fire - earth - wood
air - water - metal

But don't ask me why ;-)

This is very interesting. A good friend, Bill Whitcomb, has a book out that is full or archaic alphabets and symbol systems.

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0875428681

It might help you refine your ideas if that is what you want.

Here's my guess.

1. Air
2. Earth
3. Metal
4. Wood
5. Fire
6. Water

I have not time for this, but I can't resist. Very fun idea.

Left to Right:

1. Earth: Reminds me of a cross which reminds me of religion which reminds me of home which reminds me of my mom which reminds me of mother earth.
2. Wood: rings of a tree
3. Air, the cross flows freely through the window
4. Metal: i see facets of a diamond
5. Fire: the way it flows outward
6. Water: ripples in the water.

Earth Water Fire
Air Wood Metal

Geometric Elements - The Result

Firstly, thank you Tom, James, Tiffany and Simon for posting your choices.

After you guys posted i persuaded 5 of my friends to give their opinions, plus me makes 10.

I had hoped for a greater response, so the larger the sample group the clearer the consensus would be. Anyway, the results were...

1: earth 3 / air 1 / fire 1 / water 0 / metal 5 / wood 0 (majority = metal)
2: earth 5 / air 0 / fire 1 / water 1 / metal 0 / wood 3 (majority = earth)
3: earth 1 / air 2 / fire 2 / water 1 / metal 1 / wood 3 (majority = wood)
4: earth 1 / air 3 / fire 3 / water 0 / metal 1 / wood 2 (majority = air/fire)
5: earth 0 / air 4 / fire 3 / water 2 / metal 0 / wood 1 (majority = air)
6: earth 0 / air 0 / fire 0 / water 6 / metal 3 / wood 1 (majority = water)

It's interesting to see, even with such a small sample group, how opinions still frequently corresponded on something (apparently) so abstract.

Here is my choice...

1: metal
2: earth
3: fire
4: wood
5: air
6: water

...which i don't think i'm being too fascistic in sticking with, as it only breaks from the democratic consensus by switching 2 of the elements which were fairly closely drawn anyway :)

And thank you James for the link to the "Magician's Companion". I don't think i can resist getting a copy now. I would like to know what symbol and element associations the master, Bill Whitcomb, would make.

Look out for the symbols on a t-shirt in your neighbourhood sometime soon ;)

Glad you made it back to the thread. Bill is crazy in a very very good way, as you will notice from his book, which is largely a compendium of archaic glyph systems.

Good to see your take. I was highly influenced by the construction of the I Ching symbols and their portrayal of permeability and motion.

If I count the fourth one as correct, I barely passed ;-)
Would be fun to see some Rorschach results as well!

the 6 elements in chinese philosophy

Aren't they five?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing

(By the way, I like your patterns, and I like the warm colours too)