Before the steps.
Your chart has four pillars and two characters per pillar — eight characters total. The top row is the four heavenly stems. The bottom row is the four earthly branches. Read left to right: hour, day, month, year (Korean charts are usually drawn this way, with the day pillar second from the left).
You need three inputs to generate the chart: your birth date, your birth time, and your sex. Get the chart from any reputable saju calculator, from the Given app, or from an astrologer. The Given app does the calculation against the solar terms and true local time, which matters near hour and month boundaries.
Here's what an example chart looks like. We'll use this same chart to walk through every step below.
Top row = the four heavenly stems. Bottom row = the four earthly branches. The day pillar (second from left) carries the day master — in this chart, 己, Yin Earth. That single character is the reference point for everything else.
The six steps, in order.
Find the day stem (your day master)
Look at the heavenly stem on top of the day pillar. That single character is your day master — the element and polarity that represents you. Note both: which element (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) and which polarity (yang or yin). Yang Wood reads very differently from Yin Wood, even though both are Wood. The whole rest of the chart is read in relation to this one character. More on what each day master means in the day master article.
Example chart → The day stem is 己 — Yin Earth. The cultivator type: steady, supporting, the kind of self that holds what others build.
Read the month branch — your season
Drop down to the bottom character of the month pillar. That earthly branch is the season you were born into, and it sets the climate of the entire chart. A Yin Water day master born in summer behaves nothing like a Yin Water day master born in winter — same identity, different weather around it. Hot months push the chart dry. Cold months push it heavy. Whether your day master feels supported or strained depends a lot on this single character.
Example chart → The month branch is 午 (Horse) at peak summer. Hot, dry, expressive. A Yin Earth day master in this season runs warm and extracted — Earth absorbs all of summer's heat without much help.
Count the elements
Go through all eight characters and tally how many belong to each of the five elements. Both stems and branches count. Now look at the distribution. What's dominant? What's thin? What's missing? A chart with three Fires reads with intensity and visibility. A chart with zero Fire often runs cooler, more private, slower to ignite. The numbers don't have to be even. They almost never are.
Example chart → Stems carry Yin Metal, Yin Earth, Yang Water, Yang Metal. Branches carry Snake (Fire), Ox (Earth), and two Horses (Fire). Tally: 0 Wood, 3 Fire, 2 Earth, 2 Metal, 1 Water. Heavy on Fire and Metal, no Wood at all.
Find the favorable element
This is where saju gets interpretive. The favorable element (in Korean, 용신 / yongsin) is what your day master needs more of for the chart to feel balanced. The rule of thumb: a strong day master — one with lots of same-element or producing-element support — needs the elements that drain or control it. A weak day master needs the elements that produce or match it. This step is the most contested in saju, and different schools will pick different favorable elements for the same chart. If you read three sources and get three answers, that's normal — not a mistake.
Example chart → Yin Earth surrounded by 3 Fire (which supports Earth) and 2 Metal (which drains it). The Earth here is decently fed but the chart is hot and missing Wood entirely. Most readers would call for Water as the primary favorable element (cools the chart, adds the missing flow) and Wood as a secondary (breaks the excess Earth, feeds the missing growth). A different school might emphasize Metal as the drain to lean into. Both are defensible reads of the same chart.
Read the year and hour for context
Now widen out. The year pillar describes the social and generational frame you were born into — the family, the era, the conditions that surrounded you early. The hour pillar describes inner motivation, the part of you that often only shows up in private. Both pillars modify how the day master expresses in the world. For the full breakdown of what each pillar carries, see how the four pillars work and the twelve earthly branches.
Example chart → Year is 庚午 (Yang Metal / Horse) — born into a sharp, fast generational frame. Hour is 辛巳 (Yin Metal / Snake) — refined, observant, the inner voice that wants things precise. Both push the cultivator-type day master toward more visible, exact work than its quiet nature would otherwise pick.
Notice clashes and harmonies between branches
Compare the four earthly branches against each other. The twelve branches form known pairings: Tiger and Pig harmonize, Rat and Horse clash, Snake and Pig clash, Rabbit and Dog combine. When two branches in your chart fall into one of these patterns, it shows where the chart has natural flow and where it has friction. A clash inside the chart often surfaces as an internal tension you feel without naming. A harmony often surfaces as an area of life that just works.
Example chart → 巳-午 (Snake-Horse) reinforces Fire across the hour and month branches; the two 午s amplify each other. The day branch is 丑 (Ox), which sits opposite 未 (Goat) — the third member that would complete the summer Fire trio. So the chart concentrates Fire visibly while the Ox underneath does quiet resistance: the day master's tension shows up in the structure itself.
What this gets you.
A chart read in this order answers practical questions. What kind of work suits your temperament. What kind of relationships drain you and which ones recharge you. What daily rhythm you function best in — early mornings, late nights, long stretches of quiet, constant motion. The chart won't tell you whether to take the job. It will tell you which version of the job is going to feel sustainable and which one is going to grind you down.
The chart describes the conditions you do well in. The decision is still yours.
Given automates all six of these steps and presents them as readable surfaces: identity, element balance, favorable element, daily and yearly weather, compatibility. You can also do the read by hand — which is worth doing at least once, because once you've counted the elements yourself, the app's blocks of interpretation start meaning something concrete instead of mysterious.