Yin and Yang

In Chinese astrology yin and yang are the oldest layer of all. They sit under the elements and under the animals, and once you can see them the whole system starts to breathe.

What the pair means

Yin and yang are two sides of one thing. Night and day. Receiving and giving. The valley and the hill. The breath in and the breath out. Neither one is the good one. A world of all day would burn, and a world of all night would freeze, and the symbol says so by putting a seed of each inside the other.

Yang is the active side, outward, warm, bright, rising, the energy that starts things and moves. Yin is the receptive side, inward, cool, dark, settling, the energy that holds things and lets them grow. Yang speaks and yin listens. Yang plants and yin ripens. You need both to get a harvest, and a person needs both to get a life.

I want to say clearly that yin is not weak and yang is not strong. People hear "receptive" and think passive, and it is a mistake. Yin is the ground that takes the seed and the ocean that takes the river. It is the most patient force there is. In my experience the yin people in a room are usually the ones who end up holding it together.

Yin and yang animals

The twelve animals alternate, yang then yin, right round the circle. Rat is yang, Ox yin. Tiger yang, Rabbit yin. Dragon yang, Snake yin. Horse yang, Goat yin. Monkey yang, Rooster yin. Dog yang, Pig yin.

Look at the pairs and you can feel it. The Rat darts and the Ox plods. The Tiger pounces and the Rabbit waits. The Dragon rises and the Snake coils. The Horse runs and the Goat grazes. The Monkey climbs and the Rooster watches. The Dog charges and the Pig settles. Each yang animal is followed by a yin one that answers it, and the whole circle is six breaths out and six breaths in.

This means the animal you were born under already leans one way. If you are a Tiger, a Horse or a Monkey, you lean yang, toward action and outward show, whatever else is in your chart. If you are a Rabbit, a Snake or a Pig, you lean yin, toward observation and inner life. It does not decide how loud you are at a party. It describes which direction your energy runs when nobody is making you do anything.

Yin and yang years

The years alternate too, and the rule is as simple as looking at the last digit. Even years are yang years and odd years are yin years. 2026 ends in 6, so it is a yang year, and a Fire one. 2025 ended in 5, a yin year, Wood. 2027 will be yin again, Fire.

Because the animals also alternate, the year's polarity and the animal's polarity always agree. A Horse year is always a yang year, because the Horse is a yang animal and Horse years fall in even years. A Snake year is always yin. You will never meet a yin Horse or a yang Snake, which simplifies things, and it is the reason the ten Heavenly Stems, the five elements each in yang and yin form, pair with the twelve animals in exactly sixty ways rather than a hundred and twenty.

The polarity of the year is the polarity of the element. Yang Fire is a bonfire, a blaze that lights up a hillside. Yin Fire is a candle, or a hearth, which lasts longer and is easier to live beside. The Fire Horse of 2026 is yang Fire on a yang animal. The Fire Goat of 2027 is yin Fire on a yin animal, and the year will feel very different even though the element has not changed. The Five Elements page takes the five further.

How the polarity colours an animal

Take two animals that sit next to each other, the Dragon and the Snake. Both are deep, both are clever, both have presence. The Dragon is yang. Its presence fills a room, it wants to be seen, it leads from the front and it thinks out loud. The Snake is yin. Its presence is felt rather than seen, it watches from the edge of the room, and it has worked out the ending before the Dragon has finished the introduction.

Neither has the better hand. The Dragon's gift is that it can make things happen, and its work is to learn that not everything should be made to. The Snake's gift is that it sees what is really going on, and its work is to learn to say so before it is too late to matter. Put the two side by side and you can see the two directions of the same intelligence.

You can do the same with any neighbouring pair. The yang Horse and the yin Goat both love company, and the Horse finds it on the road while the Goat makes it at home. The yang Dog and the yin Pig are both loyal, and the Dog guards the gate while the Pig lays the table inside.

Balance rather than victory

The mistake people in the West most often make with yin and yang is to pick a side. We like a winner. We want to know which is better, and then we want more of it.

The symbol says otherwise. The light half and the dark half are the same size, and each carries a seed of the other. Too much yang and you have a person who cannot stop, who talks over the room, who mistakes motion for progress and burns out by fifty. Too much yin and you have a person who waits for permission that never comes, who feels everything and does nothing with it. Both are out of balance. Neither is wrong by nature, and both are mended the same way, by borrowing from the other side.

When I read a chart I count the polarities across the year, the month and the day. Three yang pillars make a person who will need to learn stillness. Three yin pillars make a person who will need to learn to push. Most charts are mixed, and the mix is the point. It tells me where the natural balance is and where the person will have to do a bit of work.

A bit of practice

Here is something to try for a week. Each evening, before you sleep, ask yourself whether the day was yang or yin. Did you spend it doing, talking, pushing, starting, or did you spend it receiving, listening, finishing, resting? Then notice which kind of day you prefer, and which kind you avoid.

Most of us lean one way out of habit and call it personality. A yang leaner finds a quiet day unbearable and fills it. A yin leaner finds a loud day draining and hides from the next one. Nothing in your chart says you have to stay there. If you lean yang, give yourself one deliberately yin hour a day, a walk without a podcast, a meal without a screen, a conversation where you only ask questions. If you lean yin, pick one thing a day and start it before you feel ready.

The chart tells you which way you lean. What you do with that is the practice, and it is the same practice whether you were born a Dragon or a Snake.

Which way do you lean, and when did you last spend a whole day on the other side?

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.

Related pages
The Eight Trigrams