2 and 4 · Wood pressing on earth
The 2 Black and the 4 Green: wood pressing on earth, the mother and the eldest daughter, small frictions a shared meal can ease.
Meaning
Kun and Xun, the south-west and the south-east, the mother and the eldest daughter: two generations under one roof, as roots draw on a field. The classics read small frictions more than conflict, and in Period 9, with the 2 timely, the care of the mother’s star leads.
The 4’s wood presses on the 2’s earth: the mother and the eldest daughter. The classics read friction between two generations of the home. In season, care and learning that support each other; out of season, small frictions that a shared meal or a plain talk can ease.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 2 and the 4, in either order, holds this pairing; the palace’s reading names it and gives the text above, then how the two phases meet and which face applies.
- The 2 as mountain star, the 4 as water star: the water star checks the mountain star, as wood checks earth: what comes in presses on the people of the home.
- The 4 as mountain star, the 2 as water star: the mountain star checks the water star, as wood checks earth: the people hold back what flows in, a restraint that can steady or slow.
- In Period 9 (2024–2043), the 2 is in season and the 4 is not: read “in season” for what the 2 speaks for and “out of season” for what the 4 speaks for, the people of the home when a star is the mountain’s, what comes in when it is the water’s.
Correspondences
- The stars: the 2 Black (Ju Men) and the 4 Green (Wen Qu)
- Their phases: Earth and Wood
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Kun ☷, in the south-west; Xun ☴, in the south-east
- The 2 with the other stars: 1 and 2, 2 and 2, 2 and 3, 2 and 5, 2 and 6, 2 and 7, 2 and 8, 2 and 9
- The 4 with the other stars: 1 and 4, 3 and 4, 4 and 4, 4 and 5, 4 and 6, 4 and 7, 4 and 8, 4 and 9
Related
- 2 Black starThe second of the nine stars, Earth and the trigram Kun, the mother, at home in the south-west: land, care and patience, timely in Period 9.
- 4 Green starThe fourth of the nine stars, Wood and the trigram Xun, the wind, at home in the south-east: letters, study and the arts.
- Pairs of starsThe 45 meetings of a mountain star and a water star in one palace of a Flying Star chart, each with the reading the classics give it, in season and out.
- EarthThe phase of the centre and of every turning point: the ground that steadies, nourishes and gathers the other four together.
- WoodThe phase of growth and beginnings, of spring and the east: what pushes upwards and outwards towards the light.
- Flying Star chartA home’s chart in the Flying Stars: nine palaces, each with a mountain star, a water star and a period star, cast from the home’s period and facing.
Sources
- Zi Bai Jue (Verse of the Purple and White), Xuan Kong school
- Xuan Kong Mi Zhi (Secret Meaning of the Profound Void), Xuan Kong school
- Fei Xing Fu (Rhapsody of the Flying Stars), Xuan Kong school
- Shen Zhureng, Shen shi Xuankong xue, published after 1906