922: Water More, Wood Drift
Somebody searched for “922” recently. I had in mind the Chinese idiom “shui duo mu piao,” which literally means, when there are lots of water, the wood will drift or float. I learned this phrase when studying Bazi around 2004 from various mentors.
In the Five Elements principles, there are various Elemental Cycles, which allow you to interpret the way nature revolves around. For instance, in the Productive Cycle, Water produce or supports Wood. When we correlate that to nature life, we need to water the plants for it to grow. Trees (Wood) need water to live. Hence, the literal word of “support” or “ produce” for Water and Wood relationships.
Suppose you are standing in a garden with lots of tall trees, shielding you from the hot sun while you closed your eyes and enjoyed the breeze. Different people would envision various events or activities that they might enjoy under such a scenario – sitting under the shady trees. For some, hearing the ruffles of the leaves and the mild touch of the breeze on their face and body, is so relaxing and calming. Some would enjoy the vision and fell asleep. Others would make use of such events for meditation. And yet for others, it could be time for enlightenment, merely like what Buddha did. That’s the visual sense of contentment, fulfillment, and success of what we hope to achieve. And that’s one way we associate the visions and success to the number 9.
Imagine you are meditating under one of the trees, and subconsciously you heard the sound of rain drops falling. It’s just perfect; you imagined, as the sound of raindrops to provide some form of soothing and relaxing effect. It’s like the after-effects of drinking water each time you felt thirsty. The sense of comfort is stronger, and you don’t mind hearing the sounds of the rain drops. We could associate the number 2 as Water, and the rain.
After a while, you noted your pants were wet and quickly stopped your meditation and opened your eyes. Gosh, the rain is getting heavier, and the dry land was damp. You have to stand up. There were loud thunders, and you worried the lightning would hit the same tree you are taking shelter from. And you felt the wind was blowing harder, and your shirts are getting wet. Soon, you are “soaked to the skin,” and you became fearful, cold, and shivering. You hope someone will bring an umbrella to rescue you, but none came. You began to imagine yourself standing on a tree in the swamp, and it’s impossible to know where the hard ground is, if you decided to walk away from the tree. You might fall into a pit, or slope, and bruise yourself. You began to hallucinate. You worried there might be snakes, ants, and other horrible sea creatures that might be floating on the water, drifting towards you. Before long, you’re holding on to the tree on the flooded ground. Once again, we could connect the heavy downpour and flooded ground with excessive water, like the numbers 2-2. And with you still holding on to the tree, with all sorts of imagery worries and fear, you might face the worst extreme effects of the 9-2-2 pattern. Well, that’s close to the extreme negative end. The full unrestrained end would be imagining you are “Jack” and facing the same scene in the movie “Titanic” – holding on to the wooden plank drifting on the ocean.
Cut. That’s the end of the 9-2-2 story. While the extreme end could be fictional and exaggerated, its effects might be alike. Let’s get back to real-world situations and put aside the Titanic scene.
The 9-2-2 pattern can be seen or construed as [Success – Talk – Talk], [Wood – Water – Water], and [Emotions – Feelings – Feelings]. From a positive angle, it could demarcate a person giving a presentation to you – on his visions, outcome, and huge success. He’s invoking on your thoughts and feelings, and creating a picturesque outlook of what you can accomplish. Some of you could relate this kind of situation to people speaking at motivational talks, uplifting and spirituality talks, political or investment talks. Sure, there might be sincere people talking more or less how they succeeded, or like a charlatan-in-disguise selling snake-oil like remedies and sure-win financial wins. People with the 9-2-2 (including 2-2-9 and 2-9-2) patterns tend to speak convincingly, persuasively, and compellingly; and inclined to be “an achiever” in their communication skills – be they on their speech, writings, acting scripts, or music. While these might sound like a respectable character, it could lead to an overzealous person to manipulate others through their feelings.
I hope I have described a short but different insight on the 9-2-2 pattern here. While there might be interpretations of both beneficial and bad outcomes, always keep in mind on both extreme ends. Talking is cheap – when there’re just too much talking or invoked feelings without sincere actions being seen, your visions would soon be drifted away…
If you have the 9-2-2 (or even the 2-9-2, 2-2-9) pattern in your chart, take more actions and carry out your plans rather than just talking about it. Don’t only talk and sulked later when no one supports you. Show them your sincerity and guide them on how they can achieve similar results as indicated in your plan.
While you can be a visionary, aim to be a guiding mentor too, to handhold others, if need be. Abstain from manipulating others through feelings; leave others behind or alone when they desperately need you. Avoid leaving them to cling on to the wood floating or drifting in the sea, and hoping you will arrive and rescue them. And depending on your actions, you might leave your supporters to be like “Jack” or “Rose” in the Titanic movie.
Regards, Ron WZ Sun
