The kanji 巽 represents the southeast direction, one of the eight trigrams in the ancient Chinese philosophy of the *I Ching* (易経, *Eki-kyō*). It also symbolizes the wind or gentle, yielding nature. The character is associated with the season of late spring and early summer.

・On-yomi (音読み): ソン (*son*) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): たつみ (*tatsumi*) - This is the primary Japanese reading and refers to the southeast direction.

⚫︎巽（たつみ） Translation: Southeast ⚫︎巽（たつみ）の方角 Translation: The southeast direction ⚫︎巽風（そんぷう） Translation: Southeast wind

The kanji 巽 is a pictophonetic compound. The left side is a radical called 巳 (*mi*), which represents the snake, and the right side is the radical 共 (*kyō*), which gives the sound. 巳 on its own refers to the sixth of the twelve Earthly Branches, which corresponds to the hours between 9-11 am and also to the snake. The combination of the snake and the sound component suggests a sense of gentleness (the snake is often depicted as relatively docile in this context) and association with the southeast direction. Thus, 巽 originally meant the direction where the wind is gentle.