Water

Meaning

Water is the phase of depth and rest: the winter earth asleep under the snow, the night, the river that runs on beneath its ice, the seed waiting in the ground. “The Great Plan” says that water soaks and descends, always finding the lowest place, and the tradition reads in it what is deep, supple and patient: listening, imagination, wisdom, the strength that is stored rather than spent.

It is the greatest yin, the bottom of the cycle, and the place where the cycle begins again: at the winter solstice, the tradition says, the first yang returns. Metal feeds it, as dew gathers on cold metal and springs run from the rock; it feeds Wood, as rain feeds a forest; it checks Fire, putting it out or cooling it; and Earth checks it, holding it within banks and dams.

Its gifts, as the tradition gives them, are intuition, adaptability, intelligence and the gift of going round what cannot be moved, and its virtue in the Confucian scheme is wisdom (智 zhì). Much of it is read as drifting, a current with nothing to hold it; little of it as rest and reflection still to make room for. The tradition answers with balance: form and firm ground for a strong Water, quiet and time to let things settle for a faint one.

In practice

• In BaZi, two stems are Water: Ren, yang Water, the river and the sea, wide and moving, and Gui, yin Water, the rain and the dew, giving life quietly. Two branches are Water, Hai and Zi, the Pig and the Rat, the heart of winter; the month of Zi holds the winter solstice. A Water Day Master finds its resource in Metal, its peers in Water, its output in Wood, its wealth in Fire and the power that shapes it in Earth.
• In Chinese astrology, the Pig and the Rat are Water animals by their branch. The years 2032 and 2033 are Water years, the Water Rat’s and the Water Ox’s; the pair before was 2022 and 2023, the Water Tiger’s and the Water Rabbit’s.
• In Feng Shui, the north is Water, the palace of the trigram Kan, and so is the star 1 White, which the classics give to wisdom, learning, careers and journeys. Period 1, its own, comes back from 2044 to 2063, opening a new cycle of nine.
• With little Water, the tradition suggests quiet, listening and time to let things settle; with much of it, a form to hold it and firm ground.

Across traditions

• Western astrology has an element of water, cold and moist, shared by Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces: the element of feeling, memory and attachment. The Chinese Water is closer to stillness and stored strength, the winter of the year.
• Chinese astronomy calls Mercury the Water star, 水星 shuǐxīng: the planet that never strays far from the Sun, as water never strays far from its lowest place.
• Greek thought began, in Aristotle’s telling, with Thales of Miletus, who held in the 6th century BC that all things come from water.

Origin and history

The character 水 shows a stream between drops of water, and is written so on the oracle bones of the Shang dynasty. The monthly ordinances of the Lüshi Chunqiu (c. 239 BC) and the Huainanzi (139 BC) give Water the winter and the north, black as its colour (黑 hēi) and the Black Tortoise, a tortoise twined with a snake, as the emblem of the northern sky. When the First Emperor of Qin unified China in 221 BC, Sima Qian records, he ruled by the virtue of Water: black for the court’s clothes and banners, six for its measures. The Daodejing gives Water its highest praise: “The highest good is like water”, which benefits everything and takes the lowest place, and nothing is softer, yet nothing better overcomes the hard. BaZi’s classics give the Water stems their images: in the Di Tian Sui, Ren flows on and on, linking every river, and Gui is the softest of the stems, reaching everywhere as rain and dew.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune reads Water in the stems Ren and Gui and the branches Hai and Zi, in a pillar or hidden in another branch: Shen holds Ren among its hidden stems, Chou and Chen hold Gui. In BaZi’s balance Water is read as much of it from about 2.5 of the nine points, little under half a point. In Feng Shui the north palace and the star 1 are Water. Ulune draws Water in a deep blue, the classical black’s nearest colour that shows in both themes.

Correspondences