金 · jīn
Metal
Autumn · West · White
Metal is the cut of autumn, the blade and the coin, clarity and structure and the courage to let go. It is the phase of refining, of deciding, of separating the kept from the discarded. Tempered, Metal gives a true edge and a fair measure; rigid, it grows brittle and breaks rather than bends.
莲花开 · in the Lotus deck
Metal's element card and the guardian of the west. Draw the Lotus Bloom spread and these come into the pool.
Where it comes from
The Hong Fan gives Metal the work of yielding and changing under the smith, and its taste is pungent or acrid. The Neijing seats it in the lungs, which set the rhythm of the breath and govern grief, and in the large intestine that lets go of what is finished; it governs Metal by Venus, the great white star of evening, and gives it the White Tiger of the west and the white of frost. Its emotion, grief, is meant to be refined into righteousness (yi 義), the clean sense of what is owed and what is right.
The wheel, from Metal's seat
Generating (生)
Earth feeds Metal.
Metal feeds Water.
Controlling (克)
Metal checks Wood.
Fire checks Metal.
Its correspondences
The Han cosmologists sorted the whole world into five. These are Metal's.
- Season
- Autumn
- Direction
- West
- Colour
- White
- Climate
- Dryness
- Planet
- Venus (太白)
- Taste
- Pungent
- Note (五音)
- Shang 商
- Voice
- Weeping
- Sense
- Smell, the nose
- Celestial beast
- White Tiger (白虎)
- Yin organ (臟)
- Lung
- Yang organ (腑)
- Large intestine
- Emotion
- Grief → courage
- Virtue
- Righteousness (yì)
- Grain
- Rice
- Fruit
- Peach
- Number
- Four and nine
- Time of day
- Evening
- Life stage
- Decline and harvest
In a person
A person of strong Metal is principled, precise, disciplined, the one who brings order and holds a standard. Healthy Metal is a fair and flexible edge; rigid Metal turns to coldness, perfectionism, and a grief that will not move. Metal-natured people refine and decide, but need Fire nearby to keep from going hard and cold.
In the zodiac
Years ending in 0 or 1 are Metal years. Metal lends its animals discipline, resolve, and a certain reserved strength, more principled and more self-contained, slower to bend once a course is set.
Find your animal & element →Too much, too little
Too much Metal is rigidity, harsh judgment, a body that holds in the chest and clings to old grief. Too little is weak boundaries, melancholy, an inability to finish or to let go. Feed weak Metal with Earth (steadiness, the ground that bears the ore); soften excess Metal with Fire (warmth, feeling, the heat that tempers the blade).
Tending Metal
Court Metal in the evening and in autumn: set things in order, finish and release what is done, breathe deep and full, take a little pungent (ginger, radish, a sharp herb), and let yourself grieve cleanly what the season is taking, then close the door gently.