Five phases / 水 Shuǐ
The Water phase
Water 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 水 is better read as water than as the material itself.
- Season
- Winter
- Direction
- North
Two movements · four fixed relations
What Water 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 Water
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 · 2 fixed branches
Earthly branches
These branches fall together in the calendar because water governs winter.
Twelve appearances in sixty positions
Water 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 91992
- Position 101993
- Position 192002
- Position 202003
- Position 292012
- Position 302013
- Position 392022
- Position 402023
- Position 492032
- Position 502033
- Position 592042
- Position 602043
A separate named association
The Water 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.