Jia Wood

Chinese words can be multi-faceted. They can carry different meanings and even have different pronunciations when used in different context.

Jia (甲) is the first of the 10 heavenly stems and can be translated to mean armor, claw, shell, scale, fingernails, etc.

That’s quite a number of diverse meanings for one seemingly simple word written with 5 strokes of the brush.

Symbolically, it also represents the best and the first as it is the first of 10 stems.

Jia wood has an elemental nature of yang wood (陽木) which is represented by huge powerful trees which in turn, is associated with the essence of life.

Of the 4 celestial animals, it has affinity with the green dragon. An such, it embodies many of the attributes connected with it.

Within the 24 mountains, it takes up an eastern direction within the position of between 67.5° – 82.5°.

Jia wood is also associated with early spring of between February and March, the early hours of the morning, as well with the early period of life.

In the practice of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), jia can indicate various body parts and organs including:

• Scapula
• Thyroid
• Nervous system
• Ankle
• Gallbladder
• Head
• Finger and toenails

Among the trigrams, Jia is most affiliated to the Chen trigram which symbolizes (among many things) leaving behind yin energy to embrace new yang energy.

One of the ancient divination techniques qi men dun jia (奇門遁甲) also uses the word jia as the last character. Because this technique was used primarily in military stratagem, jia in this instance, is meant to convey the meaning of armor. Otherwise, it can also be referring to heavenly stems.

Of the 9 number of Chinese numerology, Jia Wood is most relevant with the number 3.

Jia wood (H1) can be found as hidden stems in the branches of Yin (E3) and Hai (E12). It has a combination relationship with Ji (H6) to produce earth, and clashes with Wu (H5) and Geng (H7).

Jia wood self-element

When one has the Jia character as the self-element (day master) in bazi, he or she can be rather “straight”, inflexible, and somewhat immovable like a pine tree.

They are usually goal-oriented and can get aggressive in moving towards their intended outcome.

Being direct is often a personal characteristic that is appreciated by people. But under some circumstances, this candid directness can often land a jia individual into trouble or become unpopular.

A “woody” nature also means that they are not the best at expressing themselves emotionally. So they can often say something and really mean it, but those listening find it hard to tell whether they really mean what they say.

This can either make them great at comedy or horrible at it.

At the same time, it can also mean that their blunt candid words say the most about what they have in their core values.

They are generally not eccentric and can be taken at their words.

An innate determination to progress  in life serves as a strong motivation to take action. But making big changes are be very tough decisions to make as being in a comfort zone is usually enough to be contented.

The conflict between the motivation to improve and the reluctance to change can often land Jia people in major dilemma that causes them to get stuck in certain stages of life without moving forward or backwards.

However, should they run into personal setbacks, they can usually get back to where they were before rather easily, yet without breakthrough in making forward progress.

While not invincible, it would take a lot of punches to finally break the will of a Jia wood day master.

People can often seek refuge under the shade of Jia wood personalities. However, take note that tall trees can be vulnerable to lightning and also often selected to be chopped down to be harvested.

For these reasons, Jia wood individuals would often find themselves targets of adversaries when they hold top positions.

At work, they are responsible and dutiful. This makes them very suitable for repetitive administrative and management roles. Especially in oversight activities.

The good (or bad) thing about them in terms of career is that once they take root, they are set to stay for the long haul.

The relation of the elements to Jia Wood is as follows:

• Wood – People
• Fire – Intelligence
• Earth – Wealth
• Metal – Status
• Water – Resource

They can be further broken down into the 10 gods of bazi.

10 Gods

More about the 10 gods is discussed here.

Jia wood in relation to other self-element heavenly stems