Lee Jae-wook's SajuA Midday Bonfire of Early Summer, Held in Earth to Burn Long (Fire Snake)K-Drama · May 10, 1998

용신: 土

Yours is a chart that has stoked fire upon fire at the height of an early-summer noon and set not a single bucket of water beside it. You are Yin Fire born in the Snake month of early summer, a Fire Snake Day Pillar. The month you were born in is fire and the seat you sit on is fire, so the energy runs over, yet the water that could cool that heat appears nowhere in your three pillars. The only passage for letting that overflowing fire out is the single Yang Earth standing on your year stem. The world sees your sharp eyes and takes you for a cool, distant man, while you probably think of yourself as playful and full of affection. But deep inside the Snake Fire of your month and day branches, two pieces of Yang Metal lie hidden, quietly weighing things on a scale. Someone who hides a calculating eye beneath the heat, that is who you are.

In the days of the Edo shogunate, Dutch ships came and went at Nagasaki. In a back alley of that port I saw a teacher at a terakoya, one of the small schools where townsfolk’s children learned to read, who held the same Fire Snake Day Pillar as you. He taught the children their letters, yet instead of having them read exactly what the books said, he explained things in his own words and made them laugh as he taught, so laughter spilled out past the schoolroom door. He longed to learn more of the scholarship that lay beyond Dejima, but neither the means to carry on that study nor a place to put what he had learned ever opened for him.

Fire Snake — A Midday Bonfire of Early Summer, Held in Earth to Burn Long

You are a fire that does not tire. The Snake Fire of the early-summer month holds up your Day Master, so you were born in your own season, and the Yang Fire tucked inside the Tiger Wood of your year branch and inside the Snake Fire of your month and day branches gives you roots of the same fire. The Yang Wood hidden in that Tiger Wood is the Nurturer, which even supplies you with firewood. Your month branch and day branch both sit at the Peak stage of the Twelve Life Stages, the seat where fire is at its strongest. Your chart as a whole is a strong Day Master. The strength that had you arriving first at the academy and leaving last to close the door behind you was not squeezed out by effort. It was the firepower you were born with.

Your structure is the Performer Structure. The Yang Earth of the Performer stands exposed on your year stem and takes root in the Yang Earth inside the Snake Fire of your month branch. The Performer is an energy that speaks in its own words rather than words fitted to a mold, so when “Then don’t cast me” came out of your mouth at your very first audition, that too was this candor at work. The Exposure Star sits in your month and day branches, a seat where even what you try to hide tends to show, but for an actor it is also the seat where people’s eyes gather. The Scalding Star sits in three places, your year, month and day branches, and once your heart catches on something it becomes a drive that sweeps everything forward, so a habit of checking the steps once more is what protects that strength. The ESFP you have named and your saju point the same way on two axes, Extraversion and Feeling.

Even among Fire Snake Day Pillars, this chart is an early summer without a single drop of water, so it runs hotter than other Fire Snakes and its heart is quicker too. The Tiger Wood of your year branch is tangled with the Snake Fire of your month and day branches in the Tiger–Snake Punishment and the Tiger–Snake Harm, which keeps you from leaving what you have learned as it is, so you pare it down and rework it yourself. Your habit of pressing your lines onto paper with a pen, and of putting questions to a character and filling in the answers on a mind map, came from exactly this seat. Your motto, that you must know there is a sky above the sky, is also the way an overflowing fire measures its own height.

You are not someone who holds out long inside a frame others have built. You are someone who sets up the board with your own expression. The Performer gives you independence and expression, and your overflowing Companion and Rival stars give you the strength to push ahead alone. The first road is acting. The Exposure Star, where eyes gather, and the sharp Performer sit together, so on stage that energy finds its proper place. The second is staking your own name on planning and producing a work, because the Yang Wood hidden in the Tiger Wood holds up the power of preparation that digs into a character. The third is work that leaves a result made by hand, like cooking, since a chart whose Vital Element is earth breathes freely when it shapes something and sets it out. Yours is not a vessel meant to stay in a salaried job but a vessel of independence that stands under its own name, and it leans quite deeply that way. A one-person agency is clothing that fits you, but know too that if you hold everything alone, the fire burns up all of its own fuel.

You asked, so let me give you the conclusion first. After your discharge, you go back to that place. Only it will not be the same place but a weightier one. The Earth Goat Decade Luck, from around May 2017 to around May 2027, was ten years in which earth, your Vital Element, entered both the stem and the branch. In the Earth Dog year of 2018, when you debuted, the Yang Earth of the Performer, the same as your year stem, rose into the sky and the door of expression opened. The next year, the Earth Pig year of 2019, its Pig Water formed the Snake–Pig Clash with the Snake Fire of your month and day branches and the Tiger–Pig Combination with the Tiger Wood of your year branch. It was a year when the ground of your work shook hard and your outside connections widened, so the way projects came pouring in was part of that flow. From around May 2027 the Metal Monkey Decade Luck begins, an even ten years in which the Steady Wealth enters both the stem and the branch. It is the stretch for turning the name you have built into trust and reward. November 2027, when you are discharged, is the tail end of the Fire Goat year, a year that carries caution, so do not hurry. The year with the most force behind it is the Earth Monkey year of 2028.

There are two places where you get stuck. One is when shares and the lead become tangled with the people you work with. The other is when the Performer’s sharp words collide with those above you. If you offer an alternative whenever you criticize, that edge turns into trust instead. What kind of actor should you be to last a long time? Earth is the energy that piles up quietly and builds weight, so your fire burns longest not in a single scene of a flashy genre but in a story that digs all the way down into one character’s inner life. The Steady Wealth of the Metal Monkey Decade Luck will give you the face of a character who carries daily life and its responsibilities, the face of an adult living in the real world.

On the Climate Element, the old texts said that early-summer Yin Fire should be fed firewood by Yang Wood and split by Yang Metal. But in this chart the fire already overflows, so rather than that prescription, water, which tames the heat, is chosen as the Climate Element. Wood is a conditional Avoid Element that acts as one only when it arrives with roots and touches earth directly, so it does not mean you should avoid learning itself. It means you should guard against the times when only preparation piles up and none of it goes out.

Your wealth does not show on the surface. It lies hidden as Steady Wealth, the Yang Metal inside the Snake Fire of your month and day branches. With wealth buried deep on a board overflowing with the same fire, yours is a structure in which the more people you work with, the more easily your share scatters. It is the shape of energies just like your own each trying to split the wealth among themselves. In return, the road is clear. It runs from earth, your expression, to metal, your wealth, a flow in which talent itself becomes money. You said that from middle school on you bought clothes and shoes with money you earned working. The habit of spending what comes in straight away on dressing and presenting yourself was already visible then.

Where it leaks is just as clear. The Robbery Star in your year branch is a seat where money easily gets tied up in other people’s affairs, and the Scalding Star in three branches is a habit of the hand moving first in hasty decisions. For someone leading an agency, the standards for settlements and contracts must come before personal feeling. The Fire Horse year of 2026 and the Fire Goat year of 2027 are both years to watch competition and the shares divided with others, so it is wiser to put off decisions that cost large sums. From 2028 to 2030 your wealth stands up, and in the Earth Rooster year of 2029 in particular, Rooster Metal forms the Snake–Rooster half combination with the Snake Fire of your day branch, and the hidden Yang Metal grows large. The years 2031 and 2032 are for holding on to what you have.

Let me give you one thing to do starting this month. November is a month that holds you up, so on leave or when someone comes to visit you, sit down with a person you trust and write your agency’s settlement standards on a single page. Put it in writing who decides what, and in what order the earnings are divided.

The star that means a partner for you is metal, the Yang Metal of the Steady Wealth. That star is hidden inside the Snake Fire of your month and day branches, so it is a bond that stays out of sight, buried close to daily life, until it arrives. Steady Wealth is the star of someone upright and grounded in reality, who knows the weight of running a household. Your words, “someone who will love me completely, someone wholly on my side,” touch exactly what this star points to. You are a man whose heart goes to the trust of someone who stays beside him for a long time rather than to a dazzling attraction.

But the Snake Fire of your day branch, the Spouse Palace, is not an easy seat. The Rival sits there, the Lonely Swan Star and the Exposure Star sit with it, and it is tangled with the Tiger Wood of your year branch in Punishment and Harm. Yours is a strongly independent nature that works through feelings alone inside and covers the surface with playfulness and charm, and since things show more easily the closer two people are, it is no simple seat to protect. That is why a partner who sets out each other’s time and space from the start suits you. The partner’s seat of a Fire Snake Day Pillar is read as a bond that deepens when two people build something together.

Let me point out the timing. In the Earth Monkey year of 2028, Monkey Metal forms the Snake–Monkey Combination with the Snake Fire of your day branch and the door of connection opens, and in the following year, the Earth Rooster year of 2029, the Snake–Rooster half combination fills up the hidden Steady Wealth. The best time is the Earth Rooster year of 2029. When the Metal Dog year of 2030 comes, the Yang Metal of the Steady Wealth appears on the stem, so the ten years of the Metal Monkey Decade Luck are a stretch that carries the star of your partner. But in the Metal Pig year of 2031, Pig Water clashes with the Snake Fire of your day branch, so if you are married by then, know it as a year when the rhythm of daily life shakes. Here is what to do starting today. Just as you untangle a character on a mind map, write on one page the “day with someone on my side” that you wish for, and beside it write three things you will give that person first.

Fire piles up layer upon layer in early summer and there is no water in this chart, so your energy heats up easily and, once heated, rarely cools down. Your Climate Element is water, so a life that cools the body is itself the way to look after your health. Keeping your sleep regular, staying near water, and time spent bringing down the heat in water, like the swimming you enjoy, are medicine for this chart. You have said you lose weight when you are too busy to exercise, so mealtimes, which belong to earth, must be fixed into the filming schedule before anything else.

The Scalding Star in three branches is a mark of haste more than of the body. If you do not rest after a rush, that heat builds up inside, so decide in advance on days left empty between schedules. Your present military life is a run of days ruled by eating and sleeping at fixed hours, so as a use of earth, which steadies daily life, it actually has a beneficial side. If some discomfort keeps on, do not hesitate to see a doctor.

The Fire Horse year of 2026 is a year in which caution comes first for you. The Yang Fire in the sky is the Rival and the Horse Fire on the ground is the Companion, so it is a year when a crowd of the same fire gathers on you twice over. That you enlisted in May and mixed in among countless fellow recruits and comrades is how a year of Companions and Rivals has shown itself. The Performer clashes with the Companion and Rival stars, so within the crowd a single word easily grows into a quarrel, and friction easily arises over shares divided among you. If I sum up this year in one word, it is “crowd.”

Still, there is one tailwind. The Goat Earth of your present Decade Luck and this year’s Horse Fire form the Horse–Goat Combination, so your place and the people around you lock together, and settling into your own spot even in an unfamiliar crowd goes smoothly. The headwind is the competition and the shares spoken of above, so put off big promises and decisions that involve money until 2028 or later. Of the months left, November is a month that holds you up and December is a steady month. In November, design your first steps after discharge in your head, and in December, quietly refine that design.

Look back ten years at a time and the road comes clear. The Earth Horse Decade Luck, from 2007 to around 2017, was a good stretch that brought the Performer and the Companion. Going back and forth to work from middle school on to take care of yourself, and waking up to acting around the age of seventeen, were the energy of expression in that season clearing the road. What followed, from around May 2017 to around May 2027, is your present Earth Goat Decade Luck, ten years in which earth, your Vital Element, entered both the stem and the branch. Getting into university on a second try, debuting, and standing as a lead, the ground under that whole sprint lay here.

From around May 2027, when you turn twenty-nine, to around May 2037 comes the Metal Monkey Decade Luck. The Steady Wealth comes in twice over, making it ten years for turning your name into reward and responsibility, and into a family, and it is an even stretch. Yet within it are three years to be careful. The Fire Goat year of 2027 adds the Companion and Rival stars, a year to watch shares and competition. The Metal Pig year of 2031 is a year when Pig Water clashes with the Snake Fire of your month and day branches, so things are easily shaken hard, and you must cut back on what you have taken on and decide first what to protect. In the Water Rat year of 2032, its Yang Water binds with the Yin Fire of your month and day stems in a stem combination, so your mind is easily tied to one side and your judgment clouds. Take big decisions one beat slower. On the other hand, 2028, 2029, 2030 and 2033 are years when the energy holds you up.

From around May 2037, when you turn thirty-nine, to around May 2047 runs the Metal Rooster Decade Luck, an even stretch in which the Dynamic Wealth enters and your interest grows in widening the board and setting people and work in motion on a large scale. Widening, whether in producing or in business, suits that time, but what you protected in the decade before becomes the capital for that widening. After that, in the Water Dog Decade Luck from forty-nine, the Noble Authority and the Performer arrive together, and it becomes easier to take up a seat and a weight that match your name. Right now you stand at the tail end, closing out the ten years of your Vital Element.

Let me set the ESFP you have named side by side with your saju. On the axis of Extraversion and Introversion, your saju leans clearly toward Extraversion by both calculations, the same side as the E you chose. You are a fire that fills up in front of people, so there is no room for doubt. On the axis of Thinking and Feeling, too, the saju leans clearly toward Feeling and overlaps with your F. The Performer stands out most as a nature that expresses feeling and reads what passes between people, so the way you find everything cute and open hearts with teasing shows the same face through both lenses.

On the other two axes the two lenses see different sides. On the axis of Sensing and Intuition you chose S, while by both calculations the saju points clearly toward Intuition. On set you move by the sense of this very moment, but in front of a script you are someone who asks about a character’s puzzles on a mind map, answers them, and digs into the inner life no one can see, so the two sides take turns working inside one person. On the axis of Judging and Perceiving you are P, while the saju points toward Judging by one calculation, from the Ten Gods. With only one basis, I will touch on it lightly. A playful, improvising surface lives together with a fixed ritual of pressing your lines onto paper with a pen.

For you, an ESFP, the way to use your Vital Element of earth lies not in some grand resolve but in one result left behind each day. Whether it was filming or practice, when the day is over, write down with a pen one line about what your body caught that day. When your fire, which enjoys the moment, piles up as earth through that one line, it becomes the very capital of an actor who lasts.

That teacher in the Nagasaki alley never laid hands on the books from beyond Dejima in all his life, and in the end he gained neither the means to continue his studies nor a place to use what he had learned. Even so, it is said that some of the children he taught, laughing and in his own words, later became Nagasaki interpreters, the tsūji, carrying words from across the sea. It was an age when the only place for a Performer’s talent was a single schoolroom in a back alley. For you today, is the same Performer of the same Fire Snake Day Pillar not open to the screen and the stage, and even to fans across the sea? You already have the place that teacher never had, so in the Earth Monkey year of 2028, choose from that place one work that digs all the way into a single character.

First, work and money. From your discharge in November 2027 through that winter, choose scripts but do not rush to sign, and in the Earth Monkey year of 2028 gather your strength on one work that will be the center of that year. The standards for settlements and contracts must be fixed in writing before then.

Second, people and relationships. Keep near you people who carry the energy of earth, your Vital Element, people like a supporting beam who keep their promises and stand firm longer than words do. The production crews you have worked with for a long time and a small, trusted team fill that seat. When the Earth Rooster year of 2029 comes, the door to meeting a partner opens widest among people of that kind.

Third, body and mind, and the place where you stay. Within the first half of 2028, choose one spot at home for reading scripts, and keep an earth-colored or brown notebook and a pen there. The moment you write your lines with that pen will become the signal that catches hold of your energy. What protects you is the single line of each day left in that brown notebook, and your hand that trusts that line and picks up the pen again. In summer, when your body heats up, cool it down by the water and with swimming.

Fourth, preparing for the Decade Luck ahead. The board shakes hard in the Metal Pig year of 2031 and the Water Rat year of 2032, so within 2030, first settle the list of works, people and assets you will protect. Widening can wait until the Metal Rooster Decade Luck of 2037 and still not be late.

The Earth Monkey year of 2028 is coming. Monkey Metal strikes the Tiger Wood of your year branch and clears away one piece of firewood that had been holding you back, and it combines with the Snake Fire of your day branch to open the doors of work and of love together. That year your outside connections and the seats of those above you move as well, so look them over once, and when you have lived through that year, come back and tell me what work you returned with and whom you kept beside you. On your road back to the stage, may a fire that burns long, rather than one that hurries, stay with you.