Methodology
Reading Luck and Annual Cycles
Overlaying luck pillars and yearly cycles on the natal chart through their interactions.
Da Yun Liu Nian
Reading the cycles overlays timing on the static chart: the roughly ten-year luck pillars and each year's annual pillar are compared against the chart's favorable and unfavorable elements through interactions such as generation, control, combination, and clash. The cycles are cast deterministically from the chart, but the meaning of each interaction is interpretive and practitioner-dependent. A reading compares incoming stems and branches with the natal structure rather than reading a cycle in isolation.