CHAPTER 6

The Consequences of Continuous Growth

Wood and Wind

Just as all of our organs are interconnected, our bodies are connected to our minds and emotions, and we are connected to the people and the world around us. When something as foundational as jing is affected within us or on a global scale, it will inevitably affect other things. Since our jing is housed in our Kidneys—those foundational organs—and since our dramatic depletion of global oil reserves mirrors our own collective lack of wisdom, all of the phases and organs will inevitably be affected. The pervasive effects of these fundamental causes are particularly apparent in the transition from Water to Wood, which is the transition from winter into spring.

We experienced this seasonal change here in Vermont as I started writing this chapter. As is happening around the globe, the weather is changing here in the Green Mountain State. A dramatically warm and dry winter had led to an even hotter and drier spring. It’s March and it’s already eighty degrees Fahrenheit. I’m looking out the window from the desk where I’m writing, and the grass is already green. Going outside, you can already feel the heat radiating from the soil as if it were summer, even though that’s three months away. People are out in shorts and T-shirts even though this is often the time we get dramatic late-winter storms that bring bitter cold and feet of snow. These warmer temperatures might feel normal in more southern locales, but here—about an hour’s drive from the Canadian border—seeing this much grass and feeling this much warmth at this time of year is disconcerting.

Part of the reason it feels this way now is because we just finished the winter-that-wasn’t. We’re accustomed to lots of cold here in northern Vermont, where people ski, snowboard, and ice fish for four or five months a year. But this year, rather than freezing temperatures, we experienced several days in January and February when temperatures were in the fifties—cold if you were living in Florida, but startlingly warm for here in the northern Green Mountains. And rather than snow this winter, we’ve had rain.

Except for two short weeks, the lawn I’m looking at as I type this chapter has been exposed for the whole winter—no snow, no ice. Throughout the winter we experienced overnight lows well above freezing. While Vermonters are accustomed to a January thaw, a “thaw” implies that freezing has occurred—and there was almost none of that this year.

In understanding the connection among the seasons, it makes sense that a hot winter with almost no snow would lead to a hot spring. Part of the nature of the Water phase and winter is that it’s the foundation of Yin for the rest of the seasons. The dramatic lack of cold temperatures and almost complete lack of snow this winter indicates that Water’s usual cooling and moistening effects are not available to be shared with the Wood element that is spring.

One of movements of the Five Phases cycle is clockwise, from Water to Wood to Fire to Earth to Metal, then back to Water. As part of this particular flow of Qi, one element feeds the next in the cycle. Called the Sheng cycle or Nourishing cycle, it is a supportive relationship that allows each element to feed the one that follows.

The Sheng Cycle

Rather than being an abstract theory, the Sheng cycle comes from very concrete observations of nature and interactions with the natural world. Taking the relationship between Water and Wood as an example, it’s clear that the melting of snow that usually accumulates here in Vermont in winter helps create the growth of spring. We can also see this with houseplants or in our gardens. If you want a plant to grow, it’s essential that it gets enough water. Without the moistening, yin effects of Water, the Yang growth that is Wood isn’t likely to happen.1

As described in the original Five Element text, the Nei Jing, within the human body the Wood element is associated with the Liver and the Gallbladder. Wood’s season is spring, its climatic factor is wind, its emotion is anger, its sound is shouting, and its stage of life is adolescence. Wood is associated with the eyes, the physical aspects of sight, and the bigger issues of a vision for one’s life. Wood is also associated with change.2

As one of the foundational traditions in Chinese medicine, the Five Phases provide another deep-reaching perspective into our own health and the sustainability of our culture. It is clear that the United States places a strong overemphasis on Yang. Looking through the Five Phases lens, it’s also clear that not only are we depleting the jing of the planet, we are stuck in one of the elements rather than moving healthily from one to the next.

Along with interconnection, another central tenet of Chinese medicine is change. In nature, everything is in a state of dynamism. Animals, insects, trees, plants, the weather, the seasons are all changing continuously. Sometimes the change is dramatic and very noticeable and sometimes it’s more subtle, but change is happening all the time. Even rocks, which might appear static, are constantly changing. If you take the time to observe something as seemingly stable as a stone, you’ll see that its color and texture are changing. You’ll also notice that over time its size and shape change from the effects of the weather, and its color changes from the effects of the sun and rain.

To help us understand where we in the United States are in the Five Phases cycle, let’s look at some more vague, open-ended questions. As you did before, ask yourself:

Is expansion better than contraction?

Is shouting for what’s right better than being quiet?

Is competition what drives nature?

The Belief in Continuous Growth

As has been discussed by many authors, the ecological effects of an economy based on growth are far-reaching. Despite what advertisements and manufacturers might imply, the things that we buy do not simply materialize out of thin air. Things like shoes, cars, and phones come from somewhere and are made from actual things. And much of the manufacture of these things is unsustainable both in terms of what is being taken from nature as well as what is being returned in terms of waste. We are converting physical aspects of nature into commodities that we can buy and sell, often creating toxicity in the process.

The overwhelming emphasis of our economy is on buying new things and, soon after, replacing them with more new things. As we discussed before, this economic emphasis is on the Yang, and from a Five Phases perspective it’s also about the Wood. And as it comes from basic assumptions about the world, this overemphasis on both Yang and Wood can also be seen in many other aspects of U.S. and Western culture. One obvious example is the amount of new information being created. The sheer number of new ideas, new perspectives, and new technologies being disseminated in all aspects of life has reached a fever pitch. There are even new life forms being created through bioengineering. While some of these ideas and technologies are important and worthwhile,3 the Five Element perspective shows us that newness is only one part of picture. As always, the issue is one of balance, and it’s clear that we have become infatuated with the new.

We may hope that we can live healthy lives and have a sustainable world with this strong emphasis on the new. We may think that we can have all of this continuous newness and still live a balanced life and a have harmonious society. But a basic understanding of the Five Element cycle clearly indicates otherwise.

Whenever we overemphasize one aspect of our lives or one aspect of a culture, there are inevitable consequences. Just as our cultural overemphasis on the Yang of new and more has affected the ecological coolant of the planet, our overemphasis on Wood is affecting the other phases. Looking at the Five Elements circle, the Sheng cycle is represented by the line on the outside that moves clockwise. As the image demonstrates, Water feeds Wood. In other words, the growth and newness that is the Wood draws its strength from the Water, just as watering a plant helps it grow. For something to grow continuously, it will necessarily pull from the reserves that are stored in the Water phase.

On a larger scale, for an economy to grow continuously, it needs to constantly draw from some deep reserve of energy. In the industrial era, this reserve has been oil. Without this source of concentrated energy, what’s called the progress of industrialization simply would not have been possible. In other words, without a sustained source of Water, there could not be the continuous growth of the Wood. And with our cultural infatuation with continuous economic expansion, it’s inevitable that the deep reserves that are the Water will be compromised. As the jing of the planet, oil has literally fueled the quest for the growth of the U.S. and global economy for over 150 years.

Rather than a surprise, peak oil is an inevitability. All the growth and the supposed progress that we equate with our modern society had to be fueled by something. The energy to build things, make things, market things, and move things around has to come from somewhere. A large part of this somewhere is below the ground, and the something is oil.

To say that we have been using oil at a faster rate than it can be replenished is a huge understatement. What has taken millions of years to create, we have used up in less than two centuries. In hindsight, once we knew that it takes millions of years to create oil, what did we think was going to happen to the supply? Did we think that we would always be able to find more? Were we hoping that somehow the biological processes that created oil would speed up to create more for us?

We are infatuated with growth, and infatuation requires that the scope of the questions asked and answers sought be limited significantly. When we take off the glasses that have us seeing continuous growth as possible and desirable, our view of the landscape changes. Rather than a sign of progress and development, the quest for continuous growth—seen through the lens of Chinese medicine—is revealed as inevitably pathological and destructive.

Wind in Health and Sickness

As the Wood element is associated with spring, it’s about growth, change, and the beginnings of things. When it’s in balance, Wood is the buds bursting forth from the willow branches as the early season begins to warm. It’s about the spring peeper frogs coming out of their winter dormancy and shouting their iconic high-pitched mating calls in ponds around New England. It’s the first appearance of the green grass after the winter snow has melted. It’s the dandelion leaves pushing up through the once-frozen soil into the spring sunlight.

With this growth and change in spring comes an increase in wind, which is the weather associated with Wood. Several weeks ago here in Vermont it was obvious that spring had appeared because there was a sustained increase in wind for several days. While the rising temperatures and increasing sunlight also spoke about the arrival of spring, the increase in wind was the clear indication that winter had left.

Part of what wind does from the viewpoint of Chinese medicine is promote change.4 Wind as an agent of change is evident not only in the changing of seasons, but also in storms, where wind is often generated. One way to look at the importance of the Wood element is that all change—for better and for worse, toward health or sickness, toward sustainability or unsustainability—comes from the influence of wind. Given the relationship between Water and Wood, it’s not surprising that we are seeing an increase in storms and strong winds globally.

As we talked about earlier, an exhaustive amount of data indicates that the planet is warming and that there is a corresponding increase in extreme weather. While Western climate science is still looking to make clear and definitive connections between an increase in global temperature and the increase in storms, Chinese medicine can provide some clarity.

With the help of Yin-Yang and the Five Phases, we can see the connection between the increasing temperature and the increase of wind. As discussed, whether it’s within us personally or within the planet as a whole, when things get hot it’s likely that the coolant will get cooked off. As the water element is the basis of this Yin, these deeper reserves of coolant and stability can become depleted as things heat up. Looking at the relationship between Water and Wood, if the relaxing nature of the Yin of Water is compromised, what is fed to the Wood is hot and agitated. This excess heat can overstimulate the Wood and increase its tendency toward movement, which is an increase in wind. Within our bodies, this increase in wind and movement can create sickness of all kinds, and on a planetary scale it can be seen as an increase in severe weather.

Part of what Water does within us is root things down. When this downward movement is compromised, the naturally upward-rising nature of Wood can become excessive. As a result, we can see a wide variety of issues individually, including symptoms like headaches (especially migraines), high blood pressure, vertigo and dizziness, sleep disturbances, and excessive anger and rage.

This increase of wind on a global scale presents itself more literally as an increase in storms and dramatic, violent weather. This global increase in wind and storms not only makes sense, it could have been predicted for two reasons. First, once we understand that Water is the basis of Yin, we recognize that when the Water phase is hot, everything will eventually heat up. Applying the wisdom of the Five Element model to the climate, we can see that the burning of the planet’s jing would warm the climate while depleting the planet’s coolant. The deep depletion of the Water element globally makes it likely, if not inevitable, that there will be an increase in wind and storms as the upward movement of the Wood becomes unrooted.

Second, there is a close relationship between Water and Wood as the direct line between the two indicates. The Water feeds the Wood; what happens in the Water affects very directly what happens in the Wood. If the Water is hot and dry, what is passed along to the Wood will be hot and dry. As the planet warms and its coolant decreases—indicating a hot and dry Water element—we can predict a general increase in wind and storms as a likely consequence.

And where does this decrease in the planet’s Yin and jing, and the increase in storms and wind, come from? All of it, of course, begins with us. While all of the forces that help to maintain balance in nature are present within us, it is our individual and collective imbalances that are the root issues of the climate crisis. Though we have the same influences internally that have the Yang of day transition to the Yin of night and that move one season to the next, it’s our lack of well-being that is the underlying cause of global warming.

The rapid destabilization of the climate, the decrease in the ability of the planet to sequester carbon, the release of potent greenhouse gases from the ocean floor, the burning of the planet’s jing, the increase in storms and violent weather—all of this is a reflection of what’s happening within us.

Not only is our condition connected with that of our natural climate, but the systems and institutions we’ve created also mirror our imbalances. In particular, our economic system is contributing significantly to climate change, as it is a magnification of our own individual and collective assumptions and imbalances.

Wood Excess and the Yin and Yang of Economics

Trying to maintain something that is out of balance takes a lot of effort. Something that’s occurring harmoniously flows along naturally, as would a river moving downstream without many obstacles. Our overemphasis on the Wood has led us to often dramatic measures to maintain growth because the expansion we desire is far beyond anything that can be sustained. One obvious example is our economic policy here in the United States.

In 2008 the much-discussed collapse in the housing market contributed to a dramatic decrease in the size of the economy. In an effort to prevent future decline, the U.S. government infused over $700 billion, including money given to large banks and the auto industry. To some, this was a needed action to prevent an economic collapse. To others it was the federal government bailing out businesses that were on the verge of bankruptcy due to their own greed or poor business practices. Regardless of your particular interpretation of the government bailout, the hundreds of billions of dollars can be seen as a massive, perhaps unprecedented, injection of energy into the economy.

The rationale for this and other attempts to keep things growing can be seen in the words we use to describe the economy. When the economy is “healthy,” it is growing at or above a predicted rate. If the growth is slowing or if the economy is not growing at all, this is called a recession. If the economy is contracting, we call it a depression.

For many of us, recession and depression are scary words. The way these terms are used in both casual public discussions and more in-depth academic discourse speaks to the deep emotion many of us have about the economy. With the fear that these terms create, recession and depression are things to be avoided at almost any cost. We might ask: Who in their right mind would want a recession or, even worse, a depression?

The words we use to describe expansion and contraction speaks to what we value. It also reveals how we have structured our country and our culture. As with the earlier question about doing and not doing, it may seem obvious that we should all want the economy to grow. Listening to public radio yesterday, I heard a commentator ask rhetorically, almost word-for-word, the question I posed above. It was clear from his tone that he believed it self-evident that no one in their right mind would, in fact, want the economy to contract.

The economic system we now have is largely based on the belief that it is not only possible but desirable to have something expand continuously, theoretically forever. Not only would Yin-Yang theory say otherwise, but the Five Phases tradition makes it clear that trying to keep something growing all the time is like hoping for it to be spring year-round. Simple observations of nature fundamentally question this assumption. When we assume that anything can continue to grow forever—whether it is a tree, a person or an economy—we are assuming that things will stay in a state of Yang forever. We’re also assuming that it will always be spring and never autumn or winter. Just as the Yin-Yang symbol shows that Yang eventually becomes Yin, the Five Phases circle shows us that the spring of Wood becomes the summer of Fire, which becomes the harvest of Earth, which becomes the autumn of Metal.

In the Yin-Yang icon, the peak of Yang is the large amount of white and also where the black of the Yin begins to appear. This part of the circle represents the economy reaching its peak and—simultaneously—beginning to contract. Just as the growth of the Yang, by its very nature, brings in the presence of the Yin, the expansion of the economy leads naturally to its contraction. Similarly, in the Five Phases, the growth of spring and the Wood lead to the transformation to another phase and other seasons.

When it comes to economic policy, we don’t seem to understand this basic dynamic of expansion leading to contraction and one season becoming the next. In fact, our response to the words recession and depression indicates that we fear it. Despite what various people might tell us, continuous growth is simply not possible. Even as we try to pump up the economy, natural transitions still occur. Even with the hundreds of billions of dollars that were injected into the economic system, Yang will eventually become Yin and spring will eventually become summer, late summer, and fall.

I hope I do not sound callous in my application of Chinese medical thinking to economic issues. I am aware that many people were affected by the contraction in the economy that began in 2008 and continues through the writing of this chapter. I am very aware that many people have lost their jobs, businesses, and homes as a result of the recession. I am also aware that these losses have placed real stress on individuals, families, communities, and entire countries. But in our era of climate change, propping up the economy without examining our deep overemphasis on Yang and Wood adds fuel to the climate fire. The pursuit of the “next great thing” to help keep the economy “healthy” is, from another perspective, contributing fundamentally to our own personal imbalances and the warming of our planet.

Looking at economic policy in terms of what we see in nature, we’re hoping for it to be warm without cold, day without night, and spring without autumn or winter. And despite dramatic efforts to make this happen, things do become cold, night comes, and the seasons change. Even if we were able to somehow make our collective economic experience be that of a warm, sunny spring day all the time, why would we want to?

The first buds on the willow tree each spring are so exciting because of the dormancy of winter. Seeing the dandelion leaves pushing through the ground in May is hopeful because of the cold and dark of December. One basic tenet for healthy living in Chinese medicine is to follow the lead of the natural world. With an individual, an economy, and a country, when things are in a balanced state, things expand and contract, and are active and inactive. In our era of a rapidly overheating planet, these are not only important transitions, they are inevitable ones.

We might hope to avoid the deeper implications of applying Chinese medical thinking to the causes of climate change. We might be more comfortable with keeping the basic systems that we now have in place and reforming them toward sustainability. We might think that it is simply too much, or too difficult, or too unpragmatic to talk about questioning our overemphasis on continuous growth. However, the severity of climate change is a potentially terminal diagnosis. Whether it’s on the personal, cultural, or climate scale, severe symptoms are a strong encouragement to examine the underlying causes of the condition, and make the necessary changes. Climate change not only brings into question the existence of countless species, but also life as we know it. The rapid destabilization of the climate is potentially our wake-up call to look at the deeper causes of the crisis, and our motivation to allow these deeper changes to occur.

A Proportionate Response to Climate Change

While Easterners and Westerners are increasingly integrating one another’s beliefs systems into their own lives, the two medical traditions often retain different assumptions about how to treat symptoms. Generally speaking, a more Western view is that symptoms are things to get rid of. If you have a headache, you can take a pill to get rid of the pain. If you have a more serious symptom, you can take a different and stronger pill to make it go away. If that doesn’t work, you could have surgery to repair or replace what’s causing the problem.5

There are times when this approach can be lifesaving. If you are in a car crash or fall off your roof, the emergency room is the place to go. But without looking at where symptoms are coming from, we’re not listening to the messages that the symptoms are trying to convey. Of course, there are times when we don’t have time to listen to the messenger. If you are having a heart attack, you may not have the opportunity to understand the bigger and deeper issues if dramatic steps aren’t taken quickly. Can immediate intervention in severe, acute symptoms be lifesaving? Yes. Can fast interventions also discourage us from paying attention to our bodies’ messages about our health? Again, yes.

Eventually, even if we do succeed in getting rid of the first symptoms, other messengers will inevitably appear. In terms of personal health, it may or may not be the same symptom that reappears. We might get more headaches, or they might go away. They might appear in the same place, or they might move around. But unless we’ve addressed the root causes, other symptoms will eventually present themselves. With a terminal diagnosis, the general message is that something is out of balance at deep and systemic levels. When a condition can end the life of an individual or the life of an ecosystem, it’s a strong encouragement toward change.

Rather than being good or bad things in themselves, serious symptoms are opportunities. In the case of the climate, we can understand a rapidly warming planet as providing us the strong encouragement to look below the surface. We can see a destabilizing climate as providing us the opportunity to look through the symptoms of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration rates to the more fundamental causes that have brought us where we are today.

In bringing Chinese medicine from the treatment room to the culture, another important idea is what I’ll call proportionality. In particular, there is a noticeable lack of connection between the level of climate crisis and the responses being proposed. If someone has the flu but is otherwise healthy, the response can be relatively simple. They might have a mild fever, maybe a slight headache, and perhaps a runny nose and a cough. To help clear things out, the person may receive an acupuncture treatment or two and get some herbs to promote a mild sweat to vent what’s causing the symptoms. Their practitioner might suggest some extra rest and sleep, and maybe taking a day or two off work. They might also get some suggestions on soups that would open the pores, and in a few days the person would likely feel better. The sickness is short-lived and not severe, so the proportionate response is straightforward.

If this one case of the flu, however, is part of a pattern of getting sick regularly, the proportionate response should include looking at bigger and deeper issues. The practitioner could ask questions about the person’s immune system and their overall strength and vitality. Factors like what they eat, their levels of stress, and their situations at home and work come into play. If someone were getting sick regularly, there would also likely be lifestyle suggestions about diet, sleep, and exercise.

Regularly getting the flu indicates a more long-term chronic condition. An important aspect of Chinese medical thinking is that with the reappearance of sickness, the proportionate response necessarily includes looking at larger issues. Rather than one or two treatments, the person might need weekly acupuncture for a few months. In addition to having an herbal formula on hand for when they get sick, the patient could receive a prescription that would strengthen their Qi while clearing out any viruses or bacteria that might be lingering.

In comparison to getting the flu regularly, a proportionate response to a terminal diagnosis would again require a bigger and deeper perspective. A cancer diagnosis, for example, can obviously bring into question whether someone is going to live or die. There are many different kinds of cancers and an equally wide variety of success rates in treating the condition. Regardless of the specifics, cancer is potentially life-threatening, and the proportionate response would include looking at all aspects of a person’s life—the physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual. This could include not only diet, sleep, and exercise, as with the recurring flus, but also relationships to family and friends, exposure to environmental toxins, expression of emotions, and perspectives about the world.

An increase in the severity of symptoms necessitates a deepening and expansion of the questions being asked, the changes being proposed, and the treatments being offered. A person with a cancer diagnosis might need to come in for acupuncture two to three times weekly for many months. The herbal formula they receive could include very strong substances to clear out toxins, and the quantity of herbs they take daily would likely increase.

Much discussion of climate change noticeably lacks proportionality between the severity of the problem and the proposed responses. Many well-written, well-researched writings that demonstrate a clear understanding of the most current science on climate change offer remedies that are disproportionate to the depth and scope of the problem. Most writers propose plans to reduce greenhouse gases while increasing the planet’s natural abilities to sequester these gases. There is also a lot of important discussion of eating local food, consuming less, and planting trees. Of course, all of these approaches are essential in treating climate change. But what we eat, what we consume, and the conditions of the forests are mere symptoms of deeper issues.

Perhaps in an effort to seem reasonable and pragmatic, most authors are talking about changes that do little to examine the underlying assumptions that have fueled climate change. The severe global nature of the condition described by climatologists constitutes a potentially terminal diagnosis for life as we know it. The planetary equivalent of taking a few days off work is not an appropriate, proportional response.

Too Much Wind Within Us

As storms increase globally in frequency and severity, it’s not surprising that we too are experiencing the signs and symptoms of internal wind. The same force of wind that blows around outside us can create problems within us. Called internal wind in Chinese medicine, it corresponds with the sudden appearance of dramatic and violent symptoms, including migraines, seizures, vertigo, and neurological symptoms of all kinds.

To understand what Chinese medicine means by internal wind, think about wind’s strength and speed in nature. Sometimes a light breeze feels good on the skin; it might rustle some leaves or blow around some small, light things you’ve left outside. Now imagine that the wind is stronger. Branches on trees are starting to move and anything that doesn’t have some weight and size is starting to get moved around. Next, imagine a storm in which the treetops are swaying dramatically, branches are being broken, and even bigger, heavier things are being moved by the force of the wind. Finally, imagine that this force that can move treetops and break branches is acting uncontrollably within us, and you understand internal wind.

The good news about symptoms of internal wind is that they are potentially very treatable. One of the more dramatic examples of addressing symptoms of wind I’ve seen is the case of a farmer I will call Tom. He came to see me because he had been experiencing grand mal seizures about five days a week for several years. Tom was in his mid-forties, wiry, with well-defined taut muscles from decades of regular physical work. He had a sweet smile and a kind and soft manner, but the regularity of the seizures had left him pale and grayish in the face.

During his first appointment, he told me how most days of the week his eyes would roll back into his head as he fell down hard to the ground. He smiled and good-naturedly showed me the scars and bruises all over his body where he had hit the bed, a chair, or the floor as he passed out and the seizures took over. Tom told me how sometimes he would see the change in color that’s the aura often associated with a grand mal seizure and have a chance to lie down before the spasms started. Other times it happened so quickly that he didn’t have time to respond, and then he hit the ground full force.

Tom’s wife described how he shook violently and uncontrollably for up to a minute when he lost consciousness during a seizure, and how afraid she was for him as she watched him convulse. Tom also told me how relaxed but exhausted he felt after the dramatic symptoms had passed. Tom experienced a reduced appetite, which I associated with the stress his whole body was constantly experiencing. His eyes were dull and glossed over, and he had that deer-in-the-headlights look of someone in shock, common with continuous, dramatic, and frightening symptoms. Put simply, he looked frazzled and worn out. Tom’s pulse and tongue told the same story as did his symptoms. The pulses underneath my middle finger on his left wrist, corresponding to the Wood element, pounded tautly and were on the very surface of the skin.

Once someone has symptoms as severe as seizures, they have internal wind at the level of a storm. Sometimes the winds are howling—as when Tom experienced seizures—and sometimes they are quiet—as when he felt relaxed afterward—but the presence of too much wind remains constant. Tom’s pulses felt as if the Qi of his Liver and Gallbladder were filled to capacity, producing tension like that on the surface of a sail that’s being blown before a strong wind. Together with the overstimulation of the wind, the heat in his Liver and Gallbladder was forcing the Qi to the very surface of his skin, creating the pounding quality I felt in his pulse.

Connected to this excess of Wood was a significant deficiency in Water. Along with the significant excess of Qi in the Liver and Gallbladder was an equally significant lack of energy in the Kidney and Bladder. Underneath my ring finger on his left wrist, the Kidney and Bladder pulses were deep and without much force. They were also tight, thin, and pushy. The depth of the pulse indicated that the overall strength of Tom’s Water was very weak—in other words, he was Yang deficient. The tightness showed that Tom’s Water was bound up and not flowing smoothly, called stagnation. The thinness indicated dryness, as in a river without enough water to fill it out to its banks. The pushiness of the pulse indicated heat, as if the pulse were agitated and unable to relax.

With dramatic symptoms of the kind that Tom experienced, this pulse picture is very common. The excess of wind and Wood can both come from, and contribute to, a deficiency in Water. If the Water lacks enough cooling Yin, what is fed to the Liver and Gallbladder is hot and dry, which can encourage the already rising energy of the Wood to fly up uncontrollably. Also, if the deep strength of the Water—its Yang—is weak, then the ability of the Kidney and Bladder to hold the Wood in place and root it downward is lost. Again, this allows the wind to rush upward. When the Wood and the wind become unrooted and create symptoms like frequent seizures, it can obviously weaken the person at a deep level—namely, the foundational strength contained in the Kidney and the Water.

Tom’s tongue told a story very similar to his pulse. His tongue was very red, indicating an excess of heat, and there was a deep crack from the back to the middle, indicating dryness. What was most pronounced was that his tongue deviated dramatically to the side, indicating internal wind.

In addition to the importance of acupuncture and herbal formulas, a very significant part of the success of the treatments came from the changes Tom made in his life. Not surprisingly, my recommendation to Tom was to slow down. A major cause of seizures is the Qi of the Wood quickly and violently rushing upward into the head. An important part of treating too much energy rushing upward is to encourage the Qi to go back down and relax. Being too busy can encourage the already overexcited Qi to become unrooted, triggering a seizure.

While his seizures prevented him from working much, he was still trying to drive his pick-up around the acreage he owned to look at what was growing and how his animals were doing. Even though he could do much less than he had in the past, he was still constantly pushing himself to do as much as he could until the next seizure. During the first appointment, Tom and I talked about a Chinese medicine understanding of what was causing his condition. It all made sense to him and right away he significantly reduced his work on the farm, increased his sleep by several hours each night, and took it easy when he didn’t feel well.

After a few months of regular acupuncture treatments, taking herbs daily, and modifying his lifestyle, Tom was feeling much better. His seizures had decreased to about one a week, and the severity of the episodes also decreased. After a few more months, he was having a less dramatic seizure about once a month. Tom also clearly looked better. His face had more color, his appetite had increased, and most days he had much more energy. His face was also much more relaxed; the look of shock he wore when he first came in had been replaced by more sparkle in his eyes.

Comparing Tom’s condition to the macrocosm of the climate allows us to see how the increase in wind and storms described by climate science comes from an excess of Qi in the planet’s Wood. The planet has warmed, the cooling of the Yin of the Water has been cooked off, and this has created an increase of wind in the Wood. So what’s the antidote for this increase of wind and corresponding storms? Just like Tom, we as a planet need to encourage this excess of upward-rising Wood energy to relax and become rooted downward.

As we in the United States and the industrialized West are the source of this wind and storms, an important part of the remedy is to decrease this excessive rising up of Wood energy within us and the culture. Since what we are seeing in the world is a mirror of our own internal condition, we need to break the spell of our infatuation with newness. We need to see clearly this overemphasis on new cars, new phones, new information, new ideas. We also need to recognize that nothing can maintain balance and grow forever. Our often unquestioning faith in new medical procedures and genetically modified lifeforms is connected to the storms that are increasing globally. The same continuously upward-rising energy that creates one new thing after the next and that craves continuous expansion is the very same condition that is creating an increase in wind globally.

The Method Is the Message

Looking at the relationship between Water and Wood also makes it clear that we won’t be able to shout our way out of the crisis. With the clarity that comes from seeing the root causes, we can recognize the appropriate remedies to treat the cultural issues of our warming planet. It’s also essential that we understand the importance of the approaches we use to help inspire change.

The method that we use is indeed an essential part of the message. With our pathological overemphasis on growth, it’s not surprising that we see so much excessive anger, shouting, and violence in the world. Just as growth is associated with Wood, all of these other conditions are associated with the Liver and Gallbladder.

We get angry at drivers on the road. We get angry at our family and friends. We regularly hear reports about sometimes lethal anger in our schools and workplaces. In our new-is-better, bigger-is-better, continuous-growth-is-possible culture, a large-scale excess of anger is not only likely but may even be inevitable. An overemphasis on growth in our country helps create an excess of Qi in the Wood element; in our bodies, we experience this as an overstimulation of the Liver and Gallbladder. As anger is the emotion associated with Wood and shouting is the sound, both of these are, not surprisingly, often in excess in us and in the people around us.

Just as increasing the warmth of Yang in an already hot situation is not likely to bring balance, shouting all the time and being angry about climate change is not likely to create any lasting change. Yes, there is a time to shout, but no, constantly feeling rage about climate change is no real challenge to the status quo. We might feel strong, even powerful, when we yell about the state we are in. We might feel righteously justified in screaming about the systems and companies that have contributed to the problem. But being angry constantly and shouting all the time are not likely to create balance in a situation of already extreme Wood excess.

A poignant example of the importance of the methods used to convey our message is a rally I attended in Vermont. It was organized to bring awareness to the proposed pumping of tar sands oil through the northeast corner of the state. About five hundred of us met at a park in downtown Burlington and heard several speakers talk about global warming, other pipeline proposals, and how the issues that affect the environment affect people. Led by a lively, dancing marching band with bass drum and tuba, we walked through downtown. Some people sang and danced. Many of us waved to the many hundreds of others who lined the sidewalks, looking at what was going on. And as is common at rallies, some people raised their fists and shouted, holding signs with pictures of clenched hands and advocating fighting against various injustices and environmentally irresponsible practices.

When we arrived at another town park about a mile away, we heard more speakers talking about how greed and the role of money in politics are corrupting our country, and how they needed to be addressed to deal with climate change. After the talks finished, several hundred of us changed into black clothing and as a group walked slowly in silence about a quarter mile. We then lay down in front of the hotel where New England governors and eastern Canadian premiers were holding their yearly meeting. We were creating a human oil spill to embody our concern that what had happened with other pipelines could happen in Vermont.

There was no shouting. There was not even any talking. We were not in a rush, and there were no raised fists. What was present was the palpable presence of the Yin—the power of the quiet, the peaceful, and the purposeful.

There was a very different feeling, a very different expression of Qi, between the first part of the rally and the second. It’s not surprising that with our cultural overemphasis on Yang and Wood that we would assume that being loud was important. We might think that shouting and raising our clenched fists would be the way to get people’s attention, make our point, and help create change. But looking at the different parts of the rally through the lenses of both Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, it’s clear which has the potential to treat the underlying causes of climate change. In a country suffering from so much anger and violence and straining to maintain an economic system based on continuous expansion, the antidote is not more of the same. The medicine for an excess of Yang and an overemphasis on Wood is the quiet, the peaceful, the energy sinking down and in.

The method we use is not only part of the message we are trying to convey; the method is the message itself.

Another part of how we approach a warming planet is the words we use. They are an expression of our intentions and beliefs, external reflections of our internal condition. Given our overemphasis on growth and newness, it’s not surprising that we see things in terms of conflict and war. Medically, we talk about waging war on sicknesses like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. We talk about our war on drugs and our war on obesity.

When we talk so commonly and even casually about war, we again provide a mirror of our own individual and collective perspective. We may think the wars on various medical diagnoses are not only important but even heroic. But like our emphasis on newness and growth, given the prevalence of anger and violence, looking at health care and social issues in terms of warfare again speaks to our overemphasis on Wood. Similarly, we are not likely to win a war on climate change because in seeing the issue in terms of conflict, we feed the same imbalance and overemphasis that has helped create the condition itself. In our era of Wood excess, a more long-lasting and deep-reaching response is to wage peace.

Biology and Conflict, and the Limits of Innovation

Hiding out in the open, there’s another instructive example of our cultural orientation toward conflict: our view of nature. Much of modern biology assumes that the lives of plants and animals are ruled primarily by competition. Looking at the world through that lens, we see everything living on the planet as continuously looking for an advantage. Whether in the pursuit of food, shelter, or reproduction, the assumption is that every organism and every species is constantly looking for the upper hand. Of course, exceptions are discussed, but the overriding perspective is that creatures as small as tadpoles and as big as whales are continuously looking for competitive advantages. Imagining that everyone else and all other species are also always looking for these advantages assumes a state of continuous conflict. Translating this view of nature into a Five Elements perspective, we are again assuming that the Wood element is the dominant reality in the world.

Chinese medicine evolved from cultural perspectives that were rooted in observations of nature and direct experiences with the natural world. The Five Phases tradition does not deny the existence of conflict or dismiss the existence of anger or the potential importance of shouting. Similarly, it doesn’t deny that some animals eat other animals or that some plants try to crowd out others. It also doesn’t dismiss the reality that in order to sustain our physical lives, we need to eat things that were once living and that may not have given up their lives willingly.

A Five Phases view of conflict, however, is that it’s one part of one of the phases. In building our economic system, we have taken one part of the picture and presented it as the whole picture. Yes, there is competition in the world, but no, the world is not only about conflict. When we see the world as a place about fighting and struggle exclusively, it is both a sign of our imbalance and a contributor to our condition. In particular, it again indicates and feeds our overemphasis on the Wood.

Contemporary Westerners are not the first to see the world primarily as a place of conflict. During the Warring States era, from 481 to 221 BCE, China experienced a seemingly uninterrupted series of wars and conflicts.6 This included fighting among people and groups within the country as well as warfare between China and other countries. And along with this conflict came significant changes in cultural and medical views.

In medicine, the Warring States era saw a shift away from promoting health and toward combating the evil forces that caused sickness. Culturally, China placed a new emphasis on constantly preparing for warfare among individuals and groups of people. Scholar of Chinese medicine and history Paul Unschuld calls this a perspective of “all against all,” in which a war for health and a war against others was inevitable.7 Modern biology similarly presents this view of continuous conflict in nature as the predominant way to understand the world around us. Rather than among people, as in the Warring States era, modern biological conflict is imagined as occurring among everything in the natural world. We could call it the Warring Nature era of biology.

Like seeing warfare among people as inevitable, viewing competitive advantage as the central force among species also amounts to seeing the world in terms conflict. As I read the history of China from the fifth to the third centuries BCE, I clearly see a time of violence and warfare. And part of what contributed to the unrest was the new ideas that people developed in an attempt to make sense of what was happening in that era. But just as there’s nothing preordained about a cultural view of “all against all,” there is nothing inevitable about emphasizing competitive advantage in nature. Both are articulations of one particular perspective on human interactions and the interactions in nature. They represent a view of the world as a place where everyone and everything is out for themselves—but this is only one interpretation of reality. In Chinese medicine’s view, it’s a perspective that overemphasizes one aspect of one of the Five Phases, namely the conflict of the Wood. But continuous conflict is not inevitable; it’s one of many possibilities.8

Simply seeing our tendency toward viewing the world as a place of continuous conflict and our overemphasis on the Wood won’t lead to any significant transformation. And Wood has its value. Just as some animals do eat other animals and some plants do crowd out others, the newness represented by technological innovation certainly has a role to play in addressing climate change. But we won’t be able to innovate our way out of the crisis. Innovations in solar panels, windmills, and electric cars are part of the answer to climate change. New, smarter electric grids could also reduce our use of electricity through greater efficiency. But at a deeper level, innovation at best is addressing in the short term the more surface issues of greenhouse gas emissions.

Our often unquestioning faith in newness and innovation that comes from our overemphasis on the Wood is part of our societal pathology that feeds the fire of climate change. A culture that’s stuck in Wood will not find the remedy for a rapidly warming planet in more newness. We’re also not likely to create any lasting and transformative change by constantly being angry and shouting in the name of addressing climate change. Nor are we going to help ourselves and the planet find balance if we look at climate stabilization in terms of conflict and warfare.

The Need for Vision: The Yin of the Wood

Part of what we lack with our overemphasis on the Yang of the Wood is the Yin of the Wood. The continuous emphasis on new things, conflict, constantly shouting, and always being angry are all examples of the Yang expression of the Liver and Gallbladder. As in any situation, if there’s is too much of something, there is likely to be too little of something else. Our overactive Wood has helped to create a very real lack of a clear vision of who we are individually and collectively.

As we discussed at the beginning of this chapter, Wood is associated with the eyes and both the literal and metaphorical aspects of seeing. When the Water phase is dried out from heat, the internal and introspective aspects of Wood that allow us to see ourselves and the world clearly are also dried out. Our preoccupation with new things and new ideas and our emphasis on the loud and on conflict comes at the expense of seeing the consequences of our actions. It can also come at the expense of seeing the underlying causes of our condition. As a result, we are missing the importance of looking at deeper, root causes. Just as our lack of the wisdom of the Water is part of the condition that has created climate change, our lack of a clear vision from the Wood is also part of the collective sickness.

In seeing clearly some of the underlying causes of the climate crisis, we can come to recognize some basic truths. These include that when things are in a state of health, expansion eventually leads to contraction. This is true on the scale of an economy and a culture as well as on the level of an individual person.

We can also come to see that how we approach a crisis like climate change is a reflection of our assumptions about the world. If we view the world as a place of continuous conflict, waging war on climate change might make sense. However, if we’re looking to address the underlying causes of the crisis, it’s essential that we begin to wage peace.

This movement toward peace includes not only the methods we use to address the many issues of climate change; it also involves how we view the deeper motivations of plants and animals, humans included. More anger, more shouting, and more rage provide us with no real change in our Wood-excess world. Likewise, the belief in continuous economic and ecological competition moves us down the same cultural path that has brought us to the precipice of climate catastrophe.

And just as symptoms like grand mal seizures can be treated, our collective excess of Wood can also be treated. With the wisdom of the Five Phases, we can realize that part of the medicine for the sickness of climate change is in the old and the traditional. Part of the remedy for what ails us and what ails the planet comes from valuing quality over quantity. Part of the medicine we now need includes connecting to something more transcendent than our individual lives.

To treat the excess of Wood in ourselves and our culture that is manifesting as a warming planet, we need to look to the Metal.