Period 4

Meaning

Period 4, 四運 sì yùn, is the fourth of the nine periods of twenty years that the Flying Stars count in a cycle of 180: from 1924 to 1943, then from 2104 to 2123, ruled by the 4 Green. It is the first period of the middle age, one of the cycle’s three ages of sixty years.

Its star is the 4 Green, Wood and the trigram Xun, the wind, the eldest daughter, which the classics give to letters, study and the arts. It opened the middle age of the cycle in 1924, a Jia-Zi year again, sixty years after 1864.

Its period chart sets the 4 in the centre and flies it forward along the Lo Shu’s path: north-west 5, west 6, north-east 7, south 8, north 9, south-west 1, east 2, south-east 3. It is the base of the chart of every home built in it, over which the mountain and water stars then fly.

In practice

• Period 4 homes: a home built or last fully renovated between 1924 and 1943 is a Period 4 home. For its main chart, a front facing Gen, Yin, Jia, Kun, Shen or Geng gives the prosperous chart; facing Chou, Mao, Yi, Wei, You or Xin, the reversed chart; the other facings bring the period’s two stars together, at the front or at the back.
• The period’s stars: through Period 4 the 4, the 5 and the 6 are timely, the 4 being the period’s own star; the 3 is waning, and the other four are dormant.
• Read today: a Period 4 home keeps its Period 4 chart; the Home lens reads its stars by their state in Period 9, the present period, and says so under each palace.
• A full renovation: if the home has been fully renovated since, the Home lens asks for that year, which gives another period and another chart; some schools take instead the year one moved in, and Ulune follows the more common rule.

Across traditions

• The sixty-year cycle: Period 4 began in 1924, a Jia-Zi year, 甲子, of the Rat; every period begins in a Jia year, since twenty years make exactly two rounds of the ten stems.
• Jupiter and Saturn: the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn of 1940–1941 falls in Period 4, as one falls in each of the nine; some modern writers have linked the two twenty-year rhythms, which the classics count by the calendar, not by the planets.
• The scholar’s star: Wen Qu, the 4’s classical name, is the star of letters, and folk belief made great scholars Wenqu xing come down to earth.

Origin and history

The count of three ages of sixty years, the Three Yuan, 三元, belongs to the Chinese calendar, and the Xuan Kong school divided each into three periods of twenty years, each ruled by a star of the Lo Shu. This cycle’s Period 4 ran from 1924 to 1943; it comes back from 2104 to 2123. The school’s manuals, Shen Zhureng’s first among them, give for each period the charts of its twenty-four facings.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune finds a home’s period from the year it was built or last fully renovated: twenty years a period from 1864, so that any year from 1924 to 1943 gives Period 4. It counts by the calendar year alone: a home finished in January 1924, before Lichun, would strictly belong to the period before, and the Home lens shows the year it used. The period chart sets the 4 in the centre and flies forward; the stars’ states follow the period’s rule, timely for its number and the two after it, waning for the one before.

Correspondences