Five phases / 土 Tǔ
The Earth phase
Earth is one of the five phases — 五行, wu xing — that organise the whole system. A phase is not a substance but a stage of change, which is why 土 is better read as earth than as the material itself.
- Season
- The turn of each season
- Direction
- Centre
Two movements · four fixed relations
What Earth gives—and what keeps it in check
Every phase stands in four fixed relations. Neither cycle is a ranking: generating and controlling are both necessary, and a system with only one would run away or seize up.
Where the phase enters a chart
The stems and branches that carry Earth
A phase reaches a chart through the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches. Each stem takes one phase in a yang and a yin form; the branches distribute the same five phases across the twelve animals.
01 · Two polarities
Heavenly stems
02 · 4 fixed branches
Earthly branches
Earth takes four rather than two branches, one at the close of each season — which is why it sits at the centre rather than in a season of its own.
Twelve appearances in sixty positions
Earth in the sixty-year cycle
Twelve of the sixty stem-branch pairs take a stem of this phase—one for each branch, alternating yang and yin. Read the records across rather than scanning a table.
- Position 51988
- Position 61989
- Position 151998
- Position 161999
- Position 252008
- Position 262009
- Position 352018
- Position 362019
- Position 452028
- Position 462029
- Position 552038
- Position 562039
A separate named association
The Earth sounds
纳音 assigns each pair of pillars one of thirty sounds, each named for an image. Six of them belong to this phase, and a pillar's sound is often a different phase from its stem.