土 Earth

What this phase represents

Earth (土 tǔ) is the phase of stability, nourishment and the centre — the ground that bears everything else and the soil from which crops come. It stands for balance and support, the steady middle to which the other four phases return. The character 土 depicts a mound of soil on the ground, and it is the radical in many characters for land, walls and pottery.

Associations

Earth is the pivot of the scheme. It is paired with the centre rather than one of the four compass points, and with the colour yellow — the colour of the loess soil of the northern heartland and, historically, of imperial dignity. Its season is the transitional "late summer", and in one common arrangement earth governs the brief turning points between all four seasons, fitting its role as the balancing, grounding phase. Its qualities are receptive, supportive and stabilising.

Cultural use

In the sexagenary calendar, years ending in 8 or 9 are earth years, hence the zodiac's "Earth Dog" or "Earth Pig". The centre-and-yellow pairing made yellow the colour reserved for the emperor and the central position the place of authority in classical city and palace planning, a spatial symbolism still read in fengshui as a cultural practice. The character 土 appears throughout vocabulary about land and locality and lends names a sense of solidity and rootedness.

In the two cycles

In the generating cycle (生) earth bears metal — ores and metals are dug from the ground — so earth produces metal and is itself produced by fire, whose ash enriches it. In the overcoming cycle (克) earth dams water, the way banks and embankments hold a river, so earth restrains water and is in turn restrained by wood, whose roots break it up. As the centre it sits midway in the ring at 土→金.

Earth years

Each phase colours two consecutive years of the sexagenary calendar. These are the earth years in the 1924–2046 window, with the zodiac sign of each.

Further reading

• Wuxing (five phases) — Wikipedia
• Sexagenary cycle (stems and branches) — Wikipedia