Water is the element of rest and storage. In the five phases (오행 ohaeng) it is winter: seeds under the snow, energy held back, thinking before doing. It is the quietest phase and the one that makes the next spring possible.
Water belongs to winter and to the north. Its color in 오방색 obangsaek is 흑 heuk, black, the deep color of still water and night. Of the classical virtues it is linked with 지 智, wisdom.
In the cycles, metal feeds water and water feeds wood, the way rain feeds a tree. Water puts out fire, and earth dams water. Two stems carry water, the river Im 壬 and the rain Gye 癸, and two branches, the Pig 亥 and the Rat 子.
A lot of water
A water heavy chart is often read as deep, curious and adaptable, and sometimes hard to pin down. The tradition looks for earth to give the water banks and wood to give it somewhere to go.
Little or no water
Little water is common. The tradition reads it as a chart that acts more than it waits, and water years and people can bring calm and reflection. It is a detail to notice, never a verdict.
In Korean life
Black completes the five colors of 오방색 and appears in the five color garnish as strips of seaweed or mushroom. The north and black are tied in old cosmology to the black tortoise and snake (현무 hyeonmu), one of the four guardian animals painted on the walls of Goguryeo tombs.