What Is Willow Wood (Yang Liu Mu)?
In a Nutshell
The NaYin of the Ren Wu and Gui Wei stem-branches: soft boughs trailing everywhere, rising and falling with the wind — the image of willow branches.
Quick facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Stem-branches | Ren Wu, Gui Wei |
| NaYin element | Wood |
| Signature image | Soft boughs trailing everywhere, the wind rising over the water |
What is Willow Wood?
Willow Wood is one of the thirty NaYin (Melodic Elements) groups of the sexagenary cycle, covering the two stem-branches Ren Wu and Gui Wei. The sixty stem-branches are taken two at a time, in order, forming thirty groups; each group has its own NaYin name, and the Ren Wu–Gui Wei group is called "Willow Wood."
A stem-branch's own elements often differ from its NaYin. Ren is a Water stem and Wu a Fire branch, yet the NaYin here is Wood — check the chart rather than assuming.
"Willow" fixes the image: willow branches swaying in the wind. The *San Ming Tong Hui* (Book 1, "On the Images Adopted by NaYin") says Ren Wu and Gui Wei are named "for their pliant nature", and pictures the willow as "ten thousand threads of silk spun by no silkworm, a thousand ribbons sewn by no needle". Where Great Forest Wood is the towering stance, Willow Wood takes the gentle, graceful side. The original passages are quoted below.
How to look it up: match the stem-branch of your Year Pillar or Day Pillar against the NaYin chart. For example, 2002 was a Ren Wu year and 2003 a Gui Wei year, so anyone born in those years carries Willow Wood as their Year Pillar NaYin; a Ren Wu or Gui Wei Day Pillar works the same way. MoZhu's built-in NaYin lookup tool generates the NaYin of all Four Pillars automatically from a birth time.
Early practitioners gave the Year Pillar NaYin great weight; since the Song dynasty, the Zi Ping school centers on the Day Master, and NaYin has mostly receded to auxiliary reference. Names like Willow Wood are the ancients' evocative nicknames for stem-branch pairs; the imagery helps you read the classics, but nothing should be inferred from the name alone. This page is for study and reference only.
Classical sources
"Ren Wu and Gui Wei: Wood dies at Wu and is entombed at Wei, so the willow's leaves wither in high summer and its branches are slender; it is named for its pliant nature — hence Willow Wood."
Plain words: Willow Wood is named for pliancy: Wood is weak at Wu and Wei, like a willow with slender, drooping branches.
Source: *San Ming Tong Hui*, Book 1, "On the Images Adopted by NaYin" — original: 壬午癸未，木至午而死，至未而墓，故杨柳盛夏叶凋，枝干微弱，取其性之柔也，故曰杨柳木。
"Willow Wood: graceful on the Sui embankment, light in the Han gardens — ten thousand threads of silk spun by no silkworm, a thousand ribbons sewn by no needle."
Plain words: The image is the graceful weeping willow, its branches like silk threads and ribbons.
Source: *San Ming Tong Hui*, Book 1, "On the Images Adopted by NaYin" (individual NaYin) — original: 杨柳木者，隋堤袅娜，汉苑轻盈，万缕不蚕之丝，千条不针之带。
*For entertainment purposes only.*