Chapter 24

The Four Pillars of Destiny, Part 3

In This Chapter

The garden of life

Determining a strong and a weak chart

Finding your favorable phase

Finding your unfavorable phase

In this chapter, you’ll learn that your four pillars chart resembles a garden. An ideal—or balanced—garden has a little of everything: rich soil, gentle rain, flowers and trees, and a gardener who regularly prunes them. An unbalanced garden has too much of one thing and/or a lack of something. Finding what is needed will bring balance to your life—your garden.

Also in this chapter, you’ll acquire pertinent information to determine your favorable and unfavorable phases. With this knowledge, you’ll learn what colors, environments, and career best suit you—the subject of the next chapter.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Your Four Pillars chart can be expressed visually. If your life represents a painting of a landscape, each of the five phases represents an element in nature that might or might not be present in your painting. Yet understand that the picture isn’t static. Depending on the phase components of the 10-year luck period you’re in, as well as the phase components of the yearly pillar (subjects we’ll address in Chapter 26), your landscape will change. Sometimes you can see one mountain. Sometimes more mountains will be visible. Sometimes it will rain. And sometimes a gardener will come to prune your plants and trees. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. First, you must understand the components affiliated with each stem in your garden:

Jia or yang (+) wood represents a big tree.

Yi or yin (-) wood represents flowering shrubs.

Bing or yang (+) fire represents the sun.

Ding or yin (-) fire represents candlelight and artificial light.

Wu or yang (+) earth represents a mountain.

Ji or yin (-) earth represents garden soil.

Geng or yang (+) metal represents an axe.

Xin or yin (-) metal represents pruning sheers.

Ren or yang (+) water represents a large body of water like a river, a lake, or the sea.

Gui or yin (-) water represents rain, dew, or snow.

You can see that each stem phase has a yang side (large) and yin side (small). How they interact will help determine what you need to make your garden (your life) beautiful and harmonious.

Take this time now to match each stem and each hidden stem in the branches in your chart with a garden representation.

Princess Diana’s Garden

Once again, let’s look at Princess Diana’s chart. Here is what her garden looks like:

Princess Diana needs water to nourish her garden.

Except for her month-stem phase (+ wood), Diana’s entire chart is composed of yin (-) components, making her garden very delicate. There are many flowers (- wood) and ample soil (- earth). There’s even a gardener that prunes (- metal) her plants. Diana’s garden seems quite lovely, doesn’t it? Actually, the flowers are withering, and the soil is dry. This is because there’s only a scant amount of water to nourish her garden. Although there’s no direct sunlight (+ fire), there is an artificial source (- fire) suggesting that Diana lives in a greenhouse. All in all, Diana desperately needs water to bring balance to her chart—to enliven her garden.

In the next chapter, you’ll learn how Diana may have lived had she incorporated more water into her life.

Prince Charles’s Garden

Born on November 14, 1948, at 9:14 P.M., let’s look at the Prince of Wales’s garden:

Prince Charles is waterlogged.

The picture here is simple. It rains (- water) every day, the abundance of water joining together to form a torrential river (+ water). The river carries the plants (- wood) and trees (+ wood) downstream, and it erodes the mountain (+ earth). The soil (- earth) mixes with the river water, making it muddy. It’s a downpour. Charles is waterlogged.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to balance Prince Charles’s chart. The only option is to follow the trend—water. In other words, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Therefore, Charles’s garden (his innate qi) needs water. Metal and wood qi are also favorable because with water, the threesome forms a productive sequence: metal produces water and water produces wood. We’ll talk more about how Prince Charles can benefit from knowing his favorable phases in the next chapter. You’ll also find out whether the abundance of Charles’s water qi would have sustained Diana had they remained married.

Take this time now to study your own garden. Determine the natural elements and implements that you need. They represent the phases that are favorable to you. As you’ll soon find out in the next chapter, your favorable phases correlate to environments, colors, careers, and people that bring balance to your qi.

Strong or Weak Chart?

If you would like a more concrete approach to finding out what phases favor your qi, this next section will prove helpful. However, first you must learn whether your chart is one of strength or weakness. But don’t think the strength or weakness of your chart reflects you, the person. Many powerful people have weak charts.

The Strong Day-Master

A chart is strong if the Day-Master is timely (ready, vibrant, or strong) and there is an abundance of resource and/or parallel in your chart. In other words, the person has a lot of support and knowledge (resource), and friends (parallel) who can assist him. On the other hand, he (or she) has only a little power, some opportunities to succeed and make money (wealth), but little opportunity to show his (or her) talent (performance). The resource or parallel phase is unfavorable. To bring balance to the chart, resource and/or parallel must be drained. To determine which one, follow these simple guidelines (you might want to refer to the star cycles chart in the previous chapter):

If the Day-Master is timely (ready, vibrant, or strong) and there is an abundance of resource in your chart, wealth is most favorable because it controls resource. Performance is also favorable because it gives resource an outlet—something to do. Power is not favorable because it makes resource even stronger. Parallel is not favorable because the Day-Master is already strong.

If the Day-Master is timely (ready, vibrant, or strong) and there is an abundance of parallel in your chart, power is most favorable because it controls parallel. Wealth is also favorable because it gives parallel an outlet—something to do. Resource is not favorable because it makes parallel even stronger. Performance is only favorable if there’s no power in your chart. This is because performance attacks power—the most valuable phase.

For the most part, people with timely (ready, vibrant, or strong) Day-Masters have strong charts. If your Day-Master is untimely (retiring, inactive, or weak) and you have an abundance of parallel or resource, further investigation is required to determine your favorable and unfavorable phases. Unfortunately, these types of charts are beyond the scope of this short introduction to The Four Pillars of Destiny.

Here’s an example of a strong Day-Master. Born on October 26, 1947 at 8:00 P.M., Hillary Clinton’s Day-Master is strong (timely). She has an abundance of parallel (earth). Following the guidelines already given, Hillary’s most favorable phase is wood (power). Water (wealth) is also favorable.

Wise Words

A strong Day-Master means one with more resource and parallel phases than power, wealth, and performance phases. A person with a strong chart has many friends and many competitors. He derives much support from those around him who are more experienced, while getting few chances to demonstrate his own talents.

Hillary Clinton has a strong Day-Master.

Those with strong Day-Masters include Al Gore, Margaret Thatcher, Monica Lewinsky, Martha Stewart, Carolyn Bessette, Brad Pitt, and Jennifer Aniston.

The Weak Day-Master

A chart is weak if the Day-Master is untimely (inactive, retiring, or weak) and there’s an abundance of performance, power, and wealth in the chart. There is little resource and parallel phases. Although a person with a weak chart might not have enough support from friends (parallels) and those more experienced (resource), he (or she) is more likely to be independent and talented. To bring balance to the chart, performance, power, and/or wealth must be drained. To determine which one, follow these simple guidelines:

If the Day-Master is untimely (retiring, inactive, or weak) and there is an abundance of power in your chart, resource is most needed to redirect the flow of qi: power generates resource, which generates and strengthens the Day-Master. The parallel phase is also favorable because it strengthens the Day-Master. Performance is not favorable because it weakens your Day-Master. Wealth is not favorable because it gives even more power to power.

If the Day-Master is untimely (retiring, inactive, or weak) and there is an abundance of performance in your chart, resource is most needed because it controls performance. Parallel is also favorable because it strengthens the Day-Master. Wealth is not favorable because it attacks resource, the most needed phase. Power is favorable only if there’s resource in your chart, which generates or strengthens the Day-Master. If there’s no resource, power is not favorable because it attacks your Day-Master.

If the Day-Master is untimely (retiring, inactive, or weak) and there’s an abundance of wealth in your chart, parallel is most needed. There are many opportunities to make money, but you are too weak to grasp them. You need to strengthen yourself (Day-Master) and find partners (parallel) who can assist you. Resource is unfavorable because people with a lot of wealth usually don’t bother to gain knowledge through education (resource). Performance is unfavorable because it makes wealth even stronger. Power is only favorable if there’s resource in your chart. If there’s no resource, power is not favorable because it attacks the Day-Master/parallel.

Wise Words

A weak Day-Master is one that is untimely (retiring, inactive, or weak) and that has more performance, power, and wealth than resource and parallel. A person with a weak Day-Master is usually being challenged by power and authority, yet has enough intelligence to combat such confrontations. Also, he has much potential to display his talents in favorable luck periods.

A weak chart with a timely (ready, vibrant, strong) Day-Master is very rare. In order to qualify, you must have resource or parallel in the month branch. You must not have resource or parallel anywhere else in your chart.

Those with weak Day-Masters include George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Michael Jordan, Bill Clinton, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and John F. Kennedy Jr.

Princess Diana has a weak chart. Referring to the illustration of Diana’s garden presented earlier in the chapter, you’ll see she has more performance (2 fire phases), power (3 metal phases), and wealth (3 earth phases) than resource (1 water phase) and parallel (4 wood phases). In other words, her performance/power/wealth phases total 8, and her resource/parallel phases total 5. Diana’s most favorable phase is resource (water). Parallel (wood) is not favorable for three reasons: it is untimely (retiring), it is overabundant, and it weakens her most favorable phase—water.

Master Class

If your birth month is Hai (+ water), Zi (- water), or Chou (- earth), fire will help restore balance to your chart. Said another way, if you’re born in November (after the 7th), December, or January (up to February 4), your chart is too cold. Fire will warm you up. If your birth month is Si (+ fire), Wu (- fire), or Wei (- earth), water will help restore balance to your chart. Said another way, if you’re born in May (after the 5th), June, or July (up to August 8), your chart is to hot and dry. Water will cool you down.

Take this time now to determine your favorable and unfavorable phases. However, as you’ll learn in Chapter 26, what is favorable might change depending on the phase components comprising the 10-year and annual luck stars.

In the next chapter, you’ll learn how knowing your favorable phases will benefit your well-being. You’ll learn what careers, mates, environments, and colors are suited to your innate qi.

The Least You Need to Know

A Four Pillars chart resembles a painting of a landscape. It can change over time.

A strong Day-Master has more resource and parallel phases than power, wealth, and performance phases.

A weak Day-Master has more power, wealth, and performance phases than resource and parallel phases.

Favorable phases bring a chart to balance, and unfavorable phases unbalance a chart.