What is Decade Luck (Da Xian)?

Decade Luck (Da Xian) in Zi Wei Dou Shu is a ten-year chapter of life: from a certain age, every ten years a different palace on the chart becomes the theme of that period, and that palace is called the "Decade Life Palace." Many people looking back notice that what they cared about in their twenties and thirties was completely different; Decade Luck reads that kind of shift in ten-year segments. It's the largest layer of the luck periods, and the Annual Luck and Minor Luck are both read beneath it.

The short version:

• Formula: Decade Luck starts in the Life Palace and moves one palace every ten years; the Five Elements Bureau sets the starting age, and yin-yang plus sex set the direction.
• Starting age: Water 2 at age 2, Wood 3 at 3, Metal 4 at 4, Earth 5 at 5, Fire 6 at 6, in traditional age.
• Direction: yang men and yin women move forward; yin men and yang women move backward.
• How to read it: who lives in the Decade Life Palace, which natal palace it is, its San Fang Si Zheng, and where the Decade transformations land.

How Decade Luck is laid out

There are three steps:

1. Starting point: the first Decade Luck starts in the Life Palace (Xingge's method; the difference from the Quan Shu is explained below).
2. Starting age: set by the Five Elements Bureau. The bureau's number is the traditional age at which the first decade begins.
3. Direction: set by the yin or yang of your birth-year stem and your sex. Jia, Bing, Wu, Geng and Ren are yang; Yi, Ding, Ji, Xin and Gui are yin.

So men born in Jia years and women born in Yi years move forward; men born in Yi years and women born in Jia years move backward. Forward means following the branch order (Zi to Chou, Chou to Yin); backward is the reverse.

Starting-age table

Each Decade Luck covers ten years, counted in traditional age: one year old at birth, adding a year at each lunar new year. Find the row for your bureau:

From the seventh decade on, keep adding ten. On a Xingge chart every palace already shows its Decade Luck ages, so there's nothing to work out by hand.

Your route through life

Once the direction is set, the route follows. The order of the twelve palaces never changes, so wherever your Life Palace sits, forward-moving and backward-moving people pass through these two routes:

In this order, the fifth Decade Luck falls roughly from the early forties to the early fifties: forward-moving people reach the Career Palace, backward-moving people the Wealth Palace. Both reach the Travel Palace in the seventh Decade Luck, around the early sixties. From the route alone you can roughly see where life's focus is likely to sit in each stage.

Xingge and the Quan Shu differ by one palace

Volume two of the Quan Shu says:

Yang men and yin women start from the palace in front of the Life Palace and move forward.

Yin men and yang women start from the palace behind the Life Palace and move backward.

By the original text, the first Decade Luck falls one palace before or after the Life Palace, that is, in the Parents or Siblings Palace. The common modern method, Xingge's included, starts from the Life Palace, in the same direction. So comparing a Xingge chart with the original text, every Decade Luck is one palace off. This is a deliberate choice, listed with Xingge's other differences from the Quan Shu on How Xingge casts a chart.

Each Decade Luck is a new small chart

Wherever the Decade Luck reaches becomes the Decade Life Palace. From there, the twelve palaces are laid out again: Decade Siblings, Decade Spouse, Decade Wealth and so on, like laying a ten-year chart over the natal chart.

The stem of the Decade Life Palace produces another set of transformations, called the Decade transformations. Palace stems are fixed by your birth-year stem: the Yin palace takes the stem in the table below, then Mao, Chen, Si and onward follow the stem order, and the Zi and Chou palaces share the stems of Yin and Mao.

For example, if the Decade Life Palace stem is Geng, the decade has Tai Yang Hua Lu, Wu Qu Hua Quan, Tai Yin Hua Ke and Tian Tong Hua Ji. The full table of which four stars each stem transforms is on the Annual Luck page.

Decade, Annual and Minor Luck compared

The Decade Luck is the main storyline; the Annual and Minor Luck are episodes within it, and Monthly Luck breaks it down further. Always read from the larger layer to the smaller.

Working through an example

Say a man was born in a Geng year, with a Fire 6 Bureau and his Life Palace in Chou, where Tian Tong and Ju Men sit. Geng is a yang stem, so as a yang man he moves forward:

• Ages 6–15 in the Life Palace (Chou)
• Ages 16–25 in the Parents Palace (Yin, Wu Qu and Tian Xiang)
• Ages 26–35 in the Fortune Palace (Mao, Tai Yang and Tian Liang)
• Ages 36–45 in the Property Palace (Chen, Qi Sha)
• Ages 46–55 in the Career Palace (Si, Tian Ji)

At 37 he is in the 36–45 decade. The Decade Life Palace is his natal Property Palace, held by Qi Sha, so this decade's main thread often runs through home, where he lives and what he can build up for himself, and Qi Sha is decisive: what he wants, he goes after himself. The San Fang Si Zheng of Chen: the opposite palace Xu holds Lian Zhen and Tian Fu, and the trines hold Po Jun in Shen and Tan Lang in Zi. Qi Sha, Po Jun and Tan Lang together make the Sha Po Lang pattern, so this is a decade of change, good for tearing down and rebuilding.

The Chen palace's stem is Geng, so the Decade transformations are Tai Yang Hua Lu (in the natal Fortune Palace), Wu Qu Hua Quan (Parents), Tai Yin Hua Ke (Spouse) and Tian Tong Hua Ji (Life). With Hua Ji back in the Life Palace, what needs the most care this decade is his own mood and pace; Tian Tong naturally likes things settled, and now he learns to find his own rhythm in the middle of change.

Four steps to reading a Decade Luck

1. See who lives in the Decade Life Palace. Its main star sets the decade's main tone. If there's no main star, borrow from the opposite palace as with an empty palace.
2. See which natal palace it is. If the Decade Luck reaches your natal Career Palace, the decade's main thread often involves work; if it reaches the Spouse Palace, relationships feel more present.
3. Read the Decade Life Palace's San Fang Si Zheng. As with the natal chart, the stars arriving from the opposite and trine palaces decide how well the decade holds up; see San Fang Si Zheng.
4. See where the Decade transformations land. Hua Lu points to where resources come more easily this decade, and Hua Ji to where the most care is needed. Read them with your natal birth-year transformations; see self-transformation and flying stars.

Volume three of the Quan Shu, on the fortunes of a ten-year decade, reads it directly:

If the stars in the palace are all helpful, at Miao or Wang or well placed, with none of Qing Yang, Tuo Luo, Huo Xing, Ling Xing, Di Kong or Di Jie, the ten years are settled, and both people and wealth do well.

When the stars in the Decade palace are bright and helpful stars are plentiful, with none of those challenging stars, it's a settled decade; when challenging stars gather, success and setbacks are mixed. Xingge follows this logic but only describes the decade's focus, without predicting events.

The first five years and the last five

Volume three of the Quan Shu, in its section on the luck periods and the Southern and Northern Dipper, has a finer rule: the Northern Dipper stars show their effects in the first five years of a decade, and the Southern Dipper stars in the last five:

The good and bad of the Southern Dipper stars show in the last five years of the Decade Luck and the second half of the Minor Luck year.

Volume two's table of star natures sorts them like this:

Few people use this split today, and Xingge doesn't cut the decade in half, but knowing it exists means you won't be lost when a teacher talks about "the first five and last five years of a decade."

The best practice is looking back

When you're new to Decade Luck, don't rush to look ahead. First find which palace your previous Decade Luck went through, and compare it with what you cared about and put the most effort into during those ten years. If it fits, you'll see how the method works; if it doesn't, you'll see where you differ from the book. The full lesson is Decade Luck: a chapter every ten years, and how to read the three layers together is in layering the charts. Draw your chart and every palace shows its Decade Luck ages.