Heavenly Joy star

Meaning

Heavenly Joy is the Red Phoenix’s partner, opposite it on the wheel: joy, good news and occasions to celebrate. Its name, 天喜 tiānxǐ, is “heaven’s joy”, and 喜 is the character of every happy event in Chinese life, written twice, 囍, on the doors and gifts of a wedding. In a chart the star marks a branch where gladness comes easily.

The tradition reads cheerfulness and the gift of sharing it: good news received and passed on, celebrations, the births, reunions and successes that a family marks together. A pillar holding Heavenly Joy is read as the part of life where those occasions gather; in a luck pillar or a year, as a time with something to celebrate.

It is the lightest of the stars and a nuance like the rest. Ulune reads Heavenly Joy as gladness and its occasions, never as a promise that any particular good thing will happen.

In practice

• Found from the year branch, six branches from the Red Phoenix, and looked for in the other pillars: You for a Zi year, Shen for Chou, Wei for Yin, Wu for Mao, Si for Chen, Chen for Si, Mao for Wu, Yin for Wei, Chou for Shen, Zi for You, Hai for Xu and Xu for Hai.
• Opposite the Red Phoenix: the two stand in branches that clash, yet they are read as a pair, romance on one side and rejoicing on the other, the two halves of a celebration.
• On the board, the star is listed with the pillars whose branches hold it; its reading says it was found from the year branch.
• In time, a luck pillar or a year whose branch is Heavenly Joy brings it for its while; the full table shows it in that row.
• Its neighbours among the stars: the Peach Blossom for charm, the Red Phoenix for the bond, Heavenly Joy for the gladness.

Across traditions

• In Zi Wei Dou Shu Heavenly Joy is a minor star placed by the year branch opposite the Red Phoenix, as in BaZi; Vietnam knows it from Tử Vi as Thiên Hỷ, and Japan reads it as tenki.
• In Chinese symbols, the double happiness, 囍 shuāngxǐ, two 喜 side by side, is the wedding sign every Chinese reader knows; the star shares its character.
• In Western astrology joy and celebration belong to Jupiter, the planet of gladness and abundance, and to the fifth house: the same lightness, read from a planet and a place rather than from the year of birth.

Origin and history

Heavenly Joy came into BaZi with the Red Phoenix from the older year stars shared by the “three lives” method and Zi Wei Dou Shu, and the San Ming Tong Hui gives its rule, the branch opposite the Red Phoenix. The almanacs used both to choose days for weddings and celebrations, and their readings have stayed festive. Eberhard’s dictionary of symbols records the double 喜 as the sign of weddings.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune finds Heavenly Joy from the year branch, six branches on from the Red Phoenix: for a year branch b, the branch nine less b, round the twelve. It looks for that branch in the month, day and hour pillars, and in the branch of a luck pillar or a year. The star is shown with the pillars it falls in, and its reading says it was found from the year.

Correspondences