Harmony
In Chinese: 六合
The six pairs of branches that hold each other like a couple, the Rat and the Ox, the Horse and the Goat: the closest of the relations, each with its phase.
Meaning
The six harmonies are six pairs of branches that hold each other like a couple: Zi and Chou, the Rat and the Ox; Yin and Hai, the Tiger and the Pig; Mao and Xu, the Rabbit and the Dog; Chen and You, the Dragon and the Rooster; Si and Shen, the Snake and the Monkey; Wu and Wei, the Horse and the Goat. On the circle of twelve they are mirror images across one axis, the line that runs between the Rat and the Ox at the top and between the Horse and the Goat at the bottom.
Each pair makes a phase when it joins: Zi and Chou Earth, Yin and Hai Wood, Mao and Xu Fire, Chen and You Metal, Si and Shen Water, Wu and Wei Fire, or Earth in some books, for the two are called the Sun and the Moon of the branches. The tradition reads a harmony as the most intimate of the meetings, closer than a trine: two different natures that agree, each bringing what the other lacks.
Not every harmony is simple. Si and Shen are also a punishment and a destruction, Yin and Hai a destruction too: bonds the tradition reads as close and demanding at once. And in BaZi a harmony that holds two pillars together also ties them up a little: each partner is less free to act on its own.
In practice
- Between a person’s animals: Ulune reads two animals in harmony as two sides of one life that help each other, and suggests leaning on one when the other is under strain.
- Two people: in the Relationship lens, a harmony between two people’s animals is one of the pairs the tradition counts as natural partners, each bringing what the other lacks; popular books call the partner one’s secret friend.
- The year ahead: a year whose animal is the year animal’s partner is read as a year of support, with help close at hand and good company, and a month the same way.
- In BaZi a harmony between two branches turns into its phase only when every condition is met: the two pillars side by side, the month supporting the phase, no other branch clashing either of them, and no third branch seeking the same partner. Otherwise the two simply hold each other.
Across traditions
- In Western astrology the same pairs appear in another dress. Map the branches onto the signs, as the Chinese astrology of the Seven Governors did, Zi on Aquarius and Wu on Leo, and every harmony joins two signs with the same ruler: Zi and Chou Saturn’s, Yin and Hai Jupiter’s, Mao and Xu Mars’s, Chen and You Venus’s, Si and Shen Mercury’s, and Wu and Wei the Sun’s and the Moon’s.
- Those rulerships come from the Hellenistic scheme in which the Sun and the Moon take Leo and Cancer and each planet a pair of signs mirrored on either side: the same mirror, drawn in Alexandria and in China.
- In the angles of Western astrology the harmony has no single twin: its partners lie 30°, 90° or 150° apart, for the bond is made by the mirror, not by the distance.
Origin and history
The classics explain the pairs by the sky. In each month the handle of the Northern Dipper points at one branch while the Sun and the Moon meet in another, and those two are the month’s harmony: in the Tiger month the handle points at Yin and the Sun and Moon meet in Hai, in the Rabbit month Mao and Xu, and so round the year. Xiao Ji’s Wuxing Dayi, around 600, gathers the harmonies and their reasons in a chapter of its own.
The Zi Ping school read them between the pillars and debated when a harmony becomes its phase; the San Ming Tong Hui sets out the pairs and their phases, and the Di Tian Sui, with Ren Tieqiao’s commentary, insists that a combination be judged by the season and by what surrounds it. The harmony partner as an animal’s “secret friend”, and the portraits of each couple, came to the zodiac with the popular books of the 20th century, such as Theodora Lau’s Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes (1979).
How Ulune calculates it
Two branches are in harmony when their places, Zi counting 0 and Hai 11, add up to one or thirteen. The phase each pair makes is set by the pair: Earth, Wood, Fire, Metal, Water, and Fire for Wu and Wei, as most books give it. The zodiac names the harmony wherever two animals meet. BaZi also checks the four conditions of a transformation, neighbouring pillars, the season, no clash and no rival, and says which are met; when they all are, the two branches are read as their phase.
Correspondences
| Harmony | Animals | Phase it makes | In the sky, one month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zi and Chou | Rat and Ox | Earth | The Dipper at Chou, the Sun and Moon in Zi |
| Yin and Hai | Tiger and Pig | Wood | The Dipper at Yin, the Sun and Moon in Hai |
| Mao and Xu | Rabbit and Dog | Fire | The Dipper at Mao, the Sun and Moon in Xu |
| Chen and You | Dragon and Rooster | Metal | The Dipper at Chen, the Sun and Moon in You |
| Si and Shen | Snake and Monkey | Water | The Dipper at Si, the Sun and Moon in Shen |
| Wu and Wei | Horse and Goat | Fire, or Earth | The Dipper at Wu, the Sun and Moon in Wei |
Related
- RelationsHow two branches or two stems meet: the harmonies, trines and trios that bring them together, the clashes, harms, punishments and destructions that rub.
- Earthly BranchesTwelve signs, Zi to Hai, that count the months, the double hours, the directions and the years, each with its animal: the lower half of every pillar.
- TrineThree branches four places apart, a phase’s birth, peak and storehouse, making that phase together: the zodiac’s allies, a triangle on the wheel.
- ClashTwo opposite branches, six places apart, such as the Rat and the Horse: movement, change and a shake-up that can clear the way, read as a push, not a verdict.
- HarmSix pairs of branches in which one spoils the other’s harmony: a quieter friction, misunderstandings rather than open conflict, worth naming to dissolve.
- Twelve animalsThe Rat, the Ox, the Tiger and their nine companions: the twelve Earthly Branches seen as animals, read for a year, a month, a day and an hour of birth.
Sources
- Xiao Ji, Wuxing Dayi, c. 600
- Xu Sheng (ed.), Yuanhai Ziping, Song dynasty
- Wan Minying, San Ming Tong Hui, 16th century
- Di Tian Sui, Ming dynasty or earlier, with Ren Tieqiao’s commentary, Qing dynasty
- Theodora Lau, The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes, 1979