Adjusting Marriage and Romance

Translator's note. A full worked remedy, from chart to directions to diet, and the best single illustration of how the method is built: read the structure, find what will disturb it in the coming year, adjust those directions, then decide whether you are fixing one year or a lifetime. Two things are worth carrying away. First, the refusal to promise that a separated couple will reunite — the argument is that a marriage involves two people and the remedy can only be applied to one. Second, the “rotten peach blossom” section, which concedes that calling up romance can be dangerous. (On one question, about homosexuality, the author writes in the idiom of Chinese popular writing of the period; the archive reproduces it without endorsing it.)

For a man: the day branch is fundamental; the wealth star is secondary. Together they represent wife and lover.

For a woman: the day branch is fundamental; the officer star is secondary. Together they represent husband and lover.

1. The ordinary method

For a man, adjust the day branch and the stems and branches of the wealth star. For a woman, adjust the day branch and the stems and branches of the officer star.

2. One thing must be said first

Where a couple is already in crisis, separated or divorced, the remedy may not bring them back together.

Wealth, office, study — those are one person's business. Adjust his energy and the matter is settled. A marriage is two people's business. You can adjust one person's energy; you cannot necessarily adjust the other's. And even if you adjusted both to excellent energy, that would not mean the two of them belong together. It might mean they reunite — but it is more likely to mean each of them finds someone he or she loves more than the person they separated from.

Only a fraud, in order to be paid, will guarantee a reconciliation.

Stated properly: the remedy can guarantee a happy married and romantic life. It cannot guarantee that the happiness will be with this particular person. When you advise a client, do not promise that the husband or wife will come back. Promise that someone you love, and who loves you, will appear. Who that is may not be the person you loved before.

3. The principle

The day branch is the root of the adjustment. The wealth star or officer star is secondary. Which is why we keep insisting: the positional ten god matters far more than the surface ten god.

4. A worked case

Female: wuwu / yimao / jiashen / xinwei. Luck cycle xinhai; year gengzi.

Note first that you cannot fix the target in advance. In antiquity, or twenty years ago, one could guarantee a husband. Not now. Multiple partners are common in practice even where the law forbids it, so the remedy cannot name the role. And in this field, what is a spouse? Anyone with whom a sexual relationship is maintained over a long period. That is the operational definition. The law defines a husband; fate does not follow the law. Fate is the way of heaven and earth; law is what people have agreed. They are not the same thing.

So: adjust for a good partner, not a bad one. The day branch first, the officer star second.

The day branch (fundamental): shen. Note that shen metal is also the officer star.

The officer star (secondary): shen, xin, geng.

The feng shui:

1. Shen must be strong and auspicious — good sand.
2. Xin and geng must be kept auspicious — good water.

To move this woman's romantic life in a good direction next year, all three must be brought to auspicious.

We can also run it backwards. Why is her romantic life poor now? Because her prenatal feng shui and her present dwelling must be, one hundred per cent, bad water at shen. With bad energy at the day branch's position there is no possibility of meeting a partner who satisfies her, and no possibility of a happy marriage.

If shen carried strong auspicious sand, she might have a husband who is rich, honoured, handsome and kind to her — and how much of that depends on how strong the sand is. Which is why people with identical charts have different fates. Reading from the time system alone whether another person's husband is capable: accurate is possible, inaccurate is normal.

So: shen strong auspicious sand, xin and geng auspicious. That is the minimum.

And what appears may not be a husband. It may well be a married man who treats her very well, and whom she loves. We can guarantee what people call a peach blossom. A peach blossom and a husband are not the same thing.

5. The non-standard part

Who disturbs the relation between day branch and day master next year: zi.

In the coming gengzi year, the year branch zi combines with the day branch shen metal, the officer star — and the officer star leaves the day master jia. Setting aside the feng shui at shen, zi must be made auspicious.

• Zi: good sand. With good sand at zi, even if that energy enters her body it will not disrupt the officer star's relation to the day master.
• Shen: good sand, as above.

Who disturbs the relation between day master and the officer star next year: geng.

In the gengzi year the year stem geng clashes the day master jia out of the chart. So geng must be good water, or it will disrupt.

Only when zi and geng are quiet, and shen is auspicious, does her romantic life move in a good direction next year.

And within the natal chart itself, who disturbs the relation between day master and officer star: yi.

The hour stem xin metal is the husband, but the month stem yi wood clashes it, so xin and the day master jia cannot hold a good relation to each other. Read on the time system alone, every woman with this chart has an unhappy marriage and makes a mess of her romantic life.

And yet some women with this chart have very happy marriages. Why? Because their environment has yi sand and xin water. Those with marriage problems have yi water and xin sand — and often bad water at shen as well. A woman with this chart, with bad water at yi, bad sand at xin and bad water at shen, has no possibility whatever of a lifetime of happy marriage.

So: to secure her happiness you must ensure shen, zi, geng, yi, xin. Five characters.

But you need not adjust yi and xin this year. Adjust shen, zi, geng and next year's romance is fine. Shen, yi, xin is the lifetime problem. What we are solving now is next year.

This is a point worth generalising: when you call up wealth, office, study or romance, you must think about what happens after the result arrives. Aim only at next year and you fix only next year. Aim at the rest of her life and that is a different, larger adjustment.

6. Direction of movement

The mao direction is best for romance — for good peach blossom.

Note: for good peach blossom. Not for the rotten kind, which costs people their lives and their liberty. Do not assume that calling up romance is a favour.

In China more people are killed, and kill, over romantic entanglement than over money; half the murderers in Chinese prisons killed over a bad peach blossom, and the other half over everything else. Which makes romantic entanglement the single largest motive. The peach blossom is poisonous. Do not touch it casually. To fall into one young and foolish and ignorant of the art is understandable; to face one at a mature age should be done rationally, and after fifty with some care. Even the young would do well to establish whether the thing is harmful before going looking for it.

Directions that produce bad peach blossom: shen, xin, geng — the unfavourable directions. Shen first, xin second, geng third.

Metal is unfavourable this year, and for a woman the officer star being unfavourable means rotten peach blossom. So she must not go to shen, xin or geng looking for a partner. However much she loves him, however much he loves her, if he comes from those three directions it is a bad peach blossom and will give her a painful episode. To go looking for a partner in an unfavourable direction — especially in a year when the officer star is unfavourable — is to go looking for trouble. Not looking is the better choice.

The direction that produces good peach blossom: mao, a favourable direction.

The positional ten god for lover is the month branch. A lover can certainly be promoted to husband. So with the metal officer direction ruled out, the second favourable direction is the month branch's mao wood — favourable this year. Her best partner, her best peach blossom, comes from mao.

That does not mean no one comes from elsewhere. It means that for a happy second half of life, only mao will do. Let her work, travel, live in the mao direction, and she will somehow acquire good romantic energy; she will absorb what the universe delivers along that axis.

So: mao is where the best man comes from next year.

7. Diet

Favourable: foods belonging to mao — rabbit, and things of that class.

Unfavourable: birds — chicken, duck, goose, pigeon, quail.

And the inference runs backwards. When we learn that this woman's romantic life is poor, and she is not a vegetarian, we can generally infer that she likes poultry: drumsticks, duck wings, goose, eggs, quail eggs. What she likes to eat is affecting her marriage.

If her romantic life is very poor indeed, you can infer with some confidence that she eats eggs or poultry daily.

8. Temperament

That she has come to ask for help with romance tells us her romantic life is bad, which tells us the officer star is acting badly in her body. The officer star governs temperament. So her temperament is difficult — a woman with this chart and an unhappy marriage is almost certainly a woman of peculiar temper.

And temperament can be worked on. Force a change of temperament and the romantic life changes with it.

But do not read the chart and pronounce the woman difficult. Some women with this chart are gentle and charming — those whose officer star energy is strong auspicious sand and water. Strong inauspicious sand and water at the same position produces the unreasonable, shrewish woman.

So: adjust the wife's officer-star position to good sand and water and her temperament improves. Adjust it to bad sand and water and you will fight with her daily. You can test this. Put a mobile phone, standing in for bad sand, at your wife's officer-star position and watch whether you quarrel within three days. Hang your coat there and she will find fault with you — because at that moment her body holds a quantity of the officer star's bad energy.

9. Body

Mao corresponds to the back. The month branch is mao; the month branch represents the back.

Wood is favourable this year and mao wood is weak. If this woman's back is thin and undeveloped, the adjustment at mao, or a move to mao, will produce a poorer result for her than for another woman with the same chart whose back is well developed.

Individual variation. You cannot understand it without the model theory.

10. People

Favourable: those born in a mao year — the rabbit. Keep close to them and a peach blossom is drawn out, and a good one.

Unfavourable: those born in a you year — the rooster. You clashes mao. Do not be close to them: a good peach blossom will be talked down by a rooster-born friend, who will find fault with the man until she gives him up. If this woman's closest friend was born in a rooster year, she has no prospect of a happy marriage. Distance yourself.

11. Questions

In the gengzi year the year stem geng clashes the day master jia. Does adjusting the sand and water remove that effect?

After adjustment the effect is gone. The remedy is nutrition restored. Leave it unadjusted and you are short of nutrition in a year that demands more — as eating good food when hungry satisfies, while drinking a bowl of vinegar when hungry leaves you hungrier and may make you sick.

Is it best to adjust both the inside and the outside of the dwelling?

Yes. The more adjustment, the more energy, the better the result.

Does a same-sex partner count as a lover?

Yes. What the adjustment produces need not be an opposite-sex partner. In the features of a fate, same-sex and opposite-sex attraction present identically; which way a person goes is decided mainly by his or her own values. (The author goes on to discuss “breaking” the pattern, which belongs to a different subject from the one treated here.)

Where is the origin for measuring direction?

First, the ancestor's grave. Second, any dwelling lived in for more than half a year. Adjusting grave and dwelling together gives the best result; if only one can be done, do one; if neither, then direction of movement and diet. In practice the grave is often impossible — siblings will not agree — while your own dwelling is always adjustable.

Is the bedroom the focus? Where is the body's origin?

Not necessarily the bedroom. The adjustment is made from the point where you actually sleep — on a double bed you may sleep left, right or centre. For this woman, the origin is the point on the mattress where she lies, and the centre is taken at the chest or abdomen. The origin need only be approximate. But do not tell the client it is approximate, because he will conclude you are working inaccurately.

What if she moves to the yi direction?

Entirely bad for her marriage. She would go there to work or live and the husband would be clashed away, because yi clashes the hour stem xin metal, the officer star. No woman with this chart who works and lives in the yi direction has a happy marriage — she would not be happy even with a husband, because in that direction her body absorbs, all day, the energy that kicks the husband out.

If the dwelling and the grave are in different places, how is direction measured?

By how long you have lived where you live. Ten years or more and the grave is irrelevant: take the dwelling as the origin.

Must both the surface ten god and the positional ten god at the day branch be adjusted? And if the day branch is not an officer star, is adjustment still needed?

The positional ten god sometimes matters and sometimes does not. In this chart shen metal at the day branch is both surface and positional. The day branch must always be adjusted; the officer or wealth star is secondary — adjusting it only adds a margin. If your day branch is strong and auspicious, the romantic life will not be bad. If your romantic life is very bad, look at the feng shui at your day branch and you will find bad sand and bad water.