Two phases of one movement
Before the twelve animals, before the five elements, Chinese astrology sets down an alternation. Yang names the phase that goes out, that rises, that takes up room. Yin names the phase that comes back in, that draws together, that consolidates. One does not follow the other as a reward: they take turns, endlessly.
The most widespread Western reading has to be set aside at once, the one that files Yang on the side of the masculine and Yin on the side of the feminine. BaZi does not work that way. A very Yang chart is not a man’s chart, a very Yin chart is not a woman’s chart. Neither phase is superior to the other, neither is a flaw to be corrected, and a balanced chart is not one that has managed to eliminate one of the two.
This precaution is nothing like a matter of polite wording: it decides how a dominant is read. A majority of Yang characters describes a rhythm, a way of entering into things, a speed. It describes neither a gender identity, nor a moral value, nor a quality the other half would lack.
No character is neutral
A Chinese chart is made of two series laid one over the other: the heavenly stems and the earthly branches. The rule is the same for both. Every stem carries a polarity, every branch carries a polarity. There is no neutral position, no character straddling the two phases, no intermediate value that could be set aside when counting.
That is precisely what makes polarity usable. Since no character escapes the sorting, a chart splits into two sets with nothing left over, and any imbalance shows immediately. Where the elements call for judging relative strengths, polarity makes do with two closed categories. It is the coarsest sorting in the system, and also the most stable.
The alternation of the ten heavenly stems
The ten stems follow one another in a fixed order, Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui, and change phase at every step. Jia is Yang, Yi is Yin, Bing is Yang, Ding is Yin, and the alternation carries on without a single exception up to the tenth. There is no special case to remember, no stem that would break the rule.
That regularity brings a direct consequence: five Yang stems, five Yin stems, in strictly equal parts. Since the ten stems spread over the five elements, two per element, every element has exactly one Yang stem and one Yin stem. So an element never exists in a single form in the series of stems. It always appears twice, once in its expansive phase and once in its contracted phase, and those two versions do not behave the same way even though the substance is identical.
The alternation of the twelve earthly branches
The twelve branches follow the same logic, applied to their rank. Zi, the first, is Yang. Chou, the second, is Yin. The alternation carries on from rank to rank up to Hai, the twelfth, which is Yin. The rule therefore holds in one line: odd rank, Yang; even rank, Yin. Six Yang branches, six Yin branches.
One point is worth underlining, because it is the most frequent source of error. The animal attached to a branch tells you nothing about its polarity. It is not the temperament lent to the animal that decides, it is the position of the branch in the series. A branch tied to an animal reputed to be discreet can perfectly well be Yang, and the reverse is just as true. Rank settles the question, the animal image settles nothing.
What the Yin/Yang score counts
A complete chart gathers eight characters: four stems and four branches, that is one stem and one branch per pillar. The polarity score is read on those eight positions, without favouring any of them. You add up, you compare, and the ratio obtained gives the overall dominant.
When the birth time is unknown, a whole pillar disappears and the count is done on six positions instead of eight. The score is still calculable and still readable, but it rests on less material: a dominant established on six characters is mechanically more fragile than one established on eight. Better to know that when reading the result than to ignore it.
What polarity does not say
The Yin/Yang score describes a general rhythm, nothing more. It is not a compatibility test between two people, and it certainly is not deduced from the year animal: that animal occupies only one position out of eight. Nor does it draw a complete portrait, since it ignores the distribution of the elements, the relations between branches and the place of the day stem.
Yang and Yin remain a first reading, the broadest one. They show which way the whole leans before we have even looked at what substance that whole is made of.
Keywords
- Two phases, never two genders
- No neutral character
- Ten stems, five Yang and five Yin
- Twelve branches, six Yang and six Yin
- Rank decides, not the animal
- A score read on eight positions, six without the time
