Every chart carries a sequence of ten-year luck cycles, each named by a stem and branch. The first begins in childhood and each lasts exactly ten years, running through the decades of your life. The element of each cycle — its stem and branch — meets your Day Master like a new season: one decade is your spring, another your harvest, another your winter.
Why the decade feels different
People change far less than the weather they live in. A Wood day master moving into a Water decade is being watered — growth years, often busy and fertile. The same person in a Metal decade faces the blade — years that demand cutting, deciding and letting go, whatever they try to keep. Knowing which season you are in turns confusion into strategy: you stop fighting autumn and start harvesting it.
Reading your cycles
- What supports your Day Master — resource and help years (classically, teachers, backers, calm).
- What drains it — spending and output years (career visibility, but exhaustion if overrun).
- What controls it — pressure years (discipline, reform, and the lessons you only learn under stress).
See your own decades
Your chart page lists your luck cycles from childhood onward, with each decade’s element noted in plain English. Start from the Four Pillars intro, then look at the decade you are in now — and the one coming next.
Dig deeper: cast your own chart and the I Ching oracle — free, deterministic and in plain English.