Opposed chart

Meaning

The opposed chart is one of the Flying Stars’ formations that Ulune names, a pattern that runs through the whole of a home’s chart: the mountain star or the water star that goes to the centre is a 5 and flies backward, so that every palace holds the number opposite its own, the 9 in the north and the 1 in the south.

反吟, fǎn yín, the opposed chart. The classics read it as energy running against the square’s own order: the stars of one kind stand across from where the square would set them, each palace holding its opposite. It is not read as a fault of the home, and practitioners give it attention mainly when the years’ stars are read on top.

Of the 216 main charts, the twenty-four facings of each of the nine periods, 24 carry this formation, in Periods 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

In practice

• What practitioners suggest: a little more care with the years, since the year’s own stars pass over a chart that turns the square round; the palaces are otherwise read as usual.
• In the Home lens: the chart’s reading names its formations. Built in Period 9, a home facing Zi, Gui, Wu or Ding carries this one; built in Period 8, a home facing Chou or Wei.
• Near an edge: the replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one for a facing close to the edge of its mountain, has formations of its own, named the same way; it may keep this one or not.

Across traditions

• Words of divination: in Qimen Dunjia and Da Liu Ren, 反吟 names a plate set opposite its own places, as 伏吟 names one set on them; the Flying Stars keep both words for the 5’s two flights.
• Never by the year: the year’s and the month’s charts always fly forward, so they can repeat the Lo Shu but never turn it round; the opposed chart belongs to a home’s own stars alone.

Origin and history

The opposed chart is the repeated chart’s mirror: the same 5 in the centre, the other way round. Twenty-four of the 216 main charts carry it, in mirrored pairs of periods; in the present Period 9 it falls to a home facing Zi, Gui, Wu or Ding, the middle and last mountains of the north and the south.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune casts each home’s chart, then checks it against every formation it knows. For this one the rule is: the mountain star or the water star that goes to the centre is a 5 and flies backward, so that every palace holds the number opposite its own, the 9 in the north and the 1 in the south. It counts only when a 5 flies in the centre as the mountain or the water star, the 5 flying by the home’s own mountain since it has no palace. Ulune’s tests check its formations against charts worked by hand.

An example: a home facing Zi, built in Period 9. The period chart sets 9 in the centre; the mountain star goes to the centre as a 4 and flies forward, the water star as a 5 and flies backward. At the back, in the palace of the south, stand mountain star 8 and water star 1; at the front, in the palace of the north, mountain star 9 and water star 9. The 5 here is the water star; palace by palace, those stars: centre 5, north-west 4, west 3, north-east 2, south 1, north 9, south-west 8, east 7, south-east 6.

Correspondences