Retreat stage

Meaning

The Retreat is the seventh of the twelve life stages, after the Decline. Its phase draws back here, the way sap withdraws from the branches at the turn of autumn: the outward push is over, and strength gathers inward. The classics call the stage 病 bìng, “Sickness”, after the human life their twelve names follow; the Ziping Zhenquan explains it as the decline gone further. The name tells how strong the phase is in this branch, never an event, and nothing about health, which is why Ulune calls it the Retreat.

The tradition reads sensitivity, thoughtfulness and an eye for what others miss. A Day Master at its Retreat in a pillar’s branch is read as quieter there and more attentive, less inclined to push than to notice: the strength of someone who listens before acting, sees the detail and senses what is not said.

Its difficulty is a reserve that can turn into hesitation, or a sensitivity that takes on too much of what it perceives. The tradition values what gives the stage room, time to reflect and work that rewards attention, rather than asking it for a force it keeps for later.

In practice

• For each Day Master: Jia is at its Retreat stage in Si, Bing and Wu in Shen, Geng in Hai and Ren in Yin; Yi in Zi, Ding and Ji in Mao, Xin in Wu and Gui in You.
• The Academic star: for the yang Day Masters the Retreat branch is also their Academic star, the star of letters, Si for Jia and Hai for Geng: the stage the tradition reads as thoughtful shares its branch with study.
• The Travelling Horse: the yang stems retreat in Yin, Si, Shen and Hai, the branches that open the seasons, and each is the Travelling Horse of the trine of the stem’s own phase: Yin, where Ren retreats, is the Horse of Shen, Zi and Chen, the Water trine.
• Before and after: the Retreat follows the Decline and leads to the Rest; across the wheel, in the clashing branch, stands its Birth.
• On the board, the stage shows under each pillar whose branch is the Day Master’s Retreat branch; its reading gives the classical name with its characters and pinyin, and says what it means: the phase’s strength, nothing more.

Across traditions

• In Japan, Korea and Vietnam the stage keeps its classical name, byō, byeong and Bệnh, read in the same way, as a phase’s strength.
• In Western astrology the nearest idea is a planet’s retrograde motion, when it seems to walk back along the zodiac; many modern astrologers read it as a time to review and reconsider rather than to push: the same turning inward, read from the sky’s motion rather than from the branches.

Origin and history

The Retreat belongs to the twelve stages of the Zi Ping school, the Yuanhai Ziping of the Song and the San Ming Tong Hui of the Ming, which name the four stages that follow the Decline after the close of a human life. The Ziping Zhenquan, in the 18th century, says that these names are borrowed images and gives this one a single phrase, the decline gone further. Ulune’s readings first called it by the season, the sap drawing back at the turn of autumn; part 20 of its languages plan gave the stage that word as its name, Retreat, and kept 病 bìng with its meaning in the stage’s reading and on this page, so that the classical name is known for what it says.

How Ulune calculates it

The Retreat is stage 6 of the count, six branches from the Birth, and so in the branch that clashes with the Birth: forward for a yang stem, so Jia, born in Hai, retreats in Si; backward for a yin stem, so Yi, born in Wu, retreats in Zi. Earth follows Fire, Wu retreating in Shen with Bing and Ji in Mao with Ding. The Academic star is Ulune’s own table, from the classical verse, and meets the Retreat for the yang Day Masters only. The board shows the stage under each pillar whose branch it is, and the full table in the luck pillar and the year too.

Correspondences