The Three (Trinity) — heaven, Earth, humanity — is the outcome of the movement from Tao/Taiji.

To Laozi it was Tao, One (Qi), Two (Yin + Yang), Three.

To Zhou Dunyi it was Taiji/Tao, Two (Yin Qi, Yang Qi), five elements, myriad creatures.

The correspondences summarize all kinds of relationships — from a human body to the environment, from sensation to philosophy. Nature, society, and humanity form a trinity.

This sequence follows the flow of the Controlling Sequence but over-controls, causing a decrease, breaking the balance, and creating excesses.

Maciocia (p. 20) uses the analogy of "the destructive actions of human beings toward Nature" to explain the workings of this cycle.

Too much of a good thing, in this case, does create serious problems.

This sequence reverses the Controlling Sequence and, like the Overacting Sequence, identifies abnormal relationships.

The Generative Sequence or Mutual Production Cycle (principle of "masking") applies to biology and ecology. It has a very long history as part of Chinese science because it is the only cycle where humans can intervene.

It forms the principal process used by authentic feng shui practitioners to interact with the world around us.

Its conclusions depend upon speed, rate, and quantity of a given process. Using this cycle much like a chemist uses compounds (for Daoists who devised some feng shui techniques also devised alchemy and the foundations of modern chemistry), a feng shui practitioner can induce environmental change by adding or detracting from a process (one of the "Five Elements") that creates or diminishes another process (another of the "Five Elements").

This sequence explains principles that concern rates of change in processes and sets for the theories that explain the generative (productive) and controlling sequences.

This sequence explains which elements (in the sense of phases or processes, not material substances) came into being in what order.

No surprises here: Just as evolution explains water enabled life as we know it to evolve, so it is considered to have appeared first after Earth was formed.

In medicine, this indicates the importance of the kidneys as the foundation of yin and yang of all organs and storehouse of essence that creates qi and mind. (Maciocia p. 23)

The Controlling Sequence forms the so-called eternal recycling basis of BTB Feng Shui (Living Color, p. 23).

Never mind that the international symbol for recycling moves clockwise.

This sequence was used in ancient China for fate calculations and politics. Its most famous use was the symbolism of succeeding Chinese dynasties.

Rarely used in ecological cycles, because long ago Chinese scientists determined that elements don't perpetually "control" one another. For instance, fire can "control" itself out of existence if it eliminates its fuel source.

Used in medicine with the Generative Sequence to keep self-regulating balance in the body.