What if we left the conventional style of charting a Bazi birth chart entirely untouched, while able to let it work alongside a complementary way of charting which would yet bring tremendous depth to our life readings?
Once this additional method becomes your second nature, it is great also in class situations, or in your communication with clients.
Image on the far left shows the conventional method of charting a birth chart in Four Pillars of Destiny Bazi 子平八字算命, while it is important that nothing can be left out, nothing can be added.
It can be complemented though, and in a manner that may significantly deepen your practice.
Image on the far right shows same information transposed, after we took the birth signs to a Wuxing circle, so that we gain a one glimpse look into chart dynamics.
While you here see the completed birth chart in the new format, I will walk you through a step by step approach, which will forever change how you do life readings.
Before we do, we will show you image as to how to determine 12 Stages of Life for the Five Transformations for each of the 12 months to a Solar year, until by above image and as you note ‘1’ at the Metal leg of the Wuxing five star, this is to indicate that relative to here month of birth May, any Metal in this Bazi birth chart exists in Life Stage 1.
We will then build above Bazi birth chart from scratch, to run you through the process, while as you follow along with pen and paper, you may sketch your own Bazi horoscope.
Once you started using the complementary style of charting, not just will you experience a tremendous boost in your skill, but you will see the feedback that you receive from Bazi students or clients increase by certain magnitude.
How to set up your life reading
Before at all you set yourself to this complementary style of charting, you will construct all of the Bazi birth chart just exactly as you have been accustomed to, which includes:
- Build the Eight Characters from year, month, day and hour of birth just conventionally.
- Determine Strength and Vibrancy of all elements relative to 12 Stages of Life, while you determine chart style.
- Make your first assessments as to Pairings, Clash, Triangular Frame, Transformation and so forth.
Start from scratch
Once that done, you sketch a circle with already the 12 Life Stages of elements and Strength (the latter not covered in this article), while at this stage you take in Day Master Xin Metal and indication for the month of birth on the five star.
Then you put down your pen to contemplate this stage and to take notes, as much about personality, character and behavior can be derived already from this stage.
Let this be a male Day Master Yin Metal Xin 辛, while Xin will be driven by Lung energy, to denote moral ethics, strategy, an engineering type of thinking and a rather more serious approach to life.
Month of birth is May for Si Snake 巳 which is a Fire Branch, while we know that, as still just a member of the family of Earthly Branches (Di Zhi 地支), it is a Yin Branch, which you indicate by taking a black dot on the Fire leg of the five star. At this point, we do not mind that Si Snake and on the level of hidden elements, contains the Major God of Yang Fire Bing 丙.
By and large, the month Branch may be taken as a first strong indicator for inner drive and motive, which for this Xin Metal Day Master is Fire Power (Officer – or Guan 官), making client independent, authoritative and competitive. Inner drive will be much geared up by Fire Heart. We will see that eventually all Power elements gathered in this birth chart will add to a Strength of 196, quantitatively.
Note that, I had just suggested that, with every new step, you’ll best put down your pen, to ponder on each element, while notes taken. It is likely that most astrologers fail to do so, as they’re more inclined to read the horoscope in its entirety. You will affirm that, as it is your wish to build up your life reading layer by layer, then ‚slow‘ is the way. Why?
This is because, in seeing chart dynamics, you want that your brain goes into a process of elimination. As this is the birth chart for a male Yin Metal Xin Day Master born in the month of Si Snake, there’s basically two approaches that you may decide to follow.
- Upon seeing Day Master and month of birth, your brain takes off into a certain ‚know things‘ mode, then it already starts to classify Day Master’s character, prospects and so forth.
- Before you classify anything, you first establish that a) Day Master is not a woman born in Si Snake month, that he is not a woman born in Mao Rabbit month and so forth, while you b) dismiss what would have been indicated had the month of birth been Zi Rat, Shen Monkey, even now that it is a male, simply because each time, any of this would have significantly altered your life reading.
So again, while each time we proceed with a new step, take the time to ponder with each new element and take notes, to go over the whole process of elimination each time, and never tire.
Step One – Heavenly Stems
There can be several ways to go about taking in the elements, while I propose to first take in the Heavenly Stems (Tian Gan – 天干). The idea at this stage is also, to see what Day Master will be known for, once we meet him for the first time. In the former step, we had already gathered that there is no way around Day Master, as upon meeting him, his authority will become apparent.
Because Heavenly Stems denote Heaven Qi, these can be taken as a dot (Heaven is circular), so that we take in either a white dot for Yang or black dot for Yin, as such outside the circle for their greater influence.
Year Stem
We take in the year Stem Yang Fire Bing 丙, which confirms Power (here Direct Officer – Zheng Guan 正官) and Fire Heart.
Once that established, once more put down your pen to ponder, as there’s a lot to contemplate, a whole lot ‚to be known‘ from only already this bit.
Due to Fire elements in this birth chart to appear in Life Stage 4 alone, we would now wish for other elements to come in, or soon we’ll have a person with an all too staggering circulatory system, which would only make native too temperamental.
Because Bing Fire appears in the year Pillar, and while we take this Pillar to denote one’s country, we can gather from this that Day Master will be influential in society. Which is another way of saying, that you can just as well dismiss to denote the year information as ‚Grandparents‘. Rather, the year Pillar is good for one’s society, regions farther from one‘s residence, including foreign countries.
Bing Fire denotes Proper Power – Direct Officer -, and it occurs at the ‚Front Gate‘ year Pillar.
The impression that we get from our first meeting Day Master, is that he is authoritative, influential and that his such ‚power‘ is not derived, it is matured.
Month Stem
The next step is where we take the month Stem of Yin Water Gui 癸, which we take to the Water leg outside the circle as a black dot for its Yin temperament.
Water governs Kidney, Bladder, reproductive organs, libido, ears (hearing), nails. Water to a Xin Metal Day Master is Output, but Gui Water is Gracious Output.
Interestingly, Gracious Output in the month Stem shoulders Power in the year Stem, indicative for an outspoken Day Master. Should month Stem be Drastic Output to come next to Power in the year Stem, that seems a sure recipe for rebellion.
Hour Stem
Finally, we take in the hour Stem Yin Fire Ding 丁 as • outside the Wuxing circle at the Fire domain.
Ding 丁 is Unbecoming Power (Indirect Officer – Pian Guan 偏官), while it confirms at the ‘Back Gate’ hour Pillar what already we had seen in the year Pillar.
Now that you had satisfied a full round of Heavenly Stems, you lay down your pen even longer to contemplate. There is a lot to be gathered from already image here obtained.
There is at this point no Wood Liver for Wealth and no Earth Spleen for Resource, so Day Master will not be immediately ‚known‘ for these traits.
We see that all Heavenly Stems found thus far, find root, that is, we find the elements from the upper segments in the Pillars confirmed by the hidden elements, shown right underneath the Earthly Branches. We say, therefore, that Power and Output are ‘real’, and it should be easy for this Day Master to ‘use’ (Yong 用) these traits.
Day Master will be actually reputed for his authority, his ambition, and for his inclination to speak his mind. As we proceed, we like to see certain flow of Qi between elements, to ensure that he’ll be not jailed or to end up in some catch 22 situation from which there’s no breaking free.
Step Two – Earthly Branches
Earthly Branches – more popularly known as Chinese animals – can host 1, 2 or 3 hidden elements, while at this stage, we take in only the Major God contained in year, month, day and hour Branch, taken to the outside of the circle and as a white square for Yang and a black square for Yin.
Year Pillar Xu Dog
Major God in the year Branch Xu Dog 戌 is Yang Earth Wu 戊, which is Yang, so taken outside the circle as a white square.
Earth governs the digestive system, notably Spleen, Stomach and Pancreas. If in good health, Xu Dog is a defender, as it can be pretty military, while it can be immovable.
Wu Earth provides Direct Resource – Zheng Yin 正印, and it may seduce Power-Officer to become a bit more eloquent (which was not the same as diplomatic).
Month Pillar Si Snake
Next we take the Major God in month Branch Si Snake 巳, which is Yang Fire Bing 丙, a Yang Stem, as such taken outside the circle at the Fire domain as a white square. Please note that, while the month Stem Gui is Yin, and while Si Snake is in itself a Yin Branch, it contains a Yang element as Major God, which occurrence I take as Heaven-Earth untuned, then here as ‘not what it seems’ in the Parents domain.
Day Pillar Chou Ox
Major God contained in the day Branch Chou Ox 丑 is Yin Earth Ji 己, which is a Yin Stem, as such taken outside the circle at the Earth domain as a black square.
Hour Pillar You Rooster
To round off our taking the Major Gods contained in the Earthly Branches, we finally take in the Major God Yin Metal Xin 辛 contained in the hour Branch You Rooster 酉.
It is a Yin Stem and it goes outside the circle at the Metal domain as a black square.
Step Three – Minor Gods
Finally, to complete the process, we take in the Minor Gods contained in Earthly Branches, again one at the time, but for sake of convenience, shown here by one image.
We may take in the Minor Gods contained in the Earthly Branches inside the circle, for their comparatively lesser influence.
With this image, we immediately note a lack of Wood element.
Anything missing equals need to make balance?
Pretty much widespread in the field of Bazi is, should anything be the ‚matter‘, such as where an element is missing or ‚too weak‘ or ‚too abundant‘, we need to a) make up for such flaw by b) creating balance. This is where for this Bazi birth chart, hordes of Chinese astrologers would rush to supply the color green, or ask native to position his bed so that it orients East and so forth.
Nothing has impregnated the Oriental metaphysical field more than the notion of ‚balance and harmony‘. It’s throughout.
With a gun to my head, I would admit that we would like to see ‘balance and harmony’ on the physiological tract, but outside that, we don’t want our life progression to soon mimic the ‘destiny line’ of a refrigerator, which is same as in saying, we would appreciate at least a bit of ‘tension’ in our Bazi birth chart, if only to assert that we’d have challenges besides ‘all luck’ or ‘all fortune’.
Many – I’d say most – in the field of Bazi would still persistently deem certain dynamics in the Bazi birth chart ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’, while there’s no such thing, as I don’t mind how ‘Strong’ or ‘Weak’ an element appears – or even if there was a total lack of a certain element -, everything in the Bazi chart can be employed – Yong 用.
Therefore, and if such as for here sample Bazi chart, the Wood element was lacking, the person that you are doing the reading for was still in possession of his Liver, yes? Whatever temperament and behavior normally produced by the Liver can be still utilized, or such as here, where Wood would signify ‘Wealth’, this Day Master could still achieve in that field.
Even now with Wood ‘missing’, we already established that Wood/Liver was ‘charged’ at Life Stage 7, just by notion of earth orbit around the Sun alone, everything to that respect duly ‘handled’ by vast Solar forces induced during the gestation period.
Said differently, if only the metaphysical field could come to grips with itself, then finally reconsider such notions as the eternal ‘balance and harmony’, but that’s me.
What we need for the life is a) forward progressive movement and b) momentum. It doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t like for matters to stay within reason, but we like for Day Master to meet with challenges.
Having no Wealth element, can still make for a billionaire, having no Officer element can still make for a leader, and having no spouse element can still make for a good marriage.
If you are a Bazi practitioner, I’d like for you to see these four articles, then decide if at all anything could be missing.
Four Pillars of Destiny and Nine Star Ki – astrology or physiology?
Four Pillars of Destiny Bazi – Twins and Astrology
If birth month is one of Earth Branches
How to designate month of birth along the five star, if month of birth was one of so-called Earth Branches Chou Ox 丑, Chen Dragon 辰, Wei Sheep 未 or Xu Dog 戌?
Among Twelve Earthly Branches, these are to contain a Major God of either Yang Earth Wu 戊 or Yin Earth Ji 己.
Taking birth month Chen Dragon for April as an example, Chen Dragon falls within the range of Wood months (February, March and April), and as such would be taken to the Wood leg of the five star as a white dot for its Yang temperament, while from just the then resulting image it could be soon wrongly taken for Yin Tiger month just the same. To then show that month of birth is an Earth Branch, you can tick √ the Earth leg on the five star.
