Annual cycle
The stem and branch of a single year, laid over your chart and the luck cycle you are in.
In one sentence
The stem and branch of a single year, laid over your chart and the luck cycle you are in.
How it is used
This is the layer most timing questions actually land on: which star the year brings in, and whether it harmonises with or clashes against something already in your chart. A year is read inside the cycle it sits in, so the same annual stem can feel ordinary in one decade and pointed in another. It describes a weather pattern for the year, not events with dates attached.