Nayin 纳音 · sound element #14 of 30
Wood that keeps its needles under frost: the one wood whose defining property is what it does in the bad season.
| Term 纳音 | 松柏木 — Pine and Cypress Wood (song bai mu) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 木 Wood |
| Pillars it covers | 庚寅、辛卯 — Gengyin and Xinmao (pair #14 of 30) |
庚寅辛卯则气已乘阳，得栽培之势力其为状也，奈居金下，凡金与霜素坚，木居下得其旺，岁寒后凋，取其性之坚也，故曰松柏木
Why the name: Gengyin and Xinmao — the qi has already ridden the yang and gained the force of cultivation; yet as for its situation, it sits beneath metal. All metal, like frost, is hard by nature; the wood below still gets its prime, and stays unfallen after the year turns cold — it takes the firmness of its nature, hence Pine and Cypress Wood.
松柏木者，泼雪凑霜，参天覆地，风撼笙篁之奏，雨余旌旆之张
Pine and Cypress Wood: it sluices off the snow and gathers the frost, piercing the sky and covering the ground; the wind shakes from it the sound of pipes, the rain leaves on it the spread of banners.
Yin and Mao are due-east spring wood — wood at its own peak. But the stems above are Geng and Xin, yang and yin metal, and metal cuts wood. The derivation makes that tension the whole point: 奈居金下 — but it sits beneath metal.
岁寒后凋, unfallen after the year turns cold, is a quotation of Confucius on the pine. What the image encodes is not strength in good conditions but persistence in bad ones, which is why San Ming Tong Hui says this wood is 极旺 — at maximum — and still wants a mountain for a root and water for moisture.
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 · 平地木 Level-Ground Wood · 桑柘木 Mulberry Wood · 石榴木 Pomegranate Wood · all thirty →