A room of Water · 水

Big water and small water

rén and guǐ

Water splits into a yang face and a yin face, and Chinese metaphysics gives each its own name: 壬 (rén) the great water and 癸 (guǐ) the small water. One is the ocean, the other the raindrop.

壬水, the great water

The yang Water. Its images are the sea, the great rivers, lakes, the flood, the waterfall, and the tide, 大海之水 (dà hǎi zhī shuǐ). Tradition paints 壬水 people as bold and open-hearted, broad-minded and generous, with a heart as wide as the sea, quick-witted, driven, and good at connecting people and ideas.

Its shadow is the flood. 壬水 is said to be easily stirred to mood, impulsive when feeling runs high, and prone to scatter its force in too many directions at once.

癸水, the small water

The yin Water. Its images are rain, dew, mist, fog, cloud, the mountain spring, and the trickling stream, 雨露之水 (yǔ lù zhī shuǐ), water that quietly moistens all things without a sound. Tradition paints 癸水 people as gentle, refined, reserved, and sharply perceptive, able to notice the small detail everyone else misses and to win people over drop by drop.

Its shadow is the shadow of sensitivity: indecision, melancholy, overthinking, and being easily overwhelmed without enough support.

One phase, two tempers

The point is balance, not ranking. Whether a Water runs too big or too small is always relative to the rest of a chart. That is the question BaZi takes up in the next room.

Where Water sits

Leave Water in any direction