申 holds three to five in the afternoon and, in the year, the start of autumn, where metal takes over and growing turns to gathering. It's yang metal: unworked ore, the axe, the blade.
So 申's action is severing and switching: separating what's mixed, replacing what isn't working. The tradition gives it the monkey, whose cleverness isn't frivolity but the personality version of the same function — seeing the structure means seeing where you can go round it.
Where 申 sits in a chart, that area needs method rather than force, and you tend to be the one for whom a different approach unlocks it. 申 is also a travelling horse, and it opposes 寅 exactly: one ignites, one gathers in. The tension in that pair usually shows up as whether to charge or to change tack.
