Let me see now... (I lower the volume of the old record a touch, and through the gently rising white-sandalwood smoke, I quietly fix my gaze on your chart.)
It is a night when autumn frost falls cold. All around is still and chill, deep in the heart of the Rooster month (酉月, autumn), and a colossal mountain of rock rises tall, glowing gold in the moonlight. At the foot of that mountain, a yellow dragon of the earth (黃龍, 戊辰), holding wind and rain within itself, crouches with its breath held. When I look at your chart, the image that comes to me is exactly this — a solitary dragon dancing a sharp and beautiful dance in secret, taking the frost upon its whole body in the cold night air. On the outside you seem as heavy and unshakable as a great mountain, but inside you, sharp pieces of metal strike against one another, and their exquisite sounds ring out without end.
Yours is a grain that is singular, perilous, and at the same time savagely beautiful. Come, sit a little closer by the brazier. I shall unravel for you, one by one, the secret of this heavy mountain of rock you were born to, and the keen blade hidden within it.
Earth Dragon (戊辰) — A cold mountain of rock with no sun carves the veins of ore within and casts light upon the world
"Even as you flit about like a butterfly of a thousand colors on the surface, the framework at your core is a heavy mountain of rock"
You were born an Earth Dragon (戊辰) Day Master, holding the year pillar Earth Rabbit (己卯), the month stem Yin Water (癸), and the day branch Dragon (辰). In the landscape of these eight characters, the first thing that catches the eye is the sheer vastness of your Day Master Yang Earth (戊) and your day branch Dragon (辰), which hold your center in place.
The Earth Dragon (戊辰) is often called the 'dragon dwelling in the mountain' or the 'yellow dragon.' The energy of earth is piled layer upon layer, making it firm and dependable. A steadfastness and ambition that will not so much as blink at any ordinary wind form the very skeleton of your soul. But your true essence lies in the keen blade buried within that heavy earth. Your formation is the Performer Formation (傷官格). And not just any — it is a Performer Formation born grasping the sharpest, purest Metal (金) energy of autumn.
What is the Performer Formation? It is the personality code of the 'free-roaming master' who shatters the frame of system and rule and shakes the world with an artistic sensibility and originality all their own. Your month branch Rooster Metal (酉) — the Performer (傷官) — becomes the most powerful channel through which your Day Master's enormous energy pours outward. So although on the surface you look like a dependable, taciturn young man, within you carry, at one and the same time, a temperament more sensitive and delicate than anyone's, a rebellious streak that would rather die than be caged in established frames, and a genius for expression.
Here lies a secret that makes your character truly three-dimensional. It is the Rabbit-Rooster Clash (卯酉沖), in which the Noble Authority (正官) of the year branch Rabbit Wood (卯) crashes head-on against the Performer (傷官) of the month branch Rooster Metal (酉). In Saju this is called the 'Metal-Wood War (金木相戰).' It is the configuration of metal and wood striking and throwing off sparks. The Noble Authority (卯) whispers, "Keep the rules properly and fulfill your social duty," while the Performer (酉) cries out, "I will soar free and express myself as I please." As these two energies grate and collide ceaselessly within you, an unseen tension and sensitivity is bound to hang in your inner world. To others you may simply look composed, but inside you a fierce battle rages every single day — to follow the rules, or to overturn the whole board.
Fortunately, in your chart the Dragon-Rooster Metal Union (辰酉合金) is at work, gently wrapping and embracing the sharpness of this Rabbit-Rooster Clash. The Dragon of the day branch and the Rooster Metal of the month branch form a union, making the expressive power (Metal) you possess all the more solid and refined. Thanks to this, rather than showing the raw, rough, rebellious face of the Performer, you have the power to sublimate it into an extremely polished and beautiful charm capable of captivating the public.
What is interesting is that you feel yourself to be 'ENFP.' By the chart alone, the grain that comes through much more strongly is introverted (I), intensely realistic (S), rational (T), and planful (J). In particular, your Yang Earth Day Master and the Companion-Rival force of your day branch Dragon grant you a very solid sense of selfhood and a grasp of reality. So why do you perceive yourself as a free, emotional ENFP?
The reason lies in the combination of your month branch's Peach Blossom (桃花殺) and the Performer (傷官). On stage, or when communicating with others, you pour out every urge for expression within you and wield tremendous extroversion and sensitivity. In other words, the 'you' that you perceive is 'the dazzling figure where the Performer and Peach Blossom dance,' but the hardware of your soul is in truth grounded in the heaviness of Yang Earth (戊) — as still as a great mountain and rigorously self-controlled. It means that even as you flit about like a butterfly of a thousand colors on the surface, the framework at your core is a heavy mountain of rock. This contradiction is the very source of your charm, and at times it becomes a mask that wears you out from within.
"Do not try to force down the sharp ring of metal within you"
You are a soul that could not live a single day as an ordinary office worker, shrinking back and meekly taking orders under someone else. Live that way and the Rooster Metal (酉) Performer within you would stab itself and you would come down with an illness of the heart. The core engine that drives professional success in your chart is, without question, the 'Performer (傷官),' the 'Peach Blossom (桃花),' and the 'White Tiger Grand Killing (白虎殺)' lurking in your day pillar.
Your Day Master Yang Earth (戊) is a very healthy, well-balanced, moderate (中平) chart, with its energy at 43%. While it has a firm root to stand on its own (the day branch Dragon (辰)), it also leaks (泄氣, lets flow out) that overflowing energy without obstruction into the month branch Rooster Metal (酉). In Saju this is called '(洩氣口秀)' — beauty flowing out through the mouth of the chart — and it is seen as the very archetype of a destiny that makes its living by expressing its gifts and talents to the world.
You can show unrivaled brilliance in fields where you express yourself through speech, writing, gesture, sound, or the visual arts. In particular, the Peach Blossom planted so powerfully in your month branch exerts a force that draws the gaze of the public like a magnet. Even when you make no special effort, people find their eyes stolen by a single gesture of yours, a single tone of your voice. On top of that, with the White Tiger Grand Killing seated in your day pillar, the concentration and charisma you show on stage or in your work are so intense and overwhelming as to border on killing energy (殺氣). The professional immersion by which you look gentle ordinarily, yet your very gaze changes the moment you enter your real work, comes from here.
On the spectrum from employee to entrepreneur, you fit best as an 'independent specialist within an organization' or a 'creator in a free-contract form (80% freelancer / 20% organizational protection).' A business where you bear sole responsibility for everything is too great a psychological burden because of the meticulousness and caution of your Steady Wealth (癸 Water), while the rigidly closed organizational life of clocking in nine-to-five is something your Performer Formation cannot endure. Best of all is a hybrid form in which you receive the support of a major agency or a solid system (the Noble Authority, Rabbit Wood (卯)), yet in your actual way of working and your creative domain you are thoroughly guaranteed independence and autonomy.
Here let us touch on the Vital Element and the Support Element — the most important compass of your chart.
Vital Element (用神): Metal (金) — the expressive power that sharpens and polishes the blade within and pours it out toward the world
Support Element (喜神): Water (水) — the flow that reaps market value and wealth as the fruit of that expressive power
Avoid Element (忌神): Wood (木) — the excessive discipline and stress that seek to suppress and control you
Your Vital Element is Metal (金). That is, you can only breathe and live by using your body, raising your voice, creating something, and posing questions to the rules of the world. To ceaselessly hone your talent and keep your blade sharp is the salvation of your life. The Avoid Element, on the other hand, is Wood (木). The adults or environments that try to control you by force, or to cage you in a standardized frame with "this is how everyone else lives," become a poison that breaks your spirit.
A thousand years ago, I once saw a court musician of Goryeo. That child, too, was a Yang Earth Day Master born grasping the Performer of autumn. Tormented by the imperial command to play only the prescribed court music (雅樂) according to the strict protocol of the palace, in the end he would climb the palace wall night after night and play, in the marketplace, daring melodies that made the common folk weep and laugh. The emperor raged, but the people revered him like a god. It is the same for you. Do not try to force down the sharp ring of metal within you. When that sound rings out across the world, only then will the door of your destiny swing wide open.
"Boasting of money becomes poison; silence becomes medicine"
Speaking of money, on the surface you look magnanimous, but within you there is a side that is quite shrewd and quick at calculation. The Wealth Star (財星) that signifies money in your chart is the Steady Wealth, Yin Water (癸), revealed in the month stem.
Steady Wealth is not speculative money that chases a windfall, but the just and safe wealth that comes in steadily, exactly in proportion to the sweat of your own labor. Since this Yin Water (癸) sinks a firm root into the never-drying spring within your day branch Dragon (辰) (the hidden stem Yin Water (癸)), the source of your wealth is very stable and deeply rooted. In other words, you were born with a substantial blessing of wealth such that you need not worry about your livelihood for your whole life.
The way you earn money follows thoroughly the flow of Output-Generates-Wealth (食傷生財). It is a structure in which your Vital Element, Metal (金, talent and expression), generates the Support Element, Water (水, wealth). To put it simply, when you use your head and move your body to produce an attractive result, it is naturally converted into great wealth that flows into your pocket. Chase money itself and you will instead be defrauded or have your fortune tangle; only when you focus solely on "how to create an ever more perfect and splendid stage and result" will money come of its own accord, seek you out, and kneel before you.
But in the matter of money management there are a few points to watch. In the heavenly stems of your chart, the Rival, Yin Earth (己) of the year stem glares right beside your Steady Wealth Yin Water (癸). The Rival signifies competitors who covet your wealth, or the people around you who approach smiling on the outside while emptying your pocket.
In particular, once you begin to earn large sums, there will surely arise friends or colleagues who come to you saying "I have a great business idea," "let's invest together." If at such a time your dependable, can't-say-no Yang Earth (戊) temperament kicks in and you rashly lend money or enter a joint investment, that money will cross the river of no return, never to come back. Yours is a chart that must never go into partnership or joint investment. It is wise to entrust your money management strictly under your own name to a trustworthy asset-management professional, or to tie it up yourself in conservative savings and safe assets.
Your chart also holds a hidden channel for emergency funds. Within the hidden stems of your day branch Dragon (辰), Steady Wealth Yin Water (癸) lies 'hidden (暗藏).' This hints that a solid concealed asset known to no one else, or side income made quietly apart from your main work (royalties, private document contracts, and the like), will operate quite handsomely. You have the shrewdness to look plain on the surface while keeping a solid, choice fortune hidden behind, so there is no need to worry — but always stay wary of the Rival in your year stem. Do not forget: boasting of money becomes poison, and silence becomes medicine.
"Resentment is the strange tightrope of feeling where you cannot part though you hate, where being close brings collision and distance brings longing"
In a man's chart, the Steady Wealth (癸 Water) that signifies a woman is seated squarely in the month stem, and it is closely connected to your day branch Dragon (辰), the spouse palace. When you face a woman, on the surface you act like a blunt, dependable mountain, but in truth you have the makings of a fine partner who tends to her attentively and carries a tender side.
But the road of your love and marriage is not so simple. Your day branch Dragon (辰), the spouse palace, is the White Tiger Grand Killing (白虎殺) and at the same time forms the Rabbit-Dragon Resentment (卯辰怨嗔) and the Rabbit-Dragon Harm (卯辰害) with the year branch Rabbit Wood (卯).
As for how this manifests in daily life: even when you come to love someone deeply, at some moment you are prone to be seized by a fundamental loneliness and disappointment, wondering "does this person truly understand me?" Resentment (怨嗔) means a strange tightrope of feeling — you cannot part though you hate, you collide when close and long when apart. So your romances tend to blaze hotly and then drift into a pattern where petty misunderstandings and battles of pride wound each other deeply. Because of the White Tiger energy of your day branch, once your emotions explode, you can spit out cold venom so cutting the other person can hardly bear it.
The ideal woman you are drawn to is one who holds the energy of your Vital and Support Elements. Outwardly intelligent, upright, and accomplishing her own work flawlessly (the energy of Metal), yet inwardly supple and quick to read the room — a woman like water (水) who can wordlessly embrace your sensitive artistic sensibility. Conversely, if you meet a woman like wood (木) — all glittering surface, with violent mood swings, who tries to control your every move — your life will be swept into a hellish whirlpool of Rabbit-Rooster Clash and Resentment.
A current of secret destiny is glimpsed as well. The Yin Water within your day branch Dragon and your Day Master Yang Earth form the Earth-Water Hidden Union (戊癸暗合). This means that a secret romance that cannot be lightly disclosed to the public, or a hidden bond long held only within the heart, will be deeply involved in your life.
The best timing for marriage is a year when the water energy enters solidly, washing away the clash and the resentment of your spouse palace. The coming years of 2031 (Year of the Metal Pig · 辛亥) and 2032 (Year of the Water Rat · 壬子) are the golden time in your life when a bond with the opposite sex can bear its most beautiful fruit. The woman you meet then will be a precious being who channels a blue river into your parched mountain of rock — so until then, do not strain to settle down too soon; first learn how to govern the sensitivity within you.
"Each morning take a walk, basking twenty minutes in the rising sun"
When I look at your natal chart, one extreme imbalance catches my eye. It is that there is not a single Fire (火) energy. A complete absence.
In Saju, Fire (火) is the element that governs the heart, the small intestine, blood circulation, and eyesight. Mentally, it signifies a burning passion for life, positive energy, and the light that drives away gloom. With not a single spark of this fire in your chart, you are by birth prone to a cold-natured constitution where the body easily turns cold, or to symptoms of poor circulation that leave your hands and feet numb.
Especially when the season grows colder or cold energy enters in your fortune, an unexplained listlessness and melancholy, or a mental shadow like insomnia, will cast itself thickly over your mountain of rock. Even when you look full of energy on the outside, you must always guard against the 'psychological burnout' by which you drain easily within.
To make matters worse, the Rabbit-Rooster Clash (卯酉沖) works painfully in the branches. The collision of Metal (金) and Wood (木) brings, physically, a decline in the function of the liver/gallbladder (Wood) and lungs/large intestine (Metal). Under stress it appears at once as poor digestion and a churning gut, or as extreme fatigue piling up in the liver, leaving your eyes bloodshot red and your eyesight rapidly failing.
Especially if your work demands heavy use of the body and an extreme concentration of nerves, you must take great care against injury to muscle and tendon (Wood), or the collapse of alignment in bone/spine (Metal). For the Rabbit-Rooster Clash also signifies a physical collision in which bone and muscle strike and take wounds.
Let me tell you your own tailored fortune-shifting prescriptions to prevent this.
First, each morning take a walk, basking twenty minutes in the rising sun. It is the most powerful way to receive a direct transfusion of the Fire (火) energy your chart lacks, straight from the cosmos.
Second, you must raise your body's temperature by frequently bringing red vegetables (tomatoes, paprika) and bitter-tasting greens that aid liver function to your table.
Third, the moment even the slightest pain arises in your body, do not put it off — get acupuncture or physical therapy at once and pre-emptively let the killing energy of the Rabbit-Rooster Clash flow away.
"This year you are prone to undergo severe inner conflict and confusion"
[2026, Fire Horse Year (丙午) — Annual Fortune]
This year will be a very strange and tension-filled one for you. The year's pillar is Fire Horse (丙午) — a year in which heaven and earth are wholly covered in blazing flame.
To you, who have no fire in the chart, by climate balance (調候) it may look as though warm heat is entering, but the reality is nothing of the sort. This powerful blaze (the Mystic, Fire Horse (丙午)) takes on the configuration of a 'Vital Element attack' that seeks to melt away your most precious weapon, the Vital Metal — the Rooster Metal (酉) Performer.
This year you are prone to undergo severe inner conflict and confusion. Pointless doubt and anxiety — "am I doing well right now?", "is this the limit of my talent?" (the side effect of the Mystic) — can block your creative inspiration. In particular, when Fire (火) energy strikes this powerfully against the White Tiger Grand Killing of your day pillar, the risk grows very great that your emotions will explode beyond control or that you will make a wrong choice in a fit of temper. This year you must never overstretch a new large-scale project or break a relationship with your agency or contract out of emotion. Only by taking the posture of 'guarding what you have (守成)' — thoroughly shoring up your foundation, honing your skill, and keeping your head down — can you protect your blade amid this scorching flame.
Today is an Avoid Element (忌神) day, with Yang Fire (丙), the Mystic in heaven and Yang Wood (寅), Fierce Authority on earth.
Today, things may not unfold as you intend, or the nagging and control of those around you may reach a peak, leaving you feeling suffocated. In particular, today's incoming Yang Wood (寅) joins your day branch Dragon to swell the force of the Avoid Element, so the odds are high that you will be stressed by a clash with someone above you or a sudden change of schedule.
• What to avoid today: signing an important contract, presenting a new idea, a serious showdown with a superior or colleague. Today, no matter how right your words are, they are all too likely to sound like defiance to the other party. Closing your mouth and keeping silent is the best shield.
• Hours to beware today: 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (the Snake-Horse hours (巳午), when fire energy peaks and the mind is easily shaken).
• Today's secret remedy: in the hours of 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. (the Monkey-Rooster hours (申酉), when the Metal energy of your Vital Element comes alive), take time alone, drink cold water, or try a light walk. Your tangled thoughts will clear considerably.
"A 'late-blooming hero' who completes a vast kingdom of his own after forty"
Your life draws the curve of a 'late-blooming hero' — beginning to draw the world's attention early in youth, passing through a transitional period around thirty, and completing a vast kingdom of his own after forty.
Pillar by pillar: your childhood (ages 1–15), under the working of the year pillar Earth Rabbit (己卯), was a time of competing within discipline early on and discovering your own talent. The young adulthood you are now passing through (ages 16–30), ruled by the month pillar Water Rooster (癸酉), has been splendid days when the charm of your dazzling Performer-Peach Blossom came fully into the world, seizing great wealth and popularity.
Right now you are passing through the very heart of the Metal Horse Fortune Cycle (庚午大運, ages 22–31) — the most dependable, yet most inwardly conflicted, stretch of your life.
In this Fortune Cycle, the Creative (庚 Metal) enters through the heavenly stem and helps you flaunt your talent to your heart's content, but beneath it the Mystic of the Horse Fire (午火) quietly presses on your spirit and makes you lonely. The very reason you had to lie alone in your room behind the dazzling spotlight, fighting an endless emptiness, was this Fortune Cycle's strange gap in temperature.
Let me point out the coming turning points of your life, so remember them clearly.
① Ages 32–41: Earth Snake Fortune Cycle (己巳)
This period is a transition in which the stage of your life is reorganized once over. The Rival (己 Earth) and the Nurturer (巳 Fire) enter together. On the surface competition will grow ever fiercer and a crowd that envies and is jealous of you will arise, but the Snake Fire (巳火) of the branch forms the Snake-Rooster Union (巳酉合), reinforcing the force of your Vital Element, Metal (金), to be larger and more solid still. In this period you will rise to the position of a 'commander' — no longer a mere player, but the owner of a brand or body of creative work staking your own name, fostering juniors or designing the whole enterprise.
② Ages 42–51: Earth Dragon Fortune Cycle (戊辰)
This is a 'Day Master Repetition (伏吟) Fortune Cycle,' in which the very same pillar as your day pillar enters in the Fortune Cycle. In Saju, a Repetition Fortune Cycle is like a great reset button of life. You will undergo an upheaval in which your life's values, your career direction, even the relationships around you are wholly overturned at the root. Some regard this period with dread, but for you, a moderate (中平) chart, it can instead be a time of great rebirth — perfectly re-establishing your own identity and being reborn as a true master. In this period you must without fail set aside time to sink deep into meditation, philosophy, or the inner world of the spirit.
③ Ages 52–61: Fire Rabbit Fortune Cycle (丁卯)
As you enter the second half of life in this period, the Avoid Element, Wood (木), grows strong and the Rabbit-Rooster Clash works powerfully once again. Here, rather than greedily reaching for more honor or wealth, you stay safe by thoroughly managing your health, keeping close to nature, and putting your life in order.
"Your innate essence is closer to a perfectionist, realistic planner (ISTJ)"
When you overlay the Saju — the map of your innate destiny — with the MBTI (ENFP) that is the mirror in which you now behold yourself, a most intriguing contradiction of the soul comes to light.
Looking at your detailed MBTI scores, you perceive yourself as extroverted (E=30%, that is, an E in which a powerfully introverted I tendency is in fact at work), intuitive (N=51%), feeling (F=70%), and perceiving (P=70%).
But the hardware of your Saju sends the very opposite signal. The vast earthen pillar that is the Earth Dragon (戊辰) carries an extremely realistic, stability-seeking sensing (S) and logical judging (J) as its base OS.
The secret of this mismatch lies in the way your chart's Performer Fe (extroverted feeling) and the Creative Fi (introverted feeling) operate.
• the Creative (食神) ↔ Fi (introverted feeling): a deep, pure artistic sensibility and conviction all your own
• the Performer (傷官) ↔ Fe (extroverted feeling): the expressive power that reads the public's heart and captivates them
• Steady Wealth (正財) ↔ Si (introverted sensing): thorough self-management and a realistic routine
• Noble Authority (正官) ↔ Te (extroverted thinking): a professional working style that strives for perfection
The strongest forces in your natal chart are the Performer (Fe) of the month branch and the Steady Wealth (Si) of the month stem. In other words, by birth you are a person who is very meticulous and regular (Si) and who, when working, pursues a more perfect system than anyone (Te).
So why does your heart yearn for the freedom of ENFP (Ne-Fi-Te-Si)? It is because of the Metal Horse Fortune Cycle (庚午大運, ages 22–31) you are now passing through. The Creative, Yang Metal (庚), that entered through the heavenly stem in this Fortune Cycle stimulates the deep sensibility (Fi) within you without limit, and the Mystic of the Horse Fire (午火) of the branch set fire to original inspiration and whimsical imagination (Ne).
That is, your innate essence is closer to a perfectionist, realistic planner (ISTJ), but the Fortune Cycle's energy that came pouring in all through your twenties made you put on the robe of a free artist (ENFP) and dance. Because of this, you act like a boundlessly bright and emotional ENFP on stage or when meeting people, yet the moment you return home and are alone, a realistic, rational self suddenly lifts its head and you feel a severe inner dissonance. The confusion of "what is my real self?" comes from here.
By the distribution of the five elements as well, the Earth (土) and Metal (金) energy that fills your chart means an extremely high state of 'conscientiousness' and 'self-control' in the Big Five traits. The reason you so intensely dislike people who are late to appointments or sloppy in handling work lies right here.
The ENFP tendency you feel is the most beautiful 'artistic mask' you show toward the world and a tool of communication. There is no need to deny it as fake. But only when you admit that the true charging station of your soul lies in the quiet, regular, thoroughly personal space that befits an ISTJ will your heart find ease.
"Four dimensions of fortune-shifting that keep the sensitive blade of your Vital Element, Metal (金), from going dull"
[Part A: Fortune-Shifting Prescriptions]
Let me tell you four dimensions of fortune-shifting that govern the cold, chill energy of your chart and keep the sensitive blade of your Vital Element, Metal (金), from going dull — take them as the signposts of your life.
Priority 1 — People (人緣): You are profoundly affected by the energy of the people you keep beside you. You must keep close those who can supply you with the Metal (金) and Water (水) energy you most need. People whose Day Master is Yang Metal (庚) or Yin Metal (辛) will be the finest mentors or partners, carving your talent ever more precisely, and those with a Yang Water (壬) or Yin Water (癸) Day Master will be a refuge that calmly cools your turbulent heart. By branch, those who carry the Monkey (申 Metal) or Rooster (酉 Metal) sign become benefactors who bring real opportunities to your side. By contrast, those in whom the Wood (木) energy of your Avoid Element is too strong — who try to lecture you at every turn or hold you down with a moral yardstick — are best kept at a proper distance, for the good of your mental health.
Priority 2 — Environment (環境): A space imbued with the Metal (金) energy of your Vital Element is one that is thoroughly structured, refined, and carries a cool, modern, metallic feel. A recording studio full of precision machines, an art museum where modern architectural beauty stands out, or a room with a large window facing west (西) where the moonlight falls well — these will grant you the finest concentration. A place dense with trees (木), like a forest or park, is good now and then for clearing your head, but stay there too long and the sharp inspiration of your Performer goes dull, so it is best avoided when you are doing creative work.
Priority 3 — Action (行動): Build routines that you show through execution rather than words. When your thoughts grow too many (the side effect of the Mystic), at once move your body — clean, play a metal instrument, or do exercise that uses iron and the body, like weight training. Dispersing your sensitive nerves through physical stimulation is the finest secret remedy for governing the killing energy of the Rabbit-Rooster Clash.
Priority 4 — Symbols (象徵): As a supplement, the colors to weave into your life are white and gold. When choosing accessories too, carrying a watch of heavy platinum or white-gold rather than leather or silver, or a finely-wrought metal object on your person, will act as a talisman that binds your energy firmly together.
"Do not become a dragon that weeps alone amid the cold frost. When you trust the blade within you and cut through the world's rough winds, only then will a golden sky open."
[Part B: A Thousand Years of Counsel]
First, during the remaining span of the Metal Horse Fortune Cycle (庚午大運) you are now passing through, never let the impatience of your heart push you into changing a contract or declaring independence. Right now your talent (庚 Metal) shines most splendidly, but the blaze laid beneath it (午火) can catch your ankle at any moment in this period. While you move about splendidly on the surface, you must document every important decision thoroughly, take legal counsel, and respond conservatively.
Second, amid the scorching blaze of the Fire Horse Year (丙午) in 2026, make 'body management' and 'silence' your only weapons. This year is the one in which your Vital Element, the Rooster Metal, is most threatened. When emotion surges up in a fit of temper or a sense of injustice rises, the moment you spit it out in words (the Performer), the Rabbit-Rooster Clash will fire at once and tear apart your honor and your relationships. When the words you want to say rise to the very top of your throat, drink a glass of cold water and wait three days. That is the only fortune-shifting remedy for crossing this year safely.
Third, in love and relationships, when the killing energy of the Rabbit-Dragon Resentment (卯辰怨嗔) fires, look first to the White Tiger energy of your day branch before you blame the other person. The cutting venom you spit because you were hurt leaves a brand on the other's heart that can never be erased. When a relationship begins to creak, thoroughly guaranteeing each person their own independent time and space is, on the contrary, the wisdom that keeps a bond beautiful for long.
Fourth, to fill the Fire (火) energy your chart lacks, deliberately build a 'spiritual teacher' or an inner safety net. Be it religion, meditation, or philosophy — only when you have prepared your own deep inner temple where you can drop the anchor of your soul when you waver, will you cross safely the great turning point of destiny that comes around forty (the Earth Dragon Fortune Cycle) and stand tall as a great master.
The words I once spoke to that court musician of Goryeo, who forged his sword alone in the cold valley water of an autumn night, I now pass to you just the same.
Carve the energy of heaven into cold iron and hold it within your breast. Just as clear, cold water bores through rock and at last flows into the vast sea, the sensitivity and solitude within you will in the end become a great song that moves the world. Do not fear that keen blade you carry — only polish it beautifully and wield it toward the world.
If there is more you wish to ask, ask anytime. The gate of heaven's secrets stands open still.