(40) Five Stars and Family Relations

By Janet Shin

We've learned the basic conception of yin and yang and how they're slashed into five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water). The five elements are the classification of our nature. But most importantly, are not the elements themselves but ``changing states of being.'' Although translated as ``element,'' the oriental conception of the term is therefore quite different. The oriental ``elements'' were thought of as ever-changing and moving energies as they exist, act or react and circulate within yin and yang boundaries.

To help your understanding of the five elements (five beings, or movements, phases or stages as per Oriental conception), let's review how the five elements were shown in relation with their circulation according to the Book of Changes.

Although we normally consider the circulation cycle of five elements as having a round shape, the diagram has four angular points due to the characteristics of the five elements. Fire's characterized with yang energy with diffusion and radiation power on top ― south, water as characterized by yin energy with severe and downward energy is on the bottom ― north. Then wood as east and metal as west are placed in a four-azimuth conception. Lastly, earth is placed in the center, as it's the balancing energy of the four other elements.

Oriental medicine refers to this concept for the five internal organs of the human body, such as the heart and small intestine as fire, kidney and urinary bladder as water, liver and gall bladder as wood, lungs and large intestine as metal, and spleen and stomach as earth. The heart is considered as the emotion of happiness, kidney as fear, liver as nerve, lungs as sadness and spleen as worry. The balance among all these five elements comes from the healthy human body ― the five internal organs.

Likewise, the same applies to saju, which, with lots of fire energy or a fire day master, tends to be very bright, sociable and outgoing. Saju with lots of water energy or a water day master tends to be intelligent and collect others opinions well.

A clear understanding of the five elements will help you understand the five stars and family relations saju as well. The saju, four pillars, in other words, come from your birth year, month, date and time.

We call a day stem a day master and the other stems and branches can be read as one of five stars according to their generation (nourishment) and restriction cycle.

Once you finish these classifications, you're at the first stage of reading your own fate in relationship with your family and social networks. In the courses of the reading of saju, you'll have to use your own knowledge to determine whether the individual elements are strong or weak. Sometimes they're too strong, with a complicated in yin and yang mixture, which will affect the life path with a certain specific family or social star.

There are also the clashes, penalties, and combinations between two or more branches and stems, which can cause a twist of fate in fortune's wheel. As we substantialized the five elements such as trees, sun, stones or rivers, once we categorize the saju by the five elements and yin and yang, we may picture them and evaluate whether they have appropriate scenery or not. But the scenery itself is not sufficient to read inner relations.

In many cases, the outer scenery looks great but the inside is not always beautiful or stable. Our life as seen by others is not what it truly is.

We started saju study under the hypothesis that saju is not superstition.

When a person is born, there's a certain energy current to affect the person's fate which comes from the energy of asterism in connection with earth. See the chart and diagram below to summarize the five stars and their relations.

In old books, four fortunate stars and four unfortunate stars were classified. But nowadays, the distinction has become blurred, so we don't need to stick to this dichotomy ― but fortune is subject to its circumstances.

Unfortunate stars :

• Friend stars in different yin and yang

• Expression stars in different yin and yang

• Knowledge stars in the same yin and yang

• Career stars in the same yin and yang

Fortunate stars :

• Expression stars in the same yin and yang

• Money star (both same and different yin and yang)

• Knowledge star in different yin and yang

• Career star in different yin and yang

The writer is the president of the Heavenly Garden, a saju research center in Korea, and the author of ``Learning Four Pillars.'' She offers saju courses to all who are interested. For more information, visit her Web site (http://blog.naver.com/janet_shin) or email janetshin@hotmail.com

[출처 : 코리아타임스]