Easing衰

Easing is the sixth stage, where strength relaxes a notch after the summit. In human terms it matches the years just past one's prime, when physical force has dipped a little but the craft of handling things has deepened through experience. For that reason the stage is explained more as ripening than as fading. It is used when looking at the ease of watching the field from behind rather than out in front, unhurried judgment, and ways of working that last without strain. The space that opens as the heat of Peak cools belongs to this stage.

• 衰to decline, to wane (Korean reading: soe)

Force or momentum growing smaller: a character for the slow settling that follows the prime of life.

Easing comes right after Peak, five seats from Sprouting. A yang Day Master moving forward meets it at the first branch past its Peak. A yin Day Master moving backward meets it at the branch just before its Peak in the usual order. So yang Wood reaches Easing at the Dragon, right after its Peak at the Rabbit, while yin Wood reaches it at the Ox, just before its Peak at the Tiger. As with Dressing, all ten stems find Easing on one of the four Earth branches.

Care comes first in reading an Easing seat: not rushing, and weighing a matter once more before acting. Judgment drawn from experience is taken as dependable, and the reading adds that new ventures go better when the pace is not held back too far. Several Easing seats suggest trimming ambition and tending to what really matters. A chart without Easing shows the liveliness of moving first with no hesitation.

A 壬 (Ren) Day Master reaches Easing at 丑 (Chou), the seat just past its Peak branch 子 (Zi). The Earth stem 己 (Ji) follows the same table as 丁 (Ding) and meets Easing at 辰 (Chen).

• A common idea

  With Easing in the chart, strength runs low and things go badly.

  How we read it

  The worry comes from readings that treat every stage past the top as frailty. This service does not use Easing as a sign of success or failure; it describes an ability to set the pace on the basis of experience.

• A common idea

  Easing is linked to the Metal element.

  How we read it

  The confusion starts in Korean, where the stage's reading, soe, is also a native word for iron. The character here means to wane and has nothing to do with Metal; in this service every stem, of any element, has one Easing seat.