Direct Wealth

Meaning

Direct Wealth is a stem of the phase the Day Master controls, of the other polarity: Ji for a Jia Day Master, Wu for a Yi, Gui for a Wu. It is the second of the two wealths, the material world the self takes hold of and shapes, and where Indirect Wealth comes through openings and ventures, Direct Wealth comes through work: the wage, the harvest, the household well kept.

Its name, zhèngcái, is “proper wealth”, proper in the classics’ sense of a yin and a yang that complete each other, a relation in balance. The tradition reads in it diligence and order: steady earnings, what is built by effort, a practical sense and care with what one has. Ulune reads it as the Zi Ping school’s consensus does: steady earnings and what is built by work, care with resources and a sense of reward. Its caution is the shadow of care, a carefulness that can grow tight; the classics like it best with room to be generous.

As with every wealth, holding it takes strength: a strong Day Master puts Direct Wealth to work; for a weak one, the books advise strengthening the self before taking on more.

In practice

• On the board: for a Jia Day Master, a Ji stem among the pillars, or the Ji hidden in Chou, Wu and Wei.
• Its reading: shown, steady work, a practical sense, and care with what you earn and keep; only in the branches, a private carefulness with resources, security built without display; absent, material order may matter less to you, and the tradition suggests simple habits that keep resources steady.
• Strength and balance: wealth draws on the Day Master; when the Day Master is strong, wealth is among the phases that bring balance.
• The structure: when the month’s structure comes from its Direct Wealth, revealed among the stems or as the month’s main qi, Ulune names the Direct Wealth structure (正財格).
• Luck pillars and years: a decade of Direct Wealth is one of building, steady work and earnings and practical commitments, a time when effort shows its results; a year, one of steady work, of effort that pays back.
• Two people: when the other’s Day Master is your Direct Wealth, your Day Master controls theirs: you tend to steer and organise, they to ground and give form, a practical bond at its best with respect.

Across traditions

• In Japan, Korea and Vietnam it keeps its name: seizai in Shichū Suimei, jeongjae in Korean saju, chính tài in Vietnamese.
• In Western astrology its themes belong to the second house, of earnings and possessions, and the sixth, of daily work: the same matters, read by houses rather than by a relation of phases.

Origin and history

The Song dynasty Yuanhai Ziping names Direct Wealth beside its partial twin, and the classics read the proper wealth as the household’s: what is earned, kept and handed on. Its chains of relations are among the most quoted. “Wealth produces the Officer”: work and means support standing and responsibility, for Direct Wealth produces the Direct Officer. And its warning: Direct Wealth controls the Direct Resource, so that the books speak of wealth crowding out learning when it is pursued too hard.

The Ziping Zhenquan, under the Qing, counts Wealth among the four favourable gods, to be supported and protected, above all from Rob Wealth, which controls it and gives that god its name. The Di Tian Sui and Ren Tieqiao’s commentary judge every wealth by the strength of the one who holds it, and by whether an officer or an outlet keeps it in motion.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune names a stem Direct Wealth when its phase is two steps from the Day Master’s along the generating cycle, the phase the Day Master controls, and their polarities differ. It looks among the stems of the year, the month and the hour and among the hidden stems of the branches with their weights, counts Direct Wealth shown and hidden, and reads it as shown, hidden or absent. Wealth draws on the Day Master in the strength tests, and the month gives the Direct Wealth structure when Direct Wealth is the first of the month branch’s hidden stems, peers aside, to show among the stems, or, if none shows, the first of them.

Correspondences