Hierarchy of symbols

Hierarchy of symbols or archetypes

The ultimate is Wu Ji, the great void, usually depicted as an empty circle. After that comes Tai Ji, the symbol of yang and yin turning around and eternally alternating.

Wu Ji

Tai Ji

			yang	yin
small yang			big yang	big yin	small yin
mountain son 3	water son 2	thunder son 1	heaven father	earth mother	wind daughter 1	fire daughter 2	lake daughter 3

This arrangement makes sense in regard to the colors: they are split in additive and subtractive colors. The additive colors refer to light and to heaven. Together they create white (white light). The subtractive ones to pigment and to earth, together they are black. See bigpattern-connie an excellent discourse about the colors of the trigrams and their meaning/logic. The single line in each trigram decides about its color (wave-length), its place and its gender. But the two other lines/colors together create this same color!
But why the trigrams have this place in the diagram is not very clear. Maybe that small yang is yin with yang added, and the left 3 trigrams are yin with one yang line added. Same, but yang with yin, for the other side.

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There are other arrangements possible. I have most connection with diagram 2. I think here the combination of the elements makes sense. Fire and wind belonging to heaven, water to earth. And the Chinese say that thunder comes out of the earth . . .

Diagram 2

Wu Ji

Tai Ji

			yang	yin
small yang		big yang		big yin		small yin
mountain	wind	fire	heaven	earth	water	thunder	lake

Another arrangement: here the outer lines come from a bigram, and the middle line is added.
In this arrangement the colors have some logic. At left the 'spiritual' half of the rainbow, and at right the 'life'-half. It make also sense in regard to the old meanings. Thunder comes 'out of the earth' for the ancient Chinese. Wind belongs to heaven. Lake is receiving (receiving water), so it is yin.
The bigrams make sense too: yang always has some yin inside and yin always some yang ('inside' is below).
One thing is different from the Chinese view: here cool is male and warm is female. Male as the blue, thinking, side of the rainbow, and female as the red, feeling, side maybe? Heaven blue and earth green and red? And yellow!

Diagram 3

Wu Ji

Tai Ji

			yang	yin
small yang		big yang		big yin		small yin
lake	thunder	fire	heaven	earth	water	wind	mountain

The difference with the arrangement 1 and 2 above: not

is small yang, but

. Small yang and yin are reversed, but nobody knows what is small (or young) yang and yin,

. I also searched Chinese books about small yang and yin, but they do not agree. Some say

is yin, others say it is yang. But according to Shao Yong (who made the Xiantian diagram), this

bigram is yang, and since he is an authority, I will stick to that one.
If

is small yang and

is small yin (diagram 3) thunder and lake are male and belong to heaven. Reversed (diagram 1, 2) they are female and belong to earth.
To me, the bigram

being yin seems to have more logic than

as yin. But looking at the colors: all warm colors on the yang side, all cool colors on the yin side!

In diagrams 2 and 3, the tangible things are on the outside, and the more one nears the center, the more intangible the symbols are.