Ji Si · Yin Earth Snake
In Chinese: 己巳
Ji Si, the Yin Earth Snake: the field warmed by the early summer sun, fertile ground at its fullest, careful and quietly productive.
Meaning
Ji Si lays the garden soil under the first heat of summer, and the Fire of Si feeds it until the field is at its fullest. The tradition reads a quiet fertility, patience that prepares the ground and then yields.
Ji over Si: yin Earth over yin Fire, a stem its branch produces, as Fire produces Earth.
Ji, Yin Earth, is the field and the garden soil: fertile, receptive, nourishing what is planted in it. The Snake is wise, discreet and intuitive.
The zodiac reads a Ji Si year as the Earth Snake’s. The Earth Snake is the most even-tempered of the Snakes: calm, prudent, reliable, a careful planner. It moves slowly and surely, and its warmth shows once it feels at home.
Its Na Yin, shared with Wu Chen, is Wood of the great forest (大林木 dàlín mù): a sound of Wood, heard beside the pillar’s Earth and Fire.
In practice
- As a year, from Lichun, around 4 February: 1809, 1869, 1929, 1989, 2049, 2109 and 2169, in the 1800–2200 table.
- As a month: the Snake month of every Jia or Ji year, opened by Start of Summer, as in the solar years 2024 and 2029.
- As a day, every sixty days: in 2026, on 24 February, 25 April, 24 June, 23 August, 22 October and 21 December.
- As an hour: the Snake’s double hour, 09:00–11:00, of Jia and Ji days.
- As a day pillar, its stem is the Day Master, Ji, sitting on Si, the partner palace: Si holds Bing, Wu and Geng, Ji’s Direct Resource, Rob Wealth and Hurting Officer, and Ji stands at its Peak stage there.
- As a luck pillar or a year, it brings each Day Master the god of its stem and the god of its branch’s main qi: the Correspondences below give them for all ten.
Across traditions
- In Japan, Korea and Vietnam the same pillar is tsuchinoto-mi, gisa and Kỷ Tỵ, with each language’s readings of 己 and 巳.
How Ulune calculates it
Ji Si is the 6th of the sixty pillars: the 6th of the ten stems over the 6th of the twelve branches, which the cycle moves on one step together, so that a stem only ever meets the branches of its polarity. Ulune counts a year’s pillar from Lichun, 1984 being Jia Zi; a month’s twelve a year through the cycle, from Bing Yin in the Tiger month of 1984 (the rule of the five tigers); a day’s by the count of days, 1 January 2000 being Wu Wu; an hour’s twelve a day (the rule of the five rats).
Ji Si belongs to the ten-day week from Jia Zi to Gui You, whose stems meet the branches from Zi to You and leave out Xu and Hai: for a day pillar of this week, those are the empty branches. Its Na Yin is the 3rd of the thirty, one for each two pillars.
Correspondences
| Correspondence | Ji Si |
|---|---|
| Characters, pinyin | 己巳 jǐsì |
| Place in the cycle | 6 of 60 |
| Stem | Ji, yin Earth |
| Branch | Si, the Snake, yin Fire |
| Hidden in the branch | Bing 60, Wu 30, Geng 10 |
| Stem and branch | Fire produces Earth |
| Na Yin | Wood of the great forest, with Wu Chen |
| Its stem’s stage in its branch | Peak |
| Ten-day week | Jia Zi to Gui You; empty branches Xu and Hai |
| Its stem, for each Day Master | Jia → Direct Wealth, Yi → Indirect Wealth, Bing → Hurting Officer, Ding → Eating God, Wu → Rob Wealth, Ji → Companion, Geng → Direct Resource, Xin → Indirect Resource, Ren → Direct Officer, Gui → Seven Killings |
| Its branch’s main qi, for each Day Master | Jia → Eating God, Yi → Hurting Officer, Bing → Companion, Ding → Rob Wealth, Wu → Indirect Resource, Ji → Direct Resource, Geng → Seven Killings, Xin → Direct Officer, Ren → Indirect Wealth, Gui → Direct Wealth |
| Years, 1800–2200 | 1809, 1869, 1929, 1989, 2049, 2109, 2169 |
| Month | Snake month of Jia and Ji years |
| Hour | Snake hour, 09:00–11:00, of Jia and Ji days |
| Before and after | Wu Chen, Geng Wu |
| Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese | Tsuchinoto-mi, gisa, Kỷ Tỵ |
Related
- Ji · Yin EarthThe sixth Heavenly Stem, yin Earth: the field and the garden, soft, moist ground that takes in, nourishes and brings others to fruit.
- Si · SnakeThe sixth Earthly Branch, yin Fire: the Snake, the first month of summer and the late morning, when yang has fully come out and warmth gathers.
- SnakeThe sixth of the twelve animals, the Snake of the branch Si: wise, discreet and intuitive, it thinks before it moves, then moves precisely.
- Wood of the great forestWood of the great forest, the Na Yin of Wu Chen and Ji Si: many trees together, a wood that shelters, broad and lasting.
- Wu Chen · Yang Earth DragonWu Chen, the Yang Earth Dragon: the mountain over the damp earth of late spring, a stem on its own phase, solid and patient.
- Geng Wu · Yang Metal HorseGeng Wu, the Yang Metal Horse: ore in the summer forge, a strong will shaped by heat, decisive and quick to act.
Sources
- Sima Qian, Shiji, c. 94 BC
- Ban Gu, Hanshu, 1st century
- Xu Sheng (ed.), Yuanhai Ziping, Song dynasty
- Wan Minying, San Ming Tong Hui, 16th century
- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3, 1959