Wood in the Zodiac

Five ElementsElement: Wood 木

The Tiger and the Rabbit carry Wood. That is the fixed element of the branch — 寅 for the Tiger, 卯 for the Rabbit — and it does not change from year to year, which is why the animal alone tells you less than people expect.

木 Mù · spring · east

The five relations of Wood: what feeds it, what it feeds, what restrains it and what it restrains. — Wood at the centre of its own relations — Zodiac. Correspondences follow the classical classification.

At a glance

The Tiger and the Rabbit carry Wood; the element of a given year is a second layer on top.

In the classical correspondence tables Wood governs spring and the east, the liver and gallbladder, the eyes, and the sour taste.

The animals that carry Wood

The layer most popular writing omits is the year's own element. 2022 was 壬寅, yang Water on the Tiger: the animal is Wood and the year is Water, so the year is read as Water feeding Wood rather than as Wood alone. 2023 was 癸卯, yin Water on the Rabbit, the same logic in a softer register. The full cycle of animal and element together takes sixty years, not twelve.

This is why 'I am a Wood Tiger' is at best half a statement. The Tiger is always Wood; the year you were born in is one of five elements, and the combination repeats once every sixty years. Two Tigers born thirty years apart share a branch and almost nothing else.

For reading purposes the practical consequence is that the year animal is the shallowest layer available and the one most people arrive through. It is a coarse filter — twelve categories covering the whole population — and it is used here as an entry point to the element layer underneath rather than as a conclusion.

Years, and the two-layer element

Years

Tiger: 2022, 2010, 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962. Rabbit: 2023, 2011, 1999, 1987, 1975, 1963. The cycle is twelve years; the element layer moves on a sixty-year cycle.

The two-layer element

The branch has a fixed element (寅 and 卯 are both Wood); the year has a stem with its own element. Read together, 壬寅 is Water on Wood, 甲寅 would be Wood on Wood — and the two years read differently.

Animals and years

Zodiac animals

Tiger, Rabbit

Earthly branches

寅 Yín (tiger), 卯 Mǎo (rabbit)

Season

spring

Colour

blue-green

Tiger years

2022, 2010, 1998, 1986, 1974

Rabbit years

2023, 2011, 1999, 1987, 1975

How much weight this carries

The zodiac year is the shallowest layer of the system, and it is the one most people arrive through. Twelve animals is a coarse filter: it groups roughly eight percent of the population together and then asks you to believe they share a temperament. The element layer underneath is what makes it specific.