(21) How Color, Health, Direction and Emotion Relate to Your Saju

By Janet Shin

Starting this week, some summarized charts showing the factors of each segment will be provided. Some information, such as how Oriental medicine classifies the five elements, will be added, since these are helpful when reading one's destiny. For many people, health is a major concern.

In order to help better understand the five elements in relation with stems and branches, please see the chart below for summaries.

*Season: Although the seasons are classified as four in the chart, it is just one set of classifications. You don't have to adhere to the season classification for specific regions.

Desperate Saju of a North Korean Defector

Now we will take a look at the saju of a 50-year-old woman. She was born at 7 a.m. (myo) on the 20th day and fourth month of the Lunar calendar (sa) in 1959 (hae). The day master for representing her is gi (yin earth). As we learned, gi is a field where people grow plants, flowers and trees. It is the earth, with moisture and nutrition. Gi people are naive and of few words.

She is a North Korean defector. She had lots of difficulties while escaping from the North through China and Mongolia. She has one sister and one brother in China, while her mother (sa fire) and father (hae water) remain in North Korea.

At a glance, we can see the severe conflict between wood and metal, and between fire and water in her branches.

Wood (myo ― career star and her husband) is restricted by metal (yu ― expression star and her children). She left her husband after she gave birth to her son in China. She couldn't see them after her escape.

Fire (sa ― knowledge star and her mother) is restricted by water (hae ― money star and her father). Her father and mother have always been sick since she was born. They endured a hard life until her father died last year.

She met a man in South Korea but he stole her money and doesn't love her anymore. She misses the days when he loved her, and still takes good care of his son. But she is very sad and angry because of his actions. If you were asked how she could regain her husband's love, it is very sad but you couldn't give her a positive answer.

We will learn in later columns that myo (wood), yu (metal), sa (fire) and hae (water) are the conflicting branches with fierce energy. We know by her saju how desperate her life has been.

There are some things in our lives that we cannot change. It is hard to accept fate when it is against your desire. However, instead of refusing the fate, you could focus your energy and time on the positive aspects rather than on the negative aspects that you were born with and save your emotion and effort.

The writer is the president of the Heavenly Garden, a saju research center in Korea. She is the author of a book titled ``Learning Four Pillars." She offers saju learning courses to all who are interested. For more information, visit her Web site (https://blog.naver.com/janet_shin) or email janetshin@hotmail.com