health and wellness and as a reminder their approach is, nothing is individualized necessarily. So, in the Western model if you had a defined liver issue, they would send you to a liver specialist but in the Traditional Chinese Medicine model they would look at that as what is nourishing the liver? Is it weak? In this case water, water nourishes wood, wood is a water as the kidneys, wood is the liver so is the water element out of balance? Is it over, is it too weak? Too strong?
Is it feeding and nourishing the wood like it’s supposed to? So, this is the larger picture and larger perspective of the five elements and how one should look at them. Now, also as a reminder I am not a Traditional Chinese Medicine specialist or a doctor, I’ve not attended any of those kinds of curriculums. What I am sharing with you is directly what I have learned from my teacher, Doctor and Master Zhi Gong Sha, and he is a world-renowned healer. He is an author, he is a philanthropist, and he is a world-renowned healer, of course, serving many, many people. He does had doctorates both in Western and Eastern medicine so when he shared this information with myself and well over a thousand of his students the purpose was to empower us to have a deeper and wider understanding so that when we offer Tao healing, we’re able to positively affect those around us with a wider perspective on what might be the root cause of their particular health issue. And as I indicated today, we’re going to be talking about the fire element. So, I want to share with you a little bit before I put on the screen and start talking about the individual pieces.
The fire element is probably one of the more well-known elements. We think of it as the physical fire bit one of the things to keep in mind is that it is more representative of the actions that it represents. So, for example, fire arises, okay? And so when somebody is angry that’s an aspect of the fire element, being over excited, and that energy is rising. Water, on the other hand, which is the opposite balancing frequency, balancing vibration is very calm, very soothing, cool, okay? Fire, of course, is hot and so as you become more comfortable with your knowledge on the five elements, even if it’s just a cursory knowledge which is all mine is then its purpose is to help us to be better healers and not a better diagnostic person both for ourselves and for our understanding when we are listening to what others might be sharing with us. If you happen to be a healer of any modality you can learn more and have a deeper level of comprehension of what might be going on for that person especially if you ask better questions, okay? So, the purpose of this entire podcast is to help you to understand the nature of Tao healing and, in this case, the reason I went off on the tangent of the five elements is because we can serve that person much better or find some root causes of her own stuff if we have these deeper understandings.
Let me now share my screen. Okay, so here you see the fire element and, hopefully, that’s big enough on your screen. Now, typically, there is, actually about 12 characteristics you know for example summer is a characteristic of the fire element, heat obviously in the body. The Traditional Chinese Medicines looked at, heat, moisture, things of this nature so each of these are also characteristics. The finger that’s associated with the fire element is the long finger, your middle finder and so we’ll be working with that a little bit later today in form of the practice. But you can see on the chart that there’s what’s referred to as the yin organ, the yang organ, the body tissue, the sense, the emotion and the balanced emotion. So, think about yourself or think about a friend who you have run across that has had anxiety and depression, right?
Raise your hand if you know somebody, could be yourself, that has had aspects of or heaviness, heavy depression, heavy anxiety, okay? The reason this is important is because when you’re looking to bring healing to yourself or looking to be a better healer, when you’re talking to somebody you want to ask a lot better questions. The best way to serve somebody is to be an exceptional listener and one of the best ways to be an exceptional listener is to reflect back to them what you hear them saying to you. There’re two things that happen when you reflect back what you’re hearing. The first is that that person feels heard and understood, their heart opens more. When their heart opens more, then that means that they trust you more and there’s a greater opportunity for you to offer service to them. The second thing that happens is it gives you time to stay inside your head and think a little bit more, okay? This person shared this with me, what does that mean? If they share with you that they’ve had bouts of depression your little light bulb in your head should go ding-ding-ding-ding, this has some connectivity to fire element, let me ask some deeper questions. So, another question might be, “tell me about your digestion.”
So, you don’t lead them, you don’t say, ‘Do you have any small intestine issues?’ you ask them, ‘Tell me about your digestion, how is that for you?’ They may respond… ‘Oh my goodness, you know, I have acid ingestion all the time and constantly constipation and difficulty on the bathroom. Sometimes it vacillates between diarrhea and constipation and…’ and ‘Oh yeah how long have you had that?’ ‘ Oh, you know, four or five, ten years’ Okay? So, now you now there’s a double connection, you have anxiety, you have depression and you have some intestinal issues, okay? You can ask additional questions, you could say things like, ‘How is your overall health? Have you had any heart issues?’ you know, anything like that and they’ll tell you yes or no. You can ask that direct, the point is you’re trying to discern is their fire element out of balance? Is is excessive? Another aspect of this remembering the nourishing cycle, let me pause a minute, see if I can bring up an image that shows you all five elements, that would help if I could. Okay, well, I don’t have time and I don’t want to interrupt you so I will verbally describe what you can visualize in your mind.
So, the fire element is what feeds and nourishes the earth so as the element breaks down. Whatever it’s burning then it feeds and nourishes earth, earth feeds and nourishes the metal, that’s where metals come from, the earth. The metals carry water, feed and nourish the water. The water feeds and nourishes the wood, wood feeds and nourishes the fire and so forth and then goes in this nourishment circle. So, when you define a fire element to imbalance you want to ask yourself how what’s going on here with the nourishment of this, what nourishes fire? Wood nourishes fire, right? So that is the preceding element so you could, as you’re listening to them you could say, ‘So, tell me, you know, have you had any anger issues?’ and they might say, ‘No’ but here’s what I want you to understand, if a person has depression there’s a very high likelihood they’ve tried to be angry but have had it squashed, have not had it validated, somebody has pushed it back upon them or they simply don’t have the, they fear expressing anger so they internalize it. So, when people internalize anger they’re bringing imbalance to their wood element, okay?
They’re putting pressure on their wood element which then it’s too much energy into the fire element and this could exacerbate the fire element thereby creating a depressive issue, isn’t that interesting? So, the Traditional Chinese Medicine approach sees things on a much more holistic basis and this, again, is important for you and, again, I remind you this is just anecdotal information that I’ve gathered after 15 years of hearing these different teachings and wisdoms and reading and watching videos. And, you know, it’s practical, it’s common sense. Now, there’s another aspect, what squashes fire? What puts fire out? We know that wood feeds fire, what puts fire out? That’s water, right? The water element, the fifth on the element circle can provide an additional slice of wisdom about how the five elements works. You have opposing elements, too much water or insufficient water can negatively impact your fire element, as well. So, for example, if somebody’s fire element is too excessive, they could have rampant anxiety, they could have manic energies, manic feelings and what that could do is it could, literally, cause a person to have dry mouth and feel drained of water.
A person’s exhausted a lot because that’s their kidney power. Kidneys are directly associated with an overall energy of a person’s body so when you’re looking at and chatting with somebody and/or discerning what might be going on, for you these things are all very important things to consider. What is the element that is nourishing the fire element? Is it excessive or insufficient or how can they affect my fire elements? So if you want to help somebody that has, let’s say, you know a heart issue discern, is it low blood pressure? Is it high blood pressure? What are the, what is the body tissue for the fire element? Is it blood vessels, right? Blood vessels, capillaries, veins. So, you know, blood vessels, capillaries, veins, these are basically restricted of normal flow. What causes restriction on blood vessels, capillaries, veins? Stress, stress causes a lot of it, okay? Muscular tension can be a source, going off on a little tangent, I’ll cover this more when I get to earth element next week but muscles are connected to the earth element. And so, when you do things that can cause your muscles to relax or you take specific supplements that can cause your muscles to relax that could actually quite positively affect your blood vessels, capillaries and veins. And earth element can also, because earth element follows the fire, fire breaks down whatever it’s burning and it feeds and nourishes the earth, okay? So the different sharing of this is designed to help you to have a greater understanding.
Now, let’s take a look at the taste component, this is the sense organ. Last week we were talking about the wood element, the wood element and what’s the sense organ for the wood element? Well, reminder, wood element is liver, right? Gallbladder, sense of anger from the imbalanced aspect of anger is patience, okay? And you have the tendons. So the sense organ for the wood element is sight, eyes. So with the, excuse me, the fire element it is the tongue, taste so if you go to a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor they’ll discern your imbalances in multiple ways. One of the things they’ll do is they’ll check pulses of your body.
There’s up to nine different pulses they can check and I don’t mean checking you in nine areas, your body has nine different pulses. Some of you might have received, what’s it called where they adjust the bones of the brain? That’ll come to me in a minute, there’s a name for it but they’re actually checking your pulses up to the brain, up to the skulls of the brain. They can tell by your pulse which bone is out of place and then they’ll do an adjustment. So, there’s up to nine different pulses in the tradition they’ll tell, they can tell imbalances that way and then as well they’ll check your tongue. They’ll tell you, take, you know, stick your tongue out and what are they looking for? They’re looking for ridges, they’re looking for excess red, they’re looking for white, they’re looking for ripples, they’re looking for bumps and where are those bumps, ridges, coloration/discolorations located at? The front, right here, very tip, that’s your fire element, that’s your heart, it’s the very tip, okay? Ridges along the side, imbalances in the water element and so forth.
So this is very, very unique, you know, in how the Master Sha’s wisdom and teachings he strongly recommended to all of his students to get healing for the tongue, you know, a light ball or whatever it was. To get healing for the tongue and, or like, the tongue, you know, when does a tongue ever get sick? When does a tongue ever have an issue? Why would I get any kind of healing for the tongue? And then he gave us a really powerful teaching explaining to us that, you know, about your ears, acupressure and your feet acupressure, okay? And your hands, acupressure. The energy meridians of your body ar connected to your brain. Your brain connects to your brain stem, and they go out to all your organs and systems and they connect to your, all the way along your finders. But the end that, the inside ridges of your fingernails and your toenails, your ears acupuncture meridian points but your tongue, as well, not necessarily acupuncture meridian points but that’s a representative measurement, okay? Completely off on the other tangent not TCM but so are your eyes, they can measure your health so in Traditional Chinese Medicine they will absolutely work with your tongue to discern your imbalances and you could be quite surprised at the diagnosis that a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor comes up with to help you heal yourself. So, before I move into a practice with this let’s kind of tie this all together.
We have the yin organ which is the physical heart, okay? So, if you find yourself having a consistency of high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, anything along these, nature or not, always is it an intestinal imbalance? Small intestine could be a culmination of things but if you start to see a combination of these showing themselves as an issue then you really want to take a look at getting healing to balance your fire element, okay? And the Traditional Western medicine does not understand that. Now, if you have a liver, if you go see a specialist absolutely but also, I would suggest complimenting it with TCM doctor and, of course, the Tao healing and Tao healing addresses things at the root cause. The other two address them at the physical and chi level but the Tao healing, of course, addresses that at a much deeper level. So the heart, very, very, you know as Master Sha says, you know, death is defined by when the heart stops so it is the most important organ. In terms of the soul wisdom that he shares, soul is the boss, okay? Soul is the boss of the body the heart? The soul is the boss whereas the heart is the number one soul of as the boss of the body. The impaired yin organ is the small intestine, as we’ve discussed. Body tissue, blood vessels and the emotions is anxiety, depression and the imbalance emotion of joy. They might have come across people that are over excited, over joyful, giddy, right? And giddy occasionally, not a big deal. Giddy all the time that same person probably goes when they’re back in the room and they’re alone they probably go and cry, okay? That tends to be a reflection of an imbalance in the emotional body so kind of keep an eye on that for people as well.
Let’s talk about practices for the fire element. So, in Master Sha’s of this wisdom’s teachings he speaks of the sixth power technique. They are the body power where you place your hands, sound power, sound power which is the intonation that we use. In this case we’re going to sue the sound power so body power will replace our hands, it’s the sound power, the mind power is when we close our eyes. Where do we put our intention? Where do we put our mind, okay? And, in general, when we’re dealing with balancing the elements we’ll focus on the major organ, in this case the heart, okay? So that would be the visualization then there is the soul power which is connecting, saying hello. The additional two powers are the calligraphy which is writing power which we will use that, as well, and then there is the breathing power, breath power, that’s the sixth power. So, what we’re going to do today is we’re going to use five, the sixth power of the breath power is just very common breathing in and out, no big deal.
Let me pull up a fire element calligraphy. Now for those that are listening on podcasts and do not have the value of seeing this graphic that actually doesn’t matter, you’d simply keep your eyes closed and go along with this and you would visualize light coming into your heart center. And for those that are on this video then I will be putting up a new graphic which is the calligraphy for the fire element. Here we go, okay, you should be able to see that now. So, this calligraphy is three characters and it represents the sound ‘Ah.’ The sound ‘Ah’ is the sound power for the fire element so I will now walk you through these six powers and let us connect. For those at home on podcast you can simply relax, you can place one hand over your heart, one hand over your lower abdomen. For those that are familiar with the Tao wisdom teachings you can put your hands in the soul light era hand position, whatever’s comfortable for you. We’re going to connect in what’s called soul communication or soul connection saying hello. So, if comfortable, please repeat after me,
Dear the soul of this Source calligraphy for healing and balancing the fire element, I’m so grateful for the frequency and vibration that you carry within you. As I practice and chant could you please bless me to bring healing to my fire element and for any specific aspect of the fire element that I have identified as being out of balance.
So, think for yourself, do you have, is your heart out of balance? Is your small intestine in need of a little love and support? Do you have anxiety or depression, okay? Do you need more joy in your life? Which area is out of balance? Do you have high blood pressure, capillaries, veins, right?
So ask, I’m so grateful to the Source calligraphy, the vibrations that radiate off you for healing, could you please bless…and then state that and that’s what you’ll receive healing for, I’m going to request more joy for myself, okay? I’ve always been a little too serious in this, I don’t, I need to chill out a little bit and have more joy. So, for those that can see the calligraphy we’re going to trace it by touching all five fingers together and then we simply follow the pathway nice and slow and we’re going to chant the sound power ‘ah’ okay? Our eyes are open so there’s not really a creative visualization at this point and let us begin. And as you chant feel the vibration come into your heart center, see the light come into your heart center, Ah, Ah. For those of you that are listening on podcasts that aren’t able to see I am tracing for you, I am chanting for you, ah, see the light continue to permeate your heart, it’s feeding and nourishing your blood vessels, capillaries and veins, every cell has all five elements in it. So we asked the Source calligraphy of Fire element can you please radiate your healing frequencies to all the cells in our bodies? Bring balance to any imbalances of the fire element to all of our cells, thank you. Let us chant, three deep breaths in, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah……Trace, you can chant silently s you trace seeing the light permeating your entire body. I’m getting hot so it must be working. Fire element, heating up my body, wonderful!
Now, one of the wonderful things about understanding and knowing the different sound powers for each of the elements is you can activate those anytime. The sixth power technique works anywhere, anytime, you don’t need me, you don’t need this podcast. And, yes, having the calligraphy helps if you have it but it’s not necessary to get benefits. Master Sha has taught us to just say hello so if you find yourself having a little anxiety, if you find yourself being depressed, if you find yourself having some issues you simply repeat the process of saying hello. Like this, for example, ‘Dear the soul of the sound power for balancing the fire element, as I chant could you please bring healing and balance to my depression?’ You say depression, whatever’s going on for you, okay? And then you would close your eyes and see, visualize light coming into the area and you at that point would be incorporating all of the powers and you do that five or ten minutes until you feel calmed down again.
Until whatever the issue was feels relaxed, you could be surprised. This is the tool that’s in your toolbox and all you need to remember is ‘Ah’ which is, you know, like when they put the tongue depressor on your tongue, right? So that’s an easy one for the fire element. So, if you happen to have any of those issues then that’s a very quick, easy fix for you to apply anytime. Finish the Source calligraphy and we always connect with gratitude, we say thank you, thank you, thank you, we’re deeply grateful for the frequency and vibration within this healing calligraphy, bless and bring balance to our fire element.
Thank you, Rebecca, for reminding me of what I stated a thousand times, cranial sacral massage that works with the pulses, very good. Welcome Linda, welcome I Chi (?), and everyone else, thank you for coming. We’re at the end of this half hours session. I invite you to be a part of my ongoing podcast so you can subscribe, I am in, you know, Spotify and Apple and all of those it’s under the name called The Healing Source and you can also go to my website which is wellspringoflight.com. And you can, of course, sign up and subscribe at my website itself. In any case I do have the ability to serve you through personal healing or through my membership program. I have a relationship healing program and if you’re new to all of this, you’d like to know a little bit more about the soul and soul healing I do offer a free video course on that, as well. So, lots of good free stuff on my website, wellspringoflight.com. I want to say thank you to all those that joined me live today and I want to invite everybody to have an awesome day. We’ll see you next week, everybody, when we go over the earth element. Bye-bye!
