Flames surge up fiercely and heat the earth, yet on the surface three great mountains stand unshaken, shoulder to shoulder. It looks like a parched furnace in which not a single streak of water gleams, yet the sturdy force that melts iron within it and grinds out a keen sword comes into view at a glance. You yourself may think you would rather dwell in a soft and tender heart, but the kernel your chart holds was born with the frame of a general, one who cannot rest until he leads a company and cuts open a way forward himself.
Long ago, in the western market of Chang'an in the days of Tang, I saw a man with an Earth Horse day pillar who was the very image of you. With the Tiger-Horse-Dog Fire Bureau formed at his foundation, he lived as a craftsman who smelted iron, but the flames were far too fierce, and the fine tools he held in his own hands would readily overheat and break. His skill was outstanding and he led the men of the marketplace, yet because of the heat that burned him within, he looked after others while failing to look after his own meals or his own tools, so that someone at his side always had to look after them for him.
Earth Horse — A General in a Poet's Robe
You are Yang Earth born in the Dog month, at the tail end of autumn, with Yang Earth in the year stem and the hour stem as well, so it is the figure of three vast mountain ranges filling the whole horizon. In the earthly branches Tiger wood, Dog earth, and two Horse fires interlock completely and establish the Tiger-Horse-Dog Fire Bureau, so this is an extremely strong chart in which the whole floor of the earth glows like a furnace. The Companion stars and Resource stars that support Earth take up eight tenths of the chart and are rooted firmly in the Dog earth of your month branch, so is not the force that opens a road on your own two feet, rather than leaning on others and hoping for a stroke of luck, driven into your very bones? On the outside you seek to hold people quietly and thoughtfully, but at the moment of decision the Sheep Blade and the General Star of your day branch will surge up, and there will flash the edge that draws the line with a single stroke and takes hold of the company.
The reason you are exceedingly attentive in looking after others and yet careless of your own belongings and well-being also lies in the force of this vast Fire and Earth. The embrace with which you hold people and responsibility outwardly is as broad as a mountain range, yet it is a structure in which the substance and care directed at yourself easily dry up and scatter. The Needle Star set side by side in your day branch and hour branch hones your thought to a keen edge and makes it bore into even the minute flaws that others do not see, so it also becomes a whip that drives you on without rest. In the grain of the disposition you chose for yourself, you wish for an endlessly gentle and ideal harmony, and yet the center of the chart you were born with carries the fate of a general, one who cannot rest until he grips a banner he cannot yield and faces the wind and rain alone.
This chart is a structure that can breathe only when the molten iron in the cauldron is drawn out and hardened into a solid vessel. It is a chart in sore need of a channel of release that pours outward the vast energy of fire and earth clotted within, that is, of the Expression stars, the energy of Metal. Writing words and carving sound into songs is not a matter of wringing out by force a metal that the chart does not have. It is the inevitable act of taking out the sharp chisel called Yin Metal, hidden whole within the Dog earth of your month branch, and carving the vast mountain range. The work of shaping sound and finely polishing lyrics is, in the end, the one means by which this chart breathes out the seething fire within it and governs that fire so that it does not turn to sickness.
Applied Element: Metal — The central function used for this chart.
Balance Element: Metal — Selected by comparing the Day Master with support, drain and control.
Climate Element: Climate function requires review — The supplied pillars leave the need for separate warming, cooling or moisture adjustment unconfirmed. Dry soil and Water supply are assessed separately, including possible dryness without strong heating. For reference, Qiong Tong Bao Jian names Yang Wood first and Yin Water next for Yang Earth born in this month.
Support Element: Water — Helps Metal expression lead to results.
Avoid Element: Fire — Fire blocks the needed Metal supply. Other support or mediation can change the burden.
You are the very type of the Companion Structure, one who stands in the seat of planning and creating the whole board alone, and yet whose energy doubles when he stands shoulder to shoulder with his fellows and leads the team. Only, there lies hidden in you a temperament that, in striving for perfection on your own, gets caught on a single pitch or a single bar and wears itself out, so hold the planning and the bones of the work yourself, but boldly hand the housekeeping and the practical tidying to the people beside you, and no trouble will come of it.
Yang Water, Dynamic Wealth, floats alone in the month stem, yet the three Yang Earths of the heavenly stems that surround it and the fierce Fire Bureau of the earthly branches dry its moisture to the bone, so the chart takes the shape of a crowd of Companions contending for a single Wealth star. This does not mean that there is no wealth. It means that this is a structure in which, the moment a stream of water comes in, it easily seeps into the dry earth or scatters into the shares of the people around you. Even if you write songs yourself, build up copyrights, and open a channel of great wealth, you have the grain of one who, rather than clutching it and locking it in his own hand, pours it unsparingly into feeding the household of his company and enlarging the board.
To share with your fellows the fruit you raised by your own strength is the way the soil grows fertile, but you must by all means avoid mixing money in a joint venture, or letting large sums pass back and forth on trust in a person without a clear contract. The moment the label on the money blurs, a scramble easily breaks out in the heap of dry earth, so it is only right that the fruit be set apart by document or system the instant it comes in. With this chart, if you chase after money itself to grasp it, the water dries up, but if you concentrate on honing your craft and your songs, which are your Expression stars, and divide the rights and shares that follow from them objectively, the storehouse is naturally kept. This month, first set a rule for putting your personal settlements and the fair distribution of rights clearly in order on record.
The Wealth star, which signifies your match, shows itself as the single Yang Water of the month stem, yet the whole chart is a sea of fire and parched earth, so it carries the energy of the Lonely Swan, in which it takes time for a clear spring to find a place to stay. Even when you are in love, work and responsibility and the weight of the company you keep at your side come first, so it is a structure in which pouring your heart wholly into a private bond is not easy. The Horse fire of your day branch holds the Sheep Blade and the Nurturer together in the spouse palace, so the one who comes to your side must likewise be a person of clear convictions, with something to learn from, for the two of you to respect each other and last long.
Rather than forcing yourself to sound out the other's heart or trying to keep a bond by gentle words alone, you are well matched with a person of broad embrace who can understand your busy life and the isolation of creating just as they are. When feelings surge, do not hurry to a conclusion, for only by keeping the objectivity that holds the temperature of a conversation steady can you avoid friction. The current of a late marriage runs strong, so do not strain to settle your place in haste, and it is wise to look first at whether this is a person with whom each can guard the other's independent world. From today, in talking with those close to you, take up one habit, that before you plant your own stubbornness you hear the other out to the end and answer one beat later.
Within the chart the forces of Wood, Fire, and Earth have reached their extreme, while the energies of Metal and Water are hidden or stand isolated and alone, so the balance is broken. When hot energy is pent up within, mental pressure and burnout, and the piling up of fatigue that comes as night and day are reversed, are bound to arrive first. That your energy strangely surges just when your body is in poor shape does not mean your stamina is good. It is the inner fire forcibly burning the body and drawing on it, so you must be on guard against this.
This leaning toward Fire and Earth shows symbolically that, in daily life, after excessive immersion you must always set aside time for cool rest, for replenishing water, and for calm loosening. If symptoms recur in which heat rises through your body, your chest feels tight, or you cannot sleep, do not put it down to your fortune but go without delay to medical professionals, have yourself examined, and seek their prescription.
This year, the Fire Horse year, is a year in which the Mystic comes in through the heavenly stem and the Nurturer through the earthly branch, and together with the Horse fires of your day branch and hour branch it forms the triple Horse self-punishment. Into a Tiger-Horse-Dog Fire Bureau that was fierce enough already, vast flames pour in once more, so it is a time when inner pressure and anguish pile up and you easily whip yourself as though wringing yourself dry. The forces of the Avoid Element come in doubled through your luck, so do not force open a new board or stretch your schedule too far, and the more important the decision, the more sorely you need the prudence to stop once more and review it.
Today, a Fire Dragon day, is a day when the energy of the Mystic and the force of the Crown stage interlock, and original thoughts and inspiration surge up strongly. Only, if you sink deep into a world of your own, your exchange with those around you may stiffen, so rather than pushing roughly ahead with the idea that has come to you, make it a day of sharing it calmly with the people beside you and refining it.
Passing through the Water Pig and Wood Rat luck cycles of your early years, you met the stream of water that cools the parched heat of the chart, polished your fundamentals, and finished your preparations to go out into the world. The Wood Ox luck cycle in which you now stay, from age 21 to 30 (November 2019 to November 2029), is a shape in which the discipline of Noble Authority stands on the surface and the Ox earth of the earthly branch comes in and absorbs part of the fierce flames, yet the weight of Earth is no small thing either, so it is a level season of tuning in which you must shoulder honor and endure the weight of responsibility.
The Fire Tiger luck cycle that follows, from age 31 to 40 (November 2029 to November 2039), brings in Tiger wood and Yang Fire once more and feeds the embers of the Avoid Element, so it is a stretch in which your fame and standing grow firmer still, yet you must guard to the utmost against the wearing down of your health and stamina. When you then reach the Fire Rabbit luck cycle, from age 41 to 50 (November 2039 to November 2049), you will at last carry on your work while keeping to your own orbit, on the footing of the stability of Noble Authority, so the crux is how well you firm up your inner substance amid the heat of your thirties.
You chose the perceiving type for yourself, and your chart likewise holds the flexible flow of Dynamic Wealth and the Mystic, so the place where you unfold your creative sense freely, bound by no frame, is both your inborn grain and a strength you may trust and use. The way you give yourself over to the inspiration of the moment, refuse the fashions set in a mold, and seek out your own style is something both lenses affirm.
On the other hand, while within you hold an endlessly warm and feeling ideal, because of the overwhelming Companion stars and the Sheep Blade of your chart, a firmness that draws lines coolly and strictly is at work alongside it whenever you lay out the board of real life. On the outside you wear the face of a gentle mediator, and yet in the moment of real action you make the decision, and these two figures naturally live together in one person. For a person of this type to use rightly the Vital Element, the Expression stars of Metal, you must not linger in vague sentiment but keep up the training of engraving your thoughts at once on paper as concrete notes, lyrics, and an ordered plan, and so giving them structure.
That craftsman of Chang'an I spoke of earlier could not govern the fire of his chart and lived burning his own body, but the world of today has offered a stage on which the fire within can be hammered out into the keen metal called music and content and made to ring in the hearts of countless people. In the old order it might have been seen as a rough force that cannot stay in one place, but in the world of today it is being put to use as the most precious of talents, a vast mountain range carving its own flesh to bring forth jewels.
First, for the remainder of this year, 2026, rather than increasing the amount of your work, concentrate on the inner substance of refining and putting in order the results you have already made.
Second, before 2027, the Fire Goat year, arrives, the contracts and the relations of rights inside and outside the team must, setting private affection aside, be clearly settled in formal documents without fail.
Third, within this year, set the lighting of your studio in order as a calm white light that is not too red, and place a metal clock or a structural object on your desk, and take it as the signal for settling your overheated thoughts each evening.
Fourth, in preparation for the Fire Tiger luck cycle that comes at 31, by next year you must without fail secure in your daily life regular sleep and a boundary of rest that can cool your tired body.
Some two to four weeks from now, if you are keeping to the end of the working hours you set for yourself, and a standard stands for dividing objectively the shares of those in your household, then you are on the right track.
In 2030, the Metal Dog year, when you turn thirty-one, the welcome energy of metal will shine in through the yearly luck, so you will meet a current in which the songs you have been polishing all this while are planted as firm banners upon the vast mountain range. Come to me again then, to look back on the road you chose for yourself while guarding the fruit you raised with your own hands. Do not burn your own flesh in the blazing fire, and do not forget the embrace of the cool rocky mountain.