The broad land of midsummer Yang Earth, holding the sunlight of high noon, lies spread out like a red plain. Under the blazing heat of the Horse month (around June), earth stands beside earth with shoulders locked, and its bearing is proud indeed, and hot. On the outside it wears the face of generous earth that takes others in, yet within it is the figure of one standing alone, having swallowed whole a fire that would melt even metal. Over that parched hill a single strand of Yin Water, thin as mist, just reaches, and this very thirst has been the fuel that kept you running outward without end.
Long ago, on a street of caravan inns in the days of the Yuan, I saw a woman who, like you, was born with the Earth Horse day pillar of a summer plain and who whetted a hard blade within. She crossed the borders back and forth buying goods, and even under a pressure like a great fire she never once let go of the ledger in her hand, yet in the end she could not draw the water in time, and for a while she barred the door of her inn and sighed, gazing out beyond the desert.
Earth Horse — A Valiant Woman Who Opens a Cool Waterway Through the Burning Land
Yang Earth born in the very middle of the Horse month is parched and hot, yet in the size of its vessel alone it is the figure of a land vast enough to cover the whole world. Your Day Master sits upon the fire of its Peak stage and has buried a root of Yin Earth deep in every branch, so in its structure it has taken on the grain of an exceedingly Strong chart. The Structure you were born with is the Sheep Blade Structure, which carries a keen mettle, so at each moment of crisis, when others draw back, your nerve and resolve in taking the blade in your own hand and stepping forward must be out of the ordinary. The Sheep Blade and the Needle Star lodged in your day branch give you a focus that bores into fine detail, yet at the same time they will also become a harsh measuring stick that pares away your own body.
To others you give as tenderly as spring sunlight and offer a warm smile, and yet there lies in you a stubbornness and a pride that will not readily open your own heart to anyone. In company you show the warmth of one who leads and soothes others, but on a night when you are left alone you swallow by yourself a chill solitude, as if you stood in the middle of a desert. You may easily take yourself for a gentle peacemaker, yet the true frame of your chart holds the nerve of a commander, one who cannot rest until she has planted her own banner rather than stay beneath anyone.
This chart is the vessel of one who leads, in its most typical form, shouldering every load alone and pulling it along. The Sheep Blade in your day branch is an energy that shines brightest where a blade is handled, or on an intense stage where every eye is gathered. As for the way you work, it lies closer to the road of a craftsman proven in practice, who takes her own body and voice as her tools and drives them to the limit until the work is whole, than to a life shut up inside pressing rules. An outlet that will cool the overflowing heat of Fire and Earth is sorely needed, so art and the stage, where feeling is let burst and expressed with the whole body, will be the most fitting workplace of all, the one that opens your very lifeline.
Only, the weight of the Resource stars is great and the fire is fierce, so once one thought begins to chase another, you are all too apt to sink into a mire of self-reproach, telling yourself you are not perfect, and to overwork your body. Within the six characters that are known, the energy of Metal does not show on the surface, yet the current of the Creative that has come in with your present luck cycle is opening the sluice of that expression wide. Rather than settling in the shade of an organization, it is on a stage where you yourself become the point of reference and lead that this fierce edge of the Sheep Blade will at last be used as a precious sword.
Applied Element: Water — The central function used for this chart.
Balance Element: Metal — Selected by comparing the Day Master with support, drain and control.
Climate Element: Water — Moderates heat and supplies moisture.
Support Element: Wood — Helps the Applied Element do its needed job.
Avoid Element: Fire — Watch conditions where Fire obstructs the Applied Element’s function.
Fire and Earth fill your chart and the strength of your Day Master is exceedingly thick, so you have a build that can carry the load, one that can take the chances and rewards that come in wholly into its own hands and hold firm. Yin Water, Steady Wealth, risen in your year stem, is the seed of substance built up in good faith, yet its figure is one that easily runs dry, pitted in weight against the fierce earth around it. Therefore, rather than chasing money into rash speculation or laying out some great venture, the fitting course is to keep your money with an eye to substance, guarding the worth of your contracts and of the gift that is yours alone, honed with your own body, and gathering it layer upon layer.
Though the Wealth stars may look weak, the strength of the earth is so solid that each time a cold stream of water reaches you in your luck, the rewards that had scattered will gather into one great current. If you only take care not to carry another's load in their place with a good-natured face, or to let the lines around money blur, there will be no fear of your share being taken from you by others. As for the rewards your work earns, do not strain to hold them in your hand and keep them turning. To bind them into documents or safe ground is the wisdom of keeping water in dry earth.
▸ Starting this month: do not leave the line items of your settlement statements and the share that remains wholly to someone else, and look them over with your own eyes.
The Authority stars, the stars of a spouse, do not show on the surface and lie quietly hidden in Yin Wood, a hidden stem of your year branch, so this is a chart in which the root of a bond goes down late and with care. In your day branch, the spouse palace, sits what is at once the Nurturer and the Sheep Blade, and the energy of the Lonely Swan lingers there too, so your grain is to feel at ease only when your own space and independence are firmly assured, rather than to live leaning on someone. A meeting that flares up rashly like a flame will easily burn you both, because of the heat within you, so a person deep and cool as a still lake will be drawn to you as your match.
The one who suits you is someone with a clear mind of their own who can still take in your overflowing energy without a word, someone supple as water and thoughtful in grain. The Horse-Horse self-punishment overlaps in your day branch, so the closer a person is, the more easily you let a trifling misunderstanding grow into hurt, or press your own standard upon them. When you respect each other's separate lives and build trust slowly, as friends do, the loneliness of the Lonely Swan too will at last turn into a gentle companionship.
▸ Starting today: when hurt rises in your heart, do not answer at once. Let the thought settle for a night, and then say it plainly.
Summer earth holds a double layer of flame, so you must take care with a constitution that runs to heat, in which the fluids of the whole body dry up and the energy is easily stirred. It is a structure in which, though you ordinarily race on with a stamina that knows no tiring, you may in one moment burn out from the inside and fall into deep exhaustion. The Needle Star overlaps in your day branch and your nerves are always on a keen edge, so even deep in the night stray thoughts may chase one another and your bed may give you no ease.
Though you blaze like fire when you are at work, what you sorely need is a rhythm in which, when you rest, you cool your body with the wholly cool energy of water. After the day's work is done, drink lukewarm water often, and after strenuous movement that leaves you drenched in sweat you must always set aside a time for cooling down. When you feel something amiss in your body, or a feeling of heat will not subside, do not put the words of a chart reading first, and go at once to a physician and be examined.
This year, the Fire Horse year, is a phase in which blazing fire pours in once again over parched ground, so its central themes are none other than 'pacing' and 'a cool head'. The Creative of the Metal Monkey luck cycle, which now spans ages 18 to 27, has come in and strives to unfold your talent, but this year's strong Fire heats that metal, so the pressure and impatience you feel at work may reach their height. The Horse fire of the year's fortune overlaps your day branch and forms the triple Horse self-punishment, so it is a time to refine your words and conduct once more, lest a trifling misunderstanding grow in your dealings with those around you.
Today, an Earth Horse day, is a day when the energies of Companion and Peak overlap, your stubbornness soars to its full height and you easily collide with those around you, so the fitting posture is to take a step back in all things and look on. On a day like today, rather than making an important decision or fixing a great engagement, you will do better to do your part silently in the place you have been given and avoid needless friction. Among the months left in this year, it is only in November, the Earth Pig month, that a cold stream of water will reach you and let you breathe, so until then refrain from overreaching expansion and firm up what is within.
Past the Earth Goat luck cycle of your early years, the Metal Monkey luck cycle you are now walking, from ages 18 to 27, is ten years of harsh tempering, in which you break through the hardened earth and pour your talent and skill outward. It is a level stretch in which help and caution are mixed half and half, yet it is a time of turning the heat you were born with into the keenness of metal, so a training that cuts to the bone comes with it. The Metal Rooster luck cycle that follows, from ages 28 to 37, is likewise ten years in which the blade of the Performer stands up, so you will stamp your name and your skill clearly before the world and go on widening your stage.
The great turning point of your life, and the prime in which the waterway opens wide, is the thirty years that run from the Water Dog luck cycle, from ages 38 to 47, through the Water Pig and Wood Rat luck cycles that follow it. A great sea of cold Dynamic Wealth and Steady Wealth wets the parched land, so the hardship through which you have honed yourself will at last return as vast substance and the recognition of the world. The roughness you now face is the work of building firm the embankment that will receive that great water, so do not be impatient, and give yourself to whetting your skill.
The grain of the ENFJ, which you picked out for yourself, is the figure of a tender guide who gathers those around her in warmth and leads people toward an ideal. The place where it meshes with your chart and points in one direction is the axis of judging (J), so in your sense of duty at least, which drives the standards and plans you set for yourself through to the end, the grain you were born with and the self you know agree exactly. In your chart, on the other hand, the earth of your Day Master and the Resource stars in your branches are far too strong, so a lean toward introversion (I), a sinking into the inner world, shows much more clearly.
From here comes the scene in which, on the outside, you offer others warm praise and lift the mood, while within you digest every thought alone and shut yourself up under strict control. Building on the carefulness of Steady Wealth and the insight of the Nurturer that your chart points to, you need the wisdom to lead people and yet keep a cool distance, so that the energy within you does not run dry. If you would use Water, your Vital Element, in the way that suits this type, then before you strain to meet people's expectations, walk alone by the water or sink into reflection, and listen first to the voice within you.
The woman of the Yuan caravan inn of whom I spoke earlier took her place at the very head of the caravan and crossed the desert only when, at the end of a long drought, she had at last found a new waterway leading to the Western Regions. Under the rule of the old world, the spirit of a woman who sits upon the Sheep Blade twofold in her day branch would have been called far too fierce, and they would have tried to shut her up behind the deep threshold of the inner quarters. But is not the world of today an age that buys that unbending nerve, and that strong mettle which takes command of a stage, as the costliest of jewels?
First, in your work, the aftermath of the fire lingers through 2027, the Fire Goat year, so rather than forcing a bold stroke of your own, give yourself to the training that fills out your skill without a gap, within the fence of your team.
Second, in your relationships, you should keep beside you level-headed, composed people who are not swept away by the rise and fall of feeling and who calmly point out the sense of a thing, and make of them a cushion that cools your own hot energy.
Third, in the place where you stay, keep small things of black or deep blue, and for ten minutes before you sleep lower every light and reflect in stillness, cooling the head that has grown hot through the day.
Fourth, to meet the strong waves of the Metal Rooster luck cycle that comes at 28, it will be right to lay the fundamentals of your voice and movement more firmly still during the present Metal Monkey luck cycle.
If you go on emptying out your thoughts in stillness each night, as I have proposed, then after two to four weeks or so the heart that was always hurried, as if pursued, will have grown much calmer, and room to steady your breath will have appeared.
The hour of your birth is not known, and I have traced the road by six characters alone, so the inner seat of your later years and the deeper grain will open in full only when the hour pillar is filled in.
I give you one word to keep sealed. In 2031, the Metal Pig year that is coming, a cold stream of water will wet the fierce fire and bring it into harmony, and the skill you carry will at last come to face the wide sea that is the world. When that time comes, the thirst within you will at last be quenched and you will set foot on a greater stage, so around then come and find me again, bringing the road you chose for yourself and the fruit you gathered.
The girl who wept before two closed doors has already passed, so walk your own road now, with the proud step of one who stands on the land by her own strength.
