mù · 木 · one of the Five Phases

Wood in the Chinese Zodiac: Years Ending 4 & 5

Wood zodiac years end in 4 or 5 after the Chinese New Year boundary. Recent examples are 2004, 2005, 2014, 2015, 2024, 2025; Tiger and Rabbit carry fixed Wood. Wood brings the language of growth, cooperation and gradual development to an animal reading. It asks how the sign makes room for other people and new possibilities, with overextension as the counterpoint to generosity.

What Wood adds to an animal sign

A Wood year gives each animal a different emphasis. Compare two contrasting examples, then open any of the twelve types below for its own reading and exact occurrence years.

Wood Rat

Wood gives the Rat's resourcefulness a cooperative direction, turning a private clever idea into something that can grow through shared effort. This is the Rat portrait most concerned with keeping useful connections alive and finding room for another person's contribution. Its challenge is spreading attention across so many possibilities that a promising beginning never receives sustained care.

Wood Goat

Wood gives the Goat's kindness an expansive, nurturing quality, with creativity expressed through helping a shared idea develop. This portrait finds strength in collaboration and in making overlooked contributions feel welcome. The challenge is over-accommodation: caring about the whole group can lead to accepting more responsibility than is manageable, especially when declining an invitation feels less kind than accepting it.

木

One element, several result coordinates

Wood at a glance

In a complete zodiac result, Wood may belong to the year's heavenly stem, the animal's fixed earthly-branch coordinate, the day master, or the separate Na Yin association. The label should always be read with that position.

Chinese: 木
Pinyin: mù
Generates: Fire
Controls: Earth

Its place in both cycles