If the yearly Life Palace is the year's protagonist, Dou-Jun is its first-month gate and dispatcher; how months run and where they begin are set by it.
What This Question Is Really Asking
Starting months at the yearly Life Palace and skipping Dou-Jun shifts every month, so timing is off; this step cannot be skipped.
The Underlying Logic
Dou-Jun splits into yearly (for the year) and monthly commanders, the origin from which the moving chart unfolds.
Yearly Dou-Jun: count the birth month backward from the year-branch palace, then count the birth hour forward from zi; the landing palace is Dou-Jun.
The stars and transformations in the Dou-Jun palace show the year's overall state and the first-month starting quality.
Twelve months proceed from Dou-Jun as month one, so an error there cascades through every month of the year.
A Step-by-Step Way to Read It
- Lay out the yearly chart and fix the year-branch palace
- Count the birth month backward from that palace to the intermediate landing
- From there count the birth hour forward from zi to fix the Dou-Jun palace
- Read its major star and transformations for the year's overall tone
- Start month one at Dou-Jun and arrange the twelve months in order
- Arrange days below months, descending level by level without skipping
Three Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Skipping Dou-Jun and starting months at the yearly Life Palace
Mistake 2: Counting month/hour in the wrong direction, misplacing Dou-Jun
Mistake 3: Confusing Dou-Jun with the yearly Life Palace—dispatcher versus protagonist
Back to Your Own Chart
Dou-Jun is the first button of the yearly chart. Buttoned right, every month and day falls into place; learning to find it takes your reading from roughly-which-year down to exactly-which-month.
Reading Order
- Cast the natal chart first and locate the palaces and major stars tied to the yearly Dou-Jun before judging anything
- Open the triple-direction of those palaces and count the auspicious, malefic and assistant stars separately
- Check where the natal Four Transformations land to set the chart's baseline tone
- Read the decade-limit transformations to see whether the the yearly Dou-Jun line is activated in this stage
- Then read the annual transformations and the year's palace to pin down this year's trigger and timing
- Layer natal, decade and year before concluding, then decide how to act rather than labeling good or bad