Severance: the cell where the womb is still empty

Severance: the womb with nothing in it yet

Severance (绝) is the tenth cell of the twelve life stages, after Storage and before Conception. The entry in the Sanming Tiyao (三命提要) gives three names at once:

Receiving qi, also called Severance, also called the womb: all things are still in the earth and have no form yet, like a womb that is empty with nothing in it.

The three names say one thing: all things are still under the ground without a form, like a womb that is empty and holds nothing yet. So "Severance" takes the image of "not yet", not of "no longer"; it follows Storage as the gap in which one cycle has closed and the next has not begun.

Open the full-size diagram

Position sketch: the positions come from the site engine's twelve-stage table; Yang Fire and Yang Earth share Pig, Yin Fire and Yin Earth share Rat; the arrows are examples of one step on from Storage.

Twelve entries, counted from "receiving qi"

The usual way to write the stages starts with Growth and runs through to Nurture, which puts Severance tenth. The Sanming Tiyao's own twelve entries begin with receiving qi instead: entry one is receiving qi, entry two conception, entry three taking shape, and only entry four is Growth.

Against the site's names, receiving qi is Severance, conception is Conception and taking shape is Nurture. Putting those three first makes them the first three stages of "all things in the earth", with Growth as the start of "sprouting and flourishing". The two orderings are one circle cut open in different places: Storage is followed straight away by Severance, and Nurture straight away by Growth.

"Where the five elements are severed is the conception origin": one position, several names

Another place in the books calls Severance the conception origin directly. Juan 6 of the Sanming Tonghui quotes a line of fu verse, and it appears in the Yuanhai Ziping (渊海子平) as well:

Where the five elements are severed is the conception origin; a person born on that day is said to "receive qi".

The book at once adds a distinction: "This is the conception position of Yang and Yin stems, not the conception spirit three positions before the month." That is, the conception origin here is the Day Master's Severance cell, not the other kind of conception worked out from the birth month, the one "three positions before the month". One position has several names in the books, and one name can point to two things:

Severance and Conception are neighboring cells of the twelve stages; this article takes Severance, and Conception follows in the next one, Conception.

The book's "ten qi-receiving days", checked against the table

In the same passage the book gives a list of day pillars and says how to read them:

For people born on the ten days Jia Shen, Yi You, Bing Zi, Ding Hai, Wu Yin, Ji Hai, Geng Yin, Xin Mao, Ren Wu and Gui Wei, do not hastily say that the self is weak and meets a ghost; so long as there is something to lean on, it is a noble chart.

The "ghost" is the Officer or Seven Killings that attacks the Day Master, and the "something to lean on" is support; the book goes on with Yang Wood as its example: Metal is its Officer, Water its Resource and Yang Earth its Wealth, and born on one of these days it is noble so long as the self is strong and Wealth and Officer have qi. The point of the rule is that a Day Master sitting on "receiving qi" should not be judged weak in a hurry, and one should look for support first. Here are the ten pillars of the list, checked against the site's table:

So the book's "receiving qi" covers two neighboring cells of the table, Severance and Conception, which fits the Sanming Tiyao writing receiving qi and conception side by side. Wu Yin and Gui Wei do not match: the book does not say which layout it followed for them, and no guess is made here.

Rescue at the Severance cell: two books, two remedies

When a Day Master, or a favorable element, sits on a Severance cell, the books have two ways of handling it, both aimed at getting it moving or giving it something to rely on.

Juan 6 of the Sanming Tonghui calls the first "returning the soul and borrowing qi". Its examples are Wood severed on Monkey meeting Jia Shen and Metal severed on Tiger meeting Wu Yin, and it ranks the cases: rescue arriving is best, a fortunate spirit comes next, and neither is lowest. The book only lists the examples and does not spell out where each rescue comes from. The commentary in the Di Tian Sui (滴天髓) chapter on clashes and combinations looks at something else: a favorable god lying hidden on a death or severance cell has to be roused by a clash. When you meet a saying of this kind, first sort out which of the two it is.

Severance is one step on from Storage; the two ways of cutting the circle, from receiving qi in the book and from Growth on this site, are easiest to see on the whole ring in the twelve life stages and void branches.