Yang Wood are represented by the big, majestic trees you see in the forest and it is vastly different from its counterpart, Yin Wood, which is represented by smaller plants like shrubs, herbs or grass.
Yang Wood represents Yang energy at its infancy stage, which is why it’s often related to growth. The big trees you see in nature are immovable and weathers everything that are thrown at them, which is why they are associate with being morally upright and with strong principles. Let’s not forget that they nourish other forms of life too.
In the 5 Commons (五常), the best of Wood represents 仁，which can mean benevolence, altruism, and humanity in general. Anyone with a high-quality Yang Wood chart espouses these virtues. But of course, there’s always an opposite side to everything in Chinese metaphysics and BaZi.
One thing to always remember is to look at a BaZi chart as though you were looking at something in nature.
The chart above is an example of a Yang Wood chart that unfortunately is not manifesting its best side.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
- The above is a female Yang Wood chart as you can tell from the direction the 10-year phases are going.
- Born during the winter season, and even has a Wood Three Harmony combination formed by the Branches hai 亥, mao 卯 and wei 未.
- The Daymaster definitely lies on the strong side, but it is not strong enough to fall under any special categories like Vibrant charts or what we call 转旺格 in Chinese.
Fire is needed for a chart like this, followed by Earth. Water and Wood would be the most destructive element.
It’s quite unfortunately that the chart-holder does not have her 10-year Elemental Phases on her side during her prime years. You’ll see that her 10-year phases goes ren zi 壬子, gui chou 癸丑, jia yin 甲寅 and yi mao 乙卯 which is not supportive of her chart for sure.
You’ll always hear practitioners say that an imbalanced chart is a bad one. To put things into perspective, here’s why:
The picture above was taken when I went for a walk in a reservoir. When there is too much Yang Wood and too little Earth, the above picture is what happens. Applying the same logic, if there is too much Water, Yang Wood starts to rot, become driftwood, or it’s too damp to be carved into anything useful.
This is why whenever we analyze a BaZi chart, we are always looking for balance.
Coming back to the above chart, here’s how the life of the above Yang Wood Daymaster chart-holder unfolded:
- Relationships are unstable for a few reasons. Firstly, the Daymaster is way too strong and this is not being remedied. The spouse element of Metal is also in an awkward position in the sense that it is not playing any meaningful role in the chart.
- Although the chart-holder holds on to the relatively stable corporate job, the returns on the hours put in are, arguably not worth it. Always remember the definition of a good life or chart is not just about the sheer amount you bring home. How you bring it home also matters a lot.
- Although the chart-holder earns reasonably comfortably, a lot of her wealth is taken away by the family thanks to the Three Harmony Wood combination which appears. Bear in mind that the word “Harmony” is often misconstrued and it’s not always a positive thing, so “Harmony” isn’t a very appropriate translation but it, unfortunately, has gone mainstream.
- The Yang Wood chart-holder leans towards being overbearing and has a serious communication issue as well.
It will be interesting to see how the life of the above chart-holder unfolds, especially when she enters into her next 10-year phase of yi mao which holds her Rob Wealth. It won’t be an easy time for sure.
– Sean Chan
