Korean Astrology, explained
What is saju?
Saju (사주, "four pillars") reads a life from the exact moment of birth. Your year, month, day, and hour each become a "pillar" (two characters apiece, eight in total), drawn from the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. Together they map your temperament, your relationships, and the seasons your life moves through.
Where saju comes from
The four pillars took shape in China around the tenth century and travelled across East Asia. Korea has been reading them ever since: a thousand years of its own commentaries, its own teachers, and its own uses, from the marriage match to the new year's reading to the name chosen for a newborn. Japan and Vietnam inherited the same system and made something else of it. What Sajura gives you is the Korean reading.
Why is it different from my star sign?
Your Western star sign comes from just the month you were born, one of twelve. Saju reads four pillars: year, month, day, AND the hour. That's why two people with the same star sign can have completely different saju, and why it feels so specifically you.
The words in your reading
A quick translation, so nothing feels like a foreign code.
Four Pillars: Korean astrology read from the exact year, month, day, and hour you were born. Four pillars, eight characters.
The single character for your birth day. It represents you: your core self, the lens the whole chart is read through.
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water. How balanced (or lopsided) these are in your chart shapes your temperament and where you stretch.
How each part of your chart relates to your Day Master: your drive, money, status, creativity, and support, each one named.
Extra energies tucked inside each branch, the subtler layers beneath the surface of a pillar.
Your 10-year chapters. Life moves through seasons; this is the weather of each decade.
This year's energy, layered on top of your birth chart.
Your day branch: the part of your chart most about close relationships. Heavily weighted in compatibility.
Three signs that form a harmonious trine, one of the strongest signs of a deep, settled fit.
Two signs that pair warmly, easy, affectionate, low-maintenance compatibility.
Two signs that sit opposite, magnetic and exciting, but friction-prone. The most-watched factor in a compatibility reading (궁합).
For entertainment and self-reflection. Ages 18+.