Wei · Goat

Meaning

Wei is the eighth Earthly Branch: the branch of the Goat, of the south-south-west, of the double hour from one to three in the afternoon, and of the sixth month of the Chinese year, the last of summer. It is Earth, yin, and the earth of high summer: warm, dry and fruitful, the orchard in July. The Han historians read its name as 味 wèi, taste: in the sixth month, Xu Shen wrote, things gain their flavour, and he saw in the character a tree with its branches heavy with leaves.

It is read as kindness, taste and a gift for care, the gentleness and the artistic sense of the Goat, a feeling for what is ripe and for what others need. Wei likes beauty, comfort and peace, and makes them for those around it. Its difficulty is in its other meaning: 未 also means “not yet”, and Wei can wait for a ripeness that never seems quite complete, worry over what is still to come, or hesitate to choose.

Wei is one of the four storehouse branches, with Xu, Chou and Chen. It holds Ji, its own Earth, Ding, the Fire of the summer it closes, and Yi, the Wood it keeps in store: Wei is the storehouse of Wood, where Jia is stored in the life stages. With Xu it is called dry earth, as against the wet earth of Chou and Chen.

In practice

• In BaZi, Wei holds Ji as its main qi, with Ding and Yi: an Earth branch with roots for Fire and for Wood, which is why the classics say that soft Yi “cuts up the goat”, drawing strength from the Wood that Wei holds. It is the Nobleman of Jia, Wu and Geng. A Wei month, from Xiaoshu, about 7 July, to Liqiu, about 8 August, is the end of summer and the warmest stretch of the year in much of China.
• Its relations: Wei is in harmony with Wu, a pair that leans towards Fire; it closes the Wood trine with Hai and Mao, and the summer trio with Si and Wu. It clashes with Chou, the wet storehouse across the circle, harms Zi, belongs to the punishment of power with Chou and Xu, and forms a destruction with Xu.
• In Chinese astrology, Wei is the Goat, also called the Sheep or the Ram: 2015 was a Wood Goat year, 2027 will be a Fire Goat year.
• In Feng Shui, Wei is the first mountain of the south-west, from 202.5° to 217.5°, a yin one for the Flying Stars.

Across traditions

• In Japan the branch is read hitsuji, the sheep; in Korea mi; in Vietnam Mùi, whose animal is the goat. The Chinese 羊 yáng covers both, which is why books in English hesitate between Goat, Sheep and Ram.
• The Yi Jing’s sovereign hexagram for the Wei month is Retreat (Dun, the 33rd): two broken lines beneath four whole ones, yin growing as the summer passes its height.
• Western astrology sees the Sun pass from Cancer into Leo during the Wei month; both traditions read high summer as ripeness, though Leo is Fire and Wei is the Earth that holds the summer’s Fire.

Origin and history

Wei is one of the branch characters of the Shang oracle bones, drawn as a tree with layered branches; the Han read the layers as fruit and leaves ripening. The Huainanzi (139 BC) puts it at the end of summer, where the old calendar placed a short season of Earth between summer and autumn; Ban Gu wrote that things are hidden in shade in Wei, and Xu Shen’s Shuowen Jiezi (c. 100) explained the name by taste. The word kept its everyday sense of “not yet”: the twelve branches end their run of growth with the year not yet complete.

BaZi’s classics read Wei as warm, dry earth that stores Wood, and the punishment of power, Chou, Xu and Wei, as three storehouses rubbing against one another; the Yuanhai Ziping of the Song dynasty and the San Ming Tong Hui of the Ming describe it, and Ulune reads it as friction over control and resources, to be met with clear limits.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune numbers Wei 7 among the branches. The Wei month runs from the exact moment of Xiaoshu, the Sun at 105°, to Liqiu, the Sun at 135°; the Wei hour is 13:00 to 15:00 on true solar time at the birthplace by default. In BaZi’s balance its hidden stems count 0.6 for Ji, 0.3 for Ding and 0.1 for Yi, twice in the month branch. Ulune reads the harmony of Wu and Wei as making Fire and says that some books make it Earth; for a year or day branch of its own Wood trine, Wei is the Canopy.

Correspondences