BLACKMORE

A Korean saju & portrait experience

Born in Joseon,
who would you have been?

Your selfie becomes a Joseon portrait. Discover the station Heaven draws for you and the story your saju tells.

OriginalJoseon portrait
Minhwa · Folk painting
Read my saju — free

No photo, no sign-up — your four pillars and the first chapter, right now.

Meet my Joseon self

Reference face preview is free within usage limits (otherwise made after payment) · Portrait created after purchase · Korean edition

New to saju? Start here

Saju is a Korean tradition that reads the year, month, day and hour of birth. Here it sets your portrait’s colors and atmosphere, while Heaven draws your Joseon station from your birth date. Enjoy it as a cultural story, not a claim about your actual past life.

Portrait style gallery

One face. Three Joseon portraits.

Your saju guides the colors and atmosphere; the station Heaven drew sets the clothing. Compare the original photo with all three styles.

Your own good-fortune painting. Auspicious symbols that fill what your chart lacks are painted in.

Korean saju · Four Pillars

The story behind a portrait

Example 1 — Original photo
Original photo

Illustrative birth chart

01 Mar 1993 · 12:00Solar calendar · Seoul

Hour
甲Wood午Fire
Day
辛Metal巳Fire
Month
甲Wood寅Wood
Year
癸Water酉Metal

Five elementsColor & atmosphere

Station drawn by HeavenJoseon role & clothing

Calculated from fictional birth details, this chart illustrates how a reading can guide a portrait. The portraits shown are advertising samples.

Example 1 — Minhwa · Folk painting

Example 1 · Minhwa · Folk painting

A portrait shaped by your reading.

  1. Colors guided by saju

    The five elements in your saju guide the portrait’s colors and atmosphere.

  2. Your role and clothing

    Heaven draws your Joseon station from your birth date, and the station shapes the clothing.

  3. Your face, a Joseon portrait

    Your face brings the role, colors and atmosphere together in one portrait.

Use an original selfie that clearly shows your face, without filters or retouching. A clear view of your features helps us create a portrait that looks like you. These are advertising samples; results vary with your photo and reading.

A letter from Joseon

Where did Heaven seat you?

One of twenty stations, from sovereign to beggar, drawn by Heaven from your birth date and sealed in this letter.

The chart stays. Heaven decides the station.

The stations Heaven draws — if a hundred were born

The odds are the same for women and men. Heaven does not look at skirts or robes.

The Dragon Throne1%

  • Sovereign · Queen Dowager1%

The Great Houses15%

  • Chief Minister2.5%
  • Grand Scholar2.5%
  • War Minister2.5%
  • Chief Censor2.5%
  • Army General3%
  • Hidden cardRoyal Inspector2%

Stations Heaven Made15%

  • Ideal Scholar · Lady Poet5%
  • Rare Bird5%
  • Tycoon5%

The Magistracy22%

  • Court Interpreter5.5%
  • Royal Physician · Palace Healer5.5%
  • Village Teacher5.5%
  • Constable · Lady Detective5.5%

The Market27%

  • Merchant Prince9%
  • Broker · Inn Mistress9%
  • Master Smith9%

The Streets20%

  • Court Entertainer · Wandering Performer9%
  • Shaman · Shrine Medium9%
  • Hidden cardPeerless Beggar2%

Your station is revealed the moment you open the letter. Heaven does not ask twice — the same birth date, birth time, sex and birthplace always land in the same station (solar or lunar, the same day counts the same).

Read your free saju and this letter arrives, still sealed. Decide whether to open it then.Read my saju — free

The Blackmore Code, Article 1Heaven decides the station. Heaven does not ask whether you are a man or a woman.

Your portrait. Your story. One card.

Open your Joseon portrait reading.

Your Joseon portrait and face reading — brought together from your face and birth details.

Card layout sample. The person, birth chart and scores are illustrative.
Read the card in larger text

Key readings from the card above. This sample uses an advertising portrait and illustrative birth details.

Your role in Joseon

Chief Censor

You were born fine rain that soaks in without a sound.
Year
癸卯
Month
甲寅
Day
癸卯
Hour
戊午

What the birth chart suggests

the Expression structure — it turns on what it makes and says

a day-stem that runs on what surrounds it

The current chapter

Ages 58–67 · 戊申

a time of ending. What is going will go. Letting go is what opens the next

The next chapter

From age 68 · 丁未

a time of storing. Things go inward. Nothing shows outside, and that chafes

Joseon character scores

Learning
72/99
Strategy
90/99
Standing
7/99
Valor
32/99
Fortune
12/99
Favor
78/99

  1. Your face, in a Joseon portrait

    Turn your photo into a portrait from old Korea. The station Heaven drew sets the clothing; your saju sets the colors and mood.

  2. Facial shapes and the face-reading tradition

    Shapes observed in your reference face are accompanied by explanations from traditional face-reading texts. Your birth date and time also provide the current flow and the arc of your life. No knowledge of saju needed.

  3. Meet your character scores

    High strategy? A touch of fortune? See your eight characters counted into six playful scores for your Joseon character.

Meet my Joseon self

How your portrait reading comes together

Your birth details form the Four Pillars. Their interpretation guides the portrait’s palette and atmosphere; Heaven draws your Joseon station from your birth date, and your face becomes the face reading and the portrait. This is a cultural experience for fun, not proof of a past life.

A front-facing photo being measured

Observe facial shapes

1995 · 03 · 06 — the hour of In (寅)

Hour
丙寅
Day
甲午
Month
戊寅
Year
乙亥

Read the birth chart

Sample portrait of the same person in Joseon official dress

A Joseon portrait

  1. Upper · Forehead
  2. Middle · Brow to nose
  3. Lower · Below the nose to chin

The photo and portrait show the same person. The birth date and chart are illustrative examples.

Blackmore’s saju

How this differs from other saju readings

Timed by the sun where you were born
Seoul and Busan see the sun rise at different times. We correct your birth time by the longitude of your birthplace, and roll back daylight saving where it applied, before setting your eight characters.
The frame follows the Ziping Zhenquan
The rules for reading a chart’s frame (its structure) follow the Ziping Zhenquan. Other parts have their own classic — the season’s heat and cold follow the Qiongtong Baojian, the twelve life stages and the void branches the Sanming Tonghui — and each was checked against the original text.
We recounted 300 charts separately
We took 300 charts at random — leaving out births within two days of a solar-term change and in the 11 pm–1 am hour — and recounted them with the classical tables, separately from our engine. For the month and hour pillars we checked only the heavenly stems; within that scope, the day pillar, the order of the luck cycles, the frame, the twelve life stages of the current luck cycle and year, and the void branches matched in every field.
Woven into one person’s story
Your temperament, money, work and people are read together, inside one life — the life you lived with that chart in Joseon.

Three doors into Joseon

Read for free. Curious for more? Pick one of three.

The Eight and The Two of You need only birth details; Face & Chart adds one photo for a face reading and your portrait.

In Korea, a single in-person saju consultation commonly runs ₩30,000–100,000.

Face & Chart

What did your Joseon self look like?

One photo · birth details

Your face and portrait are Face & Chart; the saju book is The Eight — choose only what you want

  • Observed shapes in your reference face, with explanations from traditional face-reading texts
  • One portrait of you, dressed for the station Heaven drew — court, folk or drama style

US$15.99 · One-time purchase

Meet my Joseon self

More about Face & Chart

The Eight 四柱帖

Who were you in Joseon?

No photo · birth details only

  • Open the letter: the station Heaven drew for you, and the Joseon life you lived in it
  • Every part of your eight characters, and six scores

US$11.99 · One-time purchase

Read the first part free

The Two of You 宮合

What connects the two of you?

Partners · friends · family · colleagues

  • Discover how your birth elements relate to each other
  • See which elements appear in their chart but are absent from yours

Free reading

Compare our charts

Readings are for fun — they prove nothing and advise nothing.

So — who were you, in Joseon?

Bring your photo and birth details. Your portrait, face reading and the Joseon station Heaven drew come together in one card.

Meet my Joseon self

Readings are for fun — they prove nothing and advise nothing.

Read my saju — free