Mulberry Wood
Mulberry Wood — One of the thirty NaYin, paired with RenZi and GuiChou — mulberry put to use the moment it sprouts, feeding silkworms with its leaves: a life of diligence, service to others, and success earned through early toil.
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Mulberry Wood (sāng zhè mù) is the NaYin of RenZi and GuiChou, known in folk usage as a "Mulberry Wood life." Mulberry leaves feed silkworms and cudrania wood yields yellow dye, placing both trees close to household work and everyday production. Its central image is useful growth expressed through service, diligence and sustained cultivation.
The classical imagery
The San Ming Tong Hui explains the wood of RenZi and GuiChou:
“The qi coils bent, its shape not yet extended; dwelling in watery ground, in the month the silkworms wane, mulberry and cudrania receive their qi — the image is taken from their timely growth.”
"The qi coils bent, its shape not yet extended" — at the junction of Zi and Chou it is deepest winter, and the wood's qi crouches unexpanded. Yet "in the month the silkworms wane, mulberry and cudrania receive their qi": while other trees still hibernate, these are already storing next year's vitality for the silkworms. The image turns on that single word, timing — its rhythm of growth is, from the very start, a preparation for being needed.
Matching GanZhi and birth years
| GanZhi | NaYin | Recent birth years | Next cycle | Zodiac |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ren Zi | Mulberry Wood | 1912 · 1972 | 2032 | Rat |
| Gui Chou | Mulberry Wood | 1913 · 1973 | 2033 | Ox |
※ Year boundaries strictly follow LiChun (start of spring): anyone born before LiChun in early solar year belongs to the previous GanZhi year, and the NaYin changes accordingly. Table generated by the Guanyitang chart engine.
There are six Wood NaYin; side by side, Mulberry Wood's distinct station — "standing through usefulness" — comes clear:
| NaYin | JiaZi pairs | Imagery in brief |
|---|---|---|
| Great Forest Wood | Wu Chen · Ji Si | A whole forest — broad and generous in bearing |
| Willow Wood | Ren Wu · Gui Wei | Soft branches and fine leaves, bending with the wind |
| Pine and Cypress Wood | Geng Yin · Xin Mao | Braving frost and cold, harder with the years |
| Plainland Wood | Wu Xu · Ji Hai | Trees of the open plain, thriving in company |
| Mulberry Wood | Ren Zi · Gui Chou | Useful the moment it sprouts, feeding others with its leaves |
| Pomegranate Wood | Geng Shen · Xin You | Wood pungent in nature, branches heavy with fruit |
Traditional reading of the temperament
Tradition reads the Mulberry Wood life like the mulberry that rears silkworms — diligent, practical, gifted at nourishing others: suited to fields that demand patience and giving, with reputation and goodwill as its footing in the world. Because it is "used the moment it sprouts," the early years tend to be toilsome and wealth accumulates late. The texts favor Water and Earth as its support (Water to feed the roots, Earth to bank the trunk) and warn against flourishing Metal wielding the axe.
On men and women, the old books call the male dutiful, hard-working and devoted to family, the female gentle, thrifty and a builder of households — verdicts plainly colored by their era, best read today as tendencies of temperament rather than fixed conclusions.
Notable figures
The birth years of these public figures correspond to Mulberry Wood(every entry verified against the LiChun boundary by the Guanyitang chart engine):
| Name | Birth year | Year pillar | Field |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qian Weichang | 1912 | Ren Zi | Physicist · Educator |
| Guan Shanyue | 1912 | Ren Zi | Painter |
| Qian Sanqiang | 1913 | Gui Chou | Nuclear physicist |
| Sammi Cheng | 1972 | Ren Zi | Singer · Actress |
| Takeshi Kaneshiro | 1973 | Gui Chou | Actor |
※ This table only states the factual mapping between birth year and NaYin. It implies no judgement of anyone’s destiny; year boundaries follow LiChun.
Relations with other NaYin
Folk NaYin matchmaking reasons by Five-Element dynamics: Mulberry Wood meeting Mountain-Stream Water or Great Stream Water makes Water-begets-Wood harmony; meeting Sword-Edge Gold makes Metal-cuts-Wood opposition. Note, however, that orthodox Zi Ping astrology takes the Day Master's element and the whole chart as its frame, with NaYin as reference only — judging fortune or marriage by the year NaYin alone is a widely circulated simplification.
FAQ
- Is a Mulberry Wood life a good one?
- NaYin is only one facet of a chart — there is no absolute good or bad. In the traditional view, Mulberry Wood stands by diligence and succeeds through labor, growing more valuable the more it is needed. Whether life runs smoothly depends on the whole chart's Day Master strength and favorable elements: two Mulberry Wood lives with different pillars can read completely differently.
- Am I a Mulberry Wood life if I was born in 1972?
- If you were born in 1972 (RenZi), the NaYin of your year pillar is Mulberry Wood — yes. But the year boundary follows LiChun: anyone born before LiChun on February 5, 1972 belongs to the previous year XinHai, whose NaYin is Jewelry Gold.
- What does Mulberry Wood lack or avoid?
- What a chart "lacks" can only be read from the full Five-Element distribution, never from the NaYin alone. As imagery, the traditional texts say Mulberry Wood loves Water and Earth to nourish it, and fears flourishing Metal adding the axe — useful as a directional reference only.
References
- Wan Minying (Ming dynasty), San Ming Tong Hui, vol. 1, “On NaYin Imagery”
- Attr. Xu Ziping (Song dynasty), Yuan Hai Zi Ping, “On the NaYin of the Sixty JiaZi”
- Guanyitang chart engine · sixty-JiaZi NaYin reference data