The systems underneath your reading.

Your core identity — the sign the Sun was in when you were born. Most people know this as their 'star sign.'

Your Sun Sign represents your conscious self — your ego, your will, and the qualities you express most openly to the world. It's determined by the position of the Sun on your birthday. While it's the most commonly known placement, it's only one layer of a full chart. Think of it as your public face: the version of yourself you lead with.

Your emotional inner world — the sign the Moon was in when you were born. Completely separate from your Sun sign, and often more accurate about how you actually feel.

Your Moon Sign reveals your emotional nature, instinctive responses, and what you need to feel safe and nourished. Unlike your Sun Sign which changes every 30 days, the Moon moves through a new sign every 2.5 days — so two people born the same week can have completely different Moon Signs. In relationship readings, the Moon is often the most important placement: it governs how you love, what you need, and what you're like when no one is watching.

The sign that was rising on the horizon when you were born. This is your outer personality — how others experience you before they know you.

Your Rising Sign (also called the Ascendant) is the mask you wear in public — the first impression you give and the energy people encounter before they know you well. It changes every two hours, which is why exact birth time matters. People often relate more strongly to their Rising Sign than their Sun Sign in social situations. In compatibility, the Rising Sign shapes how two people initially perceive and react to each other.

How you love and what you're attracted to. Venus governs your relationship style, aesthetic sensibility, and what you find beautiful.

Venus in your chart shows how you give and receive love, what you find attractive, and how you behave in relationships. Its sign reveals your love language, your values in a partner, and your relationship with pleasure and beauty. In compatibility readings, Venus placements are crucial — they show whether two people's ways of loving are naturally harmonious or require conscious bridging.

How you pursue what you want. Mars governs drive, desire, conflict style, and physical energy.

Mars in your chart shows how you take action, assert yourself, and pursue desire. In romantic contexts, Mars governs physical attraction and sexual energy — how you initiate, how you fight, and how you go after what you want. Mars compatibility between two people often determines the dynamic of pursuit and response in the early stages of a relationship.

Your animal sign from the Chinese zodiac, based on your birth year. It represents your instinctive nature and how you move through the world.

Your Chinese Animal Sign is determined by your birth year and represents one of 12 archetypes — Mouse, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, or Pig. Each animal carries a set of elemental qualities, relational instincts, and social patterns. In Zoraya, the Chinese Animal is combined with your Western sign to create a dual portrait that neither system alone can provide. The Animal Bond section of your compatibility reading shows how your animal interacts with your partner's.

Your elemental quality — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, or Water — based on your birth year. This shapes your energy and relational style.

In Chinese astrology, every person carries one of five elemental qualities: Wood (growth, direction), Fire (passion, expression), Earth (stability, nourishment), Metal (precision, structure), or Water (depth, adaptability). Your Chinese Element is determined by your birth year and works alongside your Animal Sign to define your relational energy. In compatibility, elemental harmony between two people often determines the ease and sustainability of the connection.

Whether your Chinese sign is Yin (receptive, inward) or Yang (expressive, outward). This affects how your energy moves in relationships.

In Chinese cosmology, every animal sign and element carries either Yin or Yang polarity. Yang energy is outward-moving, initiating, and expressive. Yin energy is inward-drawing, receptive, and consolidating. Neither is better — they're complementary forces. In compatibility, Yin-Yang pairings often create natural attraction and balance, while same-polarity pairings can feel either powerfully aligned or occasionally competitive.

Your core elemental identity in BaZi — the Heavenly Stem of your Day Pillar. This is the most personal placement in Chinese astrology, like your soul's elemental nature.

The Day Master is the single most important placement in a BaZi chart — the Heavenly Stem of the Day Pillar, representing your core self, your elemental nature, and how you fundamentally engage with life and relationships. There are 10 Day Masters, each a combination of an element (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) and a polarity (Yin or Yang). In compatibility, the Ten God relationships between two Day Masters reveal the precise dynamic — who nourishes whom, who challenges whom, and what each person instinctively experiences in the other.

The four columns of your BaZi chart — Year, Month, Day, and Hour — each representing a different layer of your life and self.

The Four Pillars (四柱命理) is the formal name for BaZi — a system that maps your birth data onto four columns: the Year Pillar (your ancestral roots and early life), the Month Pillar (your career and social self), the Day Pillar (your core self and intimate relationships), and the Hour Pillar (your inner world and later life). Each pillar contains a Heavenly Stem above and an Earthly Branch below, creating a layered picture of who you are across different life domains.

The upper component of each BaZi pillar. Heavenly Stems represent the visible, conscious expression of energy.

Each of the Four Pillars has two components: a Heavenly Stem (天干) above and an Earthly Branch below. There are 10 Heavenly Stems, each representing one of the five elements in either Yin or Yang form. The Stems govern the more visible, outward-facing energies of each pillar. Your Day Master — the most important placement in your chart — is the Heavenly Stem of your Day Pillar.

The lower component of each BaZi pillar. Earthly Branches carry hidden energies and govern deeper, structural forces in the chart.

Each BaZi pillar has an Earthly Branch (地支) below the Heavenly Stem. There are 12 Earthly Branches, each corresponding to one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. The Branches carry hidden stems inside them — secondary energies that only become visible under certain conditions. In compatibility, Branch interactions (combinations, clashes) are often the most structurally significant dynamics between two charts.

The Earthly Branch of your Day Pillar. In BaZi, this is the seat most directly associated with your intimate partner — the energy your chart holds for romantic connection.

The Spouse Palace (夫妻宫) is the Earthly Branch of the Day Pillar — the lower component of the same pillar that contains your Day Master above. In classical BaZi, this branch represents the energy you're most naturally drawn to in a romantic partner. The hidden stems inside your Spouse Palace describe the qualities you seek and respond to at the deepest structural level — often below conscious awareness. In compatibility, how two people's Spouse Palaces interact is one of the most telling structural indicators.

The relationship each element in your chart has to your Day Master. They describe what each person or energy in your life represents to you — nourishment, challenge, resource, output.

The Ten Gods (十神) system describes how every other element in a BaZi chart relates to the Day Master. Each of the 10 relationships has a name: Companion, Rob Wealth, Eating God, Hurting Officer, Indirect Wealth, Direct Wealth, Seven Killings, Direct Officer, Indirect Resource, and Direct Resource. In compatibility, the Ten God exchange between two Day Masters reveals the precise relational dynamic — what each person instinctively experiences in the other before they've consciously worked out why.

A Ten God relationship representing creative output, pleasure, and generous expression. When you experience someone as your Eating God, they feel nourishing and freely giving.

The Eating God (食神) is one of the Ten God relationships in BaZi. It governs creative expression, generosity, pleasure, and the quality of someone who makes the world feel more abundant. When another person's Day Master registers as your Eating God, you experience them as someone who opens something in you — a source of warmth and creative energy. It's one of the most positive relational dynamics in the system.

A Ten God relationship representing support, cultivation, and grounding. When you experience someone as your Direct Resource, they feel like steady ground beneath you.

The Direct Resource (正印) is one of the Ten God relationships in BaZi. It governs support, nourishment, intellectual cultivation, and the quality of someone who holds space without needing anything back immediately. When another person's Day Master registers as your Direct Resource, you experience them as stabilizing — the person who builds you, grounds you, and makes you more of yourself. In relationships, Direct Resource dynamics often create deep trust over time.

A Ten God relationship representing challenge, intensity, and transformative pressure. Uncomfortable but often deeply activating.

The Seven Killings (七杀) is one of the Ten God relationships in BaZi — one of the most intense. It represents the energy that challenges, pressures, and demands growth through friction. When another person's Day Master registers as your Seven Killings, the dynamic feels powerful but not always comfortable: there is attraction, intensity, and an edge that never fully softens. When well-managed, Seven Killings dynamics produce extraordinary transformation. When unmanaged, they produce power struggles.

A harmonious bond between two Earthly Branches. When your Spouse Palace forms a Six Combination with your partner's branch, there is a structural magnetic pull between you.

The Six Combinations (六合) are six pairs of Earthly Branches that form natural harmonies in BaZi: Zi-Chou, Yin-Hai, Mao-Xu, Chen-You, Si-Shen, and Wu-Wei. When two branches from different charts form a Six Combination, the interaction creates ease, mutual support, and a natural pull that exists independent of personality. In compatibility readings, a Six Combination between Spouse Palaces or key pillars is considered one of the strongest structural compatibility indicators in the system.

A friction between two opposing Earthly Branches. Not a dealbreaker — but a real dynamic that creates tension, aliveness, and sometimes disruption.

A Branch Clash (冲) occurs when two Earthly Branches sit in direct opposition: Zi-Wu, Chou-Wei, Yin-Shen, Mao-You, Chen-Xu, or Si-Hai. In compatibility, a clash means two elemental forces are moving along the same axis in opposite directions — creating friction that can feel like aliveness or instability depending on how both people handle it. A Spouse Palace clash is particularly significant: it means the partner's energy disrupts the deepest relational template in some way. Not impossible — but it requires conscious engagement rather than instinctive ease.

What each person's chart provides to the other elementally. The exchange shows who fills whose missing elements and what each person activates in the other.

The Elemental Exchange in a compatibility reading maps what each person's elemental composition provides to the other's chart. If one person is missing Fire and the other carries abundant Fire, that exchange is significant — it means one person can bring into the other's life something they cannot access internally. The exchange is rarely perfectly symmetrical, and the asymmetry is often where the most interesting relational dynamics live.

The secondary energies stored inside each Earthly Branch. They're invisible on the surface but active in close relationships and specific conditions.

Each Earthly Branch contains one to three Hidden Stems (藏干) — Heavenly Stems stored inside the branch that are not immediately visible. These hidden energies become activated in specific contexts: in close relationships, under the influence of certain Luck Pillars, or when triggered by another person's chart. In compatibility, the Hidden Stems of the Spouse Palace are particularly important — they describe the most intimate and interior layer of what you seek in a partner.

A 10-year period in your BaZi chart, each governed by different elemental forces. Your current Luck Pillar describes the energetic season of your life right now.

Luck Pillars (大运) divide your life into 10-year chapters, each governed by a specific Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch. Unlike your fixed Four Pillars (which never change), Luck Pillars progress through your life in sequence, each activating different energies in your chart. Your current Luck Pillar is one of the most important indicators of what themes, opportunities, and challenges are active in your life right now — and how those interact with a partner's chart.