House of the
Five Elements is a website gateway to an understanding and
appreciation of the five elements: how our body and the global
environment interact in their recycling, how cultures have
advocated for their integrity, how their roles in human culture
have surpassed physicality to become vocabulary and templates for
science, literature and value systems.
House of the Five Elements has a dual mission. The first part of
the mission is to build a case for the natural elements as a
ubiguitous (globally accepted) template of knowledge to explain and
support "Vitalism". Vitalism, which includes philosophic
materialism, is the universal practice and belief that nature
includes unseen forces which work through the five elements, and
that everything is in some sense "alive" and vital to the web of
life. The second part
of the mission is to demonstrate the effectiveness of configuring
related information in mandalic clusters. Such clusters can then be
grouped into families of related content or themes. I believe that
this method not only stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, but
it also facilitates the creation of webs of significance or
semantic networks. As I examine the five elements in the arts and
sciences of various cultures, I will be highlighting the elements
in the three senses by which they are often understood : as content
in a physical sense (e.g. the natural elements), as model in a
process sense (e.g. Chinese medicine), and as metaphor in a
metaphysical sense (e.g. ancient cosomology). This approach or
aspect of the House of the Five Elements is the Space aspect, a
Consciousness which empowers equality and
broadmindedness.
Image Maat (above)
- Natural Five
Elements

The
modern dilemma is that the physical elements are in short supply in
their pure natural forms in the geo-physical environment. How this
happened, and continues to happen, is documented daily by
ecological scientific institutions around the globe. Ironically,
many people now recognize that the human body is itself a house of
the five elements. And as the planetary sources of needed elements
themselves are compromised, and as the planetary processes of
element cleansing move closer to collapse, few can now ignore that
the Earth, our home and the mother of the five elements, is in
danger. Starting in the late 18th century, conscious capitalisms
and socialisms attempted to place limits on the greed of predatory
economic cartels looking for cheaper labor and "resources", but
such measures were fundamentally flawed; as a result, the
cumulative effect of colonialisms and consumerisms have ravaged the
planet. A Global Bill of Rights is in now order, one which
recognizes the bodily needs of humans, the planetary needs of other
life forms, and the ecology of the planet itself. At this site and
the many sites like it, personal and social health activism will
hopefully join hands with ecological activism to make a case for
the preservation of the integrity of the five elements as the basic
gift of our times to the future of the planet. It is my belief that
web technology has laid and is laying the foundation for a
globlization of proactive "Vitalism," where science and
spirituality can work together in the village and in the city. It
is also my belief that the model and metaphor of the five elements
holds great promise in our endeavor to protect the natural five
elements. This aspect of the House of the Five Elements is the
Earth aspect, a Body which empowers patience and
love.
Image Graphic
(above) - Earth Icon
Those who view
the cosmos as a vital and living environment filled with the
mystery of power and love have encouraged the growth of the human
family toward its highest potential through five element
teachings.Their contributions have appeared in many parts of the
world in many different eras. Some are ongoing, with sources in the
mists of prehistory and guarded by traditions, and some are
original and modern and very accessible. Readers can return to this
site periodically, via RSS technology, to view my interpretation of
this global community of "Vitalists". House of the Five Elements is
my attempt to bring this five element community of vitalists into
greater public view-- a "honor museum" so to speak, of their words
and images. I trust that readers will find encouragement in knowing
more about these individuals and their contributions. This aspect
of the House of the Five Elements is the Water aspect, a Heart
which impowers purity and natural order.
Image Maat (above)
- Five Bodies
How
do we communicate our inherited understandings, both material and
subtle, to present and future generations? One model of explanation
appears consistently in world literature, science, and art : the
five element cluster or, as I like to call it, the "Vital Wheel."
The Vital Wheel has a long history of providing a user friendly
interface for community members to access community resources and
"databases" of cultural wisdom. And even today, the Vital Wheel
supports strategies for multi-culturalists to integrate global
Modernism with local indigenous life. Simply expressed, with the
Vital Wheel, the image of the message and message of the image are
one. As I highlight this ancient wonder of information design in
its uses for modern day concerns, I will examine other artifacts of
information design along the timeline of history. This aspect of
the House of the Five Elements is the Air aspect, a Mind that
empowers clarity and liberty.
Image
Maat (above) - Five Element Vital
HealthWheel

Lessons from
depth psychology as well as from indigenous wisdom traditions
inform us that the person who starts a spiritual quest is not the
same person who finishes it. In my case, my layman's attempt in the
1970's to continually generate and organize child daycare
curriculum for a parent-run daycare opened me to a quickening of
being that to this day functions intermittently in the background
of my everyday life. Insightful words and images and ideas often
tumble out in such a fashion that I sometimes think that my
consciousness is rented software from some Self beyond the senses.
So many people testify to this kind of phenomena that we now have a
field of study for it : Transpersonal Psychology. But despite a
person's heightened sense of permeability to the Cosmos, deeper
intellectual and emotional challenges persist, and mine lead to
various gurus, trainers, studies, and the history and mystery of
the Three and the Seven, all of which influenced my self-published
manuscript "Schwaterra's Song". Years and many jobs and
relationships later, my evolving insights required that I subsume
Schwaterra into the five element "view" so that, now, "the Vital
Wheel" encapsulates everything that preceded. This 35 year trek
ends with this web site, which aims not only to do all the above
but also to sketch out a rough theory about how all this five
element stuff works. "Synergy," which no one can understand, is
what R.Buckminster Fuller called his rough theory. "Structural
Engentropy" is what I call mine. This aspect of the House of the
Five Elements is the Fire aspect, a Soul which empowers warmth and
courage.
Image Photo (above)
- "St. Mary Magdalene" courtesy of and © Robert
Lentz.
===================================================
Given
sun,soil,air,and water, a plant does not need to be told how to
grow.
-Urie Bronfenbrenner
===================================================
Editorial Notice
Since
new insights emerge in unexpected and delightful ways and human
errors surface all the time, this site will be under constant
construction. Unless otherwise noted, all narratives, photos, and
art work at this site are the work of Clay Moldenhauer, or are
public domain objects. No copies are permissible except for
personal use or educational use as accepted under fair use doctrine
of copyright law. Staff at this site follow the same fair use
principle, but if you have concerns, please contact us. If there
are materials or graphics that you would find useful in your work,
feel free to contact Clay Moldenhauer, the webmaster of this site.
Use the email address at
the bottom of this page, without the term "SPAM".
Other
images, not used at this site, can be found at
ClayMoldenhauerImage
at phanfare.com