Over the past so many years I've developed a vision of Chi seen through 8 elements. I first saw these as a composition at Callala Bay on the New South Wales South Coast of Australia on an extraordinary afternoon gazing over a veranda with beer in hand and the sounds of the Rolling Stones in the background. I noticed the adjoining landscape was made up of 8 elements. These are light, shadow, shape, colour, smell, sound, temperature and movement. I was amazed that they were in balance or in harmony with themselves and the 8 were in harmony with each other i.e., not any Yin or Yang influence dominating. The site took an awe of harmonious interaction and on that occasion I saw Chi for the first time. I hope it wasn't just the beer or the Stones.
Ensuring years and over many occasions I have tested these 8 elements trying to disprove their existence and asking are there any more? The only addition I seriously contemplated was Tone. But I couldn't isolate an element of function of the site as just tone. Tone was to me a variant in each and maybe an expression of its Yin and Yang phase showing preference or dominance.
Some people suggested to me I should include Form as the 9th element. But I feel this is covered through colour and shapes. Five element balance e.g. Terah Collins in ''The Western Guide To Feng Shui'' (1966) suggests colour, shape and their qualities, but I think adding quality supposedly to a form complicates a scene too much and offers questions as what one quality or another, collections of qualities, giving each a name and description and whether it's a Yin quality or Yang quality or variant of both. We can't discover harmony if we have to mentally exercise what quality is what and whether it's in Yin and Yang balance and in balance with the others.
Form to me as described in landscape architecture parlance suggests form is something of matter and an abbreviation of shape and colour anyway. Shapes and colours lie within a context of form e.g. a tree has a form but also shape and colour.
Coming back to tone, I suggest tone alone as an element splits hairs as a means to describe the composition of a scene e.g. it has a mild tone, soft or hard tone. To me far too complicated and when we look at a site, interpreting the 8 elements are enough and colour and shape are influenced by tones of light and shadow anyway. We are more or less looking at the composition of a site as it registers within our mind. It's a physical structure but has further dimensions e.g. it can be touched, tasted and smelt. Gosh this is getting complicated.
The site imposes feelings onto us through our eyes, nose, ears and skin. Senses which interpret our surroundings and send signals to our brain, advising acceptance, compliance or denial.
The Feng Shui or Chi Gardener uses the 8 Elements (discarding tone and form) as vehicles to break the site up into things we can associate with through our senses. If the 8 fit together and not one is dominating, we have an illusion of harmony and in this manner, harmony can be quantified, it's a product of a site and its eight elements being at peace within themselves. Now, who said that was difficult?
