The twelve two-hour windows of a day

The twelve windows

A day is divided into twelve windows of two hours each. Every one has its own element, its own place in the traditional Chinese medicine organ clock, and its own character — and each has a page below.

The organ clock column is the traditional assignment, named because it is the oldest description of what each window is for. It is a description of the scheme, not a claim about anybody's body.

Why the day starts at 23:00

Twelve windows of two hours each, and the first one opens at 23:00 rather than at midnight — so a window straddles the top of the day and the calendar day changes in the middle of it. The windows run on the local wall clock with no lunar step and no epoch count, which makes this the only scale of the five whose boundary a reader can see on the clock in front of them. It is also why the windows are written as clock ranges everywhere on this site: the range is exact, and it is what a reader searches for.

The consequence worth noticing is that the first window straddles the top of the day: the calendar date changes in the middle of it. Everything after that lines up two hours offset from the clock hours people usually think in — the working morning is two windows, not three, and the middle of the day sits inside one window rather than between two.

The five standings a window can hold

Every window is read against the day containing it, and the relationship between the two elements is one of five standings. These are the same five everywhere, which is why they are defined here once rather than on each of the twelve pages.

Unlike the decade layer, the hour layer really does run on the ordinary generating and controlling cycles of the five elements — so a standing is exactly what it looks like, and the same element pairing gives the same standing every time.

Why every window comes in five variants and not ten

Each window page below carries five rows, one per element, and that number is not an editorial choice — it is forced. A window's character in a given day is set by an arithmetic that alternates in step with the windows themselves, so a window can only ever draw from half the possibilities, and which half is decided by where the window sits in the day. Odd-numbered windows draw from one set and even-numbered from the other.

Each of those sets happens to contain exactly one of the five elements, and each always matches the window's own polarity. So every window has five variants, one per element, all at its own polarity — never ten, and never a mixture. That is why the tables on the twelve pages below have an element column and nothing else: there is no second axis to put there.

What the board actually shows for a window

Four things. A standing against the day, from the five above. A written tone for the window, which is the paragraph each of the twelve pages carries five of. An action — the board's shorthand for what the window is good for. And a score, which like the day's is a coarse band rather than a measurement.

The part that needs a chart is the fifth: which of the twelve life domains the window points at in one particular life. The standing, the tone and the clock are properties of the window and the day, identical for everybody alive in them, which is why the twelve pages below can be written at all.

What a window costs

The other four scales are free at Soul Bonding. The windows are not: each is unlocked on its own for 300 Karma Credits, the unlock is permanent, and one purchase opens that window in both Time Analysis and the Fate Calendar rather than in one of them.

Everything explained on these thirteen pages needs no chart and no unlock. What the credits buy is the window read against your own twelve domains, on a particular day.

Frequently asked

How are the twelve two-hour windows divided?

Twelve windows of two hours each, and the first one opens at 23:00 rather than at midnight — so a window straddles the top of the day and the calendar day changes in the middle of it. The windows run on the local wall clock with no lunar step and no epoch count, which makes this the only scale of the five whose boundary a reader can see on the clock in front of them. It is also why the windows are written as clock ranges everywhere on this site: the range is exact, and it is what a reader searches for.

Why does each window come in only five variants and not ten?

Because a window can only ever carry half of them, and which half is fixed by the window itself. The windows alternate polarity around the day, and the arithmetic that assigns a window its character always lands on the matching half — so an odd-numbered window draws only from one set and an even-numbered one only from the other. Each set holds exactly one of the five elements, which is why every window page has five rows and each row is an element.

What does a window reading actually give you?

A standing against the day, a written tone for the window, an action, and a score. The standing is one of Surge, Echo, Press, Drain, Block, and it is the part that needs no chart at all — it follows from the window's element and the day's. What does need a chart is which of your twelve life domains the window points at, and that is worked out on the board rather than published here.

What does an hour window cost?

300 Karma Credits each, unlocked one window at a time, and the unlock is permanent. One purchase opens that window in both Time Analysis and the Fate Calendar. The other four scales — Stage, Year, Month and Day — are free at Soul Bonding.