|
Note: This is a description of the Wood Element within a short children’s story written by Becky La Plante, L.Ac.
Once upon a time, there were 2 little baby seeds named Arbol and Baum who were planted in the rich soil of mother earth by Great Spirit. Great Spirit had plans and vision for these little seeds to grow up into great big redwood trees. They were to be great symbols of beauty and magnificence of life and the future for the human beings on the planet. The seeds had been in the earth the whole winter and on the first day of spring they had begun to sprout stems bursting out of the ground.
Arbol was much stronger than Baum and burst forth very fast rising straight up into the sky excited to fulfill her and Great Spirit’s vision and purpose. Although she wasn’t as big as some of the different kind of tree sprouts, she remained optimistic and hopeful. Throughout the day she would shout out to the passing animals in a cheerful way asking them what there purpose was and telling them about her purpose. Her voice was assertive and vigorous, demanding the other animals and tree’s attention.
Baum, on the other hand, moved a much slower than Arbol and by the end of the spring was only ½ of Arbol’s size having only a vague vision of where he was going, or what his purpose was. He began to get very depressed, resigned and hopeless. Wild dogs would walk right up to him and pee on him, and in a voice lacking force or power he would just barely shoo them off. Other trees watched him, perplexed as to why he did not get angry and allowed them to continuously disrespect him. They certainly would not allow it to happen them selves.
By the next spring they both had grown bigger than they were last spring. Arbol had grown 3 times her previous size and was still vibrant with life bursting forward with excelling speed. Baum had grown a little bit more but began to start to have a clearer vision of his purpose and began to have some hope again.
But on the 3rd week of spring a cloud appeared above and did not leave for a week. According to the wise elder hawk, Ahau, it did not plan to leave anytime soon. Arbol and Baum began to talk about what they could do. Arbol decided to lean to the left to reach the sun’s rays but Baum started to get very frustrated, refusing to change his plan of growing straight up. He could not understand why this cloud wasn’t moving and began to yell and shout at the cloud daily for being there.
As Arbol began to flourish and grow leaning towards the sun, and working towards her 150 feet goal, Baum began to get jealous of Arbol getting more and angry at his situation. His anger began to spread to other situations and he began to shout at the other trees and animals in the forest for ridiculous things like walking to close to him, laughing too loud, or for just being whom and what they were.
One day, Great Spirit appeared to visit these two trees and told them that for one year, they were going to transform into full grown human beings. This was in order to understand why it was so important for humans to know the beauty of the great redwood tree, to teach people to plan for the future, and to help them make effective decisions in preservation of the earth. To understand the essence of what they were, each tree/human would have an imbalance of a meridian/organ in there body.
Arbol’s imbalance was with the liver meridian and when she became human, she was so shocked to see how much people were disconnected with nature, that she lost her vision and all her plans became to difficult to follow. She began to feel lost, aimless, depressed, disorganized and frustrated. She was always irritated and felt hopeless, unable to see a future in her life or the life of humans on the planet.
Baum, on the other hand, was able to see the future clearly and many plans to teach children about recycling, solar power, and caretaking of the planet. He was very hopeful and thankful of the hope and vision he now had. But, although he had vision, his imbalance was in his gallbladder official which handles the pure essence in the body and is in charge of making decisions on how to follow through with plans for both the systems of the body and the future. He more goals and plans than he could handle and he wasn’t able to follow through with all the plans he had made because he couldn’t decide what to do next. He had many paths in which he would “flit” between and wasn’t able to choose between right and wrong which left him un-rested and uncertain. Because he couldn’t decide for himself, he would try to make decisions for other people trying to get them to do things his way. This like Arbol, left him lonely, with only each other as a friends.
Because they both couldn’t get over their mental and spiritual blocks, they began to have physical manifestations of the Gall Bladder and Liver Official imbalance. Baum, who had Gallbladder problems, had symptoms like one sided pain, headaches, vomit, diarrhea, channel problems such as stiff neck, hip pain, sciatica, and tendon problems. Arbol, who had a liver imbalance, had problems with her vision, with her genitals and reproductive organs, headaches, dizziness, gynecological and menstrual problems amongst other problems along the liver meridian running through her body.
After 2 years of being human, Great Spirit sent Ahau, the wise hawk of the firest to visit Arbol and Baum. Ahau began to teach them how to balance themselves with nature through sleep, eating healthy, Qi Gong, and acupuncture. After a few months of a healthy lifestyle, Arbol and Baum transformed themselves into healthy people with vision and clear judgment. They lived the rest of their lives teaching kids to love and admire the earth and the life that lived on the planet and to plan and make clear healthy decisions on the future health of the planet.
References: Worsley, J.R., The Five Elements and the Officials, J.R. and J.B. Worsley. 1998.
|
