XinggeDecade Luck: a chapter every ten years
Life is like a series, with a new season every ten years · 4 min
Twenty and thirty
Looking back, many people find that what they cared about in their twenties and their thirties was completely different.Zi Wei divides these shifts into ten-year stretches called Decade Luck. Every ten years, a different cell on the chart becomes the focus.
The age your first Decade Luck begins
| Five Elements Bureau | Starting age |
|---|---|
| Water 2 | Age 2 |
| Wood 3 | Age 3 |
| Metal 4 | Age 4 |
| Earth 5 | Age 5 |
| Fire 6 | Age 6 |
The first Decade Luck starts in the Life Palace, at an age set by your Five Elements Bureau, and moves one cell every ten years after that.
Which way it moves
For yang men and yin women it moves clockwise; for yin men and yang women, counterclockwise.Yin and yang come from the stem of your birth year: Jia, Bing, Wu, Geng and Ren are yang; Yi, Ding, Ji, Xin and Gui are yin.
Clockwise and counterclockwise
Each decade has its own Life Palace
Whichever cell the Decade Luck reaches becomes that decade's "Decade Life Palace".That cell's stem produces a fresh set of Four Transformations for the decade, so the bright spots and sticking points move too.
If the stars of the palace are all helpful, at Miao, Wang or De, without Qing Yang, Tuo Luo, Huo Xing, Ling Xing, Di Kong or Di Jie, it means ten years of calm, with people and wealth both well.
In plain wordsWhen the stars in the decade's cell are all bright and helpful, with none of the Six Malefic Stars, the ancients said the decade would be settled, with both people and money in good order.
Which cell you've reached
The highlighted cell is your Decade Life Palace for these ten years, with the decade's main thread and transformations below.
You're 26 by nominal age, in the Decade Luck of your Fortune Palace.
- This Decade Luck
- Ages 24–33 · Ding YouThis decade centers on your inner life: the life you want and your true interests rise to the surface.
- Decade Life Palace
- Fortune Palace · Tian Ji (Wang), Ju Men (Miao) Hua Lu
- Decade transformations
- Tai Yin Hua Lu, Tian Tong Hua Quan, Tian Ji Hua Ke, Ju Men Hua Ji
This is a sample chart. Enter your birth details and this card switches to your own chart. Draw a chart ›
Diagram: Decade Luck
Sample chartOn this chart the Decade Luck moves clockwise, one palace every ten years.
Ages 24–33: the Decade Luck sits in the Fortune Palace, and this palace sets the theme for those ten years.
This is a sample chart. Enter your birth details and the diagram switches to your own chart. Draw a chart ›
For a Water 2 Bureau, at what age does the first Decade Luck begin?
- Age 2
- Age 6
- Age 10
See answer
Age 2
The starting age is the bureau number: Water 2 starts at age 2, Fire 6 at age 6.
Every ten years, a different cell takes the focus.
Deeper reading
How the Decade Luck is laid out
Decade Luck is a ten-year chapter of life. Laying it out takes three steps:
- Starting point: the first Decade Luck starts in the Life Palace.
- Starting age: from your Five Elements Bureau. Water 2 starts at 2, Wood 3 at 3, Metal 4 at 4, Earth 5 at 5 and Fire 6 at 6. For a Wood 3 Bureau, for example, the first Decade Luck covers ages 3 to 12, the second 13 to 22, and so on. Ages are counted as nominal age.
- Direction: yang men and yin women move clockwise; yin men and yang women move counterclockwise. "Yang" and "yin" come from the stem of your birth year: 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 clockwise; men born in Yi years and women born in Jia years move counterclockwise.
Xingge and the Quan Shu differ by one cell
The original text of the "Rhyme for Placing the Decade Luck" in volume two of the *Quan Shu* says "for yang men and yin women, start from the palace before Life and go clockwise" and "for yin men and yang women, start from the palace after Life and go counterclockwise", so the first Decade Luck falls in the Parents or Siblings Palace. The common practice today, and Xingge's, starts from the Life Palace in the same direction. So if you compare Xingge's chart with the original text, every Decade Luck is one cell off. This is a deliberate choice, explained in Chapter 8, "What kind of book is the Quan Shu".
A lifetime's route
Once the direction is set, you can lay out the route:
- Clockwise: Life, Parents, Fortune, Property, Career, Friends, Travel...
- Counterclockwise: Life, Siblings, Spouse, Children, Wealth, Health, Travel...
In this order, the fifth Decade Luck falls roughly from the early forties to the early fifties: clockwise people reach the Career Palace, counterclockwise people the Wealth Palace. Both reach the Travel Palace in the seventh Decade Luck, around the early sixties. Just from the route, you can roughly see which stretch of life is more likely to center on what.
Each Decade Luck is a new small chart
Whichever cell the Decade Luck reaches is called the "Decade Life Palace". From that cell, you lay out the twelve palaces again in order: Decade Siblings, Decade Spouse, Decade Wealth and so on, effectively a small ten-year chart layered on top of the natal chart.
The palace stem of the Decade Life Palace also produces its own set of transformations, called the decade transformations. If the Decade Life Palace's stem is Geng, for example, this decade has Tai Yang Hua Lu, Wu Qu Hua Quan, Tai Yin Hua Ke and Tian Tong Hua Ji.
How to read a Decade Luck
- First, who lives in the Decade Life Palace: that cell's main star sets the decade's main tone.
- Which natal palace it is: when the Decade Luck reaches your natal Career Palace, the decade's main thread often has to do with work; in the Spouse Palace, matters of love are felt more.
- The Decade Life Palace's San Fang Si Zheng: just as with the natal chart, the stars arriving from the opposite palace and the two trines decide whether the decade holds up.
- Where the decade transformations land: Hua Lu points to where resources come easily this decade, and Hua Ji to where you'll most need to put in thought.
"On the Fortunes of the Ten-Year Decade Luck" in volume three of the *Quan Shu* reads it very directly: if the decade's cell has bright stars and many helpful ones, without Qing Yang, Tuo Luo, Huo Xing, Ling Xing, Di Kong or Di Jie, it's a settled ten years; with challenging stars joining in, it's "success and failure mixed". Xingge follows this logic but only describes the decade's focus, not events. "On Luck Periods by the Northern and Southern Dipper" in the same volume has a finer division: Northern Dipper stars act in the first five years of the decade and Southern Dipper stars in the last five. It's an old method that few use today; it's enough to know it exists.
The best practice is looking back
When you're new to Decade Luck, don't rush to look ahead. First find which cell your previous Decade Luck was in, and compare it with what you cared about most and put the most effort into during those ten years. If it fits, you'll see how this reading works; if it doesn't, you'll see where you differ from the book.
Terms in this lesson
- Decade Luck
- Ten-year chapters of life, each taking a different palace as its theme.
- Five Elements Bureau
- Water 2 through Fire 6. It decides where Zi Wei lands and at what age your first Decade Luck starts.
- Four Transformations
- Hua Lu, Hua Quan, Hua Ke and Hua Ji: four impulses that set the stars in motion.
- nominal age
- The traditional count: you are one at birth and add a year at each Lunar New Year. All luck periods use it.
- palace stem
- The heavenly stem assigned to each palace, derived from your birth-year stem and used for flying stars and self-transformation.