Years and Luck Cycles (Sui Yun)

How the chart meets time

This chapter sets the two clocks: the ten-year luck cycle and the annual year, with the year weighted more heavily because it arrives first and touches everything. Whether a coming year is a fight or a friendship depends on which side gives way and which one actually bites: a clash is judged by which element is brought down, a harmony by how closely the two are joined. The four closing questions — what is war, what is clash, what is harmony, what is agreement — are the book's own summary of everything a timing judgement consists of.