十二長生 · Shuāi
Waning衰
the first decline — past the peak, the quiet turn downward
The sixth stage — an element's qi just past its peak, beginning to soften.
01概覽
Waning (衰, Shuāi) is the sixth of the Twelve Life Stages, and it names the state of an element's qi, not a person's decline. Immediately after Prime, the energy turns: still substantial, but no longer at its peak. Waning is the first, gentle step down from maximum strength — the qi softening, the intensity easing off.
It is not a weak stage so much as a settling one — the element still has real strength, just past its most forceful point. Read as an energy state, it is mellowing rather than failing: strong-ish, calmer, on the far side of the peak.
02在命盤中
An element at Waning reads as moderately strong but declining — past full power, with the edge coming off. It is a middling placement, neither robust nor weak. As always, this describes the element's strength at the branch, not a downturn in the person's life.
03實例
Yang Wood (甲) is at Waning in Chen (辰): Wood just past its spring peak, easing into the damp earth of late spring. The yin stems run the cycle in reverse.
04跨系統對照
| 系統 | 最近的原型 | 備註 |
|---|---|---|
| Zi Wei Dou Shu | Also a Zi Wei star — 衰 in the 長生十二神 (the twelve life-stage stars), placed by the 五行局 | Zi Wei runs the identical twelve-stage cycle as its 長生十二神 star series, dropped onto the palaces according to the chart's element class (五行局). 衰 is the same-named Zi Wei star — read there as a palace's phase-strength, not a Bazi element's qi. Both are strength-phase readings; neither is a life-event forecast. |
| Western astrology | A loose analogy to a planet losing dignity as it moves off a strong position | Not an equivalence: the nearest Western idea is strength-by-position, but the gentle past-peak softening has no direct counterpart. |
跨系統對照只是鬆散的定錨參考，不是字面對等。十二長生追蹤的是某個五行之氣在地支循環中的強弱——這個機制西方占星沒有；最接近的概念是行星按位置而定的力量（廟旺陷落）。
05以描述而非預言來讀
常見問題
What is the Waning life stage (衰) in BaZi?
The sixth stage — an element's qi just past its peak, beginning to soften.
Does the Waning stage describe your fortune?
Waning describes the strength of an element's energy at a branch — just past its peak — not a person's decline or any life event. It is read for what it says about that element, and the same stage plays out very differently across different charts.