Chapter 10: Yin-Yang and the Five Phases in Guyu — Wood's Virtue Nearing Its End and the Nurture of Water and Grain

Section 1: The Final Hour of Wood's Spring

Guyu belongs to the third month of spring, and the third month of spring belongs to the virtue of Wood—this we have already established above. But as the very last term of spring, the "virtue of Wood" to which Guyu corresponds is a special kind of Wood virtue—Wood virtue nearing its end.

Among the Five Phases, Wood governs spring, its nature being "bending and straightening," symbolizing growth, unfolding, upward reaching, and free extension. The whole of spring is the season when Wood's virtue holds sway and vitality surges forth. Yet by Guyu, Wood's virtue has already run to its final act—the third month of spring is about to end, and what lies just ahead is summer, the virtue of Fire. And so Guyu's Wood virtue is a Wood virtue of "accomplishment about to withdraw": it has already completed its entire mission of coaxing forth sprouts, sending out shoots, extending branches, blossoming, and bringing forth the hundred grains, and is now preparing to hand over the reins of season to the Fire virtue of the summer soon to come.

This "nearing its end" does not signify decay—quite the opposite, it signifies fulfillment. Wood's virtue has already accomplished everything it was meant to do in spring—the duckweed has grown, the mulberry has turned green, the grain has been sown, and the ten thousand things have all "come forth from their curled state, extended from their sprouting state." Wood's virtue, at Guyu, takes its bow in composure, its task fully accomplished, rather than expiring from exhaustion. This corresponds precisely to the Book of Changes' hexagram Guai—yang (vitality) already at its abundant height, about to resolve away the last remnant of yin and become pure yang; Wood's virtue already fulfilled, about to yield its place to the Fire virtue and enter high summer. Retiring at the height of flourishing, yielding once the task is accomplished—this is precisely what Guyu's Wood virtue interprets: a "turning within fulfillment."

Section 2: The Mutual Generation of the Five Phases — Wood Generating Fire and the Meeting of Spring and Summer

Guyu stands at the meeting of spring and summer, precisely the juncture of the Five Phases' "Wood generating Fire"—a point laden with meaning.

The sequence of the Five Phases' mutual generation runs: Wood generates Fire, Fire generates Earth, Earth generates Metal, Metal generates Water, Water generates Wood, cycling without end. Why does Wood generate Fire$23 Because wood is combustible; friction on wood can produce fire; wood is the mother of fire, the source of fire. In the correspondence with the four seasons, Wood (spring) generating Fire (summer) means that spring's vitality (Wood) is the matrix and source of summer's abundance (Fire)—without spring's "birth," there would be no summer's "growth"; the life force that spring accumulates and coaxes forth (Wood) can only, by summer, burn and swell into surging abundance (Fire).

Guyu, as the end of spring and the conclusion of Wood's virtue, stands precisely at this liminal point of "Wood generating Fire." It is the moment when Wood's virtue hands the spark of life over to Fire's virtue—the hundred grains that spring diligently coaxed forth (the achievement of Wood's virtue) are about to, in summer's blazing sun (Fire's virtue), jump their joints, put forth ears, fill with grain, and swell to fullness.

Thus the significance of Guyu's "rain giving birth to the hundred grains" lies not only in the sprouting before our eyes, but still more in how it prepares the object and foundation for the entire summer's "growth under Fire's virtue." Without Guyu's rain coaxing forth the hundred grains, summer's Fire virtue would have no grain to "grow." Viewed from this angle, Guyu is the relay-point of "Wood generating Fire"—it solemnly and fully hands over, into the coming hands of summer's Fire, the entire vitality that spring's Wood has gestated.

Section 3: The Virtue of Water — Guyu's "Rain" and the Nurture of the Five Grains

Though Guyu belongs to the season of Wood's virtue, its name places its emphasis on "rain," on "water." This raises a profound question: water (rain), which in the Five Phases properly belongs to winter and to the north, why does it play such a crucial role in Guyu, the Wood-virtue season of spring$24

The answer lies in another link of the Five Phases' mutual generation—"Water generates Wood." Water generating Wood means that water is Wood's mother, the wellspring of vitality. Grasses and trees cannot grow without water; the hundred grains cannot grow without rain. And so, although Guyu belongs, in terms of its "presiding Five Phase," to Wood, the fundamental force that sets this Wood virtue in motion, that nourishes these hundred grains, comes from water (rain). The very name "Guyu" places "rain" before "grain," precisely hinting at this causal relationship: it is "water" (rain) that nurtures and gives birth to "wood" (grain). Water is the mother, wood the child; rain is the cause, grain the effect.

The "Water and Earth" chapter of the Guanzi exalts water to an unsurpassed degree: "What is water$25 It is the origin and foundation of the ten thousand things, the ancestral home of all life." What is water$26 It is the origin of the ten thousand things, the ancestral root of all living things. In the view of the Guanzi, water is not merely one of the Five Phases, but something prior to and deeper than the Five Phases, the fundamental basis upon which all things depend for their transformation and birth. The rain of Guyu is precisely this "origin of the ten thousand things" pouring itself grandly into the hundred grains of late spring.

From this we understand the exquisite subtlety of Guyu within the Five Phases: on the surface it belongs to Wood (the third month of spring), but in fact it is a grand gathering of "mother generating child" between water (rain) and wood (grain). The "nurture" of water and rain sets in motion the "birth" of Wood's virtue, and together they accomplish "rain giving birth to the hundred grains." Within Guyu, the virtue of Water and the virtue of Wood proceed hand in hand—water as the mother, moistening downward; wood as the child, flourishing upward—this is the most tender, most abundant scene in the entire mutual generation of the Five Phases.

Section 4: The Waxing and Waning of Yin and Yang — Guyu's Position of "Five Yang Lines Resolving Away One Yin"

Viewed from the perspective of yin and yang, Guyu (the chen month, hexagram Guai) stands at the position of "five yang lines resolving away one yin"—the yang qi has already accumulated to five parts, with only the topmost single part of remnant yin still awaiting resolution. This is the juncture within the year at which the yang qi is at its most abundant, about to reach fullness (pure yang, hexagram Qian, at Start of Summer).

This means that the qi of Heaven and Earth at the season of Guyu is highly "yang" in character—warm, generative, upward-reaching, outward-radiating, surging with vitality. "At Qingming, snow ceases; at Guyu, frost ceases"—that last trace of frost and chill which is resolved away is precisely that final part of remnant yin. Amid this abundant yang qi, the ten thousand things vie to break through the soil, extend upward, and flourish, presenting the grand scene of "the curled things all emerging, the sprouting things all extending."

Yet the profundity of the Book of Changes lies precisely in this: even amid the abundant height of "five yang lines," it has already foreseen the imminent birth of "one yin line." After hexagram Guai (five yang resolving away one yin) comes hexagram Qian (six yang lines), and immediately after hexagram Qian comes hexagram Gou (one yin line beginning to be born). Fullness at its height must turn; yang at its extreme gives birth to yin. And so the yin-yang qi of Guyu is a state of "flourishing at its height, about to turn"—it pushes the grandeur of yang qi to its very summit, while simultaneously, quietly, approaching that liminal point of turning.

This state of "flourishing at its height, about to turn" is precisely the deepest revelation that Guyu offers: at the very moment when yang qi is most abundant and vitality most vigorous, one must understand that the turning point already lies concealed behind this grandeur, and must therefore both vigorously seize the vibrant vitality of the present moment (seizing the rain to sow with urgency) and hold, at the same time, a heart of humble caution regarding "fullness at its height must give way to loss" (guarding against overflowing fullness). "One yin, one yang—this is called the Dao" (Book of Changes)—the solar term of Guyu enacts this turning point of "one yin, one yang" waxing and waning to its most liminal, most subtle extreme.