Earthly Branches

Earthly Branches came to be associated with animals much later, again to comfort farmers and commoners who would have been panicked with the vast astronomy behind these principles.

This means that it is wrong to link Tiger to Spring as Tiger should be linked to February.
When we say that February contains Wood, we do not point to the wood that later came to be associated with the Spring season, plants or other associations that serve only as an analogy.
Wood in February shows waxing earth energy and this is the same for the entire globe.

Referring to months, I think it is better when we connected back to the original Chinese terminology each time we talk about Earthly Branches, rather than call them by their popular Chinese animal association.

In its most original state, the list would look like this:

Please note that seasons, popular animal names, as well as terms like Spring Equinox or Summer Solstice, are skipped from this list, making it valid for both hemispheres.
Months are not defined by the seasons but by the position of the sun.

A year is divided into twelve equal 30 degrees sections, an Earthly Branch being linked to each of these divisions. The twelve Earthly Branches are then again divided into four directional subgroups.

A year is then defined by the earth’s revolution around the sun and taken to start at the moment the sun appears in the East, which is the same for either hemisphere, and we call this moment the Yin month, associated with Tiger.

We cannot take the Spring season as the beginning of the year, because most of our planet would then not have a beginning of any year for simple reason that huge regions do not know Spring at all.
Our planet’s temperate zone has four seasons, one of them being Spring.
Around the equator we do not have any distinguishable seasons, as we know of only dry and wet periods.

Where years and months are defined by the suns rotation along the circumference of the compass (Yellow Path or Yellow Belt), we have to realize that the earth orbit around the sun in itself does not define Qi.

Qi is defined by universal influences that are far greater than our sun. Qi, being far greater than the sun, then Qi of course is also far greater than any presumed difference between the Northern and Southern hemisphere, which both equally answer to the laws of Qi.
Even the sun answers to Qi.

60 combinations of Stems and Branches
We get 60 combinations of Stems and Branches when we combine yang Stems to yang Branches and yin Stems to yin Branches.

Please understand that when we say in Four Pillars of Destiny that a person was born in ‘such and such’ season, we do not at all point at the season of Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter. This is another misconception that we should tackle here.

Each Stem-Branch combination in itself is looked upon as a ‘season’.

A Stem-Branch combination for a year is looked upon as a season.
A Stem-Branch combination for a month is looked upon as a season.
A Stem-Branch combination for a day is looked upon as a season.
A Stem-Branch combination for a hour is looked upon as a season.

We better not say that a Yang Water Daymaster is born in Spring, where it would be better to say that this Daymaster was born in the season of Mao, when the birth month was March, so when Wood is at its prime. This way a person born in March on the Southern hemisphere would likewise be born in the month of Mao and with Wood strongly in his Pillars.
 

Back  |   Table of content  |   Next