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Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches

The chart is made of two kinds of characters: ten Heavenly Stems, which express the energy of heaven, and twelve Earthly Branches, which express the energy of earth. One stem stacked on one branch makes a pillar, and pairing them in order produces 60 combinations. This is the sexagenary cycle, and every year, month, day and hour is named by these 60 pairs turning endlessly.

What the four pillars mean

Traditionally, each pillar stands for a stage of life and the people closest to you. The year pillar covers your ancestors and childhood; the month pillar, your parents, siblings and young adulthood as you step into society; the day pillar, yourself and your spouse; and the hour pillar, your children and later years. The single most important character is the stem of the day pillar — the Day Master. Around the Song dynasty, Xu Ziping established the method of taking the day of birth, rather than the year, as the reference point for “you,” and almost all Four Pillars readings today follow it.

How each pillar is set

• Year pillar: the stem-branch of the year — but the new year starts at Ipchun (Start of Spring), not on January 1.
• Month pillar: the stem-branch of the month as divided by the solar terms. The stem of the first month (the In month) is fixed by the year's stem: Gap and Gi years start with Byeong-in, Eul and Gyeong years with Mu-in, Byeong and Sin years with Gyeong-in, Jeong and Im years with Im-in, and Mu and Gye years with Gap-in.
• Day pillar: the stem-branches of days have repeated every 60 days without a single break for thousands of years, so the date alone is enough to calculate it.
• Hour pillar: the day is split into twelve two-hour periods, starting with the Ja hour (11 p.m.–1 a.m.). The hour's stem depends on the Day Master: Gap and Gi days start at Gap-ja, Eul and Gyeong days at Byeong-ja, Byeong and Sin days at Mu-ja, Jeong and Im days at Gyeong-ja, and Mu and Gye days at Im-ja.

e.g. Someone born at noon on January 1, 2000
· It's before Ipchun, so the year is 1999: Gi-myo (己卯)
· It's between Daeseol and Sohan, so the month is Byeong-ja (丙子)
· That day is Mu-o (戊午), so this person's “self” is Mu Earth (戊土) — earth like a great mountain
· Noon is the O hour, and the O hour of a Mu day is Mu-o (戊午)
→ Gi-myo · Byeong-ja · Mu-o · Mu-o: the eight characters are complete.

If you don't know your birth time

Without a birth time, we read the three remaining pillars — six characters. The broad flow of your daily and yearly fortune is mostly decided by the Day Master and the year, month and day characters, so the reading is still useful. Knowing your birth time makes the hour-by-hour fortune and the five-element balance a little more precise.

Balance of the five elements

Sorting the eight characters into Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water shows which energies are plentiful and which are lacking. Harugyeol treats the scarcest element as “energy worth adding” and picks everyday suggestions such as a lucky color, direction and food. For example, someone with no Water at all is recommended black, the north and places near water.

The 24 solar terms are solar, not lunar

The solar terms are often mistaken for a lunar calendar, but they are set by the position of the sun. Divide the sun's yearly path across the sky (the ecliptic, 360°) into 15° steps and you get 24 points; the moment the sun reaches each point is a solar term. That's why the terms fall on almost the same Gregorian date every year — Ipchun around February 4, the winter solstice around December 22.

Jeol (節) and junggi (中氣)

The 24 terms alternate between 12 jeol, which open each month, and 12 junggi, which fall in between. A Four Pillars month changes at the instant a jeol arrives.

Your zodiac animal changes at Ipchun, not New Year

It's natural to think the year begins on January 1 or on Lunar New Year, but in the Four Pillars the boundary is Ipchun. So people born in January or early February may have a different zodiac animal in their chart than the one they've always been told.

e.g. Born January 20, 1990: on the calendar that's 1990 (Horse), but it's before Ipchun, so in the Four Pillars it's 1989, a Gi-sa year — the Snake.
e.g. Even within February, someone born on the 3rd and someone born on the 5th can have different year pillars and animals, because Ipchun (usually February 4) falls between them.

What about lunar birthdays?

A lunar month follows the moon's cycle of about 29.5 days, so a lunar year is about 354 days — roughly 11 days shorter than a solar year. To make up the gap, a leap month is added about seven times every 19 years. Because lunar dates drift against the seasons, Harugyeol first converts a lunar birthday to its solar date using the Korean lunar calendar table, then compares it with the solar terms to set the pillars. If you were born in a leap month, please tick “leap month” — the same lunar 3rd month can be almost a full month apart in solar terms depending on whether it's a regular or leap month.

Born right on a solar-term boundary

A solar term changes at an exact moment, not on a whole day. If you were born on the day of a term, the hour of your birth can change your month pillar. Harugyeol calculates the boundary from the sun's ecliptic longitude using astronomical formulas; please note that almanacs can differ by a few minutes.

Five ways a character relates to “you”

The Ten Gods name how every other character relates to your Day Master. They rest on the generating cycle of the five elements (Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal → Water → Wood, each feeding the next) and the controlling cycle (Wood → Earth → Water → Fire → Metal → Wood, each restraining the next). There are five branches — the same element as you, the element you produce, the element you control, the element that controls you, and the element that produces you — and each splits in two depending on whether its yin-yang polarity matches yours, making ten.

The character of each of the Ten Gods

• Companion: a peer standing shoulder to shoulder. Your independence and convictions grow, and it's good for joining forces.
• Rival: a competitor reaching for the same thing. It brings drive and fighting spirit, but watch spending and quarrels.
• Eating God: the ease and good food you create. Joy comes from expression, planning and hobbies.
• Hurting Officer: wit, eloquence and the talent to break the mold. Ideas shine, but mind your words.
• Indirect Wealth: money that moves on a large scale and a wider sphere of activity. Deals, business and outings pick up.
• Direct Wealth: steady wealth built through diligence. Planned management and consistency are rewarded.
• Seven Killings: pressure and challenge that temper you. Responsibility and tension grow, along with decisiveness.
• Direct Officer: order, honor and social trust. Keep to the rules and recognition follows.
• Indirect Resource: intuition and specialized knowledge. Thoughts deepen and unusual solutions appear, though worries may multiply.
• Direct Resource: learning, documents and helping hands. Closely tied to study, contracts and support from elders.

How we calculate the daily fortune

Every day has its own stem-branch. Harugyeol sets the day's basic mood and title by which of the Ten Gods today's stem is for your Day Master, then adds or subtracts according to whether today's branch harmonizes or clashes with the branches in your chart. Finally, it reflects your chart's five-element balance to produce scores for five areas: love, money, work, health and family.

e.g. For someone whose Day Master is Byeong Fire (丙火)
· An Im (壬) day: water controls fire and both are yang → Seven Killings, a day when tasks pile up
· A Gyeong (庚) day: fire controls metal and both are yang → Indirect Wealth, a day of more activity and deals
· An Eul (乙) day: wood produces fire with opposite polarity → Direct Resource, a day of help and learning

The same Ten God can work in your favor or feel heavy depending on the balance of your whole chart. That's why two people can get different scores on the same “Seven Killings day.”

How the branches relate

The twelve Earthly Branches attract and collide with one another — the same principle long used to judge zodiac-animal compatibility. Harugyeol looks at how today's branch relates to the branches of your chart (especially your animal and your day branch) to set the day's flow and your helpful and cautionary signs.

Six Harmonies (六合): two becoming one

A yin branch and a yang branch pair up and draw each other in — read as cooperation, harmony and good connections.

Triple Harmonies (三合): three forming a great force

Three branches spaced four apart gather into a single element. Animals in the same group are said to share the same wavelength.

• Sin-Ja-Jin (申子辰) Monkey · Rat · Dragon → the Water group
• In-O-Sul (寅午戌) Tiger · Horse · Dog → the Fire group
• Hae-Myo-Mi (亥卯未) Pig · Rabbit · Goat → the Wood group
• Sa-Yu-Chuk (巳酉丑) Snake · Rooster · Ox → the Metal group

Six Clashes (六沖): facing each other head-on

Arrange the twelve branches in a circle like a clock, and the clashing pairs sit directly opposite each other, six places apart. A clash is energy of collision, movement and change — not purely bad — but plans easily go awry and friction arises, so it's read as a time for caution.

Punishment, destruction and harm

Beyond harmony and clash, there are relationships that wound (punishment, 刑), break (destruction, 破) and quietly obstruct (harm, 害). The Six Harms, for example, are Ja-Mi, Chuk-O, In-Sa, Myo-Jin, Sin-Hae and Yu-Sul. Because their influence is considered weaker than harmony and clash, Harugyeol's readings focus on harmony and clash.

e.g. If today is an In (寅) day — a Tiger day
· In-Hae harmony → the Pig is today's helpful sign
· In-Sin clash → be careful of disagreements with Monkeys
· If you're a Horse, you're in the same In-O-Sul group, so the flow is fairly smooth

Annual luck (歲運): the energy of the year

Each year has its own stem-branch, and how it relates to your chart sets the overall mood of the year. The principle is the same as the daily fortune: which of the Ten Gods the year's stem is for your Day Master, and whether the year's branch harmonizes or clashes with your branches. The year boundary is, again, Ipchun.

e.g. 2027, a Jeong-mi (丁未) year: the stem Jeong (丁) is yin fire and the branch Mi (未) is late-summer earth — a warm, dry year.
· For an Im Water (壬水) Day Master: Jeong is the element you control, with opposite polarity → a Direct Wealth year, strong for steady income and management.
· For an Ox: a Chuk-Mi clash, read as a year when changes such as moving or switching jobs come easily.
· For a Horse: an O-Mi harmony, read as a year of cooperation and good connections.

Monthly luck (月運): the flow of twelve months

The stem-branch changes every month, too. Harugyeol's yearly graph scores each of the twelve months by how its stem-branch relates to your chart. Month boundaries follow the solar terms, so “month 1” on the graph means from Ipchun until Gyeongchip.

Samjae (三災)

Samjae is a three-year period of caution that comes to each zodiac animal once every twelve years. The first year is called “entering,” the second “middle,” and the last “leaving.” It's calculated from the Triple Harmonies: the three animals in a group share the same Samjae years.

e.g. For Pigs, Rabbits and Goats, 2025 (Eul-sa) was the entering year, 2026 (Byeong-o) the middle year, and 2027 (Jeong-mi) is the leaving year. In 2028, a Mu-sin year, the entering year begins for Tigers, Horses and Dogs.

Samjae is closer to a folk custom than to Four Pillars theory, and depending on the chart, it can even be read as a “blessed Samjae.” Harugyeol shows it not to frighten you but as reference information — a year to double-check things.

Decade cycles (大運): the big flow that changes every ten years

If annual luck is the weather of a year, decade cycles are the seasons of ten years. They start from your month pillar and move forward or backward one step at a time through the stem-branch sequence, changing every ten years.

Forward and backward

The direction depends on the yin-yang of your birth year's stem and your gender.

• Forward: men born in a yang year, women born in a yin year
• Backward: men born in a yin year, women born in a yang year

Yang years are those whose stem is Gap, Byeong, Mu, Gyeong or Im; yin years are Eul, Jeong, Gi, Sin or Gye. For example, 1984 (Gap-ja) is a yang year and 1985 (Eul-chuk) a yin year.

e.g. Someone whose month pillar is Byeong-in (丙寅)
· Forward: Jeong-myo → Mu-jin → Gi-sa → Gyeong-o …, ten years each
· Backward: Eul-chuk → Gap-ja → Gye-hae → Im-sul …, ten years each

The age your cycles begin

Going forward, count the days from your birthday to the next solar term; going backward, to the previous one. Divide that number by three and you get the age at which your first decade cycle begins. Because the roughly 30 days between solar terms are taken to equal one cycle (ten years), three days convert to one year. In finer units, one day equals four months and two hours equal ten days.

e.g. A man born in a yang year, 4 days before the next solar term: 4 ÷ 3 ≈ 1.3, so his cycles start at 1 — around age 1, then change at 11, 21, 31 and so on.
e.g. A woman born on the same day runs backward, so she divides the days since the previous term (say, 26) by three, and her cycles begin around age 9.

Schools differ slightly on whether to drop or round up the remainder, so almanacs can differ by about a year.

How the life graph is scored

First we look at whether your chart is strong or weak. If the elements matching your Day Master (Peers) and those supporting it (Resource) are plentiful, the chart is strong; if scarce, it's weak. Following the principle of balancing emphasized in classics such as the Di Tian Sui, a strong chart welcomes elements that draw energy away (Output, Wealth, Officer), while a weak chart welcomes elements that add strength (Resource, Peers). Each decade cycle is scored by how much its stem and branch fall into these welcome elements and whether they harmonize or clash with your original chart, and the scores are joined into a line graph.

e.g. For a weak Gap Wood (甲木) Day Master, an Im-ja (壬子) decade — water nourishing wood, a decade of Resource — lifts the graph, while a Gyeong-sin (庚申) decade — metal striking wood, a decade of Officer — brings it down relatively.