Yi · Yin Wood

Meaning

Yi is the second Heavenly Stem and the yin side of Wood: growth that is supple rather than straight. Where Jia is the trunk, Yi is the vine that climbs it, the grass that covers a field, the flower that opens in a crack of the wall. The character 乙 is a curved stroke, and the Han dictionary reads it as a spring shoot coming out bent and curled while the cold still holds; the Di Tian Sui begins its verse with a paradox: “Yi wood, soft as it is…”

Its softness is its strength. Yi adapts, winds round what blocks it, finds the light by another way, and grows back after it is cut; it is read as tact, grace, persistence and a gift for people and networks, a strength that persuades rather than pushes. Its difficulty is the other side of the vine: it can lean too much on whatever it climbs, take the shape of its surroundings, or worry about where the next support will come from.

The tradition gives Yi more resilience than its image suggests. The Di Tian Sui says that it can cut up the goat and undo the ox, holding its own against the hard Earth of Wei and Chou; that with Fire beside it, Ding and Bing, it can stand up to Metal; and that tied to Jia, as a vine to a tree, it thrives in spring and autumn alike. A Yi chart is read for its supports, and for what it grows towards.

In practice

• As the Day Master, Yi finds its resources in Water, Gui its Indirect Resource and Ren its Direct Resource, and its peers in Wood, Jia being its Rob Wealth. Fire is its output, Ding its Eating God and Bing its Hurting Officer; Earth is its wealth, Ji indirect and Wu direct; Metal shapes it, Xin its Seven Killings and Geng its Direct Officer.
• Its roots: Yi is the whole of Mao, the Rabbit, and is hidden in Chen and Wei. As a yin stem it runs through the twelve life stages backward: it is born in Wu, prospers in Mao and stands at its peak in Yin.
• Its partners: Yi combines with Geng, yang Metal, its Direct Officer, a pair that leans towards Metal: the vine that softens the axe. It clashes with Xin, yin Metal, the pruning knife.
• In time: the years ending in 5 are Yi years, counted from Lichun: 2025 was the Wood Snake’s, 2035 will be the Wood Rabbit’s. A Yi or Geng year opens with a Wu-Yin month, and a Yi or Geng day with a Bing-Zi hour.
• In Feng Shui, Yi is a mountain of the luopan, the third of the east, from 97.5° to 112.5°, and a yin one for the Flying Stars.

Across traditions

• In Japan 乙 is read kinoto, “younger brother of wood”; in Korea eul, in Vietnam Ất. As the second letter of Chinese lists it is the B: Party B of a contract (乙方), a second grade, and in chemistry two carbon atoms, as in 乙醇 yǐchún, ethanol.
• In Japanese the character also reads otsu, “stylish, unexpected, refined”, a word of praise for something subtle, in the very spirit of the yin stem.
• Plant lore in many cultures gives the same image a meaning close to Yi’s: the ivy of European emblems, faithful to what it clings to, and the bamboo of East Asian painting, which bends in the storm and does not break.

Origin and history

On the oracle bones 乙 already has its winding shape and names the second day of the Shang week; the founder of the Shang dynasty is called Da Yi in the sacrifices, and Di Yi was the father of the last king. Sima Qian explained the name by the effort of growing things, which in Yi push out with difficulty, and Ban Gu says they strain through in Yi; Xu Shen’s Shuowen Jiezi (c. 100) reads the curved stroke as spring plants coming out bent, the yin still strong around them.

BaZi’s classics made Yi the soft Wood that is not weak. The Yuanhai Ziping of the Song dynasty sets it among the Ten Gods’ relations, and the Di Tian Sui’s verse, with Ren Tieqiao’s commentary of the Qing dynasty, reads it as flowers and vines whose survival depends on warmth and on something to climb: in winter it needs Fire, in autumn it needs Jia. Modern teachers picture it as a garden, a creeper, a field of grass, all images of reach and resilience.

How Ulune calculates it

Yi is the stem of six of the sixty pillars, Yi-Chou, Yi-Hai, Yi-You, Yi-Wei, Yi-Si and Yi-Mao, each joining it to a yin branch. In BaZi’s balance a visible Yi counts one point of Wood, a hidden one its weight (1 in Mao, 0.3 in Chen, 0.1 in Wei, twice in the month branch). For a Yi Day Master Ulune counts the life stages backward from Wu, as for every yin stem, and finds its symbolic stars by the classical verses: the Nobleman in Zi and Shen, the Academic star in Wu, the Prosperity star in Mao. The Sword Edge of the yin stems is disputed between schools, and Ulune leaves it out. The pages draw Yi in Wood’s green.

Correspondences