A few weeks ago I announced that we were retiring the annual Metaphysician’s Day Planner offering, after nine consecutive years of making them, each one custom-made to order with your birth chart and that year’s solar return chart. Plus the companion Metaphysician’s Guide that comes with the year ahead’s astrological forecasts, auspicious dates, inauspicious dates, and the dates to notable astrological or astronomical events.

Although we won’t be selling and making them anymore, we also didn’t want to leave you in a lurch, especially since we acknowledge that many of you have come to rely on it year after year. First, thank you so, so very much for your support over so many years. That’s amazing! Second, thank you for your understanding, patience, and sympathies that it’s just no longer feasible for us to be doing this, as our process is entirely manual and “old school” in this new world of everything getting generated instantly by digital automation.

I changed my mind and I am offering a “MDP Lite” version for 2026, which you can learn more about HERE. The layout design for many of the classic sections have been updated, and I will be updating some of the reference content as well.

You can still download the templates for the past day planner design and layout, however.

Day Planner Section Files

Each year we offered three different size options for the day planner:

• Trade Paperback, 6″ x 9″
• US Letter, 8.5″ x 11″
• A4 European, 8.27″ x 11.69″

For each size option, we start by creating the different section templates, which are as follows:

1. Front Pages
2. Year-at-a-Glance Pages
3. Quarterly Planning Pages
4. Monthly Planning Pages
5. Week-at-a-Glance Pages
6. End “Grimoire Pages”

FYI: The exact features and template for each of the above listed sections is a bit different from size to size, so for example, the Quarterly Planning Pages in the US Letter version is slightly different from the layout, text, and features for the Quarterly Planning Pages in the Trade Paperback version, etc.

I’m sharing you the MS Word docx digital files of each of the above calendar feature sections for each of the three different size options. A few very important formatting notes:

• If you have a different Microsoft Word version on your computer from the version I am using, then the formatting may look wonky, so when using these templates to design your own, you’ll need to account for potential wonkiness due to formatting inconsistencies.
• Likewise, if I am using a font type that you don’t have on your computer, then the text will look funny, because it is not appearing in its originally intended font type. For example, use of a Chinese calligraphy font type for some of the Chinese text — if you don’t have that font type, then instead of the intended calligraphy, it’ll look blockish.

Trade Paperback Day Planner Section Files

• DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE FOR TRADE PAPERBACK TEMPLATES
• DOWNLOAD COVER ART DESIGN OPTIONS (TRADE)

US Letter Day Planner Section Files

• DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE FOR US LETTER TEMPLATES
• DOWNLOAD COVER ART DESIGN OPTIONS (US LETTER)

A4 (Europe) Day Planner Section Files

• DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE FOR A4 EUROPEAN TEMPLATES
• DOWNLOAD COVER ART DESIGN OPTIONS (A4)

Natal Year Fu Talismans 本命年符

• DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE FOR 2017 – 2028

There’s an old blog post from 2014 that talks about natal years (本命年, ben ming nian) in Chinese astrology. The concept is similar to planetary Returns in Western astrology. When the current year is the same zodiac animal as your birth or natal year’s zodiac animal, it’s a Natal Year, or a Return to your natal zodiac sign.

A personal tradition of mine was to gift a natal year Fu talisman to close friends and family (who believe in this stuff) when it was their natal year. For the Day Planners, I shared that tradition by creating more standardized Fu talisman templates so that if the year ahead, say the Year of the Horse, as it will be in 2026, is the same as your natal year (you were born in the Year of the Horse), then you may want to opt to include the 2026 Natal Year Fu Talisman for the Fire Horse as part of your day planner design, to safeguard you and bring you blessings throughout the otherwise anxiety-inducing Natal Year.

After nine years of offering the Day Planner, I have almost the full set of twelve, so just made the extras for 2026 – 2028 and now you can download all 12 talisman designs and share them, as applicable, with your friends and family when it’s their Natal Years. E.g., your BFF was born in the year of the Rooster and the year ahead is going to be the year of the Rooster — create a Natal Year Fu Talisman for the Rooster and gift it to her to protect and bless her throughout that natal Rooster Year.

2017 was the first year the Metaphysician’s Day Planner was offered, the year of the Rooster. If you see your Chinese zodiac sign coming up between 2026 and 2029, then the year that corresponds with your own birth year zodiac sign is the year you may want to fortify your personal space with the Fu talisman for your zodiac sign.

Inside the zip file folder is a “READ ME” document that explains how to use natal year Fu talismans, and also, has a reference table of the Chinese zodiac sign corresponding to each and every year, from 1937 to 2056, which you may find helpful for figuring your own Chinese zodiac sign, if you don’t know it already, and identifying all of your Natal Years. The READ ME will also explain the anatomy of the Fu sigil design.

Zip Files

The easiest way I could think of to share these free downloads was as compressed ZIP files. Rest assured I have done nothing harmful, malicious, or virus-related to any of these ZIP files — heck, I don’t even know how to. These are just ZIP files containing images, MS Word document files, and/or PDFs for your use and reference. You can download them with confidence.

How to unzip and use your files: I know many of you are Luddites like me, so here’s a quick how-to for those who are like, “ZIP what?”

1. Download the hyperlinked ZIP file. It will then appear in your “Downloads” folder on your Computer.
2. Locate the ZIP file on your computer. On Windows, it will have the file tag (is it called a tag?) filename.zip.
3. To unzip or extract the files in Windows, right-clip the ZIP file, select “Extract All…” and then choose a destination folder where you want all the files to go, then click “Extract.”
4. To unzip or extract the files in Mac, double-click the ZIP file and it will automatically create a new folder with the contents.

General Guide to the Metaphysician’s Day Planner

• DOWNLOAD PDF FILE (formatted as a Trade Paperback book)

This was a companion handbook for navigating the Metaphysician’s Day Planner sections that I created for those new to the Day Planner. It walks through:

• how I utilize each of the day planner sections,
• how to work with the astrological features in your planner
• some explanatory text on the “grimoire pages”
• how to do name analysis with numerology
• a basic tutorial on medieval geomancy
• self-improvement articles on how to use your creativity like an asset, my five-step method for small successes, goal-setting, achievement vs. happiness, achievement and magic, preexisting disadvantages and reacting to failure, the key to triumph (believing in your exceptionalism), and everyday recipes for the home (like how to make your own first aid ointment, turmeric paste, ginger tea for colds and flus, salted kumquat for sore throats, anointing oils, bath salts, aura and space clearing spray, etc.)

Printing Logistics

For the past nine years we’ve been recommending Lulu.com for printing your physical copy of the day planner. I like to go with the spiral-bound option so it lays flat on a desktop. Also, since it’s going to last you the whole year, don’t skimp on paper quality, but also, don’t go for that highest quality high-gloss version either, because that one doesn’t take ink very well, so you end up having to literally wait for your ink to dry before you can close the page, or else it smudges everywhere. So you have to go with the matte finish, don’t go for the cheapest option, but also don’t go for the most expensive photographic paper option either.

What’s Missing: The Metaphysician’s Guide

Every year the Metaphysician’s Day Planner included a Metaphysician’s Guide for the year ahead, e.g., “Metaphysician’s Guide to 2025.” I would do all the gathering of info, study, and analysis in the fourth quarter of the preceding year to write up global forecasts for the year ahead. It included explanations of all major astrological and astronomical events for the year ahead, a workbook and reference section for you to work through your personal year-ahead astrological forecasts, how to pinpoint your most auspicious and inauspicious dates, eclipses, retrogrades, void of course moons, and more.

This took a great deal of effort each fourth quarter, which is in large part why we’ve decided to retire the offering. It was becoming too much of a burden every September-October.

For funsies, here’s what the METAPHYSICIAN’S GUIDE TO 2025 looked like: PDF DOWNLOAD.

Public License Grant

These works are protected by copyright, but you and the public at large are all granted a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the materials in the following ways:

• Feel free to adapt, remix, transform, modify, make your own versions of, and/or build upon the materials provided.
• The “grimoire pages” are the only pages that I kindly request you provide Attribution for, meaning appropriate credit. However, if you make any modifications or derivatives of this content, make it clear what originates from me, Benebell Wen, and what was created by you, so no one is confused by who is the source/creator of what.
• You are free to use, adapt, and even sell your own versions of, well, anything, that you’ve built from these resources, but please give credit to the “grimoire pages” content.
• You are free to use and adapt in any way you like for non-commercial or personal uses.
• Donations are encouraged, as it motivates me to keep continuing the free downloads and resources here on this website. Scroll back up to the top of this blog post for how to donate.

Donations Welcome

For nine years we offered the customized Metaphysician’s Day Planner and the almanac-like guide with the year’s astrological forecasts and ephemeris tables, for just $25.

From 2017 to 2025, the price never changed. We kept it accessible.

Now these templates that we used to build the day planners each year, including the 12 Natal Year Fu talismans, are made freely available to everyone, no barriers, no strings attached.

If you find these free downloads useful, have benefited from these resources in any way, or even to help foster a sense of connection, we would be ever grateful for a donation of anything between $10 and $20. Every small contribution helps sustain the time, labor, and love that goes into creating and sharing these resources.

Send donations via PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/benebell

You can also use email with PayPal: abelldelivers@gmail.com

Or via an Amazon gift card to: abelldelivers@gmail.com

Your generosity ensures these offerings can remain free and open to all, while honoring the traditions that inspired them. If you download these files and find them to be of value to you in any way, please consider giving back or paying it forward. Your gift, no matter the size, makes a difference.