Nayin 纳音 · sound element #18 of 30
Wood at first shoot: everything still ahead of it, and nothing yet to protect it.
| Term 纳音 | 平地木 — Level-Ground Wood (ping di mu) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 木 Wood |
| Pillars it covers | 戊戌、己亥 — Wuxu and Jihai (pair #18 of 30) |
戊戌己亥，气归藏伏，阴阳闭塞，木气归根，伏乎土中，故曰平地木也
Why the name: Wuxu and Jihai — the qi returns to hiding, yin and yang shut, the wood-qi goes back to root and lies concealed within earth; hence Level-Ground Wood.
平地木者，初生萌蘖，始发枝条，唯资雨露之功，不喜雪霜之积，此乃地上之茂材
Level-Ground Wood: the first sprouting shoot, the branch just putting out; it draws only on the merit of rain and dew, and has no love for piled snow and frost.
Xu and Hai close the year — the derivation says the wood-qi has gone back into the ground. So the image is deliberately timed against the season: a new shoot at the point in the cycle where everything else is shutting down.
唯资雨露之功，不喜雪霜之积 — it draws only on rain and dew, and does not welcome piled snow. Where Pine and Cypress is defined by surviving frost, this wood is defined by not being able to. The two are the same element in the same generating position, and the classics keep them apart on the strength of the image alone.
Sources: 《三命通会》 (San Ming Tong Hui, Ming dynasty, 万民英) — chapters 论纳音取象 and 释六十甲子性质吉凶. Both passages above are quoted from a local plain-text edition and checked character by character by a test before this page can ship. Translations are ours.
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Open the chart calculator →大林木 Great Forest Wood · 杨柳木 Willow Wood · 松柏木 Pine and Cypress Wood · 桑柘木 Mulberry Wood · 石榴木 Pomegranate Wood · all thirty →