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This idea was developed to cover all things, and many lists of correspondence were produced. These lists are generally given with the elements arranged in the order of production. Here are just a few of the major correspondences, which relate to both the natural world—in the case of the seasons and directions and the human world of 'discrimination' ND in the case of tastes and emotions. However, the important point is that things that relate to human activity and the activity of nature are woven together in these lists.

	Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Direction	East	South	Center	West	North
Color	Green	Red	Yellow	White	Black
Taste	Sour	Bitter	Sweet	Acid	Salty
Emotion	Anger	Joy	Pensive	Grief	Fear
Season	Spring	Summer		Autumn	Winter

There are five elements and four seasons, thus the earth becomes assigned to the centre thereby aiding the other elements in the 'rule' of the seasons. This gives us a view of earth as the pivot around which the seasons revolve. However, there are some who assign mid-summer as earth's season and others who say that the mid-month of each season corresponds to earth. Tung Chung-Shu talks of earth as controlling nothing in particular but being the central authority of the four seasons. He writes, "The Earth is the controller of the five elements and without the ch'i of the soil nothing can be accomplished". The cause of the movements of the elements is the yin ch'i and the yang ch'i which alternate between flourishing and declining. Here we have the three most important concepts of Chinese thought brought together, Yin-Yang, wu hsing and ch'i. Ch'i has a wide variety of meanings, we can speak of yin ch'i tang ch'i, the ch'i of each of the five elements, the ch'i of social order, the ch'i of the individual. Each 'thing' is considered to have its proper ch'i and the movement of ch'i gives us the movement of yin and yang through the five elements. Each element is said to flourish when its ch'i is yang and to decline when its ch'i is yin, thus seasonal changes are caused by the flourishing and decline of Yin-Yang. This shows the cyclic nature of the perpetual motion of all changes.

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