Sunghoon's SajuMetal That Stepped Off the Ice to Stand Before FireK-POP · 2002-12-08

At the floor of a lake frozen hard through deep winter, one cool mass of metal lies sunk. Winter water pours down on you from every side and cools you, so that however hard and unshaken you look on the surface, like standing frost, within you are always trembling in search of warmth. You are one who has taken cold like ice on your own skin and built your strength from it, so where the caution and the cool silence you carry came from is plain at a glance from six characters alone.

Come, let us read your destiny through, and see how the spark moves that will melt this frozen ore and make of it a sword the world will use.

Metal Dog — Metal That Stepped Off the Ice to Stand Before Fire

You are hard metal buried heavy in a late-autumn mountain — the Metal Dog Day Pillar. Yang Metal, your day master, is by nature the energy of rock and steel, which must pass through the tempering of fire before it becomes a weapon the world can use; but the seat you were born into is the Rat month, a flood of deep winter, so you did not gain the energy of your season and lie frozen cold. Of the six characters shown on the surface, three are the cold energy of water, the Creative and the Performer, so the waves of thought and sense that circle within you are fierce beyond measure. The two Yang Waters of the Creative that rise side by side in the heavenly stems mean your talent and expression spring like a well that never dries, yet at the same time they strike against the Performer in your month branch and make endless doubt and perfectionism within.

With the chart self-weak and the Creative and Performer so overfull, however calm and expressionless you look to others, your head does not rest for a single moment. You said yourself that what you fear most is failure. The Mystic of the Dog earth where your Yang Metal takes root is by nature the soil of doubt and caution, and the keen-edged energy of the White Tiger and the Commanding Star are coiled there together — so the hard temperament that would sooner cut its own flesh with effort than show anyone a careless gap comes from here. On the surface you carry yourself quiet and courteous, but within crouches a beast that will not lose to anyone.

That your words will not come out of your mouth when you are tense, and only your body moves, shows the grain of your chart exactly. The Creative and the Performer, which govern speech and language in your chart, are frozen in the form of cold water, so your tongue stiffens while your head runs through a thousand censorings and calculations. Against that, the energy of the White Tiger and the heavy strength of the Dog earth in your day branch, which use the body's sense and space, move before thought does. So the words not coming is not because you lack something or are flawed — it is because the channel of the energy you were born with was built to break out through body and action before speech. There is no need to labour at becoming an orator. Your silence is not a flaw; it is the caution of a swordsman gripping the scabbard hard before he draws.

You were born with the chart of the Creative Formation, which takes the world with innate talent and sense. The Creative Formation is by nature the frame that receives a heaven-given blessing for creating and expressing through one's own body and hands. The Yang Water of the Creative that rises strongest in your chart is clear cold water, so it makes a fine line to the body, a flowing quality of movement, and a keen bodily sense no one else can imitate. That you spent half a lifetime on the ice, holding your body up on a single blade, is not unconnected to the temperament of the Creative, which throws this cold water energy out as the rhythm of the body.

But if only the energy of water overflows, that talent is no more than a shard of ice shut in a cold back room. What your chart needs most desperately is fire, and nothing else: the light that melts and refines the metal and warms the frozen water must come in before your talent takes the world's spotlight. The Noble Authority of the Horse in your year branch and the Dog earth of your day branch form a half-union and kindle the spark, so rather than remaining in a private art you are fated to be completed only upon a great organisation, a system, a splendid stage where the crowd's eyes gather.

You are closer to the master craftsman, the specialist who does his own part flawlessly inside a system of clear rule and frame, than to the freelance type who plans everything alone. The Mystic of the Dog earth in your day branch and the Noble Authority of the Horse in your year branch act as an anchor that binds you within severe training and rules, so however harsh the course of practice, you endure it in silence and draw out at last the highest level of skill. Even that compulsion of imagining failure over and over out of fear of it is converted, upon a stage, into flawless staging without a speck of dust and a suppleness close to acrobatics.

Only take care: when the energy of water grows too strong you fall easily into the swamp of self-reproach, gnawing at yourself over a single small mistake. The energy of wood, which turns your talent into something the world can buy and connects you outward, does not show in the six characters of your present chart — so rather than fretting over it alone, you must take the hand of your company's planning or a helper you can trust and let them set the direction, and no harm will come.

Look into the vessel for wealth in your chart and, within the six characters now shown, the energy of wood that means wealth does not appear on the surface. In this study some read that as the grain of a wealthless chart, but follow the flow of your destiny and you will see that in the Wood Tiger Great Fortune that began at twenty, both stem and branch have come pushing in wholly as the shape of a vast green tree, the Dynamic Wealth of wood. Greed and clinging over money are thin in your innate ground, yet a mighty wave of wealth comes in through your Great Fortune, so you carry a structure in which wealth swells of itself through the skill, the price of your name, and the value of your brand.

You are by no means the type to turn a quick trick and speculate, or to move chasing money. A chart with a strong Creative must ride the flow in which one hones one's talent and craft to perfection and sets it before the world, and the world, moved by the result, comes bearing money — only then can wealth be gathered most safely and most greatly. The Dog earth of your day branch is soil like a strongbox, so it also holds, more than a little, the tight-fisted temper that does not let money once in flow carelessly out again — yours is by no means a chart to be ruined by extravagance.

Long ago at the harbour of Lin'an under the Song I saw a young craftsman who carved fine jade with cold fingertips, just as you do. That man too had no greed for money and clung only to erasing a single flaw from his own fingertips, yet the great merchants, taken by that perfection, queued to press silk upon him and he came at last into a great fortune. It was the very model of a chart where skill itself becomes money.

Only, the management of wealth in your chart holds a middling capacity, so if you throw yourself directly into complicated investment, share disputes or the money-keeping of a joint venture, your nerves will break down before anything else under the severe strain. Concentrate on raising your expertise and the price of your name, but as for the cash in your hand, do not try to turn it yourself — changing it into safe assets at a trustworthy institution, or into bound documents, is the only way to stop the leak.

Starting this month: separate strictly the account your income enters from the account for daily spending, and build a system in which surplus funds are tied automatically into long-term savings or a safe trust you cannot lay a hand on.

You have laid the Mystic in your day branch and carry the White Tiger and the Artistic Star together, so you are one for whom it takes a very long time to open the door of the heart. On the surface you look calm and easy-going, but the standard by which you unbar your heart is exceedingly high and exacting, and you have a fastidiousness close to a fixation that lets no one at all inside your own ground. Within the six characters of your chart the energy of wood that means your bond has not yet come out into the open, so rather than a splendid meeting that brushes past, you are the type whose heart tilts slowly toward one with whom you have matched breath at your side over long time and built trust.

The Artistic Star seated in the spouse palace of your day branch means a match with whom you can share spiritual exchange and artistic depth. You will be bound deeply with one of a warm, earthen or wooden grain — mature within rather than splendid without, one who knows how to respect your time alone and can hold in silence the unease and tension you cannot speak. Because the Dog earth of your day branch is a seat that becomes a sure windbreak for Yang Metal, the bond you tie in days to come will be a person like a resting place where you may lay a tired body down, rather than one who shakes you in your feelings.

What you must watch for is the strange magnetism your Red Charm Star throws off when it joins with the cold energy of water. Because of the gap between the coolness of your expressionless face and the way it breaks open when you smile, the bonds that come to you will not be few even when you stand still — but if you cannot give your heart, the other feels you as a wall and is easily hurt. The habit of shutting your mouth when you grow tense or something wounds you becomes the greatest poison in a bond, breeding misunderstanding, so however clumsily, you must practise saying, "My thoughts are not in order just now, so I need a little time."

Starting today: when your heart is tangled or something has hurt you, do not shut your mouth at once — make it a habit to write down your state, if only in a single line, and give it to the other first.

In your chart the cold energy of water of deep winter is gathered in three, while the energy of wood that would mediate and shield it is lacking within the six characters shown, so the temperature balance of the five elements is tilted severely to one side. Further, the spark of the Horse fire in your year branch and the waterway of the Rat water in your month branch strike head-on in the shape of a Rat-Horse clash, so the collision of energy happens very keenly inside the body.

The most vulnerable seats are the liver and gallbladder from the absence of wood energy, and the optic and peripheral nerves. That you suffered in childhood with the sight of one eye also runs exactly along the same course as the pattern in this study, in which wood energy dried up wholly and the development of nerve and eye was delayed. Even now, if you overstrain or stress reaches its height, the eyes dry easily and dizziness or migraine comes, and muscular fatigue is not detoxified in the liver in time, so yours is a constitution that falls easily into chronic exhaustion.

One more thing to guard against is the overload on the cardiovascular and autonomic nervous systems from the Rat-Horse clash. When water and fire fight the fire is easily put out, so however well you endure dizziness on the surface, within you cannot help but see the recurring signs of a pounding chest, sudden unease, disturbed sleep, or hands and feet growing cold from poor circulation.

Bearing the pain and tension your body sends you by force of will alone is by no means a virtue. This is a bodily vulnerability arising because the energy of the chart leans to one side, so you must go to a physician and have eye examinations and tests of the cardiovascular and autonomic nervous function looked at carefully and regularly — only then can great harm be averted.

The Fire Horse year of 2026 becomes a very hot and vast turning point in your life. On a chart of ice, Yang Fire of the Fierce Authority beats down from heaven like the sun, and on the earth the Horse fire of your year branch and the Dog earth of your day branch meet this year's Horse fire to form a vast Tiger-Horse-Dog fire union and make a sea of flame. It is a year in which everything frozen melts away at once and your presence breaks out explosively into the world, so in career terms it is plainly the golden time to seize the highest achievement and honour.

But where the light is strong the shadow is deep. The Yang Wood of your Great Fortune and the Yang Fire of the year join hands and blow in a fair wind, yet on the other side the Rat-Horse clash goes off fiercely in the branches, two Horse fires ramming head-on into the Rat water of your month branch. And with the self-punishment of Horse meeting Horse laid on top, it is a form in which feeling runs easily to extremes, or you are exposed to burnout from an overloaded schedule, to sudden accident, to inflammatory illness. Blaze splendidly upon the stage, but when you come down from it a severe hollowness and exhaustion of strength can fall on you, so control of pace is the lifeline.

Today, the 23rd of August 2026, an Earth Snake day: it is a day of the Nurturer, bringing you the sure blessing of study and documents, and in the branch comes the warm Snake fire of the Fierce Authority, seated at Birth among the twelve stages, so the energy is very clear and auspicious. It is a day when help follows from elders, seniors and helpers you can trust, and a day when the charm you carry stands out unusually in people's eyes. On a day like this, do not shrink under needless worry; taking an active stance and showing the world boldly what you have prepared is the secret of drawing fortune to you.

The curve of your life takes the shape of a great-vessel-late-made sword, blooming vastly from your youth after the harsh tempering of your early years. By the six characters shown, the Water Ox Great Fortune of your teens (10 to 19) was the season of grinding a blade in frozen mud. Cold water and damp earth came pouring in, body and mind drew tight and hardship was much — but because those harsh years on the ice existed, your bone and muscle grew hard.

The stretch you are now passing through is the Wood Tiger Great Fortune, from 20 to 29 (2022 to 2031). Both stem and branch have come in as a vast tree of spring, and it is the season that supplies plentiful kindling to light a spark in your frozen chart. The talent of the Creative you hold is at last connected to great wealth and honour and stretches out powerfully into the world — you stand in the middle of a rising curve.

The Wood Rabbit Great Fortune that follows, from 30 to 39 (2032 to 2041), is likewise a season in which green flower and vine wrap the chart and the steady fruit of the Steady Wealth is borne, but with a union arising between the Rabbit wood and the Dog earth of your day branch, it will be a stretch in which environment and relationships are greatly rearranged. And when you enter the Fire Dragon Great Fortune from 40 to 49 (2042 to 2051), the sun rises high in heaven and your social standing and authority reach a firm summit.

Only, within this radiant flow there is a warning stretch you must carve into your chest: the three consecutive years of bitter cold that run from 2031 to 2033 (ages 29 to 31). This season, running through the Metal Pig year, the Water Rat year and the Water Ox year, is a time when cold water strikes head-on at the spark that holds your chart up, so if you press on with unwise independence, indiscriminate investment or overwork, the tower you built with care may be shaken. Run hard from now until 2030 and lay your ground, but through those three years as you enter your thirties you will have to hold your breath, build inner substance and take the defensive stance of guarding your body.

The personality type you entered is ISTJ, the thorough realist, but pick apart the Ten Gods and five elements of the chart you were born with and a most interesting gap is found between your inner heart and the pattern of behaviour hardened on the outside. Convert the Ten God energies within your chart into cognitive functions and, within you, the strength of the Creative (Fi), which holds its own particular feeling and subjective values most dear, is dominant, while the Noble Authority (Te), which governs the discipline and order of reality, and the function that accumulates experience are hidden far deeper than they appear.

And yet the reason you came to wear the mask of a perfectionist, thorough ISTJ is precisely that the harsh Water Ox Great Fortune of your teens and the White Tiger and Commanding Star energies of the Dog earth in your day branch forced strict discipline on you as a law of survival. To survive on ice where not a hair's breadth of error is permitted, you pressed down the rich sensitivity and artistic playfulness you were born with (Fi, Ne) and trained and fitted on, after the fact, a realistic sense and routine of thorough self-control (Si, Te).

In the chart, water — the Performer and the Creative — surges endlessly, craving fresh inspiration and free expression, while you yourself try to shut yourself inside a cautious, regular frame, so the tension within cannot help but reach its height. The reason you tense to the utmost before going on stage, imagining failure before you imagine doing well, is likewise that your true, feeling self and the perfectionist censor trained into you afterwards collide fiercely in your head.

As you pass the present Wood Tiger Great Fortune and cross into the Wood Rabbit Great Fortune of your thirties and ease enters your life, the rigid judging function (J) that grips you will grow gradually more supple, and the free artistic side that is truly yours — drawing on intuition and flexibility as the situation asks — will rise far more thickly to the surface.

First — People: keep beside you those who overflow with passion, who are honest in showing feeling and give off bright energy. A chart like yours, heavy with thought and strong in cold water energy, finds its frozen energy melting naturally when it is among visionary types or those built for the stage, who do not weigh every matter gravely but enjoy the present hotly. Merely warming yourself at the side-fire of the passion they throw off will settle the unease within you and bring back your vitality. This month, make a light meal gathering with bright, active people and share some warmth.

Second — Environment: stay in spaces where people's eyes and energy cross hotly — a stage lit splendidly in red light, broadcasting, a marketing floor. Conversely, staying long in a dark, damp basement practice room, by cold water, or in an isolated space where you sink into deep thought alone, freezes your chart colder, and must be avoided. Change the lighting of your workroom or your own room from daylight white to the orange light of warm incandescent tones, and keep the temperature of the room always mild.

Third — Action: make a routine of throwing yourself at things bodily and voicing feeling aloud before you calculate and censor with your head. When your mouth stiffens with tension, use abdominal breathing to draw the heat of your chest down into your belly, and just before you go on stage a short sharp shout, or laughing broadly at yourself in the mirror, is a sure remedy that wakes the frozen nerves. Make a daily habit of practising your voice, saying your inward heart aloud and honestly once a day.

Fourth — Symbols: the colours most beneficial to you are red and orange tones, and for direction the sunlit south is the way that revives your energy. If you use red or warm leather material in the lining of the clothes you wear daily, or your underclothes, or a small item you always carry, it will become an excellent shield against cold energy.

First, shake off cleanly now the regret that you left something behind on the ice. You did not leave anything on that ice — you were born as a sword of the world by grinding your own body upon that cold whetstone the rink was. That you did not weep when you gave up skating was because your unconscious already knew that the learning and tempering there were finished. Do not be bound to bonds gone by and stages past; take wholly as your own the splendid stage of fire spread before you now.

Second, do not try to be rid of the fear of mistakes — turn that fear and use it as a keen blade. A cold Yang Metal chart like yours brings out its most perfect concentration only when a fitting tension is present. Imagining a mistake is not cowardice but the process by which your brain senses danger in advance and draws a line of defence, so simply admit it calmly: "I am preparing myself to be perfect just now."

Third, do not doubt the hot fortune of honour pouring in through this year, 2026, and next year, 2027 — take it with your whole body. That at twenty-three you already feel you have done this a long time and grow weary is because you have used, compressed, two or three times the energy of others since your childhood. Now is not the time to stop or fall into doubt; it is the golden time to row while the tide is in and carve your name highest into the world.

Fourth, remember the three years of catching breath that will begin in the Metal Pig year of 2031, and until then learn control of pace in stamina and in mind so you do not wear out. Even within this year's explosively blazing schedule, you must secure without fail a still rest of just thirty minutes a day, drinking warm tea and emptying your brain wholly — only then can you avoid the trap of burnout.

Having passed the frozen lake and come at last to stand before a blazing furnace, nothing remains for you now but to shine splendidly, with no fear of rust.

For the chart of a young man of twenty-three the weight of years passed has been by no means light, but because that cool endurance existed, the firm you of today stands here.

The hour of your birth is still veiled in darkness, so the deeper storehouse of your later years and the bond of children could not all be opened; yet from what the six characters shown point toward alone, the great road already lies open and bright.

Warm your body well, and trusting the frost-edged blade within you, walk out boldly onto the stage.

Beside a steel sword forged at the frozen riverbed of deep winter, red sunlight and dew that wet the grass on a midsummer morning have sat down facing it. A cold that flays the skin and a heat that blazes to breathlessness have met in one seat, so from the first breath they shake each other's air violently.

Neither knowing the hour of birth, examining only the six characters shown: on the surface water and fire strike and a ring of metal sounds, while within, the grain of a bond so deep it melts the very joints of the bone to hold the other is distinct.

the scene that unfolds when two day pillars first meet

You are the Metal Dog Day Pillar, a hard rock mountain set heavy upon frozen ground and holding the grain of a keen blade; the partner is the Water Rabbit Day Pillar, like morning dew gathered on a soft blade of grass opened under warm early-summer light. You are bound in the mutual-generating flow of metal giving birth to water, so on the face of it you seem to hold and shield her, while in truth it is a romance that begins with her bouncing, springing energy melting your frozen stage.

When first your eyes met you would have been taken by her unhesitating vitality and bright laugh, and she would have felt in the unshaken weight and the deep gaze you carry a security found nowhere else in the world. Because the metal energy of your day master and the Yang Wood of her month stem strike against each other, the way you work and the first words that begin a conversation were apt to grate. Your caution, which has trodden a set road in silence, met her freedom, which cuts a road wherever her heart touches — how could it not have felt strange?

When your rational bearing, which presses down the cold energy of your chart, meets her intuitive and emotional temperament, you would have found your breath caught at her unplanned stride while she fretted at your cool silence. But because this meeting is a bond drawn together as if by necessity to fill each other's missing season, it was a first impression like a fierce magnet — colliding, yet unable to take the eyes away.

how day branches, hidden stems and the unions bind underneath

Look into the spouse seat that governs the inward heart and the private space of the two, and the Dog earth of your day branch and the Rabbit wood of hers are firmly entangled in a Rabbit-Dog six-union. The reason you bicker over matching schedules and then, the moment you sit alone facing each other, take a hand or touch skin and words fail while the heart loosens deeply — that is this day-branch union.

Look deeper into the hidden stems and the Yin Fire energy concealed in your heart and the Yin Wood energy of hers are secretly kindling a fire at the very floor. Out in the world that shows, misunderstanding may arise from speaking in different tongues, but the breath shared in the night that belongs to the two of you alone matches with an uncommon closeness and tenderness.

Where the Horse fire of your year branch and the Dog earth of your day branch weave a half-union of fire, her hot summer energy interlocks, so the temperature where your skin meets takes the shape of an embrace warm enough to melt cold and more. Do not be deceived by the waves that rise on the surface. The two of you are already bound fast, bone against bone, in the innermost room within.

the structure by which each fills what the other lacks

Examine the lifeline that holds a chart up and the true worth of this compatibility shows itself at last. You are keen-edged metal of the Rat month of deep winter, so your whole chart lies frozen hard, and yours is a thirsting chart that desperately needs warm fire to melt the ice. Now look at her chart. She was born holding two hot summer fires, the Snake and the Horse, so she is the very benefactor who, the moment she saw you, pours out without stinting the warmth to thaw your frozen body.

Conversely her chart was born in the parched, hot season of early summer and is in a plight where a single drop of water is longed for, while in your chart three great waterways wind — the Yang Waters and the Rat water. When she is scorched dry and worn by the heat, the deep spring you hold wets her throat and breathes life into her.

When long ago at an inn in Dadu under the Yuan I saw the bond of a certain musician and a dancer who breathed each other's missing breath, it was exactly like this. One could not pluck the string for cold hands and the other had stopped dancing for thirst, yet when the two stood together the sound of song did not cease all night. The two of you hold each other's very windpipe, so it is a structure in which merely staying near revives each one's fortune and washes away the weariness of living in the world.

who pushes and who holds

Weigh the mass of the energy and both you and she have barely taken root in the day branch, having your strength drawn off by the season of birth and the surrounding characters, so both bear weakened charts. That is to say, neither of you has the iron stamina or energy to hoist the other on your back like a great man and carry them a whole life.

Because both stand self-weak, when some small conflict breaks out the margin to prop each other up runs dry all too easily. If, when you come down from a stage with every nerve on end and are worn to nothing, she too is worn by the swing of her feelings, both of you fall into exhaustion in the same seat and neither can put a hand out first.

This is not a combination where either may take the reins and shake them one-sidedly. When you have no strength left to hold on she must step back a pace, and when she is shaken you must offer your back in silence and take the load by turns — only so can you walk long without breaking.

the match of energy levels

Look at your innate rhythm and the flow of energy: you sit in the seat of Decline among the twelve stages, and she sits in the seat of Birth. Seated at Decline, you are deep within for your years, and like a seasoned general who has been through every trial, the wisdom of caution in all things and of sparing your energy is settled into your body. The caution that makes you knock ten times even on a stone bridge for fear of failure comes precisely from here.

Seated at Birth, by contrast, she overflows with curiosity like a child newly come into the world, and holds a vigour that moves on impulse, following the spark of whatever feeling rises that day. So in their attitude to appointments and schedules, you have already laid out three steps ahead in your head while she changes course by the mood of the moment she goes out the door — your breath cannot help but catch.

But had that innocent flame of Birth in her not existed, you, staying in the seat of Decline, would have been shut inside a high wall of your own making and hardened without limit. When her quick-witted beginnings and your persistent finishing join hands, a dream that scatters easily comes at last into a solid form.

the dynamics of Ten God compatibility

Hold the two charts up to the measure of the Ten Gods that decides the grain of a romance, and the wood energy of Wealth, which shakes your heart as the one you are drawn to, she holds wholly in the Yang Wood of her month stem and the Rabbit wood of her day branch. In your eyes she has come and lodged as a magnetic lover you gaze at helplessly, one you wish to possess and to look after merely by watching her.

As for what you are to her: to her Yin Water day master you are a rock mountain of the Seal that helps a clear spring well up, and the Dog earth you hold in your day branch works as the seat of the husband, a fence that shields her surely. Only before your cool weight does she at last set down the clamour of the world and find a slope to lean on.

Only, in her chart the free-spirited star of expression, the Performer, is strongly revealed, so she pours out whatever word comes to mind unfiltered, while you build a wall of the Fierce Authority and the Seal, holding thought and unease inside in silence. She mistakes your silence for a refusal from a cooled heart and stamps her feet, and you feel her pouring feeling as a pressure binding you and shut your mouth the harder — so a vicious circle arises.

You must be the first to notice that her urging is not to blame you but comes of unease, of wanting to be assured where your heart lies.

the charm codes laid upon the relationship

Survey the landscape of the stars: you were born holding the White Tiger and the Commanding Star — a charisma like blue-white frost — together with the Artistic Star, which means solitary artistry. You are one from whom a cool dignity and weight pour out that is hard to approach even when you merely stand still. She, by contrast, holds the Peach Blossom of the Horse fire and the Heavenly Noble Star, and is a woman like a spring breeze who catches people's eyes wherever she goes and lights up her surroundings with a sociable laugh.

Your heavy, still shade becomes the ground that makes her splendid Peach Blossom stand out the more, and her glittering charm becomes the lamp that lights the dark, lonely corners of your chart. This contrast of charm, in which each fills the other's lack, makes the two of you appear to the world's eyes as a pair matched beyond compare.

There will be times when a possessiveness or unease within you lifts its head at the sight of her surrounded by people and laughing brightly, but do not forget that the only seat she comes back to at last and finds rest in is your own weighted chest.

Void, resentment, clash and harm

The sparks that fly when the two charts strike are no small thing either, so this passage you must carve deep into your chest. The Rat water of your month branch and the Horse fire of her month branch lie in a Rat-Horse clash, ramming head-on. The month branch means the rhythm of social life and the range of action that shows on the surface, so with these two characters colliding, discord sounds over every small thing in the way you fix appointments and work through a day.

Here too her Rabbit wood day branch has come down precisely upon the Void that stands empty in your chart, so when weariness reaches its height a hollowness washes in as though the person plainly at your side cannot be grasped, and you take even a small word askance and fall alone into the swamp of thought, growing your grievance.

In particular, from 2026 through 2029 you are passing a stretch in which the Tiger wood of your Great Fortune and the Monkey metal of hers clash greatly, a Great Fortune branch clash. It is a season when great change and pressure press in upon each one's workplace and surroundings, so if you cannot give your whole attention to each other, be warned that in the Earth Rooster year of 2029 her day branch and the year's energy will collide and the groove of conflict may deepen.

Yet this clash and this Void do not exist to drive you apart; they are heaven's whip, telling you to acknowledge each other's difference and take it as the ground of growth. Metal is completed as a famous sword of the world only after it has been struck by hot fire and cold water in turn and beaten without number — so if you take this collision as the process of tempering each other, you will gain a bond like iron that no storm can break.

how this relationship should be handled

Read the fortune ahead and the stretch from 2026 to 2029 that you are now passing is a crisis in which important leaps and responsibilities are laid on each of you, so rather than staking everything on each other and clinging, this is a time that needs the distance of guarding each other's stage. Pass this crisis wisely and in the Metal Dog year of 2030 her day branch and the year's energy will come into harmony and the bond of the two will deepen a step further; and when you reach the Earth Dog Great Fortune of 2040, the fortunes of the two will merge into one and meet a great fruition. Let me now set out for you the practice you need.

1) Best timing for meeting
- The seasons in which the energy of the two loosens harmoniously are spring and early summer, when the warmth of wood and fire revives (roughly March through June).
- By year, 2030 and 2031, when the friction of your Great Fortunes subsides and an air of harmony settles, are the best times to make the bond certain and plan a future.

2) Best place and setting
- So that the cold metal and the hot fire may both be governed, a calm space under soft lighting, a garden where water and green trees are set together, or a resort with hot springs suits you.
- Rather than the middle of a noisy, crowded city, a quiet lodging or gallery on the outskirts where you can give yourselves wholly to talking alone will open the blocked energy.

3) Best frequency
- Yours is a structure in which, stuck together every day, your weakened energies discharge and you collide over trifles.
- Meet densely once or twice a week, and on the days you do not meet, immerse yourselves in your own work and training and keep your own breath — this 'suitable distance' is the secret of holding the bond long.

4) Ways of speaking
- When thought grows heavy and your silence lengthens, do not bar your mouth; you must without fail offer the one buffering line: "I am not angry — let me sort out just ten things and I will tell you in ten minutes."
- When she pours out feeling, put away the logical blade that weighs right and wrong, come close without a word, hold her hand tight and show first the look that says, "I am listening, and I understand your heart."

5) Situations to avoid
- In the late hours of night, when either of you is short of sleep or grown raw from work, never open an important conversation or an adjustment of schedules.
- In 2029 especially, when the clash of Great Fortunes works strongly, you must strictly refrain from quarrels that drive a small delay or a missed schedule into an accusation of betrayal.

Never do:
- Do not brand her spontaneity as 'irresponsibility' and try to control it.
- Do not hide your silence behind the excuse of 'caution' and leave her neglected.

Always keep:
- On a date, let you fix only 'one certain appointment', and leave the details within it blank for her to fill.
- When fear washes in before you go on stage, make a ritual of your own two: take her hand and be charged with that warm fire energy.

The two of you met as a frozen blade and warm spring sunlight, a precious bond that will temper and melt each other a whole life long. In your chart there remain the hidden vessel of the hour pillar, not yet unfolded, and the concrete means of crossing the great crisis of 2029 — so when you come to that turn of the road, come back and I shall light that road the rest of the way for you.