What is Jue?

Jue (Severance) is the tenth of the Twelve Life Stages (Chang Sheng). It is about "the old breaking off so the new can come in." Whichever palace on your chart has Jue, its affairs often go through turns where something breaks off and then joins up again. When you're stuck, set it down for a while; the turn often comes later. After Jue come Tai and Yang, and then back to Chang Sheng, so this is where the whole cycle starts a new round. To see which palace your Jue is in, draw your chart.

How Jue is placed

First find Chang Sheng from the Five Elements Bureau, then count nine palaces on, by yin or yang and gender, and that is Jue:

Like Chang Sheng and Bing, Jue only ever lands in Yin, Shen, Si or Hai. The original text in volume two of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (The Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu) says "count forward for men, backward for women." Xingge sets the direction by yin or yang and gender, so for people born in a yin year it runs opposite to the original text.

The classics say: meeting life at severance

The Tai Wei Fu says:

Meeting life at the point of severance, the flower that grows does not fade.

(Quan Shu, volume one, Tai Wei Fu)

In volume three, the Lun Zhu Xing Tong Yuan section (on stars sharing a palace) annotates this line: "For example, Water and Earth are severed at Si. With the Life Palace in Si, it is a place of severance, yet if a Metal star is in Si, Metal gives birth to Water and it is not severed; only then does it gain Lu." The note sits under the heading of Na Yin, and concerns people whose birth-year Na Yin element is Water or Earth: Water and Earth have Chang Sheng in Shen and Jue in Si. A Life Palace in Si would be a place of severance, but if that palace holds a Metal star, Metal gives birth to Water and the energy is joined up again; the ancients said this actually gains Lu (fortune). A flower that grows after something broken has been joined again lasts longer.

This line is a good way to look at low points. Things that go smoothly from the very start don't necessarily go far; what seems broken and then gets joined again is often steadier.

What Jue means: breaking off in order to change

Jue isn't "nothing." It's "change." In a palace with Jue, you often go through moments where a chapter closes: the old method stops working, an old relationship fades, an old plan stops. Trying hard to join things back up usually doesn't work well; set it down for a while and let something new have room to come in.

In a few key palaces

• Life Palace: your life often takes turns, with plenty of experience of changing direction halfway. Each time you start over, you know more clearly than before what you want.
• Wealth Palace: income sometimes stops and sometimes resumes, and your sources of money change. Keep a reserve on hand, and transition periods won't rattle you.
• Career Palace: work tends to bring times when a chapter closes and you change tracks. Turn each stretch of experience into skills you can carry with you.
• Spouse Palace: you may have the experience of parting and starting again. The end of each relationship helps you see more clearly what you want in the next.
• Health Palace: your energy sometimes suddenly runs out, then comes back after a period of rest. When you're tired, stop first; there's no need to push through.

Natal only, unchanged in each year

On the Xingge chart the Twelve Life Stages are a single natal set that never moves. When you switch to an Annual Luck, the sets that change to annual versions are the Twelve General Gods (Jiang Qian) and the Twelve Year Gods (Sui Qian). If the year's Life Palace reaches your natal Jue, that year's theme falls where it suits you to sort things out afresh and start a new round. The stage before is Mu (Storehouse), and the one after is Tai (Conception). For the full placement method, see the Twelve Life Stages overview.