Answers without, answers within

Today at answers without, answers within we continue with Apryl’s Paht Chee analysis.

Sort of.

source: MS Office clip art

For today, I invite you to feast your eyes on the image to the left.

This is how I see Apryl’s chart: a powerful, perhaps swollen river, contained by its banks for its own benefit.

Yesterday I already discussed at length the high amount of Water in her chart, and how she had strong Yang Earth to keep the water in check.

Today, I invite you to see the beauty of Apryl’s chart, especially of those those two Pillars of Yang Earth… pillars that are located on the left-most and right-most sides of the chart…  acting very much like riverbanks to contain all that Water in there.

Just how much water are we talking about?  Well, like I said yesterday, the BaZi Calculator indicates a count of five Water elements.  But that’s not all….

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There is only one type of interaction to report in Apryl’s chart, but it occurs twice.

Guess what element is produced by the Monkey-Rat-Dragon combination?

That’s right… WATER!

The chart inherently contains two instances of the Water Frame Three Harmony Combination.

Add that to the already high count of Water elements in the chart.

There is ~way~ too much Water here!

I strongly feel that without the presence of those Yang Earth Pillars acting as riverbanks to contain it all, the Water would wash the chart away.

… so does this change anything for Apryl?

Probably.

With all that Water present, I’m beginning to wonder if Apryl’s self-element continues to be a weak (but not that weak) Yang Water, or does all that Water overcome the disadvantage of being born “out of season” thus allowing her to be a strong Yang Water instead.

This is a really important question to get answered, because if she turns out to be a strong Yang Water, then this would totally overturn the identified favourable/unfavourable elements, and therefore greatly change the impact of each element.

As such, I’ll put this analysis on hold too while I confer with my mentor.

Hooray for the learning curve!!

As you have seen over the past few weeks here at Answers without, answers within, I’ve been discussing quite few Ba Zi / Paht Chee charts, providing an analysis to the best of my ability and understanding.

Location of Self-Element circled

I’d like to take a slightly different approach today, giving you what I hope is a more intuitive feel for what the Self-Element is all about.

The self-element is the most important thing in the Paht Chee / Ba Zi chart, in that, everything else the chart tells you is in relation to this element.  And why not, since the self-element is you!

There are ten different possible self-elements, the result of combining Yin (weak) and Yang (strong) with the five elements: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood.  Here’s a brief look at all ten combinations, and how you might want to think about them:

I find it interesting to see how the Yin and Yang permutations bring out different characteristics of an element. In general, you might have noticed the following adjectives for a Yang permutation: unyielding, tough, powerful, brilliant. The Yin permutations highlight a gentler aspect of the elements.

In general, if you were to put two Yangs in a room, there would be clashes of personality, pretty much guaranteed. Two Yins in a room would also clash, but at nowhere near the intensity of the two Yangs, probably more of a disagreement or mild dislike. Put a Yang and a Yin in a room? They have the best chance of getting along.

Therefore, having a Yin self-element helps you get along with most people. There is a danger of getting overwhelmed by others, though.  Being a Yin doesn’t mean you’re a meek follower: you could be the brains working behind the scenes, for example.  In order to keep your ground, however, you probably would need to boost yourself (and your Self) by strengthening the element that “produces” your self-element (more on this later).

Having a Yang self-element indicates a stronger, brasher personality, someone not afraid to shine, to lead.  You could also be a dangerously arrogant person who bulldozes over everyone in your path.  It is easy to go overboard when you’re a Yang, and usually you are advised to “reduce” the influence of your Yang-ness by exposing yourself to the elements that “destroy” and “exhaust” you (again, more on this later).

I’ll take a closer look at each Self-Element in later posts.  In the meantime, I hope this helped give you a better feel for what the Self-Element is all about.