Foundations
Yin and yang, the five elements, the stems and branches and the trigrams. Every other method is built from these.
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Common questions
How do the five elements produce and overcome each other?
Wood feeds fire, fire feeds earth, earth feeds metal, metal feeds water, and water feeds wood. Wood overcomes earth, earth overcomes water, water overcomes fire, fire overcomes metal, and metal overcomes wood. Almost every method on the site reads charts through these two cycles.
Why do the stems and branches repeat every sixty?
Ten stems pair with twelve branches, yang with yang and yin with yin. It takes sixty steps before the same pair comes round again, so the sixty pairs count years, months, days and hours in turn.
When does the zodiac year change?
In the fate traditions the year turns at the start of spring, around 4 February, not on 1 January or at the lunar new year. Someone born in January takes the animal of the year before.