Heaven, Earth and Me

In this post, I will explain how the Ten Heavenly Stems and Twelve Earthly Branches combine to create the sixty Stem-Branch pairs. You may have heard that 2026 is the Year of the Red Horse. But where does that name actually come from? The answer goes back to a pairing system that has been used for thousands of years. Byeong (병, 丙) is a Fire Stem — and Fire is traditionally associated with the color red. O (오, 午) is the Branch that corresponds to the Horse. Put them together: Red Horse. This kind of name — one Heavenly Stem paired with one Earthly Branch — is called a Stem-Branch pair . The complete set of sixty such pairs is known as the Sixty-Year Cycle , or Yuksip Gapja (육십갑자, 六十甲子) . 2024 was Gapjin (갑진, 甲辰) . 2025 was Eulsa (을사, 乙巳) . 2026 is Byeongo (병오, 丙午) . Each year has its own name, and those names cycle through sixty positions before starting over. Why Sixty? The Ten Heavenly Stems run in order and repeat: Gap (갑, 甲) → Eul (을, 乙) → Byeong (병, 丙) → Jeong (정, 丁...

When people first encounter Saju, the Heavenly Stems often feel abstract: invisible flows of time, movement, and intention. Beautiful, but not always easy to hold. The Earthly Branches feel different. They are more grounded. More physical. More closely tied to the world we actually live in. If the Heavenly Stems are Heaven, the invisible rhythm of time, then the Earthly Branches are Earth. They show the seasons we are born into, the directions implied by the Branches, and the kind of ground beneath our life. In Saju, the Branches are not just symbols on a chart. They are the environment, the conditions, and the soil in which life actually grows. There are twelve Earthly Branches: Ja (子, 자), Chuk (丑, 축), In (寅, 인), Myo (卯, 묘), Jin (辰, 진), Sa (巳, 사), O (午, 오), Mi (未, 미), Sin (申, 신), Yu (酉, 유), Sul (戌, 술), and Hae (亥, 해). The Twelve Earthly Branches at a Glance The following table brings together the main layers of the Twelve Earthly Branches: season, seasonal position, elem...

Here's something I find quietly beautiful about Saju. It doesn't just say "time passes." It asks: what kind of time is this? What quality does this moment carry? What energy is moving through it? One of the first tools Saju uses to answer that question is something called the Ten Heavenly Stems — in Korean, Sip Cheongan (십천간, 十天干) . At first glance, ten ancient symbols might feel like a lot to take in. But once you see the logic behind them, they start to feel less like a memorization task and more like... a language. A way of reading the texture of time itself. Let's start from the beginning. Where the Ten Stems Come From The Ten Heavenly Stems aren't ten random symbols. They're built from two ideas you already know from earlier posts: the Five Elements (Ohaeng) and Yin and Yang (Eum-Yang) . Here's the simple logic: Each of the Five Elements appears twice — once in a more active, outward, Yang form, and once in a more quiet, inward, Yin f...

Have you ever had a relationship that felt almost effortlessly supportive — where everything flowed, and being around that person just made you feel more like yourself? And have you also had a relationship, or a season of life, that felt like friction — where something kept slowing you down, pushing back, refusing to let you move the way you wanted? Here's what I've come to believe: both of those experiences have value. And Ohaeng — the Five Elements — actually has a name for each of them. In the last post, we explored Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water as five symbolic rhythms of life. But the Five Elements were never meant to be understood in isolation. They're always in relationship — always moving toward each other, supporting each other, restraining each other. That movement happens in two major directions. And today, we're going to sit with both of them. Two Kinds of Flow: Sangsaeng and Sanggeuk In Ohaeng, the Five Elements relate to each other through tw...

Image source : National Palace Museum of Korea Collection (https://www.gogung.go.kr) Ohaeng: Five Ways Life Moves Have you ever noticed that life has seasons? Not just the ones outside the window — but inside, too. There are times when everything feels like it's beginning, full of possibility. Times when you want to be seen and heard. Times when you just need to get quiet and recover. Eastern philosophy has a framework for this. It's called Ohaeng (오행, 五行) — usually translated as the Five Elements. But I want to gently push back on that translation, because "elements" makes it sound like we're talking about five physical materials. We're not. We're talking about five ways life moves . Why I Use the Korean Names In this blog, I'll use the Korean terms alongside the English ones: • Mok (목, 木) — Wood: growth, beginning, direction • Hwa (화, 火) — Fire: expression, warmth, visibility • To (토, 土) — Earth: support, stability, trans...