It is the figure of one who holds the hard earth of early summer, when the flames leap high, and yet keeps cold groundwater hidden within that embrace. On the outside you seem a broad land that always speaks cheerfully and draws people to it, yet what comes before my eyes is the fate of a man who, beneath all that, wanders alone and in secret in search of a deep spring to cool the heat. Before the hot flames bake the soil bone dry, a cool channel of water must be led in to wet the ground, and so the louder the world's cheering grows, the more you lock the deep storehouse of your heart and long for a cool rest that is yours alone, which is by no means because you are frail but is, you might say, the sound of breathing that this inborn grain makes in order to live.
Long ago, in the marketplace of Samarkand on the Silk Road, I once saw a gifted performer who, like you, bore a day pillar of dry earth and carried the full blaze of summer on his back. On the market ground, where the camel bells rang, he held every soul spellbound with feats of every kind and his gift for telling tales, and piled up silver coins like a mountain, yet whenever the splendid curtain fell he would crouch alone beside a deep well in the blowing sand and wet his throat the whole night through. Fearing that once he had burned up all the fire within him only a husk would be left to crumble, he turned over plans to flee beyond the desert for good, and not knowing how to put that fire out, there were times when in the end he barred the door of his tent and let the years slip by.
Earth Snake — Gold in Volcanic Earth, the Strategist Burning with Thirst
You were born as the Earth Snake day pillar, the rich soil of the Snake month in early summer, and yours is a strong chart, in which Yin Earth, your Day Master, has gained the energy of its own season and, leaning on the Yang Earth held within the Snake fire of your day branch and month branch, has put down firm roots. You have the embrace of the Nurturer Structure, in which the energy of Fire banks the earth up thick, so you are warm-hearted by nature, your power to care for others and to digest what you have learned and make it your own is out of the ordinary, and with Yang Fire in your year stem standing high as well, it is a structure that easily wins for itself all the fondness of the elders around you and of the world. You may easily take yourself for a temperament that pours itself outward in high spirits, yet the deep seat of your chart carries the weight of inwardness and reflection, and Rat water, Dynamic Wealth, in your year branch sits as the Heavenly Noble, so you hold the blessing of an unseen hand that reaches you at every moment of crisis.
Yet of the six characters that are known, as many as three are Fire, one upon another, so the ground easily grows parched and heated to the extreme, and alongside all this sits a ferocity that, once your will to win has caught fire, cannot stop until you have ground the whole of yourself into it. The Robbery Star rests side by side in your day branch and month branch, so the dislike of losing to anyone, and the guard you raise against having what is yours trespassed upon, are bound to shoot up with a singular sharpness. That you race on to the very end and then at some moment sink down, as if the power cord had been pulled, is not because you have used yourself wrongly but is no more than the natural recoil that comes when too great a fire boils the moisture away in a single breath.
The power of the Nurturer, which learns and masters, holds command of your month branch, so you have an outstanding artistic skill, that of not merely memorizing a script or a technique with the head but swallowing it whole with the senses and cells of your entire body and making it your own. Yang Metal, the Performer, concealed among your hidden stems, serves as the outlet that draws your talent outward, so rather than moving only within a set frame, that explosive force is doubled in action where you throw your body in, or in a place where feeling at its extreme is expressed. Far more than the lot of a trader who bears every burden alone, a stage of shared work suits you, where you unfold your talent with a system and dependable colleagues at your back, and even if you go into business, the fitting form is one that puts the trust you carry and your own emblem at the front, rather than risky speculation in which you roll capital about on your own.
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: Metal — Helps the Applied Element do its needed job.
Avoid Element: Earth — Earth blocks the needed Water supply. Other support or mediation can change the burden.
The production company you run together with your younger brothers, and the non-alcoholic drinks business, can become a good outlet that wets the dry earth within you and gathers people, yet to stand at the front and hold the hilt of the finances does not suit you. You must stay, to the last, in the seat of the one who points the direction and serves as the face, and only by leaving the actual reckoning and the settling of accounts to someone who carries the cool energy of Metal and Water will you be able to keep discord out of the partnership. Your honor rises higher still in a place where you share what you have learned and look after the weak, so even when you take a hand in producing, fortune will follow when you take up a project that holds human warmth, rather than chasing commercial gain alone.
In your chart, upon a strong foundation, Yin Water, Dynamic Wealth, in your month stem stands revealed with a sturdy root in the Rat water of your year branch, so it has the structure that can carry the Wealth stars, in which you are well able to grasp by your own strength the chances and the money that come in. Wealth is like running water, and yours has the figure of Dynamic Wealth, which does not sit quietly tied up but comes in as the board grows larger and you become bound up with people, which is why from your young days you tasted great achievement and gathered wealth far faster than others. Yet the Rivals within the Snake fire of your day branch and month branch are always close by, keenly watching for their chance, so there also lurks the danger that your share will leak away because you could not coldly refuse another's request, or trusted someone further than was wise.
To chase money by speculating, or to plunge into complicated financial dealings, is like pouring muddy water onto dry earth, so it is a road to keep away from. Your wealth is kept most safely when it flows in honestly, strictly through your own talent and standing and through the drops of sweat you have poured out on a proven stage. To keep the waterway from running dry, each time large money comes in, tie it up within an arrangement you can trust, and let a set portion flow out through the public good or a family foundation, for that, rather, will be the secret of keeping your own share whole. This month, without leaning on feeling, go over once more, in objective documents, the partnership contracts you have with those around you whom you trust, and the limits on how funds are paid out.
In this chart the character that signifies a mate is Yin Water, Dynamic Wealth, like the water of life that wets the parched land, and Rat water, which holds a cold, deep wisdom, serves as its root. For you, who are apt to suffer alone and in silence amid the blazing flames, it is a structure in which an intelligent and composed person, one who looks on a situation calmly with cool reason and holds the center of your life steady, becomes a bond precious beyond measure. The Rat water of your year branch is also the seat of the Heavenly Noble for you, so the spouse to whom you have pledged your whole life is bound to be more than a lover, the hardest shield of all, guarding you from the storms of a rough world.
The energy of the Authority stars, which signify children, does not show itself within the six characters that are known, yet in the flow of the years now approaching that place is slowly opening. The thought that once a child comes you will give up films and quietly disappear must express how desperately you wish to make your home your refuge and put out the fire within you, yet to live wholly hidden away is, given the overflowing energy of this chart, close to impossible. To found a family and become a father will give you a steadiness and a shade beyond compare, yet as the land brings up its shoots, you will come to live keeping the balance, without letting go of your own harvest in the world either. From today, do not strive to shoulder every responsibility in the home yourself, and begin the practice of leaning wholly on your mate's cool counsel and sharing the decisions.
Your whole birth chart is wrapped in the hot breath of early summer, so when your energy surges you run on, night and day alike, with a fearsome concentration, and then at some moment the vital fluids of body and mind are all too likely to dry right up. For Yin Earth is by nature a soil that must be moist and soft before it can raise every kind of plant and tree, and when the Fire grows too fierce it sets hard, like a kiln that fires pottery, and loses its suppleness. The burnout you went through, and the severe pressure upon your mind, were no matter of laziness but the natural sign that appears when the moisture within has run out and the flow of your energy has abruptly stiffened.
When the heat climbs to the crown of your head, do not force yourself into a contest and try to win, for what you sorely need is the everyday wisdom of going out to walk by the water, or taking the cold wind, and letting your energy settle. In giving up drink you stopped by your own hand the act of pouring oil on the flames in your chart, so it was a truly fine choice, in keeping with the principles of saju. When the weariness of your body piles up or your head grows heavy, do not bear it alone, suffering in silence, and do not forget to seek out a specialist physician you can trust, receive an objective diagnosis, and have your cycle of rest strictly prescribed.
This year, 2026, the Fire Horse year, is a year in which the whole of the year's fortune is covered with the fierce energy of Fire, and the Resource stars, which give birth to your Day Master, press in layer upon layer, so it is a time when your harvest in the outer world and the worth of your name rise as if to pierce the sky. Yet this vast force of Fire sets off the Rat-Horse Clash, ramming head-on into the Rat water of your year branch, your one lifeline, so that even as dazzling success and blessings pour down on the outside, a headwind blows along with them, in which your nerves stand on edge within and an extreme unease comes creeping up. That a sudden fear grips you all the more, the better things go, is because the energy of Water, which served as the counterweight of your chart, is overwhelmed by the flames and stands in danger of boiling away, so it can be called an entirely natural movement of the mind.
Today, October 12, 2026, is an Earth Goat day, a day when the energy of Earth, the Avoid Element that weighs on you, is full above and below, and the weight of the day's pillar is very heavy. Weariness easily builds up in your dealings with colleagues and those around you, and in trying to control everything by your own strength a needless stubbornness may spring out, so the best course is to avoid large decisions and a schedule beyond your strength. This month above all, the Earth Dog month (until November 7), is a month for care, in which parched earth is doubled and presses Water harder still, so cut back your outside activity somewhat, pass through November, the Earth Pig month, and only when you reach December, the Metal Rat month, when the cool waterway fills, let yourself breathe freely and set your hand to new work.
Looking over the flow of your luck cycles, the Wood Horse and Wood Goat luck cycles, which ran from age 1 to 20, were a weary tunnel of training, in which parched earth and flame overlapped and from a young age you had to run up against the discipline of a rough world and temper your body harshly. The Fire Monkey luck cycle in which you now stand, from ages 21 to 30 (June 2017 to June 2027), has been a stretch where light and shadow cross, with the hot flame of the heavenly stem and the cool Metal energy of the earthly branch mingled, in which you won explosive fame and yet had to go through, in full, the inner pangs that came with it. From June 2027, the point at which you turn 31, you pass into the Fire Rooster luck cycle (ages 31 to 40), and at last the clear Metal energy of the Creative is laid beneath your feet, so you will meet a tranquil season in which, without gnawing yourself away, you release your talent into the world in a far more polished and steady manner.
The Earth Dog luck cycle that follows, from ages 41 to 50 (June 2037 to June 2047), is 10 years of caution, in which a mighty heap of Rival earth comes crowding in and you must guard against rivalry and the loss of wealth, so that will be the most fitting time to leave the camera at last for a while and bury yourself deep in your home, or take up a golf club, step back a pace, and make firm what is within. After that, passing through the Earth Pig luck cycle, from ages 51 to 60 (June 2047 to June 2057), you reach the Metal Rat luck cycle, from ages 61 to 70 (June 2057 to June 2067), and there at last you meet a season of great good fortune, when the coolest stream of water in your whole life pours down, so the further you go into old age the more the depth and ease of your life will ripen, and you will be revered as a great elder who leads those who come after you.
Within the grain of the ENFP, which you have named as the frame through which you understand yourself, the leaning of F, which fathoms another's pain deeply and draws near with warm feeling, agrees perfectly with the warmth held by the Nurturer in your chart, and so becomes a weapon without peer, one that disarms people's hearts. By contrast, unlike the look of extraversion, E, which on the outside pours its energy outward in high spirits, the true ground of your chart leans deeply toward introversion, I, so you come to live with a doubleness, showing yourself endlessly bright and talkative before people, and then, the moment you shut the door and step inside, being racked by a terrible emptiness and solitude, as if your outer shell had been stripped away.
Amid the crossing of S and N, which moves between sensing and intuition, the bearing of P, which would set things going on the spur of the moment, and the energy of J, the careful judgment your chart demands, are forever pulling against each other in a tug-of-war within you. To make the most of this inborn leaning and draw on the Water energy that is your Vital Element, you must form the habit of not pouring out in words, there and then, all the many inspirations and ideas that rise in you, and of letting them steep each night in a diary or in quiet notes. If you learn to breathe with the world as a lively campaigner while keeping a cold bolt drawn across the study within, then in the Fire Rooster luck cycle of your thirties, now approaching, you will be able to stand tall as an artist of far greater depth, one who does not waver.
That performer who showed his feats in the marketplace of Samarkand a thousand years ago was also born with a gift like flame, yet within the order of those days he found no way to step off the stage and let his soul rest whole, and so in the end he barred the door himself and hid away in silence. The old order was bent only on exploiting a person's gift without end and using it up, but the world of today is an age that honors a weary soul for coming to a stop of its own accord, tending its own tastes and raising a brand of its own, so you hold in your hand the power to live tuning your own rhythm, with no need to hide as though in flight.
First, in the matter of work and business, until you pass into the Fire Rooster luck cycle in the summer of 2027, hold back from any expansion beyond your strength and from investing capital, and give your mind to putting in sound order the workings of the production company and the drinks business you have already set going.
Second, in the matter of relationships, count the shade of your wife and your old friends, who cool your heat, as your most precious place of rest, and know that this is a time to cut off firmly the ties of parched earth around you that urge investment on you with sweet words or come asking for a partnership.
Third, in the matter of body and mind, for what remains of this year you must cool your burning brain with walks by the water or reading in a quiet study, in place of fierce contests that goad your urge to compete.
Fourth, to cross the rough waves of the Earth Dog luck cycle that awaits in your forties, during your thirties tie up assets of real substance in secure documents, and lay firmly the practical ground on which you can, whenever the need comes, leave the film world for a while and stay at home.
If, two to four weeks from now, the nights grow more frequent on which you put your smartphone far away before going to bed and calmly steady your breath in a dark room, you may take that as the sign that the heat within has at last settled and you have entered on the right road.
Dear one, that unease of yours, which would have you stop in time and draw water for the soul rather than grow drunk on the world's applause and burn yourself wholly to ash, is in truth a precious and clever shield.
I will seal away one appointed time for you, so when 2029, the Earth Rooster year, comes round, take these words out and look at them again. That is a year when cool, hard Metal energy pushes the stream of water in your birth chart strongly upward and wets the dry earth into richness, so it will become very easy to settle into place a new role or a shape of life entirely of the kind you want, without watching the world's face. Then look back with care on whether you have found true peace of heart, not as the slave of your work but as the master of your life, and come to me again, carrying the choices you made for yourself around that time and the calm you hold in your hand.
Since the hour of your birth is not fully known, there remains the regret that I could not lay open, one by one, your children palace and the far twilight seat of your life, so if on some later day you come to hold the secret of that hour, it would be well to come again then and open the places left unread. Pray do not be swayed by the loud noise of the world, and walk your own road with your head high, guarding with care that cool, clear spring that is yours alone.