Repeated chart

Meaning

The repeated 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 forward, so that in every palace it stands on the Lo Shu’s own number, the 1 in the north, the 9 in the south.

伏吟, fú yín, the repeated chart. The classics read it as energy that repeats rather than moves: the stars of one kind sit exactly where the square puts them at rest, as though the chart had not flown. 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 repeats the square; 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 Ren or Bing carries this one; built in Period 8, a home facing Gen, Yin, Kun or Shen.
• 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: Qimen Dunjia and Da Liu Ren use the same terms, 伏吟 and 反吟, for a plate that sits on its own places and one that sits opposite them; the Flying Stars borrow them for the same idea.
• The year’s own repeat: in a year whose centre star is the 5, as in 2022 and 2031, the year’s chart itself repeats the Lo Shu, since the year’s stars always fly forward.

Origin and history

The repeated and the opposed charts belong to the 5, the one star with no palace of its own: when a 5 reaches the centre as the mountain or water star, the home’s own mountain decides its flight, and the stars of that kind either fall back onto the square or turn it round. Twenty-four of the 216 main charts repeat it, in pairs of periods that mirror each other, 1 and 9, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, 4 and 6.

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 forward, so that in every palace it stands on the Lo Shu’s own number, the 1 in the north, the 9 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 Ren, built in Period 9. The period chart sets 9 in the centre; the mountain star goes to the centre as a 4 and flies backward, the water star as a 5 and flies forward. At the back, in the palace of the south, stand mountain star 9 and water star 9; at the front, in the palace of the north, mountain star 8 and water star 1. The 5 here is the water star; palace by palace, those stars: centre 5, north-west 6, west 7, north-east 8, south 9, north 1, south-west 2, east 3, south-east 4.

Correspondences