Metal Element in the Chinese Zodiac

Wuxing and the five phases

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) says the Chinese term wuxing, “five processes” or “five phases”, refers to a fivefold scheme found throughout traditional Chinese thought. It names the five as wood (mu), fire (huo), earth (tu), metal (jin) and water (shui).

In its discussion of the Zuo Zhuan, the IEP quotes the text for one year of the reign of Duke Wen: “Water, fire, metal, wood, earth, and grains are called the six natural resources (or treasures).” The IEP notes that this list holds the wuxing as they appear in later works, with grains added.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists metal with wood, earth, fire and water among the most common categories, known as the five phases. It says categories rest on typical ways of acting and reacting, not on inherent qualities or essences, and that since these traits are relational, a thing “might act like wood in one context but metal in another.”

Metal’s nature and correspondences

The Encyclopedia of Religion entry on Encyclopedia.com, credited to Aihe Wang, has a table of the attributes of wuxing. For Metal it lists the planet Venus, the color white, the season autumn, the direction west and the taste acrid.

The IEP describes the Hong Fan chapter of the Shujing (Classic of History) as an account of how society should follow the patterns of Earth and Heaven. Each element, it says, has its nature more fully explained there, and “metal yields and changes (cong ge).”

Metal in the cycles

The Encyclopedia of Religion entry says the five phases exist in various cycles, the two most common being mutual generation and mutual conquest. In the generation cycle, earth generates metal (ore) and metal generates water (melting). In the conquest cycle, fire conquers metal (melting) and metal conquers wood (chopping).

The IEP describes Han thinkers using a “mutual production” series (earth produced metal, metal produced water) and a “mutual conquest” series (metal conquered wood, fire conquered metal).

The Encyclopedia of Religion entry adds that Zou Yan and his followers used the conquest cycle to articulate their theory of dynastic transmission, in which a dynasty ruled by the power of the wood phase would be conquered by a new ruling house associated with metal, which in turn would be conquered by a dynasty of fire.

Metal among the zodiac elements

A University of Sydney news article on the Year of the Horse says each year corresponds to one of five elements and lists metal among them, and National Geographic says the element only rotates every two years.

A children’s page from the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County says each element changes how a zodiac animal expresses its personality traits, and describes metal elements as “strong, focused, determined, and goal-oriented.”