Hai · Pig

Meaning

Hai is the twelfth and last Earthly Branch: the branch of the Pig, of the north-north-west, of the double hour from nine to eleven at night, and of the tenth month of the Chinese year, which opens the winter. It is Water, yin: the cold rain of early winter, the stillness after the harvest, the roots resting underground. Xu Shen explained it by 荄 gāi, the roots of plants: in the tenth month, he wrote, a faint yang rises to meet the fullness of yin, and the next year is already present in what rests.

It is read as generosity, sincerity and contentment, the good nature of the Pig, which enjoys life and wishes the same for everyone, and the trust of someone who gives without counting. Hai is warm-hearted, tolerant and patient, at home with comfort and with company. Its difficulty is the ease of the season: trusting too quickly, giving too much away, or settling into rest for longer than is good for it.

As one of the four branches that begin the seasons, with Yin, Si and Shen, Hai is where a phase is born: Wood is born here, as Jia is in the life stages, while Water takes its strength. It holds two stems, Ren its main qi and Jia: the great water, and the tree that will grow from it in spring. The end of the twelve is thus already a beginning.

In practice

• In BaZi, Hai holds Ren as its main qi, with Jia. It is the Prosperity of Ren and the Peak of Gui, the Birth of Jia, the Nobleman of Bing and Ding and the Academic star of Geng. A Hai month, from Lidong, about 7 November, to Daxue, about 7 December, opens the winter: Water takes the lead and Ulune’s climate view suggests Fire.
• Its relations: Hai is in harmony with Yin, a pair that leans towards Wood, though the same two branches also form a destruction; it begins the Wood trine with Mao and Wei, and the winter trio with Zi and Chou. It clashes with Si, harms Shen, and punishes itself when it meets itself.
• In Chinese astrology, Hai is the Pig: 2019 was an Earth Pig year and 2031 will be a Metal Pig year; Gui-Hai, the Water Pig, is the last of the sixty pillars.
• In Feng Shui, Hai is the last mountain of the north-west, from 322.5° to 337.5°, a yang one for the Flying Stars, next to Ren, the first of the north.

Across traditions

• In Japan the branch is read i, and its animal is the wild boar rather than the pig; in Korea hae; in Vietnam Hợi. A Japanese custom kept the first Hai day of the tenth month for lighting the first fires of winter in braziers and hearths.
• The Yi Jing’s sovereign hexagram for the Hai month is the Receptive (Kun, the 2nd): six broken lines, yin complete, the earth at rest before the first yang returns in Zi.
• Western astrology sees the Sun pass from Scorpio into Sagittarius during the Hai month; and as Hai ends the twelve branches, Pisces ends the twelve signs, both closing their circle with water.

Origin and history

Hai is one of the branch characters of the Shang oracle bones. Its old form looked so much like 豕, pig, that the Lüshi Chunqiu (c. 239 BC) tells how a scribe read 己亥, the day Ji-Hai, as 三豕, “three pigs”, in a chronicle saying that an army crossed a river, and how Confucius’s disciple Zixia set him right. The Huainanzi (139 BC) puts Hai at the start of winter; Sima Qian explained it by 該, what is complete, with yang stored below, and Ban Gu wrote that things are fully enclosed in Hai.

BaZi’s classics count Hai among the four places of birth, where Wood begins, and read the Wood trine, Hai, Mao and Wei, as Wood’s birth, height and storehouse. The San Ming Tong Hui of the Ming gives Hai the Travelling Horse for a year or day branch of the Si, You and Chou trine, and names Chen, Wu, You and Hai the four branches that punish themselves.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune numbers Hai 11 among the branches. The Hai month runs from the exact moment of Lidong, the Sun at 225°, to Daxue, the Sun at 255°; the Hai hour is 21:00 to 23:00 on true solar time at the birthplace by default, the last before the Zi hour opens the next day. In BaZi’s balance its hidden stems count 0.7 for Ren and 0.3 for Jia, twice in the month branch. Ulune names both relations of Hai and Yin, the harmony first and the destruction after, since the two are read together.

Correspondences